Magento offers speed-enhancing features like Varnish caching, a performance-optimized operation mode, and resource file optimization. But the truth is that no amount of JavaScript bundling or CSS minification can compensate for a slow hosting environment.
So whether you're planning to build a new Magento store or optimize your existing one, choosing a fast Magento hosting provider is essential.
In this guide, we'll share the top five fastest Magento hosting providers on the market. We'll also explain ten things you should look for in a fast Magento host and the pros and cons of the top five fastest hosting providers.
If you're in a rush, here are our top five picks:
- Nexcess — fastest Magento hosting overall.
- A2 Hosting — fastest Magento hosting with root access.
- Cloudways — fastest VPS Magento hosting.
- InMotion Hosting — fastest Magento hosting for tech-savvy business owners.
- HostGator — fastest budget Magento hosting.
Keep reading to learn how and why we chose them.
Introduction to Magento hosting
Let's explore what Magento hosting is, its types, and the factors to consider when selecting a hosting provider.
What is Magento hosting?
Magento hosting is a service that provides a specialized server environment to host and run Magento 2. It's the foundation of your online store, where all your website's files, databases, and resources are stored.
Magento hosting providers handle the complexities of server management, allowing you to focus on growing your business and managing your store. They give you a fast, secure, and reliable platform to host and run your online store at an affordable price.
There are different types of Magento hosting, including:
- Shared hosting.
- VPS hosting.
- Dedicated hosting.
- Cloud hosting.
Each Magento hosting type has its pros and cons. For example, dedicated hosting costs more than shared and VPS hosting but offers much better performance. Similarly, cloud hosting is more scalable than dedicated hosting but is also more expensive.
The best Magento hosting provider for your store will depend on several factors unique to your business. Let's explore the factors you should consider when choosing the right Magento hosting for your online store.
What to look for in Magento hosting
Here are ten important factors you should consider when choosing the fastest Magento hosting provider.
- Hosting resources: Look for a hosting provider that offers the processing power, RAM, SSD storage, and high-speed network connectivity needed to host a Magento 2 store.
- Performance infrastructure: Ensure the hosting provider implements performance optimizations for Magento, such as server-level caching, opcode caching, and advanced caching like Redis and Varnish.
- Scalability: Look for features like autoscaling that can seamlessly allocate additional resources as needed. Your Magento store should be able to handle sudden spikes in traffic without compromising performance.
- Data center locations: Choose a hosting provider with data centers close to your target audience. Low network latency is essential for faster page load times.
- Content Delivery Network (CDN) integration: Consider a hosting provider with built-in CDN integration. That can help reduce the load on your server and improve load times for your customers across the globe.
- Support for latest Magento versions: Make sure your Magento host supports the latest Magento version so you can access the performance and security benefits it offers.
- Security features: Look for a hosting provider with security measures, such as DDoS protection and free SSL/TLS certificates. Ideally, choose one that offers a PCI-compliant hosting environment.
- Customer reviews: Read customer reviews to gauge the host's track record in delivering fast and reliable service. Look for reviews that praise specific features or describe their customer support experience.
- Support and expertise: Not all Magento hosts offer the same level of service. Look for a host that provides support that complements your business needs.
- Plan pricing: Compare pricing plans and features to ensure they align with your budget. Choose the fastest Magento hosting provider that balances performance and cost-effectiveness.
The 5 fastest & most reliable Magento hosting providers in 2024
A recent study by Portent found that websites that load in less than two seconds achieve the best conversion rates. Interestingly, the study also found that for every extra second a website takes to load, the ecommerce conversion rate drops by an average of 0.3 percent.
So, how can you make sure your website loads quickly? The key is to choose a hosting provider that is fast and reliable.
Let's look at the five fastest Magento hosting providers in 2024 that will help you build a fast-loading Magento store.
1. Nexcess
With over 23 years of experience, Nexcess offers performance-optimized Magento hosting at an affordable price. It ranks on the top of this list for its comprehensive approach to Magento performance optimization.
The foundation of Nexcess Magento hosting is its data centers across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. Since Nexcess doesn't rely on third parties to host or manage its data centers, it has complete control over resource allocation and performance.
At the server level, Nexcess uses a fine-tuned configuration of MariaDB and PHP FastCGI Process Manager (PHP-FPM) to turbocharge Magento performance. It also provides 25 extra PHP workers per plan and 24 hours of free autoscaling per month to handle traffic surges.
In addition, Nexcess employs a multi-layered caching setup powered by Nginx, Redis, and Varnish and gives you access to a CDN with over 280 points of presence globally. That means no matter where your customers may be, your store loads instantly at all times.
Nexcess hosting plans are designed for online businesses of all sizes. Whether you need a fully optimized, ready-to-use Magento server or a custom-tailored setup with multiple redundancies, Nexcess has a solution for your hosting needs.
