Oh, Rocket.net. The only host I’ve tried in 10 years who averages a 100ms global TTFB.
Since I use them, you can test my TTFB and compare it with your own. You would do this by testing each site 3 times in KeyCDN or SpeedVitals which measures TTFB in 10-40 worldwide locations (3 times is needed to make sure caching works and that the CDN uses the closest data center). Mine usually averages ~100ms, but feel free to test it yourself. LCP is also around 250ms.
There are 3 key reasons for this:
- Hosting/CDN are the 2 main TTFB factors.
- TTFB is 40% of LCP and also part of FCP/INP.
- Both Rocket.net’s hosting + Cloudflare Enterprise have faster specs/features than my previous 2 hosts (SiteGround Cloud + Cloudways Vultr HF) as well as Kinsta/WPE/WPX.
It’s private cloud hosting with better specs like 32 CPU cores + 128GB RAM, NVMe SSDs, MariaDB, LiteSpeed’s PHP, Redis (Redis Object Cache Pro on the Business plan), and no PHP worker limits. This outperforms nearly every host which usually looks like this: less cores/RAM, slower SATA SSDs, MySQL, FastCGI or PHP-FPM, Memcached, and low CPU + PHP worker limits.
Cloudflare Enterprise is a powerhouse for reducing TTFB. Rocket.net’s is not only free, but thanks to Ben Gabler’s experience as StackPath’s Chief Product Officer and close relationships with Cloudflare, it’s also the most complete integration of any host (other hosts like Cloudways, Kinsta, and WP Engine only do partial integrations with many missing features). On top of their massive network of 285 PoPs, you get full page caching, Mirage/Polish for image optimization, and much faster routing between prioritized routing, Argo Smart Routing, and load balancing.
I originally discovered Rocket.net through this Facebook conversation. I went through their all 5/5 star TrustPilot reviews and after talking with Ben Gabler (CEO) and learning his background, I moved. The only reason they’re not “popular” is because they launched in 2020 and don’t do aggressive marketing. But you can see many people moving to them, they’re getting popular in Facebook groups, and I’ve seen ex-SiteGround customers move with a 452% LCP improvement.
With unlimited free migrations + $1 your 1st month, they had my site ready in hours. The only thing I did initially was upgrade PHP versions and spend 15 minutes learning their dashboard. Support did the rest and many of them have over 20 years experience, so you’re in good hands.
- 100ms global TTFB + faster LCP/FCP
- Comparing their specs to similar hosts
- Why their Cloudflare Enterprise is faster
- 32 CPU cores + 128GB RAM + NVMe SSDs on all plans
- Redis (Redis Object Cache Pro on their Business plan)
- Less limits: CPU cores/RAM, PHP workers, visits, memory
- WooCommerce optimized
- Top performer in Kevin Ohashi’s benchmarks
- Look at Ben Gabler’s background and watch his interviews
- Price: lower bandwidth but no hidden limits/add-ons
- Support is night and day
- Facebook feedback + all 5/5 TrustPilot reviews
- $1 your 1st month with unlimited free migrations
- Use Rocket.net + FlyingPress (same setup I use)
- The cliché “best/fastest” host I’ve used in 10 years
1. 100ms Global TTFB + Faster LCP/FCP
To understand why Rocket.net averages 100ms and other hosts don’t, you need to know how TTFB works and which features improve it (such as full page caching, prioritized routing, Argo Smart Routing, and Cloudflare’s network with 285 locations and 197 Tbps data transfer speeds).
10 things to know about TTFB:
- Hosting/CDN are the 2 biggest TTFB factors.
- TTFB is 40% of LCP and also part of FCP/INP.
- Which means it impacts 4/6 user metrics in PSI.
- SpeedVitals measures TTFB in 40 global locations.
- Test your site 3 times in SpeedVitals for accurate numbers.
- Doing this ensures your caching/CDN are working properly.
- Check your average TTFB of all 40 locations in your 3rd test.
- PSI + GTmetrix only test TTFB in 1 location (use SpeedVitals or KeyCDN).
