Home Reviews An Trustworthy, Hands-On Look (It is Good)

An Trustworthy, Hands-On Look (It is Good)


Rocket.internet Internet hosting Assessment 2023: An Trustworthy, Hands-On Look (It’s Good)

Colin Newcomer

In our hands-on Rocket.internet evaluation, I’ll assist you to determine whether or not or not this up-and-coming managed WordPress host is one of the best place on your web sites.

There’s so much to love about Rocket.internet, beginning with the distinctive means through which it builds in Cloudflare Enterprise’s international community to realize near-equally quick load instances for guests throughout the globe.

Past that, it has a lot higher-than-average go to limits (for the managed WordPress house), which may supply loads of additional worth for high-traffic websites (although there are some caveats on that).

It’s not good, but it surely’s undoubtedly one of many prime WordPress internet hosting choices in 2023 and past.

Rocket.internet Assessment: A Fast Look at How It Works and What It Provides

To kick off our Rocket.internet internet hosting evaluation, let’s take a fast have a look at a few of the key options, in addition to the distinctive strategy that Rocket.internet employs to host WordPress websites.

You’ll find all of this info within the advertising and marketing copy, however I feel it is very important spotlight some key particulars so that you just perceive what’s on supply.

Rocket.net WordPress hosting

Full-Web page Caching on the World Cloudflare Enterprise Community (+ Different Advantages)

One of the crucial distinctive issues about Rocket.internet is the best way that it integrates the Cloudflare Enterprise community and performance into the internet hosting product.

Reasonably than solely caching your pictures and different static property on a content material supply community (CDN) like loads of hosts, Rocket.internet caches your website’s full pages onto Cloudflare’s international CDN.

Because of this Cloudflare is ready to serve pages from its international community quite than guests needing to obtain the web page out of your origin server. The result’s that your website will load equally quick whether or not somebody is looking from North America, Europe, Asia, or wherever else.

Rocket.net edge caching

Rocket.internet is ready to obtain round a 95% cache hit charge for many websites, which signifies that 95% of visits might be served from Cloudflare’s community as a substitute of your origin server (a superb factor).

You probably have a WooCommerce retailer, Rocket.internet can even robotically optimize its caching to keep away from breaking key performance.

So far as I’m conscious, Kinsta is the one different well-known managed WordPress host to supply the sort of integration with Cloudflare, although Kinsta continues to be performing some catching up, having solely simply launched the Kinsta Edge Caching characteristic.

Different Advantages of the Cloudflare Integration

Past the CDN, Rocket.internet’s tight Cloudflare integration additionally has different advantages on your website’s efficiency and safety.

First off, you get another efficiency advantages that may eradicate the necessity for sure WordPress efficiency plugins:

  • Automated picture optimization — that is powered by Cloudflare’s Polish characteristic and eliminates the necessity to use a separate picture optimization plugin
  • Automated code minification
  • Brotli compression

Second, you additionally get safety advantages by way of Cloudflare’s proactive firewall and DDoS safety. You’ll be capable of view particulars about Cloudflare’s safety out of your internet hosting dashboard — extra on that later.

All of the Managed WordPress Options You’d Anticipate

Lastly, Rocket.internet nonetheless presents all of the “commonplace” options that you just’d anticipate from a managed WordPress host.

Right here’s a fast rundown:

  • Customized internet hosting dashboard
  • Automated each day backups with 14-day storage
  • Guide on-demand backups when wanted
  • Staging websites
  • Free SSL certificates
  • Automated updates (managed from the internet hosting dashboard)
  • Security measures corresponding to malware scans and firewalls
  • 24/7/365 assist from WordPress specialists

Rocket.internet additionally presents a couple of distinctive goodies that you just received’t discover at most different managed WordPress hosts:

  • WordPress exercise logging – Rocket.internet robotically logs adjustments in your WordPress website and allows you to view the whole lot out of your internet hosting dashboard. For instance, you may monitor if a consumer created a publish, put in a plugin, modified a setting, and so forth. You possibly can disable this if you happen to don’t need it.
  • In-browser WP-CLI terminal – You possibly can entry a WP-CLI terminal proper out of your browser, which is much more handy than needing to attach on to your server over SSH.

I’ll provide you with a hands-on have a look at these options a little bit later on this Rocket.internet evaluation.

Rocket.internet Efficiency Testing Knowledge

If you’re selecting a WordPress host, efficiency ought to all the time be one of the crucial essential issues.

With that in thoughts, let’s begin off the hands-on part of our Rocket.internet internet hosting evaluation with a have a look at some efficiency knowledge.