Best fastest Magento hosting for: Ecommerce businesses that need fast and reliable Magento hosting with 24/7/365 support.
Why choose Nexcess:
- PHP-FPM, OPcache, and MariaDB optimized servers.
- Multi-layered caching powered by Nginx, Redis, and Varnish.
- 24 free hours of autoscaling each month.
- CDN with 280+ global points of presence.
- 24/7/365 support from Magento experts.
Nexcess pricing: Plans start from $31 per month for the first three months, then $62 per month.
2. A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting offers managed and unmanaged hosting options catering to different business needs. With a data center network spanning the USA, Europe, and Asia, A2 Hosting ensures low latency and high performance for your customers all over the world.
A2 Hosting uses memcached and Redis to store important data and minimize requests to the database. That frees up your Magento database to handle important tasks like processing checkouts and orders instead of serving content or handling bloated session files.
It's worth noting that their entry-level Magento hosting plan, Lift 16, does not support HTTP/2 or Edge Side Includes. However, you can access those features by upgrading to one of their higher-tier plans.
A2 Hosting goes above and beyond to ensure lightning-fast loading times for your Magento store. It's one of the few managed hosting providers that give you root-level access to your server, even on a managed hosting plan.
So if you have an in-house development team and need complete control over your Magento server, A2 Hosting is an excellent choice.
Best fastest Magento hosting for: Ecommerce businesses that need managed hosting with root access to the server.
Why choose A2 Hosting:
- High-performance hosting infrastructure.
- 99.9 percent uptime commitment.
- Managed hosting with root access.
- HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 support.
- 10 GB/s redundant network with 24/7 monitoring.
A2 Hosting pricing: Unmanaged hosting plans start from $79.99 per month or $59.99 per month when paid annually. Managed hosting plans start from $99.99 per month or $86.99 per month when paid annually.
3. Cloudways
Whether it's a unique server configuration or a data center in a specific location, Cloudways lets you choose a provider that aligns with your needs. It's the perfect solution for hosting a Magento store on servers from cloud hosting providers like AWS, Google Cloud, and DigitalOcean.
Cloudways implements multiple strategies to ensure your Magento store can handle substantial traffic without compromising performance. It uses HTTP/2 for faster data transmission and a combination of Apache, Nginx, PHP-FPM, and MySQL/MariaDB for quick page load times.
Moreover, Cloudways offers advanced caching options such as Full Page Cache, Varnish, Memcached, and Redis to ensure your website pages render fast and server response times stay low.
While Cloudways excels in many areas, it has a slight learning curve. However, if you're on a budget and don't mind learning your way around it, the speed and scalability Cloudways offers will be worth it.
Best fastest Magento hosting for: Ecommerce businesses that need low-cost managed VPS hosting.
Why choose Cloudways:
- Access to multiple cloud hosting providers with 60+ global data centers.
- Unlimited application hosting.
- Usage-based billing.
- Cloudflare Enterprise integration.
- 1-click server upgrades.
Cloudways pricing: 3-day free trial. Paid plans start from $46 per month for a standard DigitalOcean VPS.
4. InMotion Hosting
InMotion Hosting offers high-performance Magento hosting for both small businesses and large enterprises. Its UltraStack caching system combines Brotli compression, NGINX, PHP-FPM, Apache, and Redis to turbocharge your Magento store performance.
InMotion Hosting has a network of 46 data centers worldwide, ensuring you can host your Magento store close to your customers. Plus, InMotion Hosting uses high availability VPS with three exact replicas to provide consistent speed and ensure zero downtime, even during peak traffic.
The best part about InMotion Hosting is that they offer a generous 90-day money-back guarantee. They're so confident you'll love their service that they're willing to give you a full refund within 90 days if it doesn't meet your expectations.
InMotion Hosting also offers root access to their servers. So if you know what you're doing and want complete control over your Magento server, InMotion Hosting is a great choice.
Best fastest Magento hosting for: Ecommerce businesses with an in-house technical team.
Why choose InMotion Hosting:
- High Availability VPS with three replicas of each server.
- Runs on fast NVMe SSD storage.
- UltraStack caching system.
- 46 global data centers.
- Generous 90-day money-back guarantee.
InMotion Hosting pricing: VPS hosting plans start from $54.99 per month or $14.99 per month when billed annually.
5. HostGator
HostGator is one of the fastest Magento hosting providers with a range of value-packed VPS, cloud, and dedicated hosting plans. It ensures your Magento store performs at its best in multiple ways.
HostGator has data centers across the U.S. to ensure optimal performance and low latency for your U.S.-based customers. It also partners with Cloudflare to ensure your international customers experience the same lightning-fast performance.
