Hosting.com vs Liquid Web
Hosting.com and Liquid Web compared on measured uptime, response time, pricing and features from our own tests. They tie on overall score.
By Jennifer T. · Updated
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Verdict
7.7 out of 10
The former A2 Hosting under World Host Group: stated cores and RAM, 30-day backups, staging from Pro, phone support
7.7 out of 10
Lansing's managed host since 1997: WordPress plans from $9 with Cloudflare edge CDN and a 100% network SLA, no refunds
Both hosts score 7.7 overall.
How do the scores compare?
Hosting.com leads on 1 sub-scores, Liquid Web on 1. Higher is better.
| Hosting.com | Liquid Web | |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | 8.5 (better) | 7.5 |
| Uptime | 8.0 | 8.0 |
| Support | 6.0 | 8.0 (better) |
| Features | 8.5 | 8.5 |
| Value | 7.0 | 7.0 |
| Ease of use | 7.5 | 7.5 |
Which one is faster and more reliable?
| Hosting.com | Liquid Web | |
|---|---|---|
| Overall score | 7.7 | 7.7 |
| Uptime (published)Kripesh Adwani 365 d vs HostingStep 365 d; methods differ | 99.99% | 99.99% |
| Response time (published)HostingStep vs HostingStep; methods differ | 500 ms | 496 ms (better) |
Which one costs less?
On renewal, Liquid Web is cheaper ($9.00/mo vs $13.99/mo). Intro prices need the listed term.
| Hosting.com | Liquid Web | |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest plan | Starter | Essentials WordPress |
| Intro price | $1.99/mo (better) | $9.00/mo |
| Renewal price | $13.99/mo | $9.00/mo (better) |
| Required term | 48 months | 1 months (better) |
| Websites | 5 | 1 |
| Storage | 15 GB | 15 GB |
| Money back | 30 days (better) | 0 days |
What does each include?
| Hosting.com | Liquid Web | |
|---|---|---|
| Free domain | First year | No |
| Free SSL | Standard on Starter and Pro; premium certificate on Max | Free SSL certificates on the WordPress plans |
| Daily backups | Stored off-server, restore to any point in the last 30 days | Not stated |
| Staging | 3 sites on Starter, 20 on Pro, 200 on Max | Staging sites with visual comparison on Pro and Elite; not on Essentials |
| Free managed migration | Yes | Not stated |
| Web application firewall and malware removal | Yes | Not stated |
| Caching and hardware | LiteSpeed caching, tuned MySQL, AMD EPYC CPUs, NVMe storage | Not stated |
| AI website builder for WordPress | Yes | Not stated |
| OpenAPI and MCP server | On every plan; Claude skills pack and Node.js from Pro | Not stated |
| Uptime guarantee | 99.9% per month; 5% of the service fee credited per hour of unscheduled downtime, up to the full month, on request | 100% network uptime in the SLA with credits up to the monthly charge, claimed within days of an outage; the managed VPS page states 99.9% server uptime |
| Service level agreement | Max plan only | Not stated |
| Phone support | +1 (734) 222-4678, 24/7/365 | 24/7 by phone, chat and ticket |
| Windows hosting | No | On VPS and dedicated servers |
| Backups | Not stated | Daily backups kept 7, 14 or 30 days by tier; Acronis backup storage on managed VPS |
| Free migration | Not stated | A self-serve migration tool and migration by a person on every WordPress plan |
| Free CDN | Not stated | Edge CDN powered by Cloudflare on every WordPress plan; CDN overage is usage-billed |
| Caching | Not stated | Object Cache Pro on every WordPress plan |
| Security | Not stated | DDoS protection, WAF, Kadence Security Pro and daily malware scans on every plan; Patchstack virtual patching on Elite |
| Resource limits | Not stated | WordPress plans are sized by visitors (50,000 a month on the entry tiers), shared storage and bandwidth; managed VPS plans state vCPU, RAM, SSD and bandwidth |
| Data center choice | Not stated | Lansing, Phoenix, Ashburn and Amsterdam, selected on the purchase screen where a plan offers it |
| Managed VPS | Not stated | Fully managed from $72 a month for 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 80 GB SSD and 3 TB; cPanel, InterWorx or Plesk; Windows available |
Company facts
| Hosting.com | Liquid Web | |
|---|---|---|
| Control panel | cPanel with the hosting.com panel on top | Liquid Web's own platform for WordPress plans; cPanel, InterWorx or Plesk on VPS |
| Data centers | 5 (better) | 4 |
| Support channels | chat, ticket, phone, email, knowledge-base | chat, phone, ticket, knowledge-base |
| Founded | 2003 | 1997 |