6 Web Hosts Ranked by Core Web Vitals

HTTPArchive has launched a new Technology Reporting Dashboard, which provides detailed insights into web hosting performance. This dashboard, currently in beta testing, allows users to compare six web hosts based on their Core Web Vitals scores.

The dashboard offers a clear view of how different web hosts perform in real-world scenarios. By analysing these metrics, users can see how each host measures up in terms of performance and user experience.

From the comparison, it is evident that one web host stands out, consistently outperforming the others across nearly all Core Web Vitals metrics. This new tool gives website owners valuable data to help them choose the best hosting provider based on performance.

About HTTPArchive

HTTPArchive monitors websites through its crawling process and data gathered from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX). This enables the platform to offer detailed insights into website performance, specifically focusing on the user experience.

One of the key aspects HTTPArchive tracks is the Core Web Vitals performance of various content management systems (CMS), such as WordPress and Wix. By analysing these metrics, HTTPArchive provides valuable reports on how different technologies impact the performance of websites.

New Technology Comparison Dashboard – Beta

HTTPArchive is currently developing new reports, one of which will provide a comparison of Core Web Vitals and Lighthouse performance scores across different web hosts. Another feature under development tracks the median page weight by web hosts, although this is still in Beta testing.

The upcoming reports will allow users to compare web hosts based on performance metrics. However, it’s important to note that the data available at the moment only covers six web hosts. Comparing these hosts purely by Core Web Vitals might not be entirely fair. For example, a web host like Ionos could be responsible for hosting thousands of small, local websites that may not be as resource-intensive, skewing the results.

So with those caveats, here are the six web hosts under comparison:

Bluehost
GoDaddy
HostGator
IONOS
SiteGround
WP Engine

Core Web Vitals By Web Host

The following list shows the percentage of sites hosted on each web host that pass Core Web Vitals. HTTPArchive has noted that this report is still in development. As previously mentioned, the percentages do not necessarily reflect the quality of the web hosts themselves, but rather the quality of the sites hosted on those platforms.

The Core Web Vitals (CWV) metric scores are described as follows:

“Passes Core Web Vitals: The percentage of origins passing all three Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) with a good experience. Note that if an origin is missing INP data, it’s assessed based on the performance of the remaining metrics.”

Interestingly, the number one web host on the list is a managed WordPress hosting provider. This could suggest that the platform itself is optimised more effectively than a general web host. The following scores are based on a snapshot taken at the beginning of September.

Core Web Vitals Scores In Descending Order

WP Engine 70%
GoDaddy 67%
SiteGround 65%
HostGator 58%
Ionos 58%
Bluehost 45%

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) measures the perceived page loading speed — in other words, how fast the page appears to load for a site visitor. It helps gauge how quickly the user can begin interacting with the content.

HTTPArchive defines this metric as follows:

“Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is an important, stable Core Web Vitals metric for measuring perceived load speed because it marks the point in the page load timeline when the page’s main content has likely loaded. A fast LCP helps reassure the user that the page is useful. Good experiences are considered those where LCP is less than or equal to 2.5 seconds.”

WP Engine consistently comes out on top in this category, suggesting that not only is the platform optimised for better performance, but it also hosts high-quality sites that are able to load quickly. This could reflect both the optimisations made by WP Engine and the types of sites they support.

LCP Scores In Descending Order

WP Engine 79%
GoDaddy 78%
SiteGround 75%
HostGator 69%
IONOS 69%
Bluehost 52%

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

HTTPArchive also offers a comparison of six web hosts based on the CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) score. CLS measures how much a web page shifts around as it’s being rendered in a web browser, affecting the user’s experience.

A CLS score of 0.1 or less for 75% of visitors is recommended to ensure a smooth and stable page load. The percentages for each of the web hosts were all higher than the 75% minimum threshold, indicating that they all provide a fairly stable experience for users.

In this category, WP Engine is tied for first place with HostGator, showcasing that both hosts are performing well in terms of reducing layout shifts during page rendering.

CLS Scores In Descending Order

WP Engine 88%
HostGator 88%
Bluehost 87%
SiteGround 86%
IONOS 85%
GoDaddy 84%

First Contentful Paint (FCP)

FCP (First Contentful Paint) measures how long it takes for the content on a page to become visible to the user. A low FCP score indicates that the content is rendered quickly, contributing to a better user experience.

The top-ranked web host for FCP is GoDaddy, which outperforms the others by a significant margin of 7 points. This suggests that GoDaddy provides a faster experience when it comes to loading visible content.

