WP Engine vs Rocket.net vs Cloudways Performance Test in 18+ Locations -?Shocking Results

Greetings Reader…

If you are also confused about choosing the Best Cloud Hosting Provider for your website, this post is the last one you need to read. After Experimenting and Monitoring almost all popular Hosting Providers like WP Engine, Cloudways, Kinsta, Liquidweb, Rocket.net (not very popular) and Hostinger Cloud (Powered by Google Cloud and LiteSpeed), Siteground etc. I am writing this post as a conclusion you will get 100% unbiased and transparently tested results.

Now why I was testing these websites…?

Recently, I launched Core Web Vital Optimization Service and when I started getting clients, there was a very common error of “Slow Server Response Time” or in another words, Higher TTFB (Time to first byte) on almost 90% of the websites. Of course every time, the reason was not the server but in 9 out of 10, there was an issue with the server CPU or CDN integration or both.

Surprisingly It was not only for the shared hostings, even some of our clients were using Kinsta and WP Engine but the issue was the same. But enquiring with their support they told me that the issue was in website itself but I didn't trusted them because I was able to see that it performs better on other hosts.

So we decided to give this hosting experiment and comparison a proper focus so that we can finally recommend what's best for us and our clients. And I was amazed ? and was sad ? as well with the results I got.

?Core Web Vitals After Switching to Rocket from Multiple Host

⚠️Note – These are results not only beacuse of hosting change, they include complete optimization of backend and frontend. Please keep in mind Hosting plays role only in delivering your content faster not how they are rendered for your real visitors. So to optimize it for real visitor you have to do a frontend optimization. You can discuss more with me here.

Hosting Comparison Environment

We have done all possible steps to make this comparison fair and detailed so that we can give you our final conclusion.

Note:- To make this hosting comparison fair, we have purchased a similar server configuration plan with the same pricing in mind.

The Next Fair Step was to make the same WordPress Environment for all of the hosting and we decided to migrate our Fixwebvitals.com website on all of the servers with help of my Favourite Backup and Migration Plugin WPVivid. After migration, we completed all recommended tasks by respective hostings and started our test.

? Why I Prefer Block Editor Instead of Pagebuilder…?

Tools Used:- We have used Gtmatrix and Fastorslow by Wordfence which provide speed tests from 18 different locations.

Introducing WP Engine, Rocket.net and Cloudways

Before starting this hosting comparison, let me Introduce these hostings properly,

WP Engine

WP Engine uses Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform to host all of their websites and uses MaxCDN to deliver them all over the Globe. (Recently, MaxCDN is acquired by StackPath).

Rocket.net

Rocket.net uses Performive.com for hosting all of their websites and they use Cloudflare Enterprise CDN Solution to deliver them all over the Globe.

Cloudways

Cloudways is more flexible as they offer you the option to choose Cloud Servers from Vultr, Linode, Google Cloud, Amazon AWS and Digital Ocean. Cloudways CDNs are powered by Stackpath (MaxCDN).

So this was a quick intro for their server type and CDNs, now lets, move to the test results we got in GT Matrix

Gtmetrix Side by Side Comparison

Here is the Performance test comparison summary by Gtmetrix and in our test Rocket.net was the winner. Check Table for full statics.

Metrics	WP Engine	Cloudways	Rocket.net
GtMetrix Grade	A	A	A
GtMetrix Score	96	100	100
Structure Score	99	98	99
LCP	1000ms	380-666ms	282-765ms
TBT	0	0	0
CLS	0	0	0
TTI	1000ms	298ms	282ms
First Paint	1000ms	298ms	282ms
On Load Time	1500ms	279ms	269ms
Fully loaded Time	1900ms	381ms	333ms
Overall Conclusion	Slower	Faster	*Fastest

From the above table, we can conclude that as per GTmetrix Scores and Grade, Rocket.net is the fastest and Cloudways is almost the same but WP Engine really makes difference.

Now let's move to the individual and detailed Gtmetrix Performance results

Fastorslow, Test from 18 Locations

Well to make this hosting comparison fairer we have used Fastorslow, a Performance tool by Wordfence to test websites from 18 different locations.

