Liquid Web is right up there with the best web hosting services in the world, especially for larger businesses and enterprises looking for a high-end solution. As our Liquid Web review will show, this company offers a range of managed WordPress, cloud, VPS, and dedicated server hosting options.
Liquid Web review: Snapshot
All products are backed by modern server infrastructure, and Liquid Web is known to have some of the best performance in the industry. The managed WordPress solutions, provided through partner Nexcess, are excellent. Setting up and building your site is extremely straightforward, and you will benefit from a neat range of management tools.
In addition, Liquid Web boasts some of the best customer service we’ve seen. There aren’t any budget options, but the company still offers great value for money for websites that require that little bit more power.
Score: 4/5
Read on for the full review.
Liquid Web’s competitors
| Liquid Web | Kinsta | Cloudways | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Score | 4/5 | 4/5 | 4/5 |
| Pros | – Excellent high-end option for larger businesses – Leading uptime and performance metrics – Friendly, knowledgeable support services | – Numerous data centers worldwide – Beginner-friendly cloud hosting – Excellent performance across the board | – Only pay for what you need – Choose from five different cloud networks |
| Cons | – Quite expensive – No budget hosting options | – No domain registration portal – Significant server resource limitations – Only WordPress hosting available | – No domain registration portal – No built-in email tools |
| Verdict | With its selection of high-end hosting options, Liquid Web is a good choice for those looking for quality as opposed to low prices. | USA-based Kinsta provides high-end WordPress hosting solutions built on its powerful cloud hosting network. | If you’re looking for a high-end cloud hosting solution, Cloudways’ feature-rich products could be perfect. |
| View deals | Visit site | Visit site | Visit site |
Key features
Liquid Web is quite expensive compared to many of the other options on the market, but it’s really a case of you get what you pay for. The exact features you gain will obviously depend on the type of hosting you require, but there are numerous advanced tools available for businesses of all shapes and sizes.
Liquid Web claims that its customer service team includes “The Most Helpful Humans in Hosting.” This is obviously a biased claim, but there’s little to suggest that it’s incorrect. 24/7/365 support is available, and all support streams come with an initial response guarantee.
For starters, both phone and live chat support streams are backed by a 59-second initial response guarantee. Online ticketing comes with a 59-minute initial response guarantee.
One of Liquid Web’s standout product offerings is its excellent managed WordPress hosting, which is provided through its Nexcess platform. This is designed for those who want to create an ecommerce store, but there’s no reason you can’t build any other type of site with it.
Along with full technical management, you will benefit from unlimited pageviews, full root server access, and the ability to scale when necessary. All plans come with automatic daily backups, there’s a full staging site that you can use to test edits before sending them live, and all plans come with a selection of developer tools.
Liquid Web: key features and highlights
All VPS hosting plans come with the choice of three different control panels. Go for the popular cPanel, take advantage of the growing power of Plesk, or use the less popular but arguably even more powerful InterWorx interface.
Another standout feature is Liquid Web’s excellent selection of add-ons. You can purchase as many or as few of these as you would like, but the chances are that you will find at least a couple of useful tools here.
What’s new?
Liquid Web is an industry leader in the cloud, VPS, and dedicated server hosting market, and it’s easy to see why. Each of its hosting products is backed by modern technology and infrastructure, and you can rest assured that you will benefit from reliable, high-quality service across the board.
Product updates are regularly posted in the company’s press room, and they provide great information about the new tools you can expect. Most recently, Liquid Web added StellarWP to its group of brands, enabling it to offer higher-quality managed WordPress solutions than ever before.
Recent partnerships with Threat Stack and Alert Logic are great to see. With these, you will benefit from better security than ever before, enabling you to rest assured that your website and its assets will be properly protected.
Finally, in late 2020, Liquid Web upgraded its dedicated server hosting options. By adding Intel Xeon Scalable technology, the company has made it even easier to add extra resources to your hosting plan and grow your website when required.
Pricing
Liquid Web focuses on high-end web hosting solutions, with a selection of managed WordPress, VPS, cloud, and dedicated server options. There are no budget shared or unmanaged WordPress products, so look elsewhere if you want either of these.
The cheapest managed WordPress plan starts at $9.50 a month (renews at $19 a month after six months). High-end plans increase to $999 a month, but this provides some of the best managed WordPress hosting we’ve seen.
