Liquid Web vs WestHost: guide for 2024

Liquid Web vs WestHost: Final verdict

Looking over Liquid Web vs. WestHost, it’s clear why both hosts are so popular. They have both hosted millions of
websites that run on WordPress for decades, building up a loyal customer base.

• 
  Liquid Web (Overall grade: 8.7)
  
  delivers premium performance with its fully managed hosting solutions. It excels with advanced features like SSD options, high-end servers, and a 100% uptime SLA for network and power. The platform’s proactive monitoring, extensive security measures, and compliance with PCI, GDPR, and HIPAA make it suitable for high-traffic websites and businesses focused on long-term growth. Although premium-priced, Liquid Web’s excellent support and rapid response times ensure reliability and operational security, ideal for complex and data-intensive workloads.
• 
  WestHost (Overall grade: 7.8)
  
  stands out for affordability and ease of use, making it appealing to smaller projects and agencies managing multiple websites. It offers a range of budget-friendly plans with shared hosting, WordPress hosting, and VPS options. Despite some limitations in advanced hardware and compliance features, WestHost provides good performance, solid uptime, and essential security measures. Free domains, SSL certificates, and ease of use with their custom control panel and one-click app installations make WestHost a cost-effective choice for users looking for straightforward and reliable hosting solutions.

Hosting types offered

Both platforms provide a variety of hosting types, each designed to meet the different needs of users.

Although both offer a variety of hosting plans tailored to different needs, in certain cases, one platform may prove to be more suitable.

Detailed comparison

🏆 Winner Liquid Web: Exceptional uptime and availability guarantees with proactive monitoring and rapid support responses.

Liquid Web impresses with a comprehensive suite of uptime-focused features such as multi-server high availability hosting and a 100% network and power uptime SLA. The proactive Sonar™ monitoring team ensures round-the-clock oversight, and their 30-minute hardware replacement guarantee highlights their commitment to minimizing downtime. The 59-second initial response guarantee for support adds an extra layer of reliability.

WestHost provides solid uptime performance backed by a 99.995% service level agreement and a globally distributed network of data centers. Despite lacking a specific uptime guarantee, a one-month monitoring period recorded a 100% uptime. Security and redundancy measures ensure the reliability of their centers, though their speed performance was rated as average.

🏆 Winner Liquid Web: Offers superior hosting performance with comprehensive support and high customer satisfaction.

When comparing the general performance of Liquid Web and Westhost, Liquid Web stands out with its advanced SSD options, up to 128 GB of RAM, and Intel Xeon processors. Liquid Web ensures 100% uptime SLAs for network and power, and offers built-in DDoS protection and standard firewall, contributing to faster load times and enhanced security. While Westhost also features SSDs and high-speed VPS cloud hosting, Liquid Web’s proactive monitoring and high-performance servers give it a slight edge. Both providers offer CDN services, with Westhost including it in higher-tier plans and Liquid Web integrating it seamlessly into their managed WordPress and WooCommerce hosting solutions. Liquid Web and Westhost both have a global network of data centers, ensuring good redundancy and accessibility.

Website Speed

Liquid Web provides various options for website acceleration including VM-based environments, AMD EPYC processors in their VPS hosting, and NVMe or SSD storage in their dedicated servers. This setup guarantees swift read/write commands and efficient data handling, contributing to faster website load times. Their managed WordPress and WooCommerce hosting include image compression and content delivery via a global CDN, further enhancing speeds. On the other hand, Westhost also offers SSD storage and a high-performance network feature but lacks the same level of advanced hardware specifics. While both provide a robust foundation for speed, Liquid Web’s superior hardware choices offer slightly better performance.

Scalability

Liquid Web offers easy scalability with next-gen VPS hosting, providing memory- and CPU-optimized plans. Users can benefit from automatic monthly autoscaling in their managed WordPress hosting and dedicated servers with up to 16 cores and 128 GB RAM. Westhost offers a range of VPS plans that can be upgraded manually. However, details on elastic scaling for Westhost are not specified. Liquid Web appears to offer more flexibility and options for scaling, particularly with its managed hosting solutions and custom multi-server environments, though exact costs for scaling can vary and aren’t clearly defined.

🏆 Winner
Liquid Web: A comprehensive suite of security features and compliance solutions makes Liquid Web stand out.

Technical security measures:

Liquid Web offers a robust set of technical security features, including SSL certificates, firewalls, VPNs, DDoS attack protection, and intrusion detection systems. They support multiple PHP versions, enhancing compatibility for various applications. On the other hand, Westhost provides SSL certificates through Let’s Encrypt, supports PHP versions from 5.3 to 8.2, and offers SiteLock for basic malware protection. While both hosting providers prioritize security, Liquid Web’s extensive range of solutions and support towers above.

