Attempting to determine between Rocket.web vs Kinsta to host your WordPress websites?
These are two glorious managed WordPress hosts, so that you gained’t go fallacious both means.
In truth, not less than personally, these are two of the managed WordPress hosts that I like to recommend essentially the most — so it’s robust to decide between them.
However you want to make a alternative — so how do you decide the best one on your scenario?
On this hands-on Kinsta vs Rocket.web comparability, we’ll dig into the main points to provide help to select the best host.
Basic Introductions to Rocket.web and Kinsta
Earlier than we get to the extra hands-on comparability, let’s rapidly run over the essential particulars on these two hosts.
Introducing Rocket.web
Based in 2020, Rocket.web is the brand new child on the block when it comes to managed WordPress internet hosting.
Nevertheless, it comes from an skilled staff and has quickly constructed a reputation for itself in managed WordPress internet hosting, in addition to company and enterprise WordPress internet hosting.
One of the distinctive particulars about Rocket.web is that it was constructed from the bottom up to have Cloudflare play a giant half in its infrastructure.
So far as I’m conscious, Rocket.web was additionally the primary managed WordPress host to do full-page caching on Cloudflare’s community by default. Perhaps another person did it first, however I don’t bear in mind seeing this method till Rocket.web hit the scene.
There are a number of large advantages to Rocket.web’s tight integration:
- Quick international load instances as a result of Rocket.web caches your website’s pages on Cloudflare’s international community (not simply static belongings reminiscent of photos)
- Constructed-in optimization options reminiscent of automated picture optimization and code minification
- Safety protections on the edge (in addition to one other firewall on the server stage)
Past that, you additionally get all of the “normal” options that you simply’d count on from a managed WordPress host, reminiscent of automated backups, staging websites, a customized internet hosting dashboard, and so forth.
Rocket.web has additionally constructed some distinctive options for companies that may make it an particularly good choice if you would like to resell internet hosting to your shoppers or in any other case host shoppers’ web sites.
Introducing Kinsta
Since its launch in 2013, Kinsta has quickly grown to turn out to be one of many largest and most well-known managed WordPress hosts.
From the start, Kinsta has supplied top-tier efficiency, high quality assist, and tons of helpful instruments.
Kinsta is just about the whole lot you’d count on from a “true” managed WordPress host (not an inexpensive shared host masquerading as managed WordPress internet hosting).
The Kinsta staff additionally goes above and past when it comes to providing useful instruments, together with some distinctive choices reminiscent of its personal native WordPress improvement device (DevKinsta) and its personal software efficiency monitoring service (Kinsta APM).
In my view, Kinsta has the most effective internet hosting dashboard and essentially the most helpful instruments of any managed WordPress host, and you may inform it’s an space the place they’ve actually invested in.
Over the previous couple of years, Kinsta has additionally began shifting to combine Cloudflare into its internet hosting stack, implementing the same method to Rocket.web.
In late 2022, Kinsta rolled out edge caching on Cloudflare’s community, which helps you to cache your website’s pages on Cloudflare’s international community. You additionally get these different efficiency advantages, reminiscent of automated picture optimization and code minification.
In 2022, Kinsta additionally expanded past WordPress internet hosting for the primary time, launching new companies for software internet hosting and managed database internet hosting.
That in all probability gained’t play a task in serving to you determine between Kinsta vs Rocket.web, nevertheless it may if you would like to have the option to host non-WordPress functions in the identical spot as your WordPress websites.
Characteristic Comparability Tables
Now, let’s dig right into a extra hands-on Rocket.web vs Kinsta comparability, beginning with a number of comparability tables to provide help to perceive the options that every host affords.
Desk key:
- ✅ – The host affords this characteristic as a part of its common plans.
- ✅💰 – The host affords this characteristic nevertheless it’s an additional price.
- ❌ – The host doesn’t supply this characteristic.
Core Options
First, let’s look into the core options of Rocket.web vs Kinsta — as you possibly can see, there’s not an enormous distinction right here between the 2 hosts:
| Options | Rocket.web | Kinsta |
|---|---|---|
| Customized internet hosting dashboard | ✅ | ✅ |
| Cloudflare web page caching | ✅ | ✅ |
| Constructed-in CDN | ✅ | ✅ |
| Computerized picture optimization | ✅ | ✅ |
| Computerized code minification | ✅ | ✅ |
| Free SSL certificates | ✅ | ✅ |
| Computerized backups (day by day) | ✅ | ✅ |
| Computerized backups (hourly) | ❌ | ✅💰 |
| Backup retention | 14-30 days | 14-30 days |
| Exterior backups | ❌ | ✅💰 |
| Staging websites | ✅ | ✅ |
Options for Builders/Superior Customers
When it comes to options for builders or different superior customers, I believe that Kinsta has the sting.
