We wanted to show you just how great LiteSpeed is in comparison to Apache. So we decided to run a web hosting speed test between ourselves and three other hosts. In addition to this, we wanted to compare the performance of LiteSpeed's LSCache plugin to WP Super Cache.
So for the best results, we split our tests into two categories - Unoptimized vs Optimized - and created a website which would mimic the average website out there.
In order to do the web hosting speed test, we created a one page WordPress website with images, text, parallax effects and animations. We also used Beaver Builder as it is a lightweight page builder to create the website.
We installed the following plugins:
The web hosting speed test was done using:
We then took the averages from these tests and created graphs to show our findings.
What exactly do we mean by unoptimized? We uploaded the website as is without optimizing the images, caching, page speed etc.
Let's take a look at the results below:
Scoring Scale: 90-100 (Fast) - 50-89 (Average) - 0-49 (Slow)
This is measured by the time you navigate to the website to the time when the browser renders the first bit of content.
This is the time it takes for a page to become interactive.
This is the time it takes for a page to fully load upon a second visit once the browser has cached certain items on the page.
Check out the results for yourself
[fl_builder_insert_layout slug="photogallery"]
For the optimized portion of our tests, we gathered all the optimization suggestions from our various tests and put them in place. Since some optimizations could not be done without breaking the sites, we had to leave those out. Furthermore, all websites were optimized in the same way with the only difference being the caching and optimization plugin used. And where the plugin did not edit the .htacess file, we did so ourselves.
WP Super Cache was installed on the Apache hosted websites, and LSCache was installed on the LiteSpeed hosted website. We also activated the LiteSpeed caching function on the server. The only problem with WP Super Cache is that it doesn't provide optimization, just caching, so we went ahead and installed Autoptimize as well.
Before performing the optimized web hosting speed test, we also cleared our browser cache for accurate results.
Let's take a look at the results below:
Scoring Scale: 90-100 (Fast) - 50-89 (Average) - 0-49 (Slow)
This is measured by the time you navigate to the website to the time when the browser renders the first bit of content.
This is the time it takes for a page to become interactive.
This is the time it takes for a page to fully load upon a second visit once the browser has cached certain items on the page.
Check out the results for yourself
[fl_builder_insert_layout slug="optimized-speed-tests"]
Since the majority of websites are not properly optimized, we found the differences in the unoptimized web hosting speed test to be very interesting. Especially important to note is the First Contentful Paint. For this, Google recommends a time of under 2 seconds to prevent users from becoming frustrated and leaving your website.