To create a practical take a look at state of affairs, I arrange a totally functioning WordPress website utilizing our free Sydney theme and one of many premade starter websites constructed with the Elementor web page builder plugin.

Sydney is without doubt one of the quickest WordPress themes on the market, so it’s ranging from a powerful basis. Nonetheless, on the similar time, this isn’t an empty demo website — it’s a full web site that’s constructed with Elementor (which does add some weight to the web page).

Single Go to WebPageTest

To kick issues off, I used WebPageTest to gather knowledge for a single go to utilizing the next configuration:

  • Run 9 separate checks and take the median worth.
  • Check from Salt Lake Metropolis, Utah.
  • Use a throttled FIOS connection (20/5 Mbps) — that is slower than most different testing instruments, however I feel it results in extra life like knowledge.

Rocket.internet nailed this take a look at, with a Time To First Byte (TTFB) of simply 0.076 seconds and a Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) time of simply 0.903 seconds:

Rocket.net performance in WebPageTest

Multi-Location Efficiency Check

To point out how Rocket.internet’s full web page caching on Cloudflare results in uniformly quick international load instances, I subsequent used DotCom-Instruments to check from 5 completely different places on the similar time:

  • Washington DC, USA (North America)
  • Montreal, Canada (North America)
  • London, UK (Europe)
  • Singapore (Asia)
  • Bogota, Colombia (South America)

You possibly can see that all the load instances are each quick and just about equal.

Right here’s a map view:

DotCom Tools map

And right here’s the info in desk format with some extra knowledge:

DotCom Tools list

BlazeMeter Check to See How Rocket.internet Scales

Lastly, I wished to see how Rocket.internet performs in a extra high-traffic state of affairs.

As a result of Rocket.internet averages a 95% hit charge for serving pages from Cloudflare’s cache, it ought to scale fairly effortlessly.

To place that to the take a look at, I arrange a load testing state of affairs with BlazeMeter that hits the homepage with 50 concurrent visits in a six-minute interval.

That is most likely extra concurrent guests than most WordPress websites can have, but it surely’s a superb take a look at for higher-traffic websites.

Whereas Rocket.internet’s response time did enhance a bit when the complete 50 guests hit, it nonetheless remained fairly quick with no giant spikes.

The general common response time was 332.5 ms and the 90th percentile time was 493 ms, which signifies that 90% of requests had been served in underneath 493 ms.

Blazemeter test

Exploring the Rocket.internet Internet hosting Dashboard

Like most different managed WordPress hosts, Rocket.internet constructed its personal customized internet hosting dashboard quite than counting on off-the-rack options corresponding to cPanel.

On the whole, the Rocket.internet dashboard is well-designed and makes it straightforward to entry key areas, corresponding to backups, staging websites, exercise logging, and extra.

Beneath, I’ll share some screenshots from our Rocket.internet internet hosting account to offer you an thought of what it’s prefer to host a WordPress website with Rocket.internet.

Essential Web site Dashboard

The primary Rocket.internet website dashboard offers you a abstract of your website’s utilization, together with primary website info such because the FTP credentials and related domains.

Main site dashboard

Backups

Within the Backups tab, you may view all the computerized backups that Rocket.internet takes day by day.

On the usual plans, Rocket.internet will retailer the backups for 14 days, and all computerized backups are saved off-site.

If wanted, you may as well create a guide backup from this interface. For guide backups, you may select between backing up:

  • simply the recordsdata
  • simply the database
  • each (for a full website backup)

You can not obtain computerized backups to your native laptop, however you may obtain guide backups.

There’s additionally a button that permits you to restore each sorts of backups with only a few clicks.

Backup list

Staging Websites

Rocket.internet presents staging websites on all plans, which provides you a protected place to check adjustments to your website.

To entry the staging surroundings, you need to use the drop-down in any a part of the interface. Utilizing it will swap you to what appears to be like like an an identical copy of the positioning dashboard — however the whole lot that you just do there’ll solely apply to the staging website.

In case you’re pleased with the adjustments in your staging website, you may simply “push” your staging website stay to overwrite the stay model of your website with the model from staging.

Rocket.net staging push tool

Nonetheless, Rocket.internet’s staging device does now lag a bit behind Kinsta and WP Engine as a result of Rocket.internet doesn’t permit partial pushes.

For instance, WP Engine and Kinsta allow you to push the database stay with out overwriting any recordsdata. However with Rocket.internet, your solely possibility is to completely overwrite the whole lot.