You get some distinctive value-added options reminiscent of native WordPress improvement (DevKinsta) and software efficiency monitoring (Kinsta APM).
Rocket.web does have some distinctive options in its benefit, reminiscent of WordPress exercise logging (that gained’t bloat your website’s database) and an in-browser WP-CLI terminal.
However total, Kinsta affords a extra strong toolset for superior customers:
| Options | Rocket.web | Kinsta |
|---|---|---|
| Redis | ✅ | ✅💰 |
| Redirect supervisor | ❌ | ✅ |
| Geolocation device | ❌ | ✅ |
| WordPress exercise logging | ✅ | ❌ |
| WP-CLI | ✅ | ✅ |
| In-browser WP-CLI terminal | ✅ | ❌ |
| Native improvement device | ❌ | ✅ (DevKinsta) |
| Utility efficiency monitoring device | ❌ | ✅ (Kinsta APM) |
| Partial staging pushes | ❌ | ✅ |
Options for Companies and/or Resellers
When it comes to options for companies and/or internet hosting resellers, I believe that Rocket.web has the sting.
Should you’re wanting to resell internet hosting to your company’s shoppers (or to different individuals), Rocket.web affords some actually helpful instruments reminiscent of the choice to white-label the internet hosting dashboard, embed it in your website, and combine with WHMCS for billing administration.
Rocket.web even consists of an API that permits you to provision websites, which permits you to construct your personal customized workflows and options:
| Options | Rocket.web | Kinsta |
|---|---|---|
| Web site switch | ✅ | ✅ |
| White-label internet hosting dashboard | ✅ | ❌* |
| Automated website provisioning (API) | ✅ | ❌ |
| WHMCS integration | ✅ | ❌ |
| Native improvement device | ❌ | ✅ (DevKinsta) |
*Kinsta does allow you to white-label the Kinsta Cache plugin that seems inside customers’ WordPress dashboards, however you possibly can’t white-label the precise Kinsta internet hosting dashboard.
Efficiency and Pace Knowledge
How rapidly your website hundreds is likely one of the most necessary concerns when selecting a WordPress host.
There’s excellent news right here:
Each Rocket.web and Kinsta supply glorious efficiency regardless of the place your guests are coming from.
For static websites, you in all probability gained’t discover a lot distinction, to be sincere, as a result of each hosts will totally cache your website’s pages on Cloudflare’s international community every time doable.
Each hosts additionally allow you to entry real-time picture optimization and code minification, powered by Cloudflare.
For blogs or different static content material websites, you need to count on that ~95%+ of visits to your website shall be served from Cloudflare’s cache.
For dynamic websites — e.g. WooCommerce shops and membership websites — you’ll want to depend on your website’s origin server extra usually.
Kinsta solely makes use of the premium tier of Google Cloud Platform for its infrastructure, with 35+ totally different knowledge middle choices throughout the globe, together with a number of choices in North America, Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia.
Rocket.web, then again, makes use of its personal personal cloud composed of a number of distributors, together with Performive, PhoenixNAP, OVH, and ServersAustralia.
You possibly can select from seven totally different knowledge facilities — two USA knowledge facilities (Virginia and Arizona), three European knowledge facilities (London, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt), and two Asia/Pacific knowledge facilities (Singapore and Sydney).
Rocket.web vs Kinsta Efficiency Assessments
Once more, most static WordPress websites gained’t discover an enormous efficiency distinction provided that each hosts will serve your website’s static pages by way of Cloudflare.
To exhibit this, I arrange an equivalent check website on each hosts utilizing our light-weight Sydney theme and one in every of its Elementor-powered demo websites. I didn’t make any efficiency optimizations past the built-in instruments that each hosts supply.