WP Engine Performance Test Summary

Below is the Performance test summary by Fastorslow for WP Engine

Cloudways Performance Test Summary

Here is the Performance test summary for Cloudways

Rocket.net Performance Test Summary

Now this is the performance test summary for Rocket.net

Metrics	WP Engine	Cloudways	Rocket.net
Largest Contentful Paint	~396ms	~457ms	~349ms
Cumulative Layout Shift	0	~0.017ms	0.0002ms
First Byte	~678ms	~619ms	~95ms
Round Trip Time	~7.5ms	~149ms	~7.5ms
Transfer Size	936KB	638KB	961KB
Request	46	44	41
Overall Result	Faster	Not Bad	Fastest*

Note:- Wait, Do not decide by seeing these average score summaries, Please have a look at detailed test results from 18 Different locations

Metrics	Rocket	Cloudways	WP Engine	*Winner
CLS	0ms	0ms	0ms	None
LCP	393ms	359ms	288ms	WP Engine
First Byte	74ms	56ms	391ms	Cloudways
Round Trip	10ms	8.5ms	28ms	Cloudways
Overall Winner	Slower	Fastest	Great	Cloudways

Metrics	Rocket	Cloudways	WP Engine	*Winner
CLS	0ms	0.0257ms	0ms	None
LCP	298ms	565ms	283ms	WP Engine
First Byte	103ms	317ms	152ms	Rocket
Round Trip	13ms	68ms	13ms	Rocket
Overall Winner	Fastest	Slower	Great	Rocket

Metrics	Rocket	Cloudways	WP Engine	*Winner
CLS	0	0	0	None
LCP	298	394	378	Rocket
First Byte	54	356	134	Rocket
Round Trip	2	83	2	None
Overall Winner	Fastest	Slower	Great	Rocket

Metrics	Rocket	Cloudways	WP Engine	*Winner
CLS	0	0	0	None
LCP	415	403	358	WP Engine
First Byte	88	583	504	Rocket
Round Trip	1.5	141	1.7	Rocket
Overall Winner	Fastest	Slower	Great	Rocket

Metrics	Rocket	Cloudways	WP Engine	*Winner
CLS	0	0	0	None
LCP	296	501	290	WP Engine
First Byte	35	840	888	Rocket
Round Trip	794	205	2	WP Engine
Overall Winner	Faster	Slower	Fastest	WP Engine

Metrics	Rocket	Cloudways	WP Engine	*Winner
CLS	0	0	0	None
LCP	690	486	272	WP Engine
First Byte	322	855	1000	Rocket
Round Trip	1.3	207	1.7	Rocket
Overall Winner	Fastest	Slower	Faster	Rocket

Metrics	Rocket	Cloudways	WP Engine	*Winner
CLS	0	0	0	None
LCP	300	453	298	WP Engine
First Byte	78	641	899	Rocket
Round Trip	3.4	155	3.4	None
Overall Winner	Fastest	Slower	Great	None

Metrics	Rocket	Cloudways	WP Engine	*Winner
CLS	0	0	0	None
LCP	283	343	298	Rocket
First Byte	79	347	221	Rocket
Round Trip	9	83	7.6	WP engine
Overall Winner	Fastest	Slower	Great	Rocket

Metrics	Rocket	Cloudways	WP Engine	*Winner
CLS	0	0	0	None
LCP	271	472	302	Rocket
First Byte	54	832	641	Rocket
Round Trip	6	203	5	WP Engine
Overall Winner	Fastest	Slower	Great	Rocket

Metrics	Rocket	Cloudways	WP Engine	*Winner
CLS	0	0	0	None
LCP	350	372	1100	Rocket
First Byte	54	404	763	Rocket
Round Trip	4	97	2.56	WP Engine
Overall Winner	Fastest	Faster	Slower	Rocket

Metrics	Rocket	Cloudways	WP Engine	*Winner
CLS	0	0	0	None
LCP	284	525	298	Rocket
First Byte	338	859	1100	Rocket
Round Trip	67	210	36	WP Engine
Overall Winner	Fastest	Faster	Slower	Rocket

Metrics	Rocket	Cloudways	WP Engine	*Winner
CLS	0	0	0	None
LCP	296	455	286	WP Engine
First Byte	75	569	1460	Rocket
Round Trip	3	137	2	WP Engine
Overall Winner	Fastest	Slower	Great	*Rocket

The Score for Rocket.net is 9/12 which is Awesome..

I have used WP Engine and it's not only on Tools, they suck in real-time too. Choose WP Engine only If you have 2 choices, Kinsta and WP Engine because Kinsta is worse. Otherwise, I will prefer Rocket.net or Cloudways.

Cloudways is better If you have the skill and budget to integrate it with good CDN like Cloudflare or Stackpath but if you do not have skills and want a completely managed Cloud hosting with integrated CDN, then don't hesitate to go with Rocket.net, you will never regret this decision.

I still use Cloudways for development work but for my live blogs, I prefer a more stable and faster solution like Rocket.

?️Video Version of this Complete Blog

Please Let me know If you have any questions. Thank You