Right here’s an instance of a conditional staging push at Kinsta:

Kinsta staging push tool

Most individuals most likely received’t care about this, so it’s not a giant deal. Nonetheless, customers with extra superior improvement workflows would possibly respect a extra granular staging device (which you could possibly all the time add with a plugin if you actually need it).

Plugin/Theme Administration

That can assist you extra simply handle your WordPress website, Rocket.internet permits you to handle a website’s themes and plugins immediately out of your internet hosting dashboard.

You possibly can activate, replace, and delete current plugins/themes. What’s extra, you may as well set up new plugins and themes, which isn’t a characteristic that I’ve seen at different hosts.

Now, if you happen to solely have a single WordPress website, this characteristic may not be as useful as a result of it’s not a giant deal to work from the WordPress admin space.

Nonetheless, if you happen to’re managing a number of WordPress websites, with the ability to do the whole lot proper out of your internet hosting dashboard can prevent loads of time.

Manage plugins

Word – you may solely set up new themes/plugins which can be listed at WordPress.org. There isn’t an choice to add a customized ZIP file (although you may handle customized plugins which can be already put in in your WordPress website).

Browser File Supervisor Device

In case you’re coming from cPanel, you is likely to be aware of cPanel’s File Supervisor device, which helps you to handle recordsdata/folders in your server proper out of your browser (quite than needing to attach by way of FTP).

Whereas this characteristic is commonplace with cPanel, loads of managed WordPress hosts skip including it when creating their customized dashboards.

Then again, Rocket.internet has opted to create its personal in-browser file supervisor, which could be actually handy when it is advisable to make a fast change.

File manager

Personally, I nonetheless discover cPanel’s File Supervisor to be extra helpful. However when in comparison with different managed WordPress hosts that don’t supply their very own file managers, Rocket.internet nonetheless stands out.

Exercise Log and Reporting

That can assist you hold monitor of what’s occurring in your WordPress website and internet hosting, Rocket.internet presents detailed logging performance.

A few of that is pretty commonplace particulars on CDN and firewall utilization/exercise, although it’s nonetheless introduced in a pleasant means.

The CDN knowledge is helpful for monitoring your cache hit charge — Rocket.internet averages round a 95% cache hit charge, however you’ll need to test how your website is doing. (A cache hit means the web page was served from Cloudflare’s international community as a substitute of your origin internet hosting server.)

The place Rocket.internet actually stands out, although, is in its WordPress exercise logging characteristic, which helps you to monitor what’s really occurring in your WordPress website. This contains the next actions:

  • New consumer registrations or edits
  • Newly created content material or edits to current content material
  • Modifications to WordPress settings
  • Modifications to WordPress plugins or themes (together with putting in a brand new plugin)
  • And so on.

Usually, you’d want a separate exercise logging plugin to entry this knowledge, and the info may doubtlessly bloat up your website’s database.

Rocket.internet eliminates the necessity for a separate plugin by providing these options itself, and it shops the info outdoors your WordPress database. 

Activity logging

You possibly can entry as much as 30 days of exercise logs, which provides you loads of oversight into what’s occurring in your website.

Different Instruments

Past what I’ve proven you, Rocket.internet additionally presents a couple of different useful instruments, most of which can be found from the Superior tab.

One device that I discover actually helpful, and that I haven’t seen at one other host, is an in-browser WP-CLI terminal.

This allows you to run WP-CLI instructions proper out of your browser, which is the simplest approach to work together with WP-CLI that I’ve ever seen:

Wp-CLI in browser

A number of the different instruments within the Superior tab embody:

  • Accessing your database by way of phpMyAdmin
  • Altering the PHP model
  • Managing computerized updates for the core, plugins, and themes
Rocket.net advanced tools

How Does Rocket.internet’s Dashboard Stand Up?

General, I discover Rocket.internet’s dashboard to be fairly good, and I like a few of the distinctive instruments that the Rocket.internet crew has constructed.

Nonetheless, I don’t assume it could fairly match a number corresponding to Kinsta but. That’s not a criticism of Rocket.internet as a result of I feel Kinsta has top-of-the-line dashboard experiences — I simply need to provide you with an thought of how Rocket.internet stacks as much as one of many prime managed WordPress hosts.

Word — I discover it fascinating to particularly evaluate Rocket.internet vs Kinsta as a result of Kinsta has lately moved to integrating Cloudflare in an identical approach to Rocket.internet.

