After 12 months of live testing in 2019, let’s compare Kinsta vs SiteGround and find out which WordPress host has performed best.
Kinsta vs SiteGround – Testing Method
- Prior to testing, I have setup identical content on all 6 Live Test Sites
- Each week over 60,000 speed & uptime tests are run using independent tools, GTmetrix & Pingdom
- Test results below are from 07 Jan 2019 to 04 Jan 2020
Test #1: Speed
The GTmetrix Speed Test checks how long it takes for a website to fully load using a desktop internet browser. This test is then repeated every hour throughout the week (1,080 times).
- Kinsta absolutely blitzed our speed test, comfortably outpointing all our other hosts across the 1st 30 weeks of testing in 2019. However, the last 20 weeks of testing from India & Australia has seen a noticeable drop in speeds, leading to a 4th & 3rd placed finish respectively. While Kinsta still holds the lead across 2019, their margin to the competition has shrunk considerably.
- SiteGround’s speed started off very poorly, recording the slowest speed of all our hosts across the first 5 weeks of testing. The good news, however, was they were able to totally turn that around once WP Rocket was installed. They charged to 3rd during this time, outpacing 2 premium hosts in the process. A similar trend occurred across Weeks 11-50, with slow speeds initially then significant improvement with WP Rocket on board.
- Kinsta is currently in 1st place, while SiteGround is 6th in our Speed Rankings.
2019 Results – USA Server
2019 Results – Canada Server
2019 Results – UK Server
2019 Results – India Server
2019 Results – Australia Server
View the Weekly Speed Tests
Test #2: Uptime
The Pingdom Uptime Test confirms that the website is actually accessible to visitors. This test is then repeated every minute throughout the week (60,480 times).
- The uptime performance for Kinsta started off impressively, with just 1 minute of downtime across the first 10 weeks of testing in 2019. This picture dramatically changed in Week 152 when they experienced a whopping 223 minutes of downtime!! Impressive results have returned in Weeks 21-50 with just 3 minutes of downtime.
- The uptime results for SiteGround have been very impressive across the 1st 30 weeks of testing. The last 20 weeks have seen a bit of an increase in downtime. But having only recorded 58 minutes of downtime places them above some premium hosts and well above their budget host competitor in Lightning Base.
- SiteGround is sitting in 3rd place, with Kinsta 6th in our Uptime Rankings.
View the Weekly Uptime Tests
Kinsta vs SiteGround – Overall ranking
The Overall Ranking accumulates the results from the speed & uptime tests to determine the #1 Host.
- Kinsta’s ultra impressive speed has been offset with the worst uptime performance across all hosts. It is worth noting that the poor uptime all related to 1 horror week, the remaining uptime has been exceptional. While there’s been a dropoff in speed across the last 20 weeks in India & Australia, Kinsta’s performance across the year has been very impressive (even more so if you forgive their horror uptime week).
- SiteGround’s uptime performance has been impressive, while some improvement is needed to their speed to move up the rankings. They are ahead of Lightning Base in the preferred budget host category, and not far off the performance of some of the premium hosts, especially when their speed with WP Rocket results are isolated.
- Kinsta is currently 3rd and SiteGround is 4th in our Overall Rankings.
Hi, I'm Clint!
