Determining the best LiteSpeed hosting providers depends on a lot of factors like their server performance, features, cost, customer review, and others. This is especially tricky because of the similar features being offered by so many LiteSpeed server hosting providers.
LiteSpeed web servers provide better performance than any other hosting servers. But the individual hosting provider's actions may invalidate that. For instance, if they allocate too many users on the same server resources, the speed of all the websites on their server will get affected negatively. Other things like their plan limitations, customer support, pricing, and other criteria are also very important because once you choose a web hosting provider you are probably going to stay with them for a long time like years or even decades.
That's why it is absolutely necessary to carefully choose the right LiteSpeed hosting provider before you commit to one.
What Is LiteSpeed?
LiteSpeed refers to the LiteSpeed web server application that is used for hosting websites. It has been developed by LiteSpeed Technologies and is now considered the best web hosting server for hosting any website.
Because LiteSpeed is a relatively new web server, you won't find that many hosting providers offering LiteSpeed servers yet. In addition to that, hosting providers need to go through a lot of compatibility issues if they decide to go through upgrading their web servers. And this also contributes to a lower adaptation of LiteSpeed servers by existing hosting providers.
Anyway, the adaptation of LiteSpeed server is steadily increasing among hosting providers. And ever since they made a free/open-source version of their proprietary LiteSpeed web server called OpenLiteSpeed, its adaptation among developers are also increasing at a rapid rate.
Why Is LiteSpeed So Special?
LiteSpeed is now the right choice when it comes to choosing a web server. Compared to Apache and NGINX, two other popular web servers, LiteSpeed servers can serve websites faster and can handle more traffic with the same server resources.
This is a performance comparison between OpenLiteSpeed, NGINX and Apache for cached WordPress sites. And it clearly shows LiteSpeed web servers are way superior to other web servers at handing more traffic for the same server resources.
But the amazing features of LiteSpeed don't just stop at web server, instead, it expands to provide other important features that are necessary to improve website performance. For instance, they provide caching and optimization plugin, and CDN services alongside their web server application.
Besides, LiteSpeed works as a drop-in replacement for Apache. This means older websites or applications like WordPress that were made to work with Apache, now works smoothly on LiteSpeed without any issue. Whereas NGINX makes things a little complicated for these websites which makes their users run into many issues.
LiteSpeed Cache
LiteSpeed Cache is a free caching and optimization plugin that is available for many platforms like WordPress, Joomla, and others. This plugin helps optimizing websites by providing many different features. And a specialty of the LiteSpeed Cache plugin is that it offers server-level caching that provides superior performance to all other application-level caching plugins.
This is a performance comparison of the LiteSpeed Cache plugin with other popular caching and optimization plugins for WordPress and as you can see LSCache gives better performance than any others.
That is to say, here is a LiteSpeed Cache review article that covers all the important features of the plugin.
12 Best LiteSpeed Hosting Providers
Any LiteSpeed server hosting provider should give better performance than other similar hosting providers with Apache or NGINX servers. In addition to that, if you are using WordPress, Magento, Drupal, or something like them, you will get the awesome server-level caching plugin from LiteSpeed called LiteSpeed Cache which will help improve your website performance even more. See the LiteSpeed Cache review article to know more about it.
Anyway, the best hosting isn't only about the technology they are using, instead, they are dependent on many other criteria. Here is a full list of all the criteria I look for in a web hosting provider. In short, apart from the web server, I also look for their speed (yeah! this site itself is based on that), uptime, backup policy, hidden limitations, customer support, customer reviews, and some other things.
The following list of the best LiteSpeed shared hosting providers have been selected based on all these web hosting criteria.
1. GreenGeeks - Best Overall LiteSpeed Hosting
GreenGeeks is the best LiteSpeed hosting provider in terms of price and performance combinations but they have a bad backup policy
GreenGeeks is a fairly popular LiteSpeed hosting provider that hosts over 600,000 websites. As the Green in the name says, they are focused on being environmentally friendly. So, if you are someone all about that, I guess your search ends here. Go ahead and choose GreenGeeks. You wouldn't find many hosting providers that can be a substitute for GreenGeeks in this regard.
