Who kills $1,200-Kinsta hosting?

Can you get the speed of a dedicated server on shared hosting?

You can test TTFB at https://bytecheck.com or WebPagetest.org.

Time To First Byte is your server overhead. An excellent TTFB measurement is 200 milliseconds. Typical TTFB is around 400ms to 500ms. And bad is anything over 1 second. In that worst case, most likely database-intensive plugins are hammering server resources. That slows down the server. These are usually the heaviest and most popular plugins. They are writing and reading data and creating databases. These are inferior plugins for:

• SEO
• security
• broken-link checkers
• backup
• caching
• dynamic site map generators
• related posts

REFERENCE: common blacklisted plugins

REFERENCE: WIKI: time to first byte defined

We moved PagePipe blog.

Where? Host Huski. For the best-priced TTFB. Their server response time (or average TTFB) is 169.8 milliseconds. How good is that? It is comparable to the TTFB we’d get on annual Kinsta hosting. How much does Kinsta cost? $1,200 every year ($100 monthly fee). Ouch.

Across the United States and Canada, Kinsta’s average TTFB is 164.0 milliseconds. We love Kinsta’s average TTFB.

But not for $1,200 recurring cost.

We’d rather pay $9 per month for an amazing TTFB of 169.8 milliseconds. That is Host Huski’s average TTFB. Not per their spec, that is from our own real-world testing on our own PagePipe blog after migration. That’s eight different tests over 3 days. Each test was 10 consecutive samples measured with ByteCheck.com online tool. The final result: 169.8 milliseconds. Only 5.8 milliseconds slower than Kinsta. But for a lot less money. Sweet.

A millisecond (ms) is one one-thousandth of a second.
The speed of a human eye blink is 100 to 400 milliseconds.

Why are we smiling? We love finding money-and-speed-saving discoveries like Host Huski.

Good server response is less than the blink of an eye.

We started on cheap GoDaddy shared hosting long ago. Then moved to Rochen. They raised their prices and services slowed down. Badness. So, then PagePipe moved to GreenGeeks for better speed and free SSL.

And now we’re on a Host Huski server. Are we fickle or impulsive or what?

We prefer thinking we’re clever. Sheer speed mania? Maybe.

Are we a Host Huski affiliate?

Host Huski doesn’t permit affiliates. An affiliate makes passive income. What does that mean? It means we’d sit on our backside – and take a piece of the pie when you buy something. They don’t allow that.

Does Host Huski give PagePipe free hosting as endorsement compensation?

We moved to Host Huski as paying customers. Not freeloaders. So you’ll believe us when we say “Host Huski is Kinsta-fast.” They have other incredible benefits. The value is high. We’re discriminating speed fanatics. We’re getting out our wallets as proof. Cash talks. That’s called insistence value. We only want Host Huski and won’t compromise with any substitution or generic product.

Host Huski’s claims and value are beyond “Pinch me.”

This very page you’re reading now is on a Host Huski server.

We know the only way to convince you this is real and truthful is ponying up. We pay for Host Huski services – because we want to prove a point? We are not a lazy sellout with these guys. No kickbacks to us when you move to their fast 169.8-millisecond servers. Suggestion: Move soon for speed sake. Save the internet from WordPress abuse.

We endorse Host Huski above any other web hosts.

Is this support nepotism?

We aren’t related to anyone at Host Huski. One of life’s injustices: we don’t choose our relatives.

But Host Huski are our brothers and sisters of speed. They believe like we do that speed is kindness. It’s a fundamental user experience. You want people to see your beautiful website or read your precious relevant content? You better open the web door fast and courteously.

Do we have equity in Host Huski? Or even Kinsta?

We wish.

Are we insane?

Rabid insane. Everyone hates a slow website.

Why are we so crazy about Host Huski?

TTFB Purity.

The acronym for Time To First Byte is TTFB. It’s server overhead. Or server delay. Or server response time. Those are all ways to say the same thing. We specify TTFB in milliseconds.

What’s a good TTFB?

Do you want a number? Under 200 milliseconds. The faster the better. How bad is bad? Well, SiteGround fluctuates from 200 milliseconds to 1.7 seconds. We know this from testing websites on their servers. That is not good. That sucks. But, they advertise speed as a feature, don’t they? Yeah. They do. They don’t publish a TTFB specification though. 200 milliseconds now and again counts for them. Cherry-picking specs.

