LiteSpeed WordPress Hosting Comparison

LiteSpeed WordPress Hosting - what are the benefits?

LiteSpeed is a commercial web server that is increasingly establishing itself as an alternative to the two market leaders Apache 2 and NGINX. When combined with WordPress hosting, it can provide several advantages that impact various aspects of a website. However, not all users benefit from the advantages that LiteSpeed offers over its competitors: the benefits depend on several factors whether using LiteSpeed brings concrete benefits or if the type of web server can be neglected.

What does LiteSpeed WordPress Hosting mean?

In practice, WordPress hosting with LiteSpeed means that the provider uses this web server specifically for delivering its WordPress sites. The additional specification is crucial in certain situations because different web servers can significantly affect several points that may be of interest, especially for commercial websites. Some of the most common points include:

• Overall performance of a website
• Setting up a domain and manual configuration or optimisation
• Server load and distribution
• Efficiency at low and high visitor numbers
• Support for local settings through .htaccess file
• Availability and compatibility of plugins for the web server

It has become common practice to explicitly state the web server in LiteSpeed WordPress Hosting. If such a hint is missing, it can be assumed with a high probability that the provider uses either Apache 2 or NGINX, with the former having a higher market share.

What are the benefits of LiteSpeed in WordPress hosting?

The full version of LiteSpeed is a commercial web server that is paid for and is under a proprietary license. However, there is also OpenLiteSpeed, a variant licensed under the open-source GPLv3 license and provided for free. Due to some technical limitations, it plays a minor role in commercial use,

As a web server, LiteSpeed is optimised for efficiency and user-friendliness, combining two of the key features that distinguish the two market leaders: the flexibility and customisation of Apache 2 and the speed and low peak load of NGINX. Therefore, some of the reasons in favour of WordPress hosting include:

• Excellent performance with extremely low Server Response Time (SRT)
• Support for .htaccess for local, manual configuration by users
• Efficient load balancing for websites with high user numbers
• High security and stability in productive use
• Early support for new standards such as HTTP/3 or QUIC
• Compatibility with global configuration files of Apache 2

The main disadvantage of LiteSpeed is that developers finance their software through time-limited licenses: specifically, this means additional costs for operators that must be passed on to customers. For this reason, WordPress hosting with LiteSpeed is usually slightly more expensive than hosting with Apache 2 or other open-source webservers.

Also, check out the Managed WordPress Hosting Comparison for providers who can offer you a professional solution for commercial WordPress web projects.

When should you consider WordPress hosting with LiteSpeed?

The most compelling argument for WordPress hosting with LiteSpeed is undoubtedly its speed and stability - qualities that also impact the ranking by most search engines. Therefore, using LiteSpeed can be part of a comprehensive Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy and is particularly beneficial for websites with commercial functions.

However, LiteSpeed does not affect the functionality of WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS). This also means that purely private or recreational websites benefit only to a limited extent from LiteSpeed and may instead incur additional costs. Due to its high compatibility with Apache 2 and good performance under peak loads, disadvantages from using LiteSpeed are rare - in cases of packages with similar pricing and overall features, it is often advisable to prefer it.

Also, explore traditional web hosting with LiteSpeed webserver offers, which are not specifically designed for WordPress.