Operational security measures:

Liquid Web provides PCI, GDPR, and HIPAA compliance, ensuring a secure infrastructure for sensitive data. They maintain fully managed services, vulnerability remediation, and real-time monitoring. Westhost, though, offers fundamental protection measures such as fraud, virus, and spam protection, FTPS, SSH access, and a managed security clean-up service. Westhost assures a 99.9% uptime guarantee and continuous technical support. Yet, the breadth and depth of Liquid Web’s operational security show greater effort in this area.

Compliance and certifications:

Liquid Web is notable for its strict adherence to various regulatory requirements, including PCI, GDPR, and HIPAA. They provide multiple reports and offer full management to ensure continual compliance. Westhost is GDPR compliant under the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield but lacks specific mention of PCI and HIPAA compliance. The thorough compliance and certifications from Liquid Web give it a decisive advantage.

🏆 Winner Liquid Web: Offering fully managed hosting with specialized options and robust support, Liquid Web stands out for its comprehensive feature set.

Examining both hosting providers reveals distinct strengths suited to various needs. Liquid Web focuses on fully managed hosting solutions with high availability and compliance capabilities, such as HIPAA and PCI. Known for proactive management and rapid support response times, Liquid Web caters to those needing top-tier, dependable service. They offer a range of managed hosting options, including VPS, Windows, WooCommerce, and WordPress hosting. This high-end service is designed for complex and data-intensive workloads. While FTP/SFTP isn’t explicitly mentioned, support for cPanel and Plesk implies its availability alongside included root access for SSH.

Westhost, on the other hand, offers more budget-friendly options starting at $1/month, making it accessible for smaller projects or personal use. With features like unlimited FTP users, over 80 free applications, and a user-friendly StackCP control panel, Westhost appeals to users looking for flexibility and ease of use without breaking the bank. Westhost supports unlimited external domains, free SSL certificates, and a variety of one-click apps for easy installations. They also provide FTP protocol over SSL and SSH access, catering to users who need secure file transfer options.

Both providers support a range of users from beginners to experts with user-friendly website builders and WordPress staging areas. However, in terms of developer tools, both Liquid Web and Westhost offer robust options including SSH access, support for multiple programming languages, and Git for version control, thus appealing to developers looking for advanced capabilities.

Email services:

Both providers offer comprehensive email hosting services. Liquid Web includes unlimited email support with its Managed WordPress hosting. Westhost provides personalized mailboxes with a user-friendly webmail interface. Neither provider mentions transactional email capabilities explicitly, but Westhost offers extensive virus and spam protection, making it a reliable choice for everyday email needs. Neither provider highlights the reselling of third-party services such as Google Workspace.

By understanding these key differences, users can choose the hosting provider that best fits their particular needs and budget.

🏆 Winner Westhost:Affordable and feature-rich plans suitable for diverse hosting needs.

Evaluating the pricing of plans among various hosting providers can be complex due to their differing pricing and renewal strategies. Additionally, certain plans require annual commitments, which adds to the difficulty of making comparisons. The prices listed are based on monthly commitments; plans requiring annual commitments are indicated. Additionally, although some providers offer identical plans for WordPress and shared hosting, we have created separate tables for each to enhance clarity.

Liquid Web offers a range of hosting solutions including Managed WooCommerce and WordPress hosting, along with Cloud Dedicated Servers. Pricing varies significantly after initial discounts. Westhost, on the other hand, presents more straightforward and cost-effective web hosting and VPS hosting options. Westhost’s plans are generally cheaper, featuring unmetered bandwidth and numerous freebies like free domains, which are absent in Liquid Web’s more premium-priced packages.

Enterprise plans

Liquid Web provides high-end enterprise solutions with managed databases, load balancers, and disaster recovery services. These plans are customizable and come with 24/7 human support, ensuring uptime and data integrity. Meanwhile, Westhost’s offerings are more straightforward but less comprehensive, focusing primarily on scalability with their VPS offerings. For extensive enterprise needs, Liquid Web’s dedicated managed services make it a superior choice.

🏆 Winner Liquid Web: Efficient and user-friendly managed hosting services with comprehensive support options.

Liquid Web offers a variety of control panels including InterWorx, Plesk, and WHM/cPanel, making it highly accessible for both technical and non-technical users. These control panels provide straightforward interfaces for managing servers and websites. Their Managed WordPress Hosting simplifies site management with automatic plugin updates and proactive monitoring. On the other hand, Westhost’s offering centers around a custom website builder, making it easy for non-technical users to create websites quickly. They also support one-click installs for over 80 applications like WordPress and Joomla, which enhances user accessibility but may lack the depth of management tools offered by Liquid Web.

