LiquidWeb Review: Can They Deliver Managed Hosting To The Masses. We Find Out.
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Our Verdict: Outstanding Choice for High-Performance hosting
Liquid Web is known for its exceptional server speed and stability. They also provide some of the best support in the industry. And given the quality of their products, they offer very reasonable prices.
With one of WhoIsHostingThis’ coupon codes, you can now save up to 50% on hosting from Liquid Web.
Pros:
- Offers a wide range of high-performance plans
- Industry-leading support
- One of the few hosts to offer 100% uptime guarantee
Cons:
- No shared hosting – just advanced plans
- Knowledgebase could be better organized
Don’t just listen to us! Over 60 of our users have been Liquid Web customers and have rated them 4.5 out of 5 stars across the board – support, quality, features, and value.
Are There Any Coupons Or Discounts?
Yes – you can currently save 50% on LiquidWeb with this exclusive coupon.
50% OFF
Get 50% off LiquidWeb hosting plans
Verified working: 16 May 2021
Limited Deal
Applied automatically at checkout
Is Liquid Web the Perfect Host for Your Site?
Ready to dive in and find out if Liquid Web is really the host for you? Use these links to start your research:
- Expert Review – read our thorough analysis by hosting specialist Dale Cudmore.
- Customer Reviews – see what over 70 Liquid Web customers have to say.
- Hosting Plans – compare the best Liquid Web hosting plans and their prices.
- FAQs – find the answers to the most asked questions about Liquid Web!
Liquid Web emphasizes world-class customer support and high performance.
This isn’t the McDonald’s of hosting; it’s more like a steakhouse. Don’t expect a dollar menu. Do expect quality.
Let’s find out what Liquid Web offers and if it’s worth the price.
Background
Founded in 1997, Liquid Web serves over 32,000 customers, including big brands like The Home Depot and Motorola.
I’ve used their services and followed the company’s evolution for over a decade.
If you can afford their hosting plans, you’re unlikely to be unsatisfied with the service that you get.
LiquidWeb Reviews by Our Community
Overall Rating from 88 Reviews by LiquidWeb Customers
| Support | |
|---|---|
| Quality | |
| Features | |
| Value |
Most Helpful Reviews
Michael Woods testifysites.com
Dec 13, 2017
I was with 2 other large web hosts before Liquid Web. Currently, I have 15 sites with them. Their value and technology got my attention and their support keeps me as a customer.
The price for what you get is reasonable, uptime is excellent, and servers are fast. Keep up the great work!
David Zatz allpar.net
Apr 18, 2016
Sometimes you pay a little more for value. LiquidWeb provides superb support and helps me fix my increasingly rare mistakes with real 24/7 support. They go above and beyond their service agreement.
Since they learn from errors and re-engineer/invest as needed, downtime has gotten vanishingly rare over the years. I use them for both “dedicated cloud” (virtual server on a single machine for portability) and basic web services.
Jason McGee igroovetech.com
Jul 13, 2017
I have been with Liquid Web for 3+ years, hosting 10+ websites and their service is impeccable and second to none. Their support team is awesome and are also quick to respond to requests. I use their VPS solution to host websites I design and could not be happier with their service.
High-End Web Hosting
Liquid Web offers several types of pro-level hosting. For simplicity, I’m grouping what they offer into these 3 categories:
Managed WordPress Hosting
Cloud VPS Hosting
Dedicated Hosting
Managed WordPress Hosting
If you’re a developer, you know that WordPress comes with some code bloat out of necessity.
This bloat can slow your site down, negatively impacting your SEO and conversions.
This is why you should look specifically for a WordPress host whose technology is optimized for fast WordPress performance.
Servers Optimized for WordPress
The best web hosts have custom-built servers designed to make WordPress sites load fast. Liquid Web is one of these hosts.
The difference, according to Liquid Web, is 5 to 10 times the speed you’d get on generic servers.
Speed Technologies
Some of the modern technologies Liquid Web uses to achieve these fast speeds are:
Automatic image compression.
SSD (solid-state drive) storage. (SSDs are faster and more reliable than HDDs – hard-disk drives).
PHP 7 (Superior in speed and security to other PHP versions).
Nginx.
HTTP/2 (available on managed WordPress plans as of November 2018).
Designed to Host Multiple Sites
Liquid Web’s managed WordPress plans aren’t designed for single sites.
Even the cheapest package can support 10 sites.
| Professional | Business | Agency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sites | 10 | 25 | 50 |
| Storage (SSD) | 50 GB | 100 GB | 200 GB |
| Bandwidth | 5 TB | 5 TB | 5 TB |
Features to Look For
The “managed” part of the plan name refers to a variety of features, some of which are unique to Liquid Web.
Here’s a list of standout features of their managed plans:
Free migrations from other hosts
Automatic plugin updates
WordPress core is updated for you
24/7/365 support by email, live chat, or phone
No pageview or traffic limits
Automatic daily backups
WordPress-specific security protocols
Free, automatic SSL certificates for all sites on Managed WordPress plans
Automatic image compression (which speeds site loading)
Multiple site management tools
Full server access for developers along with SSH, Git, and WP-CLI tools.
Sync Pro Control Panel
Liquid Web’s site management tool is a control panel called Sync Pro.
This dashboard makes it easy to manage multiple sites.
What’s the Price?
You can bag yourself a fully managed WordPress Hosting option for $29/month (the Personal Plan). No technical knowledge is required.
Remember: You can host up to 10 sites on the Professional Plan, which is $99/month. That would come to about $10/month per site.
Cloud Sites and Cloud VPS Hosting
Not everyone wants to use WordPress.
If that’s you, one of your main options is a cloud VPS (virtual private server).
Two Types of Cloud Hosting
Liquid Web offers 2 types of managed cloud hosting plans.
Cloud Sites
The first is “cloud sites,” which offers a single plan. It’s designed to let you host up to several sites, and makes it easy to install any popular CMS in a few clicks.
Those sites technically aren’t on a VPS. They are hosted across multiple servers for maximum site uptime and scalability.
With the Cloud Sites plan (there’s only one), you get:
Ability to host “unlimited” websites
1 TB Bandwidth
50 GB of SSD storage
Built-in autