6 Web Hosts Ranked By Core Web Vitals: One Outperforms All via @sejournal, @martinibuster

HTTPArchive is offering a new technology comparison dashboard, currently in beta testing. Users can now view real-world web hosting performance scores for Core Web Vitals. We compare six web hosts and find one that consistently performs better across nearly all metrics.

About HTTPArchive

HTTPArchive tracks websites through crawling and with data collected in the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX). It publishes reports about the technologies that power websites, including Core Web Vitals performance of content management systems like WordPress and Wix.

New Technology Comparison Dashboard – Beta

HTTPArchive has new reports under development, one of which is a comparison of Core Web Vitals and Lighthouse performance scores by web hosts. HTTPArchive also tracks the median page weight by web hosts but it’s still under development and is in Beta testing.

The new reports allow comparison by web hosts. There isn’t data yet for many web hosts but there is for the following six. Comparing web hosts by core web vitals is not a totally fair comparison. A web host like Ionos might host many thousands of small and local sites which might not be resource intensive.

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

1. Bluehost
2. GoDaddy
3. HostGator
4. IONOS
5. SiteGround
6. WP Engine

Core Web Vitals By Web Host

The following are the list of web hosts by percentage of sites hosted at each one that pass Core Web Vitals. The HTTPArchive says that thise report is still under development and, as previously mentioned, the percentages don’t necessarily reflect the quality of the web hosts themselves, but rather the quality of the sites hosted there.

This is the description of the CWV metric scores:

“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.”

However, it’s interesting to see that the number one web host is a managed WordPress web host because that may indicate that the platform itself may be optimized better 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 measures the perceived page loading speed, how fast the page appears to load for a site visitor.

HTTPArchive defines this metric:

“Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is an important, stable Core Web Vital 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 less than or equal to 2.5 seconds.”

WP Engine again comes out on top, perhaps indicating the quality of the sites hosted on that platform as well as the performance optimizations that are a key element of that web host.

LCP Scores In Descending Order

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

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

HTTPArchive also provides a comparison of the six web hosts by the CLS score. CLS measures how much a web page shifts around as it’s rendered in a web browser. A score of 0.1 or less for 75% of visitors is recommended. The percentages for each of the web hosts were all higher than the 75% minimum. This time WP Engine is tied for first place with HostGator.

CLS Scores In Descending Order

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

First Contentful Paint (FCP)

FCP measures how long it takes for the content to become visible. A low FCP means that the content is rendered quickly. The number one ranked web host for FCP turns out to be GoDaddy, ahead by a significant margin of 7 points. WP Engine comes in second, followed by SiteGround.

FCP Scores In Descending Order

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

Time To First Byte (TTFB)

TTFB measures how long it takes from to download the first byte of a resource after it’s requested by a browser. GoDaddy scores top of the list again.

TTFB In Descending Order

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

Interaction to Next Paint (INP)

This metric represents the overall responsiveness of the entire web page.

HTTPArchive explains what this score means:

“INP is a metric that 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 value is the longest interaction observed, ignoring outliers. A good experience is less than or equal to 200ms.”

The scores are the percentage of pages that provide a good INP experience. WP Engine is back on top for INP but the other five web hosts are not far behind.

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 that scores web pages for performance, SEO, and other metrics. The performance scores for the six web hosts are fairly close to each, clustering on either side of a performance score of 40.

This is HTTPArchive’s description of this score:

“In general, only metrics contribute to your Lighthouse Performance score, not the results of Opportunities or Diagnostics.”

Interestingly, HostGator ranks the highest for the Lighthouse Performance score, with GoDaddy and Ionos tied for second place. The other three were tied for third place, by one point less than the second place. Nevertheless, HostGator was the clear winner for the Lighthouse Performance score metric.

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 are clustered similarly to the performance scores, on either side of a score of 85.

This is how HTTPArchive describes this metric:

“The Lighthouse Accessibility score is a weighted average of all accessibility audits. Weighting is based on axe user impact assessments. Each accessibility audit is pass or fail. Unlike the Performance audits, a page doesn’t get 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 scoring the highest of the six web hosts under comparison.

HTTPArchive describes what the SEO Score is measuring:

“These checks ensure that your page is following basic search engine optimization advice. There are many additional factors Lighthouse does not score here that may affect your search ranking, including 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 last score is interesting because it measures if the hosted sites are created with web development best practices. HTTPArchive doesn’t explain at this time what those best practices are.

Here’s the description of this score:

“This ensures that your page is built using modern web development best practices.”

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.

Visit the new dashboard here and provide your feedback to make it better.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/TierneyMJ