I then used WebPageTest to check from a number of totally different areas with the next configuration:
- Check from: Salt Lake Metropolis, Utah, USA + London, UK + Singapore
- Connection velocity: FIOS throttled connection – 20/5 Mbps (this creates a extra reasonable check)
- Check runs: Do 9 runs for every check and take the median worth
Listed here are the outcomes:
| Host / Location | Time To First Byte (TTFB) | Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | Totally Loaded Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salt Lake Metropolis – Rocket.web | 0.066 s | 0.818 s | 2.130 s |
| Salt Lake Metropolis – Kinsta | 0.067 s | 0.880 s | 1.363 s |
| London – Rocket.web | 0.079 s | 0.543 s | 1.021 s |
| London – Kinsta | 0.086 s | 0.617 s | 1.074 s |
| Singapore – Rocket.web | 0.055 s | 1.165 s | 2.764 s |
| Singapore – Kinsta | 0.111 s | 0.970 s | 3.419 s |
As you possibly can see, the efficiency may be very related, which is smart provided that each check websites are being served from Cloudflare’s cache.
Person Expertise and Dashboards
Each Kinsta and Rocket.web supply customized internet hosting dashboards to provide help to handle your websites.
Each dashboards are user-friendly and make it simple to carry out key actions reminiscent of putting in WordPress, managing backups, creating staging websites, and so forth.
Nevertheless, if I had to decide a winner, I’d say that Kinsta has the higher dashboard expertise.
That’s not likely a knock on Rocket.web, although — I believe Kinsta has the most effective dashboard expertise of any managed WordPress host that I’ve used.
In contrast to most different hosts, Rocket.web would come out forward.
Let me offer you a fast tour of among the important interface areas, and you may determine for your self.
Rocket.web Dashboard
To arrange your website, Rocket.web provides you a useful device like this:
Then, you possibly can handle your website from a dashboard that appears like this — discover how the totally different tabs offer you entry to numerous instruments:
For instance, the Backups tab enables you to create handbook backups and think about the automated day by day backups that Rocket.web takes:
Rocket.web additionally affords a number of distinctive dashboard instruments.
Certainly one of my private favorites is an in-browser WP-CLI terminal that permits you to run WP-CLI instructions while not having to manually join by way of SSH:
I’ve by no means seen this at every other WordPress host, and it could possibly be one thing you discover helpful should you like working with WP-CLI.
You too can entry WordPress exercise logging out of your internet hosting dashboard, which will be useful for keeping track of your website:
Total, I believe Rocket.web affords a high-quality dashboard. And the truth that I believe Kinsta’s dashboard continues to be higher shouldn’t mirror poorly on Rocket.web.
Kinsta Dashboard
Kinsta’s internet hosting dashboard known as MyKinsta.
The principle Kinsta dashboard provides you a abstract of the whole lot that’s taking place in your account, together with exercise in your internet hosting dashboard and useful resource utilization:
To create a brand new WordPress website, you get a helpful installer wizard with preset configurations for WooCommerce and/or multisite:
Should you open a website’s dashboard, you’ll see all the main points for that website, together with a sidebar that provides you entry to all the varied options and instruments.
For instance, should you go to the Backups tab, you possibly can see all the automated backups that Kinsta takes and create an on-demand backup if wanted.
You too can simply restore a backup to the stay or staging model of your website:
Kinsta provides you lots of helpful choices in this dashboard. For instance, right here’s what the devoted Instruments tab provides you entry to:
There are additionally separate areas for the redirect supervisor, software efficiency monitoring (Kinsta APM), IP bans, and extra.
Should you swap the toggle on the prime, you possibly can shift between stay and staging environments. Staging environments offer you just about an equivalent dashboard, together with the choice to totally or partially push the staging website stay.
Pricing and Plans
When it comes to Rocket.web vs Kinsta pricing, Rocket.web is cheaper just about throughout the board.
Each hosts use related metrics for billing:
- Variety of WordPress websites
- Storage
- Variety of month-to-month visits throughout all your websites
Each hosts additionally supply clear pricing — there are not one of the jacked-up renewal costs that you simply expertise with low cost shared internet hosting. What you see on the pricing desk is what you’ll pay each now and at renewal.
One of many largest variations is in these go to limits — Rocket.web’s month-to-month go to limits are about 10-25X Kinsta’s go to limits for equally priced plans.
You probably have a heavy-traffic website, that may immediately make Rocket.web considerably cheaper than Kinsta.
When it comes to the opposite limits (storage and WordPress websites), Rocket.web continues to be a bit of bit cheaper, however the distinction will not be practically as massive.