HostGator's fully redundant network infrastructure guarantees maximum uptime for your Magento website. Night or day, you can be sure that your customers will be able to access your online store in seconds.
HostGator also offers unmetered bandwidth with all plans. High-quality product images or promotional product videos, no matter what you need, HostGator will help you serve your customers without compromising speed or user experience.
HostGator is an excellent choice if you need the fastest Magento hosting on a tight budget. HostGator's value-packed plans and redundant network infrastructure will allow you to allocate resources where it truly matters — toward your business's growth.
Best fastest Magento hosting for: Ecommerce businesses that need low-cost Magento hosting.
Why choose HostGator:
- Pocket-friendly VPS, cloud, and dedicated hosting plans.
- Unmetered bandwidth on all plans.
- Fully redundant network.
- US-based data centers with Cloudflare CDN.
- Manual and scheduled backups, plus weekly offsite backups.
HostGator pricing: VPS hosting plans start from $29.95 per month or $23.95 per month when paid annually.
Pros & cons of the 5 fastest & most reliable Magento hosting providers in 2024
Choosing the fastest Magento hosting provider offers many advantages, like fast loading speeds, better conversion rates, and improved search engine rankings. But every hosting provider has some downsides as well.
Here's a detailed breakdown of the pros and cons of our top five fastest Magento hosting providers to help you pick the right one for your business.
Pros of the 5 fastest Magento hosting providers
Let's start with the advantages of our fastest Magento hosts.
1. Pros of Nexcess
Nexcess hosts your site on a PCI-compliant infrastructure and gives you 24/7/365 support from Magento experts via phone, chat, and email. Nexcess hosting plans are priced perfectly to ensure they're affordable while providing tons of features and benefits at the same time.
2. Pros of A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting provides a lot of flexibility with its Magento hosting plans. You can choose between managed and unmanaged hosting and customize the hosting hardware used for your online store.
3. Pros of Cloudways
Cloudways is an excellent value-for-money Magento VPS hosting provider. It allows you to host your store on servers from some of the best cloud hosting providers in the world and lets you install any application you want on your VPS.
4. Pros of InMotion Hosting
InMotion Hosting offers some of the fastest Magento servers with real-time redundancies and complementary server management tools. All InMotion Hosting plans, except the entry-level plan, use high-performance NVMe SSDs.
5. Pros of HostGator
Besides an affordable and fast hosting environment, HostGator gives you a bunch of freebies like unlimited email hosting, free SSL certificates, and unmetered bandwidth so you can host your Magento store with minimum overheads.
Cons of the 5 fastest Magento hosting providers
Now that you know the pros of the fastest Magento hosts, let's look at some of the downsides of each of our top picks.
1. Cons of Nexcess
Nexcess Magento hosting plans do not come with Elasticsearch containers. But it's worth mentioning that Nexcess offers Elasticsearch containers as an add-on starting from $10 per month, which is significantly cheaper than other providers.
2. Cons of A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting is the most expensive hosting provider on our list. Their cheapest managed Magento hosting plan costs $86.99 per month — these are on dedicated VPS resources for the server. They don't include essential features like HTTP/2 support and Edge Side Includes.
3. Cons of Cloudways
Some of the drawbacks of using Cloudways include their limited bandwidth. They also rely on third-party infrastructure providers to address server issues, because Cloudways doesn't own their own servers.
While the Cloudways portal is user-friendly, cPanel and Plesk offer additional options and functionality. While support is robust, only the premium packages offer real-time support.
4. Cons of InMotion Hosting
InMotion Hosting customer support options vary based on your hosting plan. Their base plan only offers live chat support and access to their knowledge base. Although you get phone support with higher plans, InMotion Hosting does not provide email support on any of its plans.
5. Cons of HostGator
HostGator isn't purpose-built for Magento. Although their VPS and dedicated servers support Magento stores, you need to set most of it up yourself. So when things go wrong, it's likely that you won't receive much support from HostGator, and you'll have to figure things out yourself.
Wrapping up: 5 fastest Magento hosting providers in 2024
Speed and reliability are non-negotiable when hosting a Magento 2 store. But it's important to remember that no hosting solution is perfect, and there are always a few downsides to consider.
We've described the pros and cons of our five fastest Magento hosting providers and shared ten important factors you should consider when choosing a Magento host. But if you still don't know which one is right for you, we recommend signing up for managed Magento hosting with Nexcess.
Nexcess offers a perfect balance of performance, reliability, and ease of use backed by more than two decades of experience.
Nexcess Magento servers are built and maintained by a team of Magento experts, and all our hosting plans come with 24 hours of free autoscaling each month to ensure your store loads fast, even with increased demand.
Ready to experience ultra-fast Magento performance? Browse Nexcess Magento hosting plans to get started today.