For extra superior customers, Kinsta has some very nice value-adds corresponding to Kinsta APM (utility efficiency monitoring), DevKinsta (native WordPress improvement), redirect administration, search and substitute, and so forth.

Right here’s an instance of Kinsta’s Instruments space:

Kinsta dashboard tools

With that being mentioned, I feel that Rocket.internet’s dashboard and instruments are greater than succesful sufficient for the overwhelming majority of customers. It’s just some extra superior customers who would possibly desire the additional flexibility {that a} host corresponding to Kinsta presents.

Digging Into Rocket.internet Pricing

Rocket.internet presents three various kinds of plans, every of which has a number of pricing tiers:

  • Managed Internet hosting – That is what most individuals will use and what I’ll concentrate on beneath.
  • Company Internet hosting – These are plans for businesses who need to host shopper websites on Rocket.internet. They provide greater website/customer limits, a particular company toolkit, and the power to white-label the internet hosting expertise.
  • Enterprise Internet hosting – These are pricier plans (from $649/month) particularly constructed for enterprise companies. You get extra perception into the sources of your plan (CPU cores, RAM, and many others.) and different superior options, together with a non-public Slack channel.

Once more, I’m going to concentrate on the Managed Internet hosting plans as a result of that’s what most “common” individuals will use. However if you happen to’re working an company or giant enterprise, you would possibly need to try these different plans.

For the common Managed Internet hosting plan, Rocket.internet suits in the identical value vary as different true managed WordPress hosts corresponding to Kinsta, WP Engine, Flywheel, and so forth.

Plans begin at round $30 per 30 days for a single website and go up from there for extra web sites, visitors, storage, and so forth. Except for the utilization limits, all the Managed Internet hosting plans include all the options.

Listed below are the primary three plans — there are extra plans obtainable, although:

Rocket.net pricing

Let’s go over a couple of notable particulars about Rocket.internet pricing.

Manner Above-Common Month-to-month Go to Limits

Probably the most distinctive factor about Rocket.internet’s pricing plans is that they’ve a lot greater go to limits than different equally priced managed WordPress hosts.

These days, just about all managed WordPress hosts use month-to-month visits as a billing metric. They received’t shut off your website if you happen to exceed these go to limits, however they’ll cost you overage charges.

With Rocket.internet, your month-to-month go to restrict might be about ~10X the restrict from different large managed WordPress hosts corresponding to Kinsta, WP Engine, and Flywheel.

Right here’s a desk that compares the value, restrict, and overage charges for the entry-level plans from these 4 hosts:

…However the Different Limits Are the Similar

Rocket.internet WP Engine Kinsta Flywheel
Value (per 30 days) $30 $30 $35 $30
Web sites 1 1 1 1
Visits (per 30 days) 250,000 25,000 25,000 25,000
Overage payment (per 1,000 guests) $1 $2 $1 $1

The one caveat right here is that the different limits on Rocket.internet’s plans aren’t any greater than the competitors. This contains space for storing and bandwidth.

Right here’s that very same desk, however with these metrics added:

Rocket.internet WP Engine Kinsta Flywheel
Value (per 30 days) $30 $30 $35 $30
Web sites 1 1 1 1
Visits (per 30 days) 250,000 25,000 25,000 25,000
Storage 10 GB 10 GB 10 GB 10 GB
Bandwidth (per 30 days) 50 GB 50 GB 100 GB 50 GB

It’s not truthful to say that is “unhealthy” since you’re not any worse off than these different suppliers. Rocket.internet’s different limits are nonetheless aggressive for the house, and sometimes a bit cheaper than the competitors. 

But it surely does imply that sure sorts of websites may not be capable of profit as a lot from the upper go to limits.

For instance, let’s say your website receives 200,000 visits per 30 days. When it comes to visits, you could possibly nonetheless match throughout the $30 entry-level plan at Rocket.internet, whereas you’d want the $290 Scale plan at WP Engine.

Nonetheless, if you happen to wanted 15 GB of storage, your website nonetheless wouldn’t slot in that plan as a result of the storage restrict isn’t any greater.

There’s additionally some excellent news right here, although:

Reasonably than upgrading to a better plan at Rocket.internet, it is likely to be cheaper to only pay the overage charges.

Right here’s what you’ll pay if you happen to exceed the bounds:

  • Disk house – $2 per GB over your plan restrict.
  • Bandwidth – $0.08 per GB over your plan restrict.

So if you happen to want 15 GB of storage, you could possibly nonetheless pay simply $40 per 30 days ($30 for the entry-level plan plus $10 for the 5 GB of additional storage). That’s nonetheless so much cheaper than the competitors.