- Google flags your TTFB if it’s over 600ms, but 100-200ms is obviously better.
- WP Hosting Benchmark also tests hosting performance (here are my results).
You can test my site in other tools or click through it:
2. Comparing Their Specs To Similar Hosts
Here’s another table comparing Rocket.net vs. WPX, WP Engine, Flywheel.
SiteGround Cloud Jump Start Plan | Kinsta Starter Plan | Cloudways Vultr HF (2GB) | Rocket.net Starter Plan | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Type | Cloud | Cloud (shared containers) | Cloud | Private cloud |
Server | Apache + Nginx | Apache + Nginx | Apache + Nginx | Apache + Nginx |
Nginx reverse proxy | ✓ | $50/mo | ✓ | ✓ |
Cores/RAM | 4 cores/8GB | 12 cores/8GB | 1 core/2GB | 32 cores/128GB |
Storage | 40GB SATA | 10GB SATA | 64GB NVMe | 10GB NVMe |
Object cache | Memcached | $100/mo Redis | Redis Pro | Redis (Redis Pro on Business plan) |
PHP processor | FastCGI | FastCGI | FPM | LiteSpeed |
PHP workers | Not listed, but common CPU limits | 2 | No limit | No limit |
Memory limit | Adjustable | 256MB | Adjustable | 1GB |
Database | MySQL | MySQL | MariaDB | MariaDB |
Bandwidth + visits | 5TB/mo | 25k/mo | 2TB/mo | 50GB + 250k/mo |
CDN | $14.99/mo SiteGround CDN | Cloudflare APO + firewall rules (read) | $5/mo Cloudflare Enterprise + challenge pages | Free Cloudflare Enterprise (details) |
CDN locations | 176 | 285 | 285 | 285 |
Full page caching | ✓ | ✓ | x | ✓ |
Smart routing | Anycast | x | Argo | Argo |
Image optimization | Limited | x | Mirage/Polish | Mirage/Polish |
DNS | Blocked by Google (4 days) | Amazon Route 53 | $5/mo DNS Made Easy | Cloudflare |
Cache plugin | SG Optimizer | Use FlyingPress | Breeze | Use FlyingPress |
Data centers | 10 | 35 | 44 | Served from Cloudflare’s edge |
Control panel | Site Tools | MyKinsta | Custom (difficult) | Mission Control |
Email hosting | ✓ | x | x | x |
Support | C | B | C | A |
Migrations | $30/site | Unlimited free | 1 free + $25/site | Unlimited free |
TrustPilot rating | 4.6/5 | 4.2/5 | 4.5/5 | 4.9/5 |
How it starts costing more | High initial price, CPU limits, CDN, price increases, internal incidents | PHP workers, add-ons, monthly visits, bandwidth, price increases | CPU limits, CDN, backups, price increases | Bandwidth |
Incidents | TTFB, DNS, CPU issues, controls Facebook groups | None | Acquired by DigitalOcean, raised prices, removed Vultr/Linode | None |
Monthly price | $100 + CDN | $29 when paying yearly + add-ons | $30 + CDN | $25 when paying yearly (no add-ons) |
Out of these hosts, Rocket.net + Cloudways are the only ones using faster NVMe SSDs, Redis Object Cache Pro, and Cloudflare Enterprise. However, Cloudways’ Cloudflare Enterprise is $5/mo (and worse) and you’re more likely to run into “high CPU usage” from low cores/RAM. With Rocket.net, all plans have 32 CPU cores/128GB RAM with LiteSpeed’s PHP (Cloudways uses FPM). You only get NVMe on DO Premium (they removed Vultr HF after the DigitalOcean acquisition while raising prices). Support is overly technical or expects you to do things after sending how-to articles. Rocket.net’s support does everything for you (for the most part) and the platform is easier – no need to launch servers or configure server/application/CDN settings.