TTFB is the time waiting for the initial server response. Delay.

SearchEnginePeople and Google say, “TTFB needs to be less than 200 milliseconds.” How did they come up with that number? We don’t know. It’s estimated Google has 900,000 servers. Even Google gets that wonder speed on their super-duper servers. This number also differs by the type of content on your page. Static content may load in 100 milliseconds. Dynamic content (like ads) may load at a speed of 200 to 500 milliseconds. Remember the performance budget is 2000 milliseconds (2 seconds). 500 milliseconds is 25 percent of your budget. Ouch!

So who is most respected? Kinsta for TTFB. Because they have the gumption to publish their time-to-first-byte specification. Most hosts refuse to commit or publish those numbers. Because they suck.

Except for Host Huski who publishes their TTFB response. And they are only $9 per month. You get a whole year of hosting for what you’d pay Kinsta in one month. With 169.8 milliseconds TTFB, Host Huski is 5.8 milliseconds slower than Kinsta. Insignificant difference. Think about the cost differential.

So. What’s a typical ordinary TTFB response time?

Ordinary (inferior?) TTFB is something like 678 milliseconds on GoDaddy. That would be close. In the 500 to 700-millisecond range. Cost: $9 per month ($108 billed annually). Hey! Same price as Host Husky – but Host Huski bills monthly. That’s good for cash flow..

Can you buy Kinsta’s TTFB for a GoDaddy price?

Yes. How? We told you … Host Huski.

Wait? We get $1,200 Kinsta-like TTFB for $108 annually from Host Huski? Hey! Isn’t that the same price as GoDaddy’s lousy 600+ millisecond TTFB?

Amazing. Do we need to say this again? Kinsta speed at a GoDaddy price.

Host Huski brags with justifiable cause.

1CLAIM: Host Huski provides secure WordPress hosting with extraordinary customer service.

“From the moment I talked to someone all the way through the setup process. It was super easy and they helped me understand what I did not. It was truly refreshing and lifted some anxiety off of my shoulders to have this kind of amazing customer support and help. So happy I found them … Amazing experience!”

— Nick Larson

2One reason customers choose Host Huski is when we say “unmetered bandwidth,” we mean it.

Host Huski: We don’t limit bandwidth. If you use too many resources, your host slaps you with a 503 error for all your visitors to see. That’s a predatory tactic we don’t do. We do what we can to preserve server longevity. But we’re gonna do it in a way that’s almost unnoticeable to you, or your users. If you are using too much CPU your site starts to slow down, but only while you’re using too much CPU. If you’re using too much CPU within a second, that’s very different than too much CPU within a month. So, that’s why this works so well. Not everybody is gonna have traffic up the wazoo all day, every day, all the time.

PagePipe: They’re gonna have spikes.

Host Huski: Yes. And when those spikes occur. Pretty much 99% of the time, nothing happens, because the server doesn’t flinch.

PagePipe: So, they never get kicked offline.

Host Huski: They don’t get kicked off. They don’t get a 503, or up-charged – nothing.

PagePipe: On GoDaddy, when you get close to limits, they email a notification scaring the clients to buy more. It’s terrorist upselling tactics.

Host Huski: Sales tactics like at GoDaddy are, “We’re gonna upsell you until you wanna kill us.” Forget that. Not our style.

Processors (CPU) have performance limits. If you’re consuming CPU, it means you’ve been hacked, or you got some kind of viral offer that no one can ignore. Either way, it needs some action or attention. We don’t kill anyone’s bandwidth. We give everyone a terabyte because we know no one’s gonna use that much headroom.

We monitor bandwidth usage, and if we see anyone who is astronomical, we check it. It could be a virus, or it could be they need a little more help.

PagePipe: Case by case?

Host Huski: Yeah. We’ve not seen anyone hit 50GB of data transfer. But, we’ve seen people hit 30GB though. That’s not too bad. But we’ve not seen anyone hit 50 ever. So, when they hit 100, that’s when we’re gonna be a little concerned..