If we don't consider the environmental impact and solely focus on its performance and other qualities, GreenGeeks will give you similar features as any other top-performing hosting provider would. The green part is a plus on top of all those.
GreenGeeks Pros
- Unlimited disk space and bandwidth
- LiteSpeed web server
- One of the fastest average server response time of 459ms
- Good average uptime of 99.95%
- 24x7 customer support with quick and satisfactory answers
- Reputable hosting provider with 12+ years of experience
- Server location in Chicago, Phoenix, Montreal, and Amsterdam
- 1 free domain name for 1st year when signing up with at least 1 year contract
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Free website migration
- Free CDN from Cloudflare
- Environmentally responsible by matching 300% in renewable energy to make up for their energy usage required to power the hosting servers
Their super fast server response time and high uptime make them one of the best performing LiteSpeed hosting providers.
GreenGeeks Cons
- Only 1 day backup retention and only 1 restoration per month
- High renewal pricing
- Higher discounts are only available for the first-term purchase with long-term commitment
- Domain privacy protection isn't free
GreenGeeks is a feature-rich LiteSpeed hosting provider. All their shared hosting plans come with LiteSpeed Enterprise server and all other resources necessary for any websites. But their one limiting feature is automatic backup retention time and backup restoration. When many hosting providers offer 1 month backup retention and unlimited restoration, GreenGeeks offers only 1 day backup retention and only 1 restoration per month. Though this is one of the disadvantages of going with GreenGeeks, it may not be an issue for you at all. That's because if you are using platforms like WordPress, you can easily install an automatic backup plugin on your website for keeping backups.
Apart from that, you don't need to worry about any other resource limitations. All their plans come with enough resources like bandwidth, storage, CPU, RAM, and others that may be needed by most sites. So, you can just choose any of their plans without detailed considerations and still be sure of having a LiteSpeed server and all the necessary resources needed for your sites.
Their discounted pricing starts at $2.49/month and renewal starts at $10.95/month. Though their discounted pricing is very attractive for being one of the cheapest, their renewal is comparably more than many other top performing web hosting providers.
2. A2 Hosting - Best LiteSpeed Hosting for Performance
A2 Hosting is the best LiteSpeed Hosting provider in terms of performance but pricing of their LiteSpeed server plans is comparatively high
A2 Hosting is one of the most popular hosting providers that offer LiteSpeed hosting. However, all their hosting plans don't come with LiteSpeed servers but you can select LiteSpeed plans from them. Their higher tier shared hosting plans called Turbo Boost and Turbo Max are powered by LiteSpeed servers. A2 Hosting is popular for its fast server response time even with their lowest-priced hosting tier that uses Apache server.
So, you will get even faster speed with their upgraded plans that use LiteSpeed server. In fact, their LiteSpeed server plans are equipped with better hardware which contributes to even better performance on these plans. They claim their LiteSpeed servers are up to 11 times faster than Apache and 6 times faster than NGINX servers. That comes from their use of the best hardware, software, and other optimizations on their LiteSpeed hosting plans.
A2 Hosting Pros
- Unlimited websites (except for the base plan)
- Unlimited disk space and bandwidth (except for the base plan)
- Fastest speed with an average server response time of 302ms
- Very good average uptime of 99.98%
- 24×7 customer support with quick and satisfactory answers
- 30 days backup retention (except for the base plan)
- Reputable hosting provider with 19+ years of experience
- Server location in Michigan, Arizona, Amsterdam, and Singapore
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Free website migration
- Free CDN from Cloudflare
The server response time of A2 Hosting is extremely fast. So much so that they have the fastest speed among all the tested shared hosting providers. Additionally, their high uptime also makes them one of the most reliable hosting providers.
