WordPress consumes a fair amount of server resources, places higher demands on hosting, and is popular enough to attract frequent attacks if hosting security is weak. Because WordPress is so popular, there are many hosting providers to choose from. That means we need to evaluate hosting speed and stability carefully when choosing WordPress hosting space.
How to choose WordPress hosting
The first thing to look at is speed. We can judge a WordPress host’s speed from the following aspects.
- Ping time: Ping reflects the network response time of the server. The lower the ping, the shorter the response time, and usually the faster the site loads.
- Download speed: Ask the host provider for a large file download URL and test it in a browser. Because visitors load your site through a browser, you should also test with a browser instead of a download tool.
- Host stability: This has to be tested directly. You can try the host for a month. If the site does not become slow or inaccessible during that period, the host is usually reasonably stable.
- Resource limits: Ask the provider how each virtual host is limited in its use of resources. One important point is that fewer limits are not always better. If the limits are too loose, other tenants may consume more resources and reduce what is available for your own site.
Choose domestic hosting or overseas hosting?
From the perspective of ping time and response speed, domestic hosting will naturally have lower latency than overseas hosting.
Domestic bandwidth often comes with more restrictions, whether in the form of traffic limits or capped bandwidth. Another unavoidable issue with domestic hosting is that it generally requires备案. If you cannot complete that process for any reason, then overseas hosting becomes the practical option.
When choosing overseas hosting, it usually makes sense to choose a location geographically close to China. Among the locations with good ISP resources, Hong Kong and Japan are the obvious choices. This site itself used the Hong Kong VPS from Hengtian Host.
- Hong Kong hosting usually provides less traffic but lower ping. If your site does not have very high traffic, Hong Kong hosting is worth considering.
- Japan generally has better bandwidth resources. If your site has heavier traffic, Japanese hosting is often a better option. In practice, many Japanese servers are offered by U.S.-based providers with Japanese datacenter availability, such as Linode or Vultr.