So, back to resource allocation. CPU, IO, memory, and process. We don’t limit any of that except CPU, because CPU is what slows everything down. So, what we do is, we say “This percentage of CPU resources is available.” So, we start at 150%, which means 1.5 CPUs worth of processing power, and that’s their hard cap. As your server grows, as we add more CPUs, resource allocation increases over time. As we grow, you grow.

The more people we have on the server, the more CPUs, the more memory we need, and the more we provide. No cramming. We don’t use it as an opportunity to force upgrading to an expensive Virtual Private Server. We don’t offer VPS.

3CLAIM: Our prices/packaging remains consistent for new members and long-term customers alike.

PagePipe: Hey, the American government’s printing a lot of greenbacks as bailout money. The U.S. coronavirus bailout is trillions of dollars. That dilutes the money supply by over a third. And the meter is still running. A lot of egghead economists predict hyperinflation is looming on the horizon. Will Host Huski take that in the shorts? Or will they renege on fixed-price deals when profits suffer? If you stay true, this is the inflation-hedge deal of the century.

Host Huski: Any product with a price-lock is price-locked forever. Anything that doesn’t, isn’t locked. Maintenance plans and domains cannot be price-locked because those have variable overhead. That’s life.

PagePipe: What if you discontinue the service we’re using?

Host Huski: We support even the stuff that’s canceled. Anyone who still has it still gets it, and continues to use it, and have it at the same price. We’re not punishing anyone for the future. If they make a decision now, it’s not gonna bite them. They’re locked in.

4CLAIM: Our North America-based customer support team answers questions 24/7 in a language our web hosting customers can understand.

PagePipe: How is this exorbitant overhead magically covered? How do you keep costs low? Are you saying you don’t subcontract with India or Philippine web workers on Fiverr?

Host Huski – Our North American support team is available around the clock. We answer any questions you may have and create and escalate tickets to our experts. We provide the support you want when you need it. And it’s no secret. It’s not Fiverr. It’s magic.

5Host Huski has two WordPress plans that interest us. Both with unmetered resources:

Siberian: $9 monthly, 5 GB Disk, 3 Databases, 1x SSL, Pro-rata Billing Available

Malamute: $15 monthly, 10 GB Disk, 3 Databases, 3x SSL, Pro-rata Billing Available

Why the dog names? We’re curious. A theme or motif? We’re no Husky experts. But the word husky has good implications: strength, robust, sturdy. Corrupted English spelling (Huski) helps protect it as a unique trademark. OK. We accept it.

Husky: hard workers, reliable, durable, tougher.

Host Huski: Our expansions are available above the three-site limit for Malamute and Siberian. The site limit is from the MySQL database limit.

We don’t consider databases a resource, because they’re not consumable. They’re an asset that you use and fill.

Our limits apply to anything impacting storage space, such as gigs of storage and database count.

If you need more than one plan, the partner program comes into play. Because then we’re saying “thank you” for buying so many plans with us. Here is a tier-sliding discount on future purchases as you continue to grow with us.

So, the partner program starts at 15% off, and the only requirement is that you have more than one plan. There’s no membership fee. We’re saying, “Please, become a partner, and enjoy the savings” – and keep adding more hosting plans. The discount is an incentive to buy more. If you need more than 3 sites in your plan, then you should become a partner – and get discounts.

Goodies included with each package.

Technology

Solid State Diskspace – The expectation of SSD drives are becoming pretty common. $0.25 per extra gigabyte. “Unmetered resources” doesn’t mean unlimited disk space. There is a charge for extra space above the plan. But if your site uses even 4 gigabytes of space, you’ve got a weird site problem. PagePipe’s entire blog and media library fit in 330 megabytes of space.

LiteSpeed Server – We like this feature. Exclude eCommerce transaction pages from caching. We know LiteSpeed already covers WooCommerce by default. But not other eCommerce plugins – like Easy Digital Downloads. So it’ll break transactions for anything that’s not Woo-related if you aren’t aware. It’s fixable with exclusions. But PagePipe found out the hard way years ago – lost sales.

CloudLinux OS – You know we hate Cloudflare. But that isn’t what this is. It sounds like a CDN. But it’s not. Then it feels more like a virtual server than a shared hosting account.