A2 Hosting Cons
- Hosting plans are pricier than other similar hosting providers
- Higher discounts are only available for the first-term purchase with long-term commitment
- Domain privacy protection isn’t free
In their LiteSpeed hosting plans, A2 Hosting gives you all the features you may possibly need for your website. Also, the resources allocated on these plans are enough for any kind of sites. So, you get enough CPU, RAM, bandwidth, database, and other resources that you don't need to worry about reaching their limits unless your site is super popular with millions of monthly visitors.
They will also make automatic daily backup of your sites on their LiteSpeed plans and retain those backups for 30 days. For storing those backups, they will allocate 50 GB backup storage with your plan and though it doesn't seem a lot, it is actually very decent compared to other hosting providers. This will help protect your site against accidental deletion, mistakes, and data corruption.
A2 Hosting's LiteSpeed hosting plans will ensure your website the best performance of any shared hosting provider. So, if you want absolute performance, A2 Hosting is easily recommended. The only thing you need to consider is whether the relatively high price of their LiteSpeed hosting plans is acceptable to you.
That is to say, their LiteSpeed hosting plan's discounted pricing starts at $9.99/month and renewal starts at $20.99/month.
3. Hawk Host - Cheapest LiteSpeed Hosting
Hawk Host is the cheapest LiteSpeed hosting provider among the top performing hosting providers
Hawk Host is another popular hosting provider whose all shared plans come with LiteSpeed Enterprise server. In fact, they have only two shared hosting plans and both plans give you the exact same resources and facilities except that the base plan has a 10GB disk space limit and the top tier plan has no such limit.
So, basically, both their shared hosting plans will give your websites similar performance and that you won't get any additional benefit from upgrading to the top plan if you don't need the extra disk space.
Hawk Host Pros
- Unlimited websites
- Unlimited bandwidth
- LiteSpeed web server
- Very good average uptime of 99.98%
- 24×7 customer support with quick and satisfactory answers
- Reputable hosting provider with 16+ years of experience
- Less expensive for both discounted and renewal pricing
- Server location in Amsterdam, Dallas, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, New York City, Singapore, and Toronto
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Free website migration
- Free CDN from Cloudflare
Hawk Host Cons
- Poor average response time of 725ms
- Only 7 days backup retention
- Domain privacy protection isn’t free
Hawk Host will give you all kinds of resources and features in both their shared plans that you may be needing for your websites. But the allocated 1 CPU Core and 1 GB RAM in these plans aren't suitable for handling large website traffic like for websites with hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors.
However, their base shared plan is exceptionally more attractive than their top shared plan or shared plans from other LiteSpeed hosting providers. That's because the base plan of Hawk Host comes with unlimited websites, unlimited bandwidth, and all other top-tier features but with a pricing that is relatively cheaper than similar plans from other hosting providers. So, their base plan can easily be a preferred choice if its 10GB storage limit is enough for you.
On the contrary, the top shared hosting plan of Hawk Host doesn't seen to be any attractive because you are allocated with basically the same resources, except for the storage, as in the base plan but for a higher pricing that is also comparable to the pricing of other similar hosting providers.
Their discounted pricing starts at $2.99/month and renewal starts at $4.99/month. And this is relatively cheaper than the discounted and renewal pricing of other similar LiteSpeed hosting providers.
4. MDDHosting - Most Upgradable LiteSpeed Hosting
MDDHosting offers the highest resource upgrade options of any LiteSpeed hosting provider but those upgraded options cost too much
MDDHosting is one of the lesser known LiteSpeed hosting providers. They label their shared hosting plans as cloud hosting and all those plans come with LiteSpeed server. But there is a chance you may mistakenly consider those cloud hosting plans as VPS (Virtual Private Server) plans by seeing the listing of allocated CPU and RAM on those plan summary.
In case you didn't know, VPS hosting plans are better than shared hosting plans because VPS plans come with dedicated resources like CPU and RAM which are allocated only for your use so no one else can use them. But shared hosting resources aren't dedicated for only your use, instead, everyone on the same server shares the same resources. Also, everyone on the shared hosting plans gets a maximum resource usage limit so that no one can overuse them. That's why hosting providers list the allocated CPU, RAM, and other resources in their VPS plan summary but usually not in their shared plan summary.
