HostWP.io – LiteSpeed Enterprise WordPress Hosting Review

HostWP.io, as the name suggests, “Host WordPress,” is relatively new in the hosting industry, providing specialized hosting for WordPress websites for over a year now.

In this review, we will delve deep into HostWP.io, a WordPress hosting provider that utilizes LiteSpeed Enterprise on its servers.

We were particularly eager to evaluate HostWP due to its use of LiteSpeed, known for surpassing Nginx-based providers in performance while utilising fewer server resources.

At first glance, it is evident that HostWP.io places a strong emphasis on speed, security, and support. Their platform is designed to accommodate WordPress websites of all types and sizes, and their pricing plans are both competitive and generous.

Obtaining managed WordPress hosting with LiteSpeed Enterprise, CDN, free migration, WordPress expert support, NVMe storage, and more, all starting for just $9.99/mon for 3 websites, is a decent deal, especially considering the recent increase in web hosting costs over the past few years.

Founded in 2022 by Mustaasam Saleem, who boasts over a decade of experience in the web hosting and WordPress space, HostWP.io aims to address the challenge of hosting WordPress sites on up-to-date servers with cutting-edge technology while remaining affordable.

HostWP.io Pricing Plans

Before we look further into the HostWP.io hosting platform, let’s examine the pricing plans they offer. During our review, we noticed that they provide compounding discounts for yearly plans.

Starter

Starting at $9.99, this plan allows you to host up to 3 WordPress websites. When you purchase a 3-year plan, the price reduces to $2.99 per month.

• 3 WordPress Sites
• 10 GB NVMe (Faster SSD)
• 1 GB RAM & 1 Core
• 1 TB Bandwidth
• Free Migration
• Location: US, EU

HostWP.io stands out by providing transparency regarding the server resources allocated to your websites.

Unlike many other web hosting providers, they disclose this information and ensure dedicated server resources for your websites, preventing interference from noisy neighbours.

This plan is ideal for small WordPress sites and those starting to build WordPress websites.

Early Bird

This limited-time offer grants you higher limits on websites and server resources. It offers great value and is suitable for WordPress websites with decent traffic.

• Starts at $24.99 per month
• Drops to $18.99 per month when purchased for 3 years
• 10 WordPress Sites
• 25 GB NVMe (Faster SSD)
• 4 GB RAM & 2 Cores
• 2 TB Bandwidth
• Free Migration
• Location: US, EU

Pro

The Pro plan is designed for individuals with multiple WordPress websites who require higher server resources than the Starter plan. A 2GB RAM server with LiteSpeed Enterprise should provide good performance for a site with decent traffic.

• Starts at $19.99 per month
• Drops to $12.99 per month when purchased for 3 years
• 5 WordPress Sites
• 20 GB NVMe (Faster SSD)
• 2 GB RAM & 1 Core
• 1 TB Bandwidth
• Free Migration
• Location: US, EU

Business

With this plan, you not only gain access to hosting 25 WordPress websites and better server resources but also enjoy priority support from WordPress experts.

• Starts at $49.99 per month
• Drops to $35.99 per month for 3 years
• 25 WordPress Sites
• 40 GB NVMe (Faster SSD)
• 4 GB RAM & 2 Cores
• 4 TB Bandwidth
• Free Migration
• Location: US, EU
• Priority Support

Agency

This is the largest plan available on their website at the time of writing this review, tailored for agencies that want to host multiple WordPress websites on larger servers.

Notably, this plan offers a high storage limit of 100GB for NVMe storage.

• Starts at $69.99 per month
• Drops to $55.99 per month for 3 years
• 50 WordPress Sites
• 100 GB NVMe (Faster SSD)
• 8 GB RAM & 4 Cores
• 4 TB Bandwidth
• Free Migration
• Location: US, EU
• Priority Support

These pricing plans provide a range of options to suit different needs, from small-scale WordPress sites to agencies managing multiple websites.

HostWP.io – Technology Stack – What’s under the hood?

Now that we have a good understanding of HostWP.io’s pricing plans and what they offer in terms of server resources and the number of WordPress websites, let’s explore the underlying technology.

HostWP.io utilises cloud servers powered by LiteSpeed Enterprise. Additionally, all their plans include the QUIC.cloud CDN “Standard” plan for free, the latest PHP versions, Redis cache, and the pre-installed LiteSpeed cache plugin.
The CDN integration provided by HostWP.io grants access to 83+ PoPs (Points of Presence) globally, which essentially means numerous CDN nodes spread across the world.

It’s evident that HostWP.io’s platform is designed to deliver exceptional speeds. To verify this, we conducted some quick tests by hosting a WordPress website on their platform, and the benchmarks were impressive.