Cloud Linux is what’s called a localized virtual environment. It compartmentalizes accounts as if they were their own VPS (Virtual Private Server). Virtualization technology splits one powerful server into many virtual servers. One piece of physical hardware then functions like several separate servers.

The benefit is no one hogs server resources at the expense of their neighbors. Everybody’s compartmentalized into set limitations. You’re still sharing with neighbors. If someone malicious is on a server, the only one affected is themselves. No one else is affected because they’re all isolated.

It’s secure as well. So, they cannot get outside of their folder. No matter how hard they try. They’re not allowed to. So, CloudLinux protects the server as a whole, too.

You get reliable performance without interruptions. No matter what else is going on with other sites on the server, your site will run at full capacity. No more outages and crashes to worry about.

Cpanel – We love Cpanel access.

C-panel servers only run with the Lightspeed paid version. Performance is better in the paid version as well. Host Huski pays for that. Not the customer. You can write to the HT Access file for speed tricks like selective plugin activation.

US Data Centers – OK. Good to know. A well-optimized site loads fast globally without CDN. Geographic server location isn’t a problem then. CDN isn’t required.

Security

Host Huski has many ways to find malware and remove it quickly. The normal fee for Host Huski to do virus removal for you is $250 per site infected. Now, this is something you request. They don’t just do it without telling you. Keep in mind security needs attention. Host Huski may suspend services on infected accounts that are doing malicious things like spam mailing or phishing.

Server Firewall – OK. Nice. That eliminates a plugin.

IP Blocking, Whitelisting

Compatibility

One-Click WordPress Installer – Most popular hosts offer this. WordPress is easier with cPanel. One-click is all you need to get WordPress installed or cloned for staging your latest changes. Installs and staging are available from your cPanel dashboard.

WordPress Staging/Cloning – Many hosts don’t offer staging for testing. Not on low-cost hosting anyway. We love this feature.

Email

Host Huski catches infections and alerts people they’re happening. We suspend PHP mail for hacked accounts sending spam at rates of 1000 an hour.

HuskiMail for $3 per month per inbox.

Questions About Host Huski

How am I billed for my hosting?

Host Huski charges your card every month. No manual payments are required.

Do you offer/register domains?

Yes! You can register your domain when you buy hosting (or separately). Host Huski offers .com for only $12 per year. Other domain pricing may vary. You can see our domain pricing when you search for one. We try very hard to keep our domain prices low. If you aren’t seeing the domain type you want, contact us!

Is Host Huski a reseller for someone else’s hosting?

Nope! We’re your host. We are not a hosting reseller. We provision a virtual dedicated server on the cloud. A data center is providing hardware but we provide everything else! That includes software, firewalls, security, etc.

Does Host Huski advertise low prices and increase costs later?

Nope. That’s the reason we started Hos

t Huski: to rescue people from shady tactics like this. We even guarantee our prices won’t go up for specifically marked products. Ever. Period. Guaranteed.

Do I get free SSL with my hosting plan?

Yes. Siberian and Malamute plans include lifetime constantly-renewed SSL, for no charge.

NOTE: This is a big deal when you consider what GoDaddy charges – $70 to $100 per year per domain. They will eventually offer it free. But for now, they’re making too much money to let go of it. They use scare tactics to sell it to saps. They called PagePipe and said, ‘You’re no longer compliant with Google recommendations. Your ranking will be damaged.” The only reason we need SSL is to comply with PayPal requirements so we can get paid.

Does Host Huski secure their servers so I won’t get hacked?

Host Huski works hard to keep everything safe. Being careless with WordPress updates or using easy passwords isn’t good. But we will *educate* you on how to keep things safe.

Do you perform free site migration?

Complicated Website migrations are time-consuming. It depends on the size of a website and how it links up with your new creation. You need an expert to handle it. We do a free migration with your hosting purchase.

What does Host Huski technical support cover?

We assist with technical issues related to DNS settings, server up-time issues, website transfers, and more. We will not be able to assist you with questions about WordPress or other more advanced topics.

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Host Huski web hosting plans

• Secure WordPress Hosting
• Unmetered Bandwidth
• Free SSL for life
• Faster speed than a dedicated server.
• One-click WordPress staging and installs
• North American-based customer support agents available 24/7
• Free migration.
• 24/7 support

PagePipe is not an affiliate of Host Huski or Kinsta.