MDDHosting Pros
- Unlimited websites
- Unlimited disk space and bandwidth (except for the disk space of the base plan)
- LiteSpeed web server
- Good average server response time of 623ms
- 24×7 customer support with quick and satisfactory answers
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Free website migration
MDDHosting Cons
- Unreliable average uptime of 99.14%
- Only 7 days backup retention but none for accounts using over 5 GB storage
- Pricier and also less significant first-term discount than other similar hosting providers
- Server location in only Colorado
- Not a popular provider even with 13+ years of experience
- Domain privacy protection isn’t free
One of the fairly unique features of MDDHosting is that they have plans with very high resource allocations (e.g., CPU and RAM) that will help if your websites require that many resources. No other shared LiteSpeed hosting providers offer packages with that high resource limits. However, if your website actually needs a very high resource usage, you will be better off going with a VPS or dedicated hosting anyway. So, their higher-tier shared hosting plans may not make much sense and, at the same time, the pricing of their plans especially the higher-tier plans are relatively very high considering they are ultimately shared hosting plans even with their higher resource allocations.
MDDHosting gives you all kinds of resources that may be necessary for your website. However, one of their limitations is in their automatic backup feature. They do automatic daily backup but retain the backups for only 7 days and, on top of that, they have a policy that can effectively dismiss accounts with over 5GB storage from even being backed up.
Their discounted pricing starts at $4/month and renewal at $5.99/month.
5. WebHostingBuzz - Good Performance but Poor Support
WebHostingBuzz has one of the highest uptime and one of the fastest server response time of any LiteSpeed hosting provider but their customer support isn't good
WebHostingBuzz is a little different than most other hosting providers in that, unlike most other hosting providers, they don't try to lure in by offering a huge discount for signing up with a long term commitment and then charge you the full high price at renewals. They still offer you a discount but that isn't anything significant especially compared to other similar hosting providers.
This also means you can get a better discounted price from other similar LiteSpeed hosting providers if you are willing to go for a long term commitment. But if you don't mind that, their base plan can be very attractive especially if you want good performance from your website and if you require only 1 website and less than 30 GB of storage. However, even the normal/renewal pricing of their other higher-tier plans aren't anything better than most other providers so those plans may not make much sense.
WebHostingBuzz Pros
- Unlimited bandwidth
- LiteSpeed web server
- One of the fastest average server response time of 443ms
- Best average uptime of 99.99%
- 45-day money back guarantee
- Free domain privacy protection
- 1 free domain name for as long as you use their hosting (applicable for mid-tier plan with yearly commitment or the top-tier plan with any commitment)
- Free website migration
- Free CDN from Cloudflare
WebHostingBuzz Cons
- Unreliable response time (delayed, quick or even no response) and unsatisfactory answer from customer support
- Only 5 days backup retention and only 20 GB backup storage allocation
- Server location only in New York
- Not a popular provider even with 18+ years of experience
- Long-term commitments aren't available with large discounts
WebHostingBuzz can be a very good choice in terms of website performance. All their plans provide all sorts of features that maybe necessary for any website. But they lack in their customer support department which doesn't have a reliable response time as they are sometimes quick, sometimes delayed, and sometimes don't respond at all. In addition, answers from their support staff aren't satisfactory at all because of their inadequate and even wrong answers.
Their backup policy isn't also anything good as they retain automatic daily backups for only 5 days and allocate only 20 GB backup storage for your account. Additionally, they only have one server location so you don't have the option to choose a location for optimizing the delivery of your websites based on visitor location.
Their discounted pricing starts at $5/month and renewal starts at $5.99/month.
6. KnownHost - Average LiteSpeed Hosting
KnownHost is a pricier and one of the resource limited LiteSpeed hosting providers with average performance
KnownHost is a somewhat popular hosting provider whose all plans come with LiteSpeed server hosting. However, they don't have any special offering like better performance, features, pricing, or anything else that can make them stand out from their competitors. Which makes them fall into the typical or average LiteSpeed hosting provider category.