Moving to SiteGround Cloud/Kinsta/WPE/WPX:
All these use slower SATA SSDs, MySQL, have 16x less RAM than Rocket, and do half-ass CDN integrations whether it’s so-called “Cloudflare Enterprise” or their own CDN’s lacking features. You’re likely to run into resource limits which force upgrades from low CPU limits, PHP workers, and Kinsta/WPE both include 10 less monthly visits. Kinsta/WPE also get ridiculously expensive when you take into account low limits, Kinsta’s add-ons, and WPE’s bandwidth overages. WPX is shared hosting who says they target a <400ms international TTFB – so they’re out of the picture. All 4 rely heavily on marketing and do shady things. Whether it’s hiding resource limits on deep inner pages or not listing them all (Kinsta/WPE). SiteGround/WPX make a variety of false claims.
The 5 key differences between these hosts and Rocket.net are: slower technology, harsher resource limits, paid add-ons, lacking features (including their CDNs), and ease of use/support.
3. Why Their Cloudflare Enterprise Is Faster
This has a lot to do with Ben’s experience as StackPath’s Chief Product Officer.
Their Cloudflare Enterprise is the closest thing to “true Enterprise” mainly because it has more features. These help with TTFB/routing, image optimization, security, and dynamic requests on WooCommerce. It’s a big reason Rocket.net averages a 100ms global TTFB and makes choosing a data center close to users pretty much irrelevant. It’s also 100% free and works automatically.
Key Features
- APO – caches HTML and improves TTFB in multiple locations in SpeedVitals.
- Brotli – compresses pages to smaller file sizes compared to GZIP compression.
- Prioritized routing – your traffic gets prioritized which avoids traffic congestion.
- Argo Smart Routing + Tiered Cache – detects traffic congestion and routes traffic through faster network paths. Cloudflare says assets load 30% faster and reduces requests to your origin server. Specifically good for WooCommerce/dynamic sites.
- Load balancing – re-routes traffic from unhealthy origin servers to healthy origins.
- WAF – Rocket.net also has built-in WAF rules, Imunify360, and real-time malware scanning. Which unlike other hosts, protects your site at both server/CDN levels.
- Mirage/Polish – optimizes images without adding bloat or using resources like plugins do. Supports compression, WebP, mobile resizing, and viewport/network optimizations. Polish doesn’t always serve images in WebP (usually if the savings aren’t high enough) which you can check in Chrome Dev Tools. However, when I manually converted images to WebP using a free online converter, savings were often 50%+. So if this happens to you, you can either convert them manually or install a dedicated WebP plugin such as Converter For Media or WebP Express.
- Early Hints – sends early preload & preconnect hints to reduce server wait time.
- Smart caching – smart caching uses less resources when purging the cache by identifying what needs purging and when, then it only purges necessary assets.
- Less challenge pages – unlike Cloudways, Rocket.net serves 0 challenge pages to logged out users and only serves 1 challenge to wp-login, then it’s gone for 1 year.
- 3 less plugins – you shouldn’t need image optimization, security, or CDN plugins.
Most hosts do partial integrations and forget key features like full page caching, smart routing, and image optimization. Or they use their own CDN which has a smaller network + less features.
RocketCDN | SiteGround CDN | FlyingCDN By FlyingPress | FlyingProxy Cloudflare Enterprise | Cloudways Cloudflare Enterprise | Rocket.net Cloudflare Enterprise | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CDN | StackPath | Google Cloud | BunnyCDN | Cloudflare | Cloudflare | Cloudflare |
Tbps | 100 | Not listed | 80 | 192 | 192 | 192 |
Locations | 73 | 176 | 114 | 285 | 285 | 285 |
Full page cache | x | ✓ | x | APO | x | APO |
Brotli | x | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Smart routing | x | Anycast | SmartEdge | x | Argo | Argo |
Priority routing | x | x | x | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Load balancing | x | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Image optimization | x | Very limited | Bunny Optimizer | Mirage/Polish | Mirage/Polish | Mirage/Polish |
Compression | x | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
WebP | x | x | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Mobile resizing | x | x | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Firewall | x | x | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Anti-DDoS | x | x | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Challenge pages | No | No | No | No | Yes | No |
Bandwidth | Not unlimited as advertised | Unmetered | Unlimited | 100GB | 100GB | Determined by hosting plan |
Price | $8.99/mo | $14.99/mo | $.03/GB | $10/mo | $5/mo | Free w/ hosting |
Cloudways copied Rocket.net’s Cloudflare Enterprise and charges $5/mo when it doesn’t support APO and serves annoying challenge pages. Kinsta + WP Engine’s integration aren’t Enterprise since they only include a few Enterprise features. WPX’s CDN (XDN) only has 39 PoPs (compared to Cloudflare’s 285) without full page caching. SiteGround discontinued Cloudflare (previously free) and partnered with Google Cloud to market it as their own CDN for $14.99/mo. Even after v.2, there are complaints it makes your site slower. Besides Rocket, the closest thing to Cloudflare Enterprise is Cloudways + FlyingProxy, but neither support both APO + Argo Smart Routing. Both also cost money, require configuration, and I can just trust Ben’s CDN experience.
4. 32 CPU Cores + 128GB RAM + NVMe SSDs On All Plans
Full details are in this post.
- 2 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2667 v2 @ 3.30GHz (32 Cores)
- 128GB RAM
- RAIDED NVMe SSDs (they switched in 2022 after the post was written)
Kinsta/SiteGround cloud have 16x less RAM and Kinsta limits staging sites to just 1 CPU core (Rocket.net doesn’t). Cloudways/WPX only give you a very small amount of cores/RAM. And while these don’t directly mean a faster site, adding more (upgrading) is often a host’s go-to suggestion for fixing CPU limits. Rather than constantly upgrading, maybe upgrade your host?
NVMe SSDs have about 6x faster read-write speeds than SATA SSDs which are used on most shared/cloud hosts. If you’re paying $100/mo and not using NVMe storage, what are ya doin’?
These tests were done by Rocket.net using WP Hosting Benchmark. The plugin runs tests on CPU/memory, filesystem, database, object cache, and network tests (try it out)!
5. Redis (Redis Object Cache Pro On Their Business Plan)
Redis is more powerful than Memcached, especially since it uses Relay integration which is specifically good for speed/resource usage on WooCommerce/dynamic sites. Several hosts don’t support object cache, use Memcached instead, or Kinsta charges $100/month for Redis. Redis is free on all Rocket.net plans, then Redis Object Cache Pro on the Business plan and up. They use the Redis Object Cache plugin and you’ll need to ask support who will install it for you.
This table can be found on objectcache.pro.
W3 Total Cache | LiteSpeed Cache | WP Redis | Redis Object Cache | Object Cache Pro | |
Performance | |||||
Batch Prefetching | x | x | x | x | ✓ |
Data compression | x | x | x | x | ✓ |
Cache priming | x | x | x | x | ✓ |
Asynchronous flushing | x | x | x | ✓ | ✓ |
Features | |||||
Cache Analytics | x | x | x | ✓ | ✓ |
Secure connections | x | x | x | ✓ | ✓ |
Highly customizable | x | x | x | x | ✓ |
Logging support | x | x | x | x | ✓ |
Cluster support | x | x | x | ✓ | ✓ |
Replication support | x | x | x | ✓ | ✓ |
Reliability | |||||
Mitigates race conditions | x | x | x | x | ✓ |
Extensively unit tested | x | x | x | x | ✓ |
Integrations | |||||
WooCommerce optimized | x | x | x | x | ✓ |
Query Monitor integration | x | x | x | Basic | Advanced |
WP CLI integration | Basic | x | Basic | Basic | Advanced |
Site Health checks | x | x | x | x | ✓ |
Batcache compatible | x | x | x | ✓ | ✓ |
Relay integration | x | x | x | x | ✓ |
6. Less Limits: CPU Cores/RAM, PHP Workers, Visits, Memory
These are why most people have to upgrade on their host.
- CPU/RAM: with 32 CPU cores + 128GB RAM, it’s highly unlikely you’ll need to upgrade from this. I had to go from SiteGround’s GoGeek plan to their $180/mo cloud hosting because of this. Can also happen on other hosts who don’t give you enough resources (and if they don’t list cores/RAM, it’s probably not a good thing).
- PHP workers: Rocket.net doesn’t limit PHP workers like Kinsta/WPE/WPX. Read this case study for a site with 1M+ visitors per 60 minutes where the need to scale PHP workers was eliminated. Kinsta only has 2 PHP workers on their lowest plan and recommends WooCommerce sites start at $115/mo because of workers/visits.
- Monthly visits: with 10-25 more monthly visits than Kinsta/WPE, it’s also unlikely you’ll need to upgrade from this. Rocket, Kinsta, and WP Engine all count visits which include unknown bots and users with ad blockers (about 42.7% of people). Rocket.net’s starter plan has 250k/mo which means it’s about 106,750 visitors/mo.
- Memory limit: it’s 256MB on Kinsta, 512MB on WP Engine, and 1GB on Rocket.net.
7. WooCommerce Optimized
Rocket.net is especially fast for WooCommerce sites. A few key reasons are APO, Argo Smart Routing with Tiered Cache, NVMe SSDs, no PHP worker limits, Redis Object Cache Pro’s relay integration, and Rocket.net also strategically built their data centers right next to Cloudflare’s.
8. Top Performer In Kevin Ohashi’s Benchmarks
Rocket.net was a top performer in Kevin Ohashi’s WP Hosting Benchmarks.
Anyone who’s been around the block knows Kevin’s tests are some of the most reliable out there. Most YouTubers and “fastest WordPress hosting speed tests” are garbage and ranked based on commissions, while Kevin’s methodology and non-affiliated results are more accurate.
These were also taken before Rocket.net started using NVMe SSDs. I asked Ben why he didn’t participate in last year’s test. I think he was too busy growing and taking care of his customers.
9. Look At Ben Gabler’s Background And Watch His Interviews
Ben’s background is one of the main reasons I tried Rocket.net in the first place. Previously COO at HostGator, Chief Product Officer at StackPath, Senior Product Manager at GoDaddy, and now CEO of Rocket.net. Ben and Patrick Gallagher (from GridPane) did an interview together at Admin Bar which is completely non-promotional and 100% informative. Totally worth watching.
10. Price: Low Bandwidth But No Hidden Limits/Add-Ons
Rocket.net’s pricing is essentially by bandwidth usage.
Once you learn how much bandwidth you need, choose a plan. Then subtract the costs of add-ons, CDNs, unexpected upgrades, time dealing with bad support, and lower conversions from a slower site. I’m not here to sell you on paying more for hosting, but it’s definitely worth it for me.
If you exceed the limit, Rocket.net uses soft limits and aren’t going to take down your site and lock you out like some hosts do, but you will eventually need to upgrade or reduce bandwidth usage. Monthly visits usually aren’t a problem considering you get 10x more than Kinsta/WPE.
Of course, I run a blog about WordPress speed and hosting reviews. And I’m guessing you’ll run it through speed tests and click through it. Think I’m gonna let your site load faster than mine?
11. Support Is Night And Day
Ben, Chad, and their team take support to a new level.
I already know they went outside a typical host’s scope of work several times for me. And I normally can’t always trust hosts to touch (let alone migrate) my site, but their work has been timely and flawless every time with many staff having 20+ years experience. Ben even hops on chats/calls sometimes so if you get the chance, grab a notepad because he’s ahead of his time.
I usually use live chat which typically responds in seconds and feels like you’re actually talking to an actual person who clearly knows what they’re doing. Other than asking about specs, I’ve probably reached out 5 times in 1 year since my site runs smoothly. Fast, nice, knowledgeable.