Right here’s a pricing desk that compares the primary three pricing tiers at every host:
| Plan | Worth (month-to-month billing) | Web sites | Storage | Visits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rocket.web, Tier 1 (Starter) | $30 | 1 | 10 GB | 250,000 |
| Kinsta, Tier 1 (Starter) | $35 | 1 | 10 GB | 25,000 |
| Rocket.web, Tier 2 (Professional) | $60 | 3 | 20 GB | 1,000,000 |
| Kinsta, Tier 2 (Professional) | $70 | 2 | 20 GB | 50,000 |
| Rocket.web, Tier 3 (Enterprise) | $100 | 10 | 40 GB | 2,500,000 |
| Kinsta, Tier 3 (Enterprise 1) | $115 | 5 | 30 GB | 100,000 |
As you possibly can see, there’s an enormous distinction in the variety of visits that the plans assist, with Rocket.web’s Professional plan supporting 20X the variety of month-to-month visits that Kinsta’s Professional plan helps.
Nevertheless, outdoors of that, the plans are fairly related. Rocket.web is a bit cheaper and helps one additional website, however the variations are nowhere close to as drastic because the visits.
Each hosts additionally allow you to pay overage charges should you want to exceed your plan’s limits.
That is particularly necessary for month-to-month visits — neither host will reduce off your website should you exceed your plan’s go to limits, however you may be charged an overage price.
The overage charges for visits and storage are equivalent at each hosts:
| Overage price | Rocket.web | Kinsta |
|---|---|---|
| Customer overage price | $1 / 1,000 visits | $1 / 1,000 visits |
| Storage overage price | $2 / GB | $2 / GB |
Ideas on Kinsta vs Rocket.web Pricing
Total, how the pricing shakes out will rely in your particular scenario.
You probably have a single low-traffic website, Kinsta and Rocket.web are fairly related: you’d pay $30 per 30 days at Rocket.web and $35 per 30 days at Kinsta.
Nevertheless, you probably have a heavy-traffic website, Rocket.web will probably be considerably cheaper. For instance, in case your website receives 1,000,000 visits per 30 days, you’d pay ~$60 at Rocket.web however ~$675 at Kinsta — that’s critical cash!
In that scenario, utilizing Rocket.web might be the most effective determination — however extra on that later.
A Fast Be aware on PHP Employees
Yet another superior pricing distinction that I didn’t contact on is PHP employees, which course of PHP requests in your website.
PHP employees will be particularly necessary for websites that want to serve uncached content material, reminiscent of membership websites, WooCommerce shops, and so forth.
They’re not as necessary for blogs or different content material websites as a result of virtually all your website’s visits shall be served from the cache on Cloudflare’s community, which implies these visits don’t require any PHP processing in your server.
Kinsta makes use of PHP employees as a plan restrict: you’ll get anyplace from 2 to 14 PHP employees, relying in your plan. In distinction, Rocket.web advertises “limitless” PHP employees on all plans.
Assist Choices and Availability
Each Rocket.web and Kinsta supply high-quality 24/7 assist.
At Rocket.web, all plans supply assist by way of stay chat and ticketing.
Should you’re prepared to pay for the pricier enterprise internet hosting plans (from $650 per 30 days), you additionally get entry to cellphone assist and your personal personal Slack channel.
At Kinsta, all assist requests are dealt with via the Intercom chat widget, which affords a very nice expertise.
Nevertheless, one factor to be aware is that Kinsta doesn’t supply cellphone assist on any of its plans — right here’s Kinsta’s clarification for why that’s.
Personally, I desire stay chat assist anyway, so I don’t see any draw back to this.
Moreover, although Rocket.web does technically supply cellphone assist, you solely get it should you’re paying $650+ per 30 days, which in all probability isn’t a practical scenario for many site owners.
For these causes, I’d say that the assist high quality/availability is fairly related at each hosts, and I wouldn’t use it as a degree of differentiation.
Nevertheless, should you’re an enterprise and also you need the power to get somebody on the cellphone, that may be a degree in Rocket.web’s favor.
Dwell Chat Expertise
By way of the stay chat expertise, Rocket.web makes use of the LiveChat service, which requires you to enter your contact particulars to begin a chat:
Kinsta makes use of Intercom, which mechanically logs you in:
Each make it simple to chat, however I personally desire the Intercom expertise that Kinsta affords, although it’s a comparatively trivial distinction.
Rocket.web vs Kinsta: Which One Ought to You Use?
Total, Rocket.web and Kinsta are the 2 managed WordPress hosts that I commonly advocate, so I don’t assume you’ll make a fallacious determination both means.
Each supply glorious internet hosting merchandise, and I believe you’ll be joyful no matter which host you select.
In addition they now use related approaches to integrating Cloudflare into their companies, which implies you possibly can profit from full-page caching on Cloudflare on each hosts.