It is often hard to recommend any provider that doesn't have any specialization and only have similar offerings as their competitors. That's because they are particularly appealing neither to any special group of people nor to the public in general and KnownHost fits this criterion pretty well.
KnownHost Pros
- Unlimited bandwidth
- LiteSpeed web server
- 24×7 customer support with quick and satisfactory answers
- Reputable US based hosting provider with 15+ years of experience
KnownHost Features
- cPanel
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Free website migration
- Domain privacy protection is free
- Free SSL
KnownHost Cons
- Only 2 days and 1 weekly backup retention unless in highest tier plan
- Limited CPU and RAM allocation
- Pricier than similar plans of other hosting providers
- Higher discounts are only available for the first-term purchase with long-term commitment
- High renewal pricing
- Server location in only Atlanta
The CPU, RAM, storage, and some other resources offered in their lower-tier hosting plans are pretty limited especially considering their pricing. Their higher-tier plans come with higher resource allocation but are subject to even higher pricing. That's why you can easily find another LiteSpeed hosting provider with better resources and pricing combinations.
Their backup policy is anything good as they retain only 2 daily backups and 1 weekly backup. Whereas you will see many hosting providers offering daily backup retention for 1 week or even 1 month. Also, they have only one server location for their shared hosting plans so you don’t have the option to optimize your website delivery from a location closer to your visitors.
Their discounted pricing starts at $3.47/month and renewal starts at $8.95/month. Though their discounted pricing doesn't look comparatively very expensive, their limited resource allocation for this price makes it pretty expensive, especially for renewals, when compared with other similar LiteSpeed hosting providers.
7. Hostwinds - Doesn't Make Sense
Hostwinds is one of the priciest and one of the most resource limited LiteSpeed hosting provider that doesn't even provide basic features like automatic backup and 30-day money back guarantee
Hostwinds is a fairly popular hosting provider that offers LiteSpeed server. But their basic shared hosting plans don't come with LiteSpeed server, instead, they offer a different shared hosting plan called Business web hosting where they provide LiteSpeed server.
All three of their business web hosting plans come with the exact same resources and features except for the number of allowed websites. The basic business hosting plan allows 1 website, the mid-tier plan allows 4 websites, and the top-tier plan offers unlimited websites. As such, they don't allocate you any more resources for going with a higher plan. So, if you choose a higher plan to host more websites, the performance of all those websites will ultimately suffer because of the distribution of the same resources among many websites.
Hostwinds Pros
- Unlimited disk space and bandwidth
- LiteSpeed web server
- Very good average uptime of 99.98%
- 24×7 customer support with quick and satisfactory answers
- Reputable hosting provider with 10+ years of experience
- Server location in Seattle, Dallas, and Amsterdam
- Free website migration
Hostwinds Cons
- No automatic backup
- Poor average server response time of 974ms
- Limited CPU and RAM allocation
- Pricier than similar plans of other hosting providers
- Only 3-day money-back guarantee
- Higher discounts are only available for the first-term purchase with long-term commitment
- Domain privacy protection isn’t free
The most performance limitation of Hostwinds business plans comes from their only 1 CPU Core and only 0.5 GB RAM allocation in these plans. No wonder Hostwinds doesn't have a good server response time even after being pricier than similar hosting providers.
Additionally, unlike most other hosting providers, they don't give you any free automatic daily backups whatsoever. So, you are going to have to worry about losing your website data in case of accidental deletion, mistakes, or data corruption unless you have separately chosen to use this service by paying them extra. Moreover, they only give you a 3-day money back guarantee especially when 30-day money back guarantee has become a standard in the web hosting industry.
Their discounted pricing for the business plans starts at $8.99/month and renewal starts at $13.99/month. For their resource and feature limited services, this is too high a price when compared to other similar LiteSpeed hosting providers.