12. Facebook Feedback + All 5/5 TrustPilot Reviews
As of writing this, Rocket.net has all perfect 5/5 reviews on their TrustPilot profile. You can search keywords like “TTFB” or “Cloudways” to see specific reviews. If you do this, you’ll see several people are moving away from other hosts to Rocket.net, but not the other way around. Even if you search SiteGround’s 11,000 TrustPilot reviews, not 1 person came from Rocket.net.
Ben also did an AMA in a Facebook group, or here’s some more feedback.
13. $1 Your 1st Month With Unlimited Free Migrations
Getting started:
- Sign up for $1 your 1st month.
- Or talk to Ben/request a Zoom demo if you need an intro.
- Benchmark your TTFB in KeyCDN and your LCP in PSI or GTmetrix.
- Update DNS or TXT records, or request a free migration from their team.
- Upgrade to the latest compatible PHP version, then ask support to install Redis.
- Remove image optimization, security, CDN plugins (CF Enterprise handles these).
- Configure the FlyingPress settings, then retest your core web vitals (TTFB, LCP, FCP).
Submit your site to Chrome’s HSTS Preload list. Use that site to see if yours supports it and if not, try this plugin. Rocket.net’s support will probably do it for you, but try to do it yourself first.
14. Use Rocket.net + FlyingPress (Same Setup I Use)
This is the setup I use and I’ve confirmed several settings with Ben/Gijo.
FlyingPress
If you’re not using FlyingPress yet, it does a better job with core web vitals and real world browsing compared to WP Rocket and other optimization plugins with new features added regularly. Configure everything normally. Page caching will remain on to serve as a fallback cache in case it misses Cloudflare. Do not add Rocket.net’s CDN URL to the FlyingPress CDN settings, and there’s no need to use FlyingCDN with Cloudflare Enterprise. You can read my FlyingPress tutorial or click the thumbnails to see screenshots of the settings, but you should read the tutorial since lazy render, delay JS, and preloading fonts require manual configuration.
Screenshots (click to enlarge):
Perfmatters
The only feature you really need Perfmatters for is the script manager to disable plugins on pages/posts they’re not being used (this helps remove unused CSS/JavaScript) and possibly preloading Gutenberg’s CSS or other CSS/JS files. You could also use a free plugin like Asset CleanUp if the script manager is all you need it for. You’ll enable test mode to prevent it from breaking your site (by only showing changes to logged in admins), then start disabling plugins where they don’t need to load. Disable test mode when you’re done. Leave all other settings off (including CDN settings which like FlyingPress, you don’t need to add Rocket.net’s CDN URL to).
15. The Cliché “Best/Fastest” Host I’ve Used In 10 Years
I don’t write glowing reviews for everyone (just read some of my other hosting reviews). But Rocket.net has been a game changer and I’ve been steering people to them since I switched.
Cheers and lmk if you have any questions.
Tom
I am a new client of rocket.net, thanks to your review. If you want a managed environment I would recommend them. Thought, I think you are ignoring information here.
Two things to comment from
If you are on the starter plan that comes with 10GB, take in mind that if you want to use the staging option it will clone your site and take over your storage, so if your site is 6GB and create a Staging site, that would mean you would take over 12gb you just took all your space and more, the same with manual backups.
Pros
Fast Hosting
Optimized for WooCommerce
Excellent Support
Automated daily backups (they are hosted in another server)
Cons
Expensive and low Bandwith
Expensive Storage
Staging is a good feature, but if it takes over your Storage it cant be used for small plans
Manual Backups also takes over your space
Thanks for your honest opinion Stefano, I will add the bit about staging/backups taking up storage.
Thanks for sharing this blog, Keep it up!
I just tested a site on Rocket.net. It actually had slightly worse (by a few points) Google Lighthouse and GTMetrix scores compared to my Cloudways site.
However. during load testing with Loader.io it performed much better but still crashed with 200 sustained users per second.
Hm, not sure why Cloudways would give you better results. I made the same switch and would ask:
It’s also worth noting that if you were testing on a temporary URL at Rocket.net, no premium plugins like WP-Rocket work because of the license.
Comparing a test site with no traffic vs a live site with traffic also makes a difference.