Rocket.internet Execs and Cons

Now, let’s recap a few of the professionals and cons of utilizing Rocket.internet.

I’ve already touched on loads of this above, however I feel it’s useful to summarize all the great and unhealthy stuff.

Execs

  • By absolutely caching your website’s pages to Cloudflare’s international community, Rocket.internet is ready to supply very quick load instances all around the globe.
  • The Cloudflare integration additionally has different efficiency advantages (e.g. computerized picture optimization) and safety advantages (Cloudflare’s Internet Software Firewall).
  • Rocket.internet presents some distinctive instruments, corresponding to plugin-free WordPress exercise logging, in-browser WP-CLI, versatile plugin/theme administration from the internet hosting dashboard, and so forth.
  • Rocket.internet’s pricing plans have a lot greater month-to-month customer limits than equally priced managed WordPress hosts corresponding to Kinsta and WP Engine — it’s virtually a 10X distinction.
  • Past higher-traffic limits, Rocket.internet can simply typically be extra reasonably priced than different hosts. Keep in mind that you would be able to all the time pay overage charges as a substitute of upgrading plans.

Cons

  • Hosts corresponding to Kinsta and WP Engine supply barely higher improvement workflows for extra superior use circumstances. Each of these hosts supply extra versatile partial staging pushes (as a substitute of absolutely overwriting the stay website) and native improvement instruments (DevKinsta and Native, respectively).
  • Rocket.internet doesn’t supply electronic mail internet hosting. Whereas that is commonplace for the managed WordPress internet hosting house, it is likely to be a con if you happen to’re coming from shared internet hosting that does embody free electronic mail internet hosting. I like to recommend Google Workspace if you happen to simply want a single electronic mail account or MXroute if you happen to want numerous electronic mail accounts.

Ought to You Use Rocket.internet Internet hosting?

General, I feel that Rocket.internet is without doubt one of the greatest managed WordPress internet hosting suppliers in 2023 and past.

There are a couple of the explanation why I say this:

  1. Efficiency – Rocket.internet presents glorious efficiency, particularly in case you have a worldwide viewers. The way in which that Rocket.internet absolutely caches your website’s pages to Cloudflare Enterprise’s international community signifies that your website will scale nicely and cargo equally quick all around the globe.
  2. Above-average go to limits – Rocket.internet presents a lot greater month-to-month go to limits on its plans when in comparison with equally priced managed WordPress hosts.
  3. Stable options – Rocket.internet has all of the options you’d anticipate from a managed WordPress host at this value level.
  4. Some distinctive instruments – Rocket.internet throws in some distinctive instruments that you just received’t discover elsewhere.

Due to the excessive go to limits, Rocket.internet presents particularly good worth to high-traffic websites that also have regular storage/bandwidth wants.

However on the similar time, I feel that different websites can get good worth, too. Even for lower-traffic websites or websites with greater storage and bandwidth wants, Rocket.internet continues to be priced competitively and can typically find yourself a bit cheaper than the competitors.

Different High quality WordPress Hosts to Contemplate

In case you’re not going to benefit from the upper go to limits, I’d be remiss to not point out contemplating different comparable hosts corresponding to Kinsta and WP Engine, each of which additionally supply high quality merchandise.

Kinsta can be shifting in the direction of integrating loads of the identical Cloudflare options that Rocket.internet presents. For instance, Kinsta now presents full web page edge caching on Cloudflare’s community, very like Rocket.internet.

In case you’re on a decent funds and must host a number of websites, WPX Internet hosting may also be a strong possibility to think about, although it’s not fairly on the similar degree when it comes to options and efficiency.

Whereas WPX Internet hosting’s entry-level plan is comparable in value to Rocket.internet, it has the good thing about letting you host a number of websites.

Cloudways may also be a superb funds possibility for extra DIY varieties, however I don’t advocate it in order for you the concierge options and advantages that include a real managed WordPress host corresponding to Rocket.internet. You possibly can learn our full Cloudways internet hosting evaluation to study extra.

You may also discover another high quality choices in our curated assortment of the quickest WordPress internet hosting (the place Rocket.internet makes an look and did fairly nicely).

Last Ideas on Our Rocket.internet Assessment

That wraps up our full Rocket.internet internet hosting evaluation.

I hope you discovered it helpful, and I hope it helped you determine whether or not Rocket.internet is the correct place on your WordPress websites.

Do you continue to have any questions on Rocket.internet or our Rocket.internet evaluation? Tell us within the feedback!