Nevertheless, it’s robust to have a comparability submit with out making some extra concrete suggestions, in order that’s what I’m making an attempt to do:
The Case for Rocket.web
One of many largest benefits that Rocket.web has over Kinsta is its worth.
You get a internet hosting product that’s simply nearly as good when it comes to efficiency and reliability, however at a cheaper price. That’s a fairly robust worth proposition.
Once more, it isn’t all the time the case that Rocket.web shall be rather a lot cheaper.
However you probably have a heavy-traffic website, Rocket.web shall be considerably cheaper than Kinsta, so I believe that’s a fairly robust purpose to select it (except the stuff I speak about in the subsequent part is admittedly necessary for you).
The identical is true should you want to host lots of websites — as a result of Rocket.web’s website limits are additionally greater than Kinsta’s, particularly as you begin shifting up the pricing plans.
For instance, $100 at Rocket.web enables you to host up to 10 websites, whereas it will solely get you 5 websites at Kinsta.
Past the value, I additionally assume that Rocket.web has some large benefits for companies or different people who find themselves internet hosting consumer websites. Listed here are some actually useful options which are distinctive to Rocket.web:
- You possibly can white-label the Rocket.web dashboard to use your personal branding and even embed the dashboard in your personal website.
- You possibly can combine with WHMCS to deal with billing your shoppers.
- The Rocket.web API enables you to provision websites by way of the API, which permits you to construct your personal customized programs.
If you’d like to management the billing relationship and supply most of these white-labeled conveniences to your shoppers, Rocket.web is certainly the higher choice.
If you’d like much more convincing, you possibly can learn our full Rocket.web internet hosting assessment.
The Case for Kinsta
One of many largest benefits that Kinsta has over Rocket.web is a extra fleshed-out suite of options and instruments, which will be particularly helpful for builders/superior customers or enterprises.
Listed here are some superior instruments that Kinsta affords and Rocket.web doesn’t:
- Native WordPress improvement device – DevKinsta enables you to simply spin up native websites and push straight to Kinsta internet hosting.
- Utility efficiency monitoring device – Kinsta APM enables you to actually dig into your software’s efficiency while not having a third-party device reminiscent of New Relic.
- Extra highly effective staging device – You are able to do conditional staging pushes, whereas Rocket.web solely enables you to totally overwrite your website.
- Exterior backup add-on – There’s an add-on that permits you to ship backups to your personal exterior cloud storage (for an additional price).
- Extra frequent backups – As well as to the exterior backups, there are paid add-ons that allow you to enhance the backup frequency to each six hours and even each hour.
Kinsta’s dashboard additionally usually affords much more instruments, which may help all varieties of customers. For instance, you possibly can handle redirects, block IP addresses, run a search and substitute, arrange country-specific redirects, and plenty extra.
Whereas Rocket.web additionally has some helpful instruments, I’d nonetheless put Kinsta’s MyKinsta dashboard nicely forward of Rocket.web.
Are these enhancements price paying extra?
I actually assume that it is determined by your scenario.
For a solo person working a primary weblog, they’re in all probability not.
However for extra superior customers, companies, and companies/freelancers, these add-ons might undoubtedly tip issues in Kinsta’s favor.
For instance, if Kinsta APM may help you enhance the efficiency of your membership website, hourly backups enable you to maintain your membership website’s knowledge protected, and extra versatile staging enables you to extra simply work in your website, then that’s undoubtedly well worth the cash, I believe.
Plus, it’s price remembering that Kinsta will not be all the time dearer. It actually is determined by what number of web sites you’re internet hosting and what number of month-to-month visits they obtain.
Should you solely have a single web site with 20,000 month-to-month visits, Kinsta mainly prices the identical as Rocket.web, so that you’re getting all that additional stuff at no additional value.
Ultimate Ideas on Kinsta vs Rocket.web
To recap another time, Kinsta and Rocket.web are each glorious, top-tier hosts, so that you’re not going to make a fallacious determination it doesn’t matter what.
In addition they use related approaches, with each integrating Cloudflare into their stacks in a giant means (together with caching your website’s pages on Cloudflare’s international community).
It’s actually nearly selecting the one which’s a greater match on your wants — Rocket.web is a bit of cheaper whereas nonetheless providing glorious efficiency (and rather a lot cheaper for high-traffic websites), whereas Kinsta affords extra superior instruments and choices in its top-tier MyKinsta dashboard.
To find much more high quality hosts, you may want to try our full roundup of the quickest WordPress internet hosting.
Do you continue to have any questions on Rocket.web vs Kinsta WordPress internet hosting? Tell us in the feedback!