Typically we’re 3-5x faster globally than cloudways at minimum. The only possible way to see “better” results on a commodity cloud provider/control plane like cloudways is if you’re comparing optimized HTML/CSS/JS against non optimized HTML/CSS/JS.
If you could email me both GTMetrix reports I’d be happy to take a look, but 9 times out of 10 that’s the issue :)
I’d also love to know what kind of test you ran for concurrent users. If they were dynamic requests then the test was probably more of a DDoS simulation than real human simulation.
In any case, would love to know more so we can do better if there is in fact an issue.
My email is ben.gabler@rocket.net
Thanks!
Kudos, what a splendid article.
Tom, I follow your content and appreciate it. I have been reading your articles since, some time now.
I recently switched to Rocket.net. It’s fast. It’s secure. It’s easy. However, the support is not great. It feels just a bit better than almost any other host out there. From your article, and the verbiage on their website, I expected much better quality support.
I’m sorry you feel that way Muhammad. What went wrong if you don’t mind me asking?
I do think their support is top notch based off a few things: my experience, feedback through blog comments/emails people have sent me, and feedback I’ve seen in other places like FB groups.
They have a great reputation and it’s something Ben has always taken seriously, so I’m genuinely curious what happened.
While no one is perfect, we try our very best to be as close to perfect as we can be.
In almost three years this is the first time I’ve seen “our support is not great”. We take great pride in our customer experience and always go above and beyond for our customers unlike any other host in the world (based off my twenty years of experience ranging from Hostgator to Godaddy).
Please email me directly ben@rocket.net so I can look into this further as a subpar support experience is simply not acceptable nor is it a thing at Rocket.net.
I guess not many take time to post about their experience.
I would like to, because I didn’t had a smooth experience either.
I’ve had a similar experience getting my domain correctly pointed.
Not sure what the name of the support guy was, but I had to tell him what the solution was. It felt a bit like he was trying to Google the answers. At the end I told him what the issue was. The domain forward/setup tool felt a bit buggy, might need some checks. Sometimes it was checking SSL, failed, needed to redo from step 1 and then suddenly it was in step 3.
The domain forward/setup tool also asked for a domain name , i.e. domain.com , but things stopped working for me then, when I then put in http://www.domain.com everything worked again. At other hosting companies it doesn’t matter, it’ll work if you either fill in with or without “www”. Or if you can only use without “www” it fixes it with the setup / WP installation. That was my 1st encounter of not going smooth.
My site was also migrated to show the speed of Rocket.net (which is great, nothing to complain about that). Although noticed sometimes a bit lower speed, as if the server needed to get out of sleep mode and as soon as it was going ( /- 5 – 10sec, full speed – no that’s my own connection, noticed it also in GTMetrix sometimes).
The migration itself was not done properly. All plug-ins were deactivated, Gravater image not showing anymore my existing user account in Wordpress was gone. I fixed that myself, but do want to mention it, perhaps good feedback for future improvment. It felt a bit like the migration was rushed.
Lastly, I cancelled my account. I received a confirmation mail -> “The service will be terminated within the next 24 hours.”.
Checked today if all was taken care, but I don’t have an account anymore, it got fully deleted, instead of only the hostingservice. Would be nice then to also get refunded as stated in the refund policy, but I’m not refunded. Not that I need that $ 1,00 I can imagine transaction fee’s and the time you spent also cost money , but it felt a bit strange the way the whole account was suddenly closed (instead of only the hosting service) and at the end nothing got refunded. Just a matter of principal.
The reason I refunded was based on my experience I didn’t find it worth to pay a high amount for only having the best speed, small storage and limited amount of websites. Currently running on an Enterprise LiteSpeed server and reaching similar speeds ;) for half the price, 10 sites running, a slower support, but technical skilled people. And then perhaps also a bit of trust (see cons below).
Perhaps the advantage in speed would be more visible if I would have a website with much more traffic.
