Liquid Web Managed Hosting

Liquid Web Managed Hosting Review 2017

In this review, we’ll dig into the managed hosting services offered by Liquid Web. While Liquid Web’s prices are certainly geared more towards high traffic sites, they offer excellent performance to back up their prices.

Founded in 1998, Liquid Web initially offered a variety of pricing plans for small sites and large sites alike. Recently, they’ve morphed into more of a high-end host, eliminating their shared plans and instead offering exclusively managed and VPS plans.

While beginners likely can’t afford the prices charged by Liquid Web, owners of high traffic sites should read on because Liquid Web boasted the best real-world performance of any web host that we tested. In addition to that performance data, we’ll also take you through all of the features you get with Liquid Web hosting.
Overview of Liquid Web Hosting Features

Here’s what you get when you go with Liquid Web’s managed hosting:

• Can use Liquid Web’s custom dashboard or cPanel for website management
• Automatic backups
• One-click staging sites for easy testing/deployment
• Automatic WordPress updates
• Free SSL
• One-click backup restores
• No restrictions on WordPress plugins
• No traffic restrictions
• 24/7/365 support via phone, live chat, or helpdesk

That’s the abstract, though. Let’s check out the real data now!

Liquid Web Hosting Performance – Real Testing Data

To run Liquid Web through the paces, we set up a test site at their Lansing, Michigan data center and put it to the test.

First, we tested Time to First Byte, which is a good general measure of how quickly a web server responds to request. We measured Liquid Web at 0.22 seconds, which is quite impressive. That’s the fifth fastest time out of any of the hosts that we tested. Good so far.

Liquid Web did even better when we looked at the average page load speed for our test site. In contrast to Time to First Byte, this is how long it took our test site to fully load. Here, Liquid Web clocked in at an excellent 1.10 seconds. Not only is this speedy in its own right, this is also the fastest average page load time for any site that we tested.

Yup, Liquid Web is #1 for page load speed.

Lastly, we looked at the actual uptime for our test site. Our site was up 99.94% of the time. While not the best uptime we measured, it’s still right around the 99.95% uptime goal we usually shoot for. But for the amount of money Liquid Web charges, we would’ve liked to have seen this number be a bit higher. 99.94% is great for a shared host – not for an expensive managed host.

Overall, Liquid Web performed impressively in our tests. They had the best average page load time of any host we tested, which is a huge deal for performance-oriented websites. Our only knock is the uptime our test site experienced.

Liquid Web Data Center Locations

Your data center location is an important factor that affects your site’s performance for your target readers. Ideally, you want your data center to be located as near as possible to your potential readers to maximize your page load times (though content delivery networks are making this less of a necessity).

In terms of data center flexibility, Liquid Web excels. For the United States, they offer data centers in Michigan and Arizona. They also offer a European data center in Amsterdam for anyone targeting European markets.

Liquid Web Support and Documentation

Liquid Web offers excellent support, which is to be expected given the prices that they charge. You can always get ahold of expert support via phone, chat, or helpdesk. They have a ~60 second response time guarantee for phone and chat support, so you’ll never have to wait around.

For those who like self help, Liquid Web also offers a knowledge base with around 1,000 articles.

Liquid Web Plans and Pricing

Now, the rub. We’ve dangled Liquid Web’s excellent performance and support in front of you, but we’ve refrained from talking about how much it’s going to hurt your wallet. Well, Liquid Web ain’t cheap. But you don’t get the fastest performance without paying a premium, unfortunately.

Here’s what you can expect to pay for Liquid Web’s managed WordPress hosting with custom dashboard:

Their Personal plan starts at $119 per month and offers support for up to 10 websites. You get all the features like automatic updates, backups, free SSL, etc.

Their Professional plan bumps that up to 20 websites for $189 per month.

And finally, their Agency plan supports 40 websites for $289 per month.

If you go with cPanel hosting, Liquid Web has plans starting at $89 per month for 100GB SSD storage and 5TB bandwidth.

Like we said, Liquid Web isn’t cheap. But you are paying for excellent quality.

Should You Choose Liquid Web Hosting?

If you’re just starting out, then no, of course you shouldn’t choose Liquid Web. Go with a quality, but affordable, shared host like A2 Hosting or SiteGround.

But if you’re running a high-traffic site that needs the best performance possible, then yes, we highly recommend Liquid Web. They have the fastest performance of any of the hosts that we tested, as well as excellent support should you run into any issues.

If the price tag doesn’t send you running for the hills, give Liquid Web a try and enjoy blazing fast site speed.