In terms of site migration tools, Liquid Web provides complimentary migrations for new server orders for most hosting control panels such as InterWorx, Plesk, and cPanel. This service ensures that migrating your site to Liquid Web is not only straightforward but also cost-free, making it an excellent option for those looking to switch providers. Westhost also offers a Migration Center to assist with moving websites, but it’s less clear whether this service is free or paid. Thus, Liquid Web’s free migration service stands out as a strong advantage.

The quality and accessibility of help center resources are crucial for users of any skill level. Liquid Web excels with its Industry-Leading Knowledge Base, which includes a range of helpful articles, tutorials, and 24/7/365 human support. This information is neatly organized to cover various topics, ensuring users can easily find the help they need. Westhost also provides an extensive help center covering domains, email hosting, web hosting, and more. They offer 24/7 support through live chat and a ticketing system. Both platforms provide comprehensive resources, but Liquid Web’s 59-second response time and detailed Knowledge Base give it an edge.

The platforms provide extensive knowledge bases filled with guides, how-to articles, and instructional content. WestHost offers a wide range of resources alongside 24/7 chat and phone support. Liquid Web also boasts a detailed help center with an intuitive search function and around-the-clock support via live chat, phone, and ticketing, ensuring comprehensive user support.

🏆 Winner
Liquid Web: Plesk’s user management and role definition are comprehensive and adaptable.

Liquid Web’s Plesk offers greater flexibility in defining user roles and permissions compared to WestHost’s Site Manager. Plesk includes default roles like Administrator, Webmaster, Application User, and Accountant, each with distinct access levels. Additionally, administrators can create custom roles, allowing for tailored access management. Conversely, WestHost provides basic E-mail and FTP user accounts, with limited customization for roles and permissions, focusing on email and FTP settings rather than comprehensive user management.

Liquid Web’s Plesk features a more intuitive and detailed user interface for managing accounts. Users can access settings via the Subscriptions page in Service Provider View or directly through the Users button in Power User View. Conversely, WestHost’s Site Manager offers a simpler interface, where user management options are accessible from an existing user list. The Plesk interface provides more comprehensive tools and options, facilitating in-depth management, whereas Site Manager prioritizes straightforwardness and basic functionalities.

In terms of access control, Liquid Web’s Plesk shows a more effective approach for managing numerous users. It allows detailed role customization, creating additional administrator accounts, and efficiently delegating tasks. Meanwhile, WestHost is better suited for smaller websites with less demanding access control needs, providing basic user management suitable for simpler configurations. Plesk’s ability to scale and adapt to increasing user numbers and varied access requirements presents a more robust solution for larger, growing websites.

Liquid Web user roles table:

WestHost user roles table:

🏆 Winner
Liquid Web: Offers superior customer support with 24/7 availability and extensive resources.

Liquid Web and WestHost both offer 24/7 customer support, but Liquid Web’s service stands out due to its impressive 59-second initial response guarantee for phone, chat, and helpdesk inquiries. Liquid Web also provides specialty support teams for Windows and Linux, along with a variety of extra resources like webinars, a YouTube channel, and an extensive knowledge base. On the other hand, while WestHost offers solid US-based support and a 30-day money-back guarantee, it suffers from mixed reviews, particularly concerning response times and effectiveness for more complex issues.

WestHost does provide a wide range of support topics and a useful service status page, along with a polite and resourceful support team. Yet, the lack of enterprise-level support options and instances of delayed responses can be a drawback for users with more demanding hosting needs. Liquid Web shines with its dedicated Managed Hosting Advisors, Pre-Sales Solution Architects, and an Enterprise Engineering Team, ensuring a more tailored and responsive customer experience.

Liquid Web vs WestHost: User feedback

User feedback for the hosting provider is highly polarized. Many long-term customers highlight a significant decline in service quality, stating that the once-excellent customer support and reliability have deteriorated dramatically, causing frequent outages, slower load times, and unresponsive support. These users express frustration over questionable billing practices and ill-informed technical help, urging others to avoid the provider. On the other hand, some users praise the company for its proactive, knowledgeable, and prompt support, emphasizing excellent uptime and reliability. These contrasting reviews suggest a mixed experience, with some users experiencing severe service issues while others remain highly satisfied.

Users find WestHost to be a reliable hosting provider with minimal downtime and high-quality support. The competitive pricing is appreciated, but many users express frustration with the outdated documentation and the need for customer support intervention for tasks like updating SSL certificates. While the service itself is smooth and hassle-free, the administrative interface and outdated guides significantly detract from the overall user experience.

Liquid Web vs WestHost: FAQ