WP Engine comes in second place, followed closely by SiteGround. These results highlight the varying levels of performance across different web hosts when it comes to delivering content to visitors promptly.

FCP Scores In Descending Order

GoDaddy 73%
WP Engine 67%
SiteGround 62%
IONOS 60%
HostGator 57%
Bluehost 39%

Time To First Byte (TTFB)

TTFB (Time to First Byte) measures the amount of time it takes for the browser to receive the first byte of data after it has requested a resource. This metric is crucial as it indicates how quickly the server responds to requests.

Once again, GoDaddy comes out on top in this category, demonstrating strong performance in delivering initial data to browsers efficiently. This suggests that GoDaddy offers fast server response times, which can contribute to overall faster website performance.

TTFB In Descending Order

GoDaddy 59%
IONOS 45%
WP Engine 39%
HostGator 38%
SiteGround 37%
Bluehost 25%

Interaction to Next Paint (INP)

The INP (Interaction to Next Paint) metric measures the overall responsiveness of a webpage. It focuses on how quickly a page responds to user interactions, such as clicks, taps, and keyboard actions, during a user’s visit.

As explained by HTTPArchive, the INP metric “assesses a page’s overall responsiveness to user interactions by observing the latency of all click, tap, and keyboard interactions that occur throughout the lifespan of a user’s visit to a page.” The final INP score is based on the longest observed interaction, excluding outliers. A good user experience is considered to be one where the INP is less than or equal to 200 milliseconds.

When comparing the scores, WP Engine emerges as the leader for INP, continuing its strong performance across various metrics. However, the other five web hosts are not far behind, showing relatively good responsiveness in this area as well.

INP Scores In Descending Order

WP Engine 95%
SiteGround 94%
Bluehost 92%
GoDaddy 90%
HostGator 89%
IONOS 88%

Lighthouse Performance Score

Lighthouse is an open-source auditing tool used to evaluate web pages based on performance, SEO, and other essential metrics. When examining the performance scores of the six web hosts, the results are relatively close to each other, with the scores clustering either side of a performance score of 40.

According to HTTPArchive, the Lighthouse performance score is primarily influenced by metrics, rather than the results of Opportunities or Diagnostics.

In the comparison, HostGator stands out as the highest scorer for the Lighthouse Performance metric, leading the pack. GoDaddy and Ionos are tied for second place, while the remaining three web hosts fall into third place, just one point behind. Despite the close scores, HostGator emerges as the clear leader in this area.

Lighthouse Performance Scores

HostGator 43
GoDaddy 40
IONOS 40
Bluehost 39
SiteGround 39
WP Engine 39

HostGator came out near the top for Core Web Vitals and scores at the top of the list for the Lighthouse Performance metric. WP Engine is clustered with two other web hosts scoring 39 points.

Lighthouse Accessibility Scores

The accessibility scores for the web hosts are similarly clustered to the performance scores, with results on either side of a score of 85.

HTTPArchive explains the Lighthouse Accessibility score as follows:

“The Lighthouse Accessibility score is a weighted average of all accessibility audits. The weighting is based on axe user impact assessments. Each accessibility audit is either a pass or fail. Unlike the Performance audits, a page doesn’t receive points for partially passing an accessibility audit.”

Accessibility Scores In Descending Order

GoDaddy 87
Bluehost 86
WP Engine 86
SiteGround 86
HostGator 85
Ionos 85

Lighthouse SEO Scores

The SEO scores were even more tightly clustered, with GoDaddy securing the highest score among the six web hosts under comparison.

HTTPArchive explains what the SEO score measures:

“These checks ensure that your page is following basic search engine optimization guidelines. However, it’s important to note that there are many additional factors not included in this Lighthouse score that can affect your search ranking, such as performance on Core Web Vitals.”

SEO Scores In Descending Order:

GoDaddy 91
Bluehost 88
WP Engine 88
HostGator 88
IONOS 88
SiteGround 88

Lighthouse Best Practices Score

The SEO scores were even more tightly clustered, with GoDaddy securing the highest score among the six web hosts under comparison.

HTTPArchive explains what the SEO score measures:

Best Practices Scores In Descending Order

Bluehost 79
HostGator 79
SiteGround 79
WP Engine 77
GoDaddy 77
IONOS 77
Takeaway

HTTPArchive is expanding on what it is measuring. The performance dashboard is still in Beta and under development, meaning that it may have bugs but that it’s ready for a public preview. It’s interesting to see a managed WordPress host come on top. The scores will be more meaningful once there are more managed web hosts that can be compared against each other, which may provide a more meaningful comparison. Nevertheless, this is a good start.