Linux VPS options range from $35 to $159 a month for an annual subscription, with Windows options ranging from $80 to $189 a month. Advanced cloud hosting starts at $265 a month, and dedicated physical servers begin at $199 a month.
| Plan type/feature | Spark Managed WordPress | 2GB Linux VPS | Intel Xeon 1230v6 Dedicated Server | Standard Cloud Hosting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per month | $9.50* | $59 | $199 | $265 |
| Cost per year | $190 | $425 | $2028 | $3180 |
| Websites | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Storage | 15GB | 40GB | 480GB | 960 GB |
| Bandwidth | 2TB | 10TB | 5TB | 10TB |
| RAM | N/A | 2GB | 16GB | 24GB |
*Monthly prices for managed WordPress plans double after the first six months.
Testing Liquid Web
In order to comprehensively compare Liquid Web to the competition, we analyzed a series of its features and tools to see how it performed. This included creating a WordPress website, checking its server response times, and seeing how simple it was to set up an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate.
How do you create a WordPress website with Liquid Web?
Liquid Web’s managed WordPress solutions are offered through Nexcess, a partner brand that falls under the Liquid Web umbrella. With these, creating a WordPress website is very straightforward. A 14-day free trial is available for new users, and you won’t even have to add payment details to take advantage of it.
When you sign up for your first account, you will be guided through a short (optional) tutorial to help you get started. The WordPress software will automatically be installed for your first site, which means that starting your build is as simple as heading to your WordPress dashboard and beginning to add your own content.
You will benefit from numerous management tools through the native Nexcess control panel. These are all targeted at WordPress users and will help you optimize your site’s performance and design.
How does Liquid Web perform?
To test the performance of our LiquidWeb site, we monitored uptime and server response times across a seven-day period. We used the popular Uptime.com monitoring program.
For starters, we saw a 100% uptime figure, which is literally as good as you can get. The average server response time came in at just 214ms. This is right up there with the best performance we’ve seen, so you can rest assured that your site will be fast and responsive.
In general, the server response times stayed between 180ms and 300ms, suggesting that performance is consistent. There were five small spikes above 300ms, including one that stretched to 721ms, but these were brief and shouldn’t cause too many issues.
How easy is it to set up an SSL certificate?
Adding an SSL certificate to your website is crucial to ensure that your files and data transmissions are secured and protected from prying eyes. The exact process of adding SSL certificates will vary according to the type of hosting you’re using, but it’s an extremely easy process with Liquid Web’s managed WordPress solutions.
By default, your site won’t have any SSL certificate installed. You will have the option to either purchase a third-party certificate through Nexcess, or import your own certificate.
Purchasing a premium certificate may be worth considering if you’re going to be dealing with a lot of sensitive customer information. However, there are numerous free options that you can import, and these will provide more than enough protection for the average WordPress site.
The competition
Liquid Web offers high-end hosting solutions targeted at larger businesses and enterprises. It doesn’t have any real budget options, and you should look elsewhere if low prices are your number-one concern.
Fortunately, though, all of Liquid Web’s plans come with full technical management, enabling you to focus on your site and its content. Daily backups are available with the managed WordPress and selected other plans, and all users will benefit from impressive 24/7 live chat, email, and phone support.
Another popular option is Kinsta, which focuses on managed WordPress hosting. It’s a little more expensive than Liquid Web, but it’s among the best managed WordPress hosts we’ve seen.
One thing that Kinsta is known for is its excellent performance. All plans come with automatic daily backups, and the entire service is aimed at beginners and those with little technical management experience.
Cloudways offers advanced cloud hosting solutions that rival Liquid Web’s high-end plans. It enables you to choose hosting from five different cloud networks, including Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services. This versatility is excellent, and you won’t find comparable cloud hosting at a lower price anywhere.
In addition, Cloudways cloud hosting is backed by 24/7 live chat and online ticketing. Free site migrations are available, all plans are highly scalable, and there are no lock-in contracts or long-term commitments required.
| Liquid Web | Kinsta | Cloudways | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Technical management | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic backups | Daily | Daily | Customizable |
| Support | 24/7 live chat, phone, and email | 24/7 live chat, phone, and email | 24/7 live chat, phone, and online ticketing |
| Basic plan | From $9.50 a month | From $30 a month | From $10 a month |
The verdict
All things considered, Liquid Web is a top hosting option for large websites that require advanced server infrastructure. Budget shared and cheap unmanaged hosting offerings are notably absent, but the selection of managed WordPress, VPS, dedicated server, and cloud hosting options is excellent.
In addition, all of Liquid Web’s products are backed by premium customer service and a range of advanced features. Setting up a new WordPress site with the managed WordPress hosting options shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes, and there’s a 14-day free trial that enables you to test the platform.
Another thing that Liquid Web stands out for is its excellent performance. Our test site had 100% uptime across our seven-day test period, and the average server response time was among the best we’ve seen.
The bottom line: If you have money to spend on an advanced hosting solution, Liquid Web is definitely one of the best options available. But if you’re looking for a budget option, you will need to go for a different platform.
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