My opinion :
Pro’s :
– Speed
– Easy setting up sites
– 24/7 support
– Staging
– Backups
– CEO is dedicated to the company and willing to reply/comment
Cons :
– High pricing
– Basic options
– Not a real reseller feeling, or support couldn’t explain me how it exactly works, but wasn’t the reseller options I’m looking for
– Maybe a bit of trust? Feedback that I read on social media is that not many people know Rocket or read about it. They are scared of services going down etc.
– Communication -> i.e. onboard the same way as you offboard, makes customers perhaps come back
p.s. Carefull with staging, if you selected the wrong tab and press deploy it’ll not ask you for a confirmation :) (thank god for backups)
Hi Menno,
First and foremost, I want to apologize. I’m sincerely sorry your experience was not the typical Rocket.net experience. I was not made aware of this situation, but will certainly look into it and see where we went wrong.
Second, I want to thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback. The only way we can do better is to know where and when we’re failing, so this will not go unnoticed.
I’ve been in the industry for twenty years and have seen/built it all. DNS at Rocket can definitely be tricky and far from traditional hosting where you’re forced to change name servers or use cloudflare DNS seamlessly. We have many improvements coming to our portal to address this.
As for the migration with plugins being deactivated, we always ask customers to check and test on the temporary URL before pointing their live DNS to us, it seems this issue either happened after that or DNS was updated before hand.
We never ever rush migrations or anything for that matter at Rocket.net, in fact I always tell the team if something takes five hours, it’s OK, we’re here for our customers no matter what it takes… but we do have multiple methods of doing them, the primary being a plugin based migration. If we received feedback that things were not correct, we would have tried another method.
Regarding the cancellation and refund, that’s personally on me. I miss clicked the Cancel process and did not check the refund box. Honest mistake, not trying to keep anyone’s money and not honor our guarantees, your $1 has been refunded.
For you and anyone reading this , my inbox is always open – ben.gabler@rocket.net.
Every thing listed here could have been addressed had we had the proper opportunity, in any case it will all be addressed internally to ensure we don’t have this type of situation in the future.
Hi Muhammad,
I did some digging and the last interaction was from December and we were tying to help you with MainWP 500 error reports. I asked for more information on December 27 and never heard back.
After our first reply where Naqi was simply tying to help correlate things with our logs and explain what can cause 500 errors from a high-level (with no data to go on other than some screenshots), you jumped the gun and replied with:
“I expected a better response honestly.
Anyway, just close this ticket please. From your response, I know this issue won’t be resolved by talking to support.”
So basically you assumed we didn’t care or were blowing you off (probably due to how other hosts treated you over the yeas), but we were simply trying to work together to get to the bottom of the isolated issue you were having with a third party plugin and all we had were some vague screenshots of emails.
I’m sorry you felt this was subpar, but we do take our support very seriously and had you followed up with the requested logs from MainWP we could have kept digging into things on our side.
Great article! I’m moving to Rocket.net. You mentioned in the article:
“How does Rocket.net optimize images?
Cloudflare Mirage/Polish, which means you don’t need an image optimization plugin. If you don’t see an image is optimized on the frontend, it probably means the savings weren’t high enough for Cloudflare to optimize (which is why you may not see it served in WebP).
“What saving are we talking about?
Thanks Ezra! See this Cloudflare Doc.
“Polish creates and caches a WebP version of the image and delivers it to the browser if the Accept header from the browser includes WebP, and the compressed image is significantly smaller than the lossy or lossless compression”
What caching / optimization plugins to you still use now that you’re hosting on rocket.net? Just FlyingPress?
FlyingPress and Perfmatters.
Do the settings at https://onlinemediamasters.com/flyingpress-settings reflect the best settings for rocket.net? I switched a site to rocket.net in mid-December. I was already using Perfmatters, now I’m adding in FlyingPress.
Yes, nothing changes about the settings in FlyingPress when using Rocket.net. Keep page caching on and no need to add the CDN URL from Rocket.
Very useful information you have mentioned thank you so much.
Anytime.
Doing what you do its commendable, keep it up.
Thanks, really appreciate your post.
Anytime.