Standard vs High Frequency – Cloudways Vultr Comparison

[read_meter]

Table of Contents

So you’re thinking of changing to the new High-Frequency servers from Vultr that Cloudways has just released? Or at the very least you’re interested in how they perform, me too.

I thought I’d conduct a little experiment to see the results for myself, a classic head to head competition style situation.

Cloudways is an incredible platform for hosting websites and their Vultr options have been a personal favourite of mine for years.

Setup

For this test, I’m comparing Vultr’s Standard Server to their High-Frequency Server available on Cloudways. Both are located in the Pacific option in Sydney.

I’ve installed a clean version of WordPress on each server and have recorded three versions to see how each server performs in different states of a website.

  1. Base – which is pure vanilla install, no added plugins, themes or files.
  2. Basic – installed 10 plugins and one theme, no other changes.
  3. Multi – added multiple pages, images, plugins and themes.

Tool used for server testing is Pingdom Tools and using their Sydney local.

As a disclaimer this is an independent test and I’d encourage you to do your own testing as results may vary.

Focus on building great websites, not on web hosting complexities. Our managed hosting platform gives digital agencies and ecommerce businesses flexibility and choice in how websites are hosted. Backed by 24/7/365 support, you’re guaranteed peace of mind.

Base Line

Standard – Base
High Freq – Base

Basic Setup

Standard – Basic
Standard – Multi

Multi Page

Standard – Multi
High Freq – Multi

Results

Performance GradePage SizeLoad TimeRequests
Standard – Base9576.1kb143ms11
High Freq – Base9660.8kb95ms9
Standard – Basic9539.6kb340ms9
High Freq – Basic9725.8kb104ms7
Standard – Multi851.8Mb853ms48
High Freq – Multi871.8Mb492ms46

Focusing on the load times as that’s the most important data here.

  • Base difference – 48ms
  • Basic difference – 200ms
  • Multi difference – 361ms

What are your thoughts?

The new High Frequency Servers definitely live up to being faster than the Standard Servers, but is that speed worth the added financial input?

At only an extra $2/month, I think it is worth upgrading.

Focus on building great websites, not on web hosting complexities. Our managed hosting platform gives digital agencies and ecommerce businesses flexibility and choice in how websites are hosted. Backed by 24/7/365 support, you’re guaranteed peace of mind.

Update

I’m in the process of migrating from Standard to High Frequency and just captured this site’s performance difference.

From 2.42s to 1.86s in load time, that’s a great increase! In general, web pages should load under 3s, or at the very least what is visible to the user should be loaded by then.

Mr Ashley Ball – Standard
Mr Ashley Ball – High Freq

Looking at the waterfall in more detail, one of the best improvements I can see comes in from the First Time To Bite (FTTB). This is the first packet or piece of data between a person loading your website and the server.

I’ve always noticed that the Standard servers have a large FTTB and give an increased load time because of this.

Mr Ashley Ball – Standard Waterfall
Mr Ashley Ball – High Freq Waterfall

Notice the yellow ‘wait’ time bar at the top of each screenshot.

The Standard server gives a whopping 959.8ms vs the High Freq of 356.0ms.

Focus on building great websites, not on web hosting complexities. Our managed hosting platform gives digital agencies and ecommerce businesses flexibility and choice in how websites are hosted. Backed by 24/7/365 support, you’re guaranteed peace of mind.

About The Author
Mr Ash

Mr Ash

“Learn, create, share, repeat.” • IT teacher, former web designer, learning CyberSec • Road to #100DaysOfHacking on Hackers Learning Path.
Share This Article
LinkedIn
Twitter
Facebook
WhatsApp
Email

The Monthly Monitor

An accountable newsletter about productivity, cybersec, & hacking. No spam, unsub anytime.

By entering your details, you agree to the Terms & Policies.
Leave A Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More Content

The Monthly Monitor

An accountable newsletter about productivity, cybersec, & hacking. No spam, unsub anytime.

By entering your details, you agree to the Terms & Policies.

This site uses cookies and other tracking technologies to assist with navigation, monitor site usage and web traffic, assist with our promotional and marketing efforts, and customize and improve our services, as set out in our privacy policy