The performance is stable, and it’s reassuring to see an NVMe WordPress hosting provider utilising LiteSpeed Enterprise alongside the latest software perform this well.
In addition to performance features, HostWP.io offers robust security measures for both servers and websites. They also offer automated daily backups stored on third-party servers with 1-click restore, free SSL certificates for all websites, and more.

They come with built-in cPGuard, an all-in-one security solution that offers malware and vulnerability scanning, and protection against brute force attacks for both your websites and their servers.

Additionally, they leverage CloudLinux to keep each hosting account separate, thereby establishing a secure environment for all users. This ensures that no hosting account can adversely impact others, fostering a stable and protected WordPress hosting experience.

You can also utilize the powerful security features provided by the QUIC.cloud CDN and faster DNS manager.

HostWP.io also facilitates the creation of staging sites with a 1-click “Push to Live” and allows for easy cloning to new domains.

Overall, HostWP.io not only prioritizes performance but also ensures comprehensive security measures and user-friendly features to enhance the hosting experience.

Additional Services, Features, And Optimizations for WordPress

When we looked at their default settings, we noticed a 512MB php memory limit. A higher value ensures a smoother experience and lowers the risk of common 500 errors while using different WordPress page builders.

If you are an advanced WordPress user and know what you are doing, enabling/disabling these PHP Extensions can be handy.

Here’s a list of features that we fetched from their website.

Besides all of the above, the support team at HostWP.io offers various additional support features.

When you sign up with them, you gain access to unlimited free migrations from any other hosting provider to HostWP.io’s servers, taken care of by HostWP.io’s support team.

Once the migration is complete, you can ask the HostWP.io support team to optimize your WordPress websites based on LiteSpeed settings and configure the LSCache plugin to maximize LiteSpeed’s benefits.

This eliminates the need to purchase a separate caching plugin, reducing both costs and maintenance efforts.

We found their support team to be highly responsive on chat, tickets, and emails. Moreover, the founder of HostWP.io, Mustaasam Saleem, is easily approachable through social channels such as Facebook, Twitter (X), and LinkedIn.

The WordPress hosting space continues to improve with more options and increasing competition.

This is an opportune time for those who build WordPress sites and seek economical yet feature-rich LiteSpeed hosting that takes care of many complex tasks, allowing you to focus on your website’s content and business growth.

Launching a WordPress Website on HostWP.io

Let’s take a quick tour of how easily anyone can launch a WordPress website through HostWP.io while reviewing their signup process.

Step 1: Visiting HostWP.io and Selecting a Plan

The first step is to visit HostWP.io’s website and explore their plans and pricing. Once you’ve decided on a plan, click on “Get Started” to proceed to the signup page.

HostWP.io offers the flexibility to pay monthly, annually, biannually, or for three years.

We noticed that they provide significant discounts on yearly plans. For example, the Starter plan, which is normally priced at $9.99 per month, reduces to $2.99 per month when purchased for three years.

This amounts to a total discount of $252, and the best part is that you are locked into that price, as HostWP.io does not increase its renewal rates.

Step 2: Purchase Your Plan

On the checkout page, you can double-check the details and select the billing cycle of your hosting package.

Once you have confirmed your plan, you will proceed to the next screen where you need to enter your details.

Step 3: Accessing the HostWP.io Control Panel

After successful signup, you will get your hosting account details via email and be directed to your client area.

Here, you can view all your active services, access the knowledge base, and submit support tickets.

To access your control panel, click on “Log in to cPanel,” which will take you to the HostWP.io platform where you will have full control over your hosting service.

Step 4: Installing WordPress with WordPress Manager

By default, HostWP.io automatically instals a WordPress website on your main domain.

To install more WordPress websites, you can easily access “WordPress Manager” from the left menu.

This tool allows you to manage your existing WordPress websites, install new instances, create clones and staging sites, and much more.

As a WordPress agency, you can easily manage your favorite plugins and themes by grouping them into custom sets and quickly installing them on your client websites with their automated “Install Set” feature.

Step 5: Pointing Your Domain

To start using your WordPress website, you need to point Nameservers on your domain to HostWP.io’s servers.

However, there is a possibility you don’t want to point Nameservers right away, so follow their guide to create a temporary URL to develop or migrate your existing WordPress website.
Once the website is ready, point Nameservers by following their “Getting Started” guide, and when the DNS propagation is complete, your website will start serving from HostWP.io

WP Umbrella on HostWP.io

WP Umbrella is fully compatible with all WordPress hosting providers running WordPress 5.0+ with PHP 7.1 or higher, and HostWP.io is a perfect match.

If you oversee your client sites through WP Umbrella and plan to host them on HostWP.io, you’re in safe hands. Our IP adresses have also already been whitelisted, so no further configuration is required!