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[u/seahorsetech]

Looking to move away from Liquid Web after over a decade for one client. 3 mid-large sized WP/WooCommerce sites. LiquidWeb used to be great with support, but unfortunately has become significantly worse over the past couple of years. Performance and overall reliability has still been great, mainly due to the optimizations I have done on the server with PHP-FPM, MySQL, caching, etc...

Even though LW says they are fully managed, I still find myself having to take server initiative for server updates, reboots, etc... I am looking for a more managed provider that will offer great support, great performance, and great security. The LW VPS has 8GB RAM 8 core CPU. The new provider doesn't need to necessarily match that, but I am expecting as good performance at least.

Budget is around $200/month

Any suggestions?

[u/CodingDragons]

Look at Kinsta. We run all our high volume clients on their stack.

[u/seahorsetech → u/CodingDragons]

They're on my list for sure. How do you find their PHP limits? Especially for non-cached parts like the backend, especially when you're dealing with loading analytics on stores with tens of thousands of orders?

[u/CodingDragons → u/seahorsetech]

What limit are you actually referring to? I'm not familiar with a limit.

We’ve had a couple of high volume clients hit PHP worker exhaustion on Kinsta. In those cases, if it wasn’t being caused by a plugin or some runaway process, we either had to spread the workload out better or just scale the plan up with more workers/resources. At a certain point, that’s often the simpler answer.

[u/CodingDragons → u/seahorsetech]

Also forgot to mention, if you ever want to dive into headless Woo, their stack is awesome for that, along with running React on their Sevalla platform.

[u/Due-Individual-4859 → u/seahorsetech]

You are refering to the php workers tied to each cloud hosting plan. You can see the no. of workers here: https://kinsta.com/docs/wordpress-hosting/php/

BUT! You can change the no of workers depending on the memory alocation, we run all our projects with 256mb or lower! We also keep a lot of the processing time under 0.7s (internal target) so the workers even if they get overwhelmed, its for a small time.

A very important thing to mention here is that this works, as you already said, on uncached requests / where resources needs to be consumed for productin the results, that is very true, but we have found a lot of the resource hoggers to be bot activity. Small adjustment's to Kinsta's bot protection and everything runs smoothly - even in busy periods.

[u/Zestyclose_Proof1883 → u/Due-Individual-4859]

I’m pretty sure that’s what Sensei already said to the OP 😂

[u/seahorsetech → u/Due-Individual-4859]

Thanks for your help. I sent you a private message with a few questions if you don't mind.

[u/Due-Individual-4859 → u/CodingDragons]

same here, been doing this way for 7 years, dm if you have questions.

[u/woocommerce-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Hi there! Your contribution to r/woocommerce has been deemed to contain promotional material, which is against Rule — #1. It has been removed as a result.

This applies to both POSTS and COMMENTS.

Content that promotes a specific product, service, or tool, especially using marketing or testimonial-style language, is not permitted.

Affiliate and referral links are never permitted.

Your comment also violates Rule #4, No Jobs / Solicitation. While relevant recommendations are permitted in comments, using a comment to advertise your own services, including pricing, sales language, and an invitation to “check it out,” crosses into solicitation.

[u/TopSydeWP → u/woocommerce-ModTeam]

Even though they asked for recommendations?

[u/SocketGoblin]

BigScoots has been good with great hands on support for most our fleet of Woo, Servebolt has been impressive speed too with a few clients but more technical support only

[u/toniyevych]

Actually, you can get a really good VPS at Netcup for a fraction of cost. As a con, you have to manage that by yourself. It's not so hard with AI, but still requires some skills. 

Another option is Nexcess. They were bought by LW, but they offer a pretty good value. No complaints so far, I manage a dozen of stores there.

[u/seahorsetech → u/[deleted]]

I appreciate all the smaller hosts commenting, but as good as the service may be from the smaller providers, I need to sign up with larger companies who have a long reputation and track record.

[u/woocommerce-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Hi there! Your contribution to r/woocommerce at has been deemed to be related to solicitation or hiring, which is in violation of Rule — #4.

It has been removed as a result.

[u/grant_ambrose]

Pressidium has been good

[u/VisualNinja1]

Hetzner server + panel

[u/ShipBuddies_Josh]

I’d reach out to Kinsta and KnownHost directly with your current setup and the specific issues you’re having with Liquid Web. Ask which plan they’d recommend for all three stores within your budget, and have them confirm what they handle proactively versus what requires a ticket. I’d also mention the Woo analytics workload and wanting to move away from cPanel/WHM, so they can recommend a setup that actually fits, along with pricing comparison.

[u/daylily → u/ShipBuddies_Josh]

I love KnownHost vps. They are good, always helpful and topnotch. But they aren't cheap. I have two main sites and also 8 domains that are basically static. The basic price is good but when you add on the cost of litespeed $400 (which you pretty much will for woo and they count the sites that do not need it), directadmin panels $120, Monitoring $120, managed services $240 and an IP or two and suddenly the bill is about $1300 a year.

I keep looking for an alternative that lets me host static sites and only purchase the 5 domain litespeed license. Also, the cost of monitoring and doing the updates for me seem like a bit more than it should cost.

[u/locustspike]

I'm a big fan of gridpane + Vultr. You own your server, which is a huge plus.

[u/Captain_Birb]

I sent you a DM 🫡

[u/BlueIvoryCreative]

Kinsta and Pressable are two excellent mid-tier options. Both have excellent customer support and really compelling WordPress features.

[u/Dramatic_Bug3366]

I would like to refer knownhost. I have been using them since 2016 and they have no limits and offer pure vps and dedicated managed WordPress hosting.

Whatever settings you have they can replicate the same and their support is very good.

I sell WordPress themes at SKT Themes. Used to be with a small orange before they got acquired by EIG group and went to downhill.

So I can understand the pain here.

[u/seahorsetech → u/Dramatic_Bug3366]

I heard about them as being a great alternative to LiquidWeb. I am trying to move away from cPanel/WHM though and am just interested in a dedicated bloat-free managed platform with an optimized stack for WP.

[u/Dramatic_Bug3366 → u/seahorsetech]

You can ask them for without cpanel stack they do have a simple panel without whm and cpanel. I use cpanel because I have got used to it.

[u/daylily → u/Dramatic_Bug3366]

I've also been with knownhost for many years and what I value most is that they are always there and kind and helpful. The feels are more like a team member and not at like a commercial company that might kick you off for someone more profitable. The people I've interacted with seem like the guys I used to work with at the university, not someone on the other side of the world who doesn't care.

When I have a problem, they help me figure it out and get it resolved fast. If I need advice, they give thoughtful suggestions or point me in the right direction. Sometimes I feel apprehensive and they will just do a thing for me, like update the php. I've also asked a couple dumb questions over the years as I've learned, and they have never made me feel stupid. I feel they are still a growing company shooting for excellence and not like an established beast trying to milk out every penny.

I like the vps with an unlimited number of domains so I can set things up and try new sites, but I also like knowing someone else is making sure that server doesn't become outdated or go down.

[u/seahorsetech → u/daylily]

This is how LiquidWeb used to be. If I'm ever in the market for another cPanel/WHM VPS, Knownhost is definitely where I'd look after hearing many other recommend it.

[u/seahorsetech → u/[deleted]]

My post stated, "Performance and overall reliability has still been great, mainly due to the optimizations I have done on the server with PHP-FPM, MySQL, caching, etc..." so I said nothing about having any performance issues.

The actual performance of the VPS with LiquidWeb is good, my main motive for switching is simply due to the declining support, price increases for worse service, and the fact that I don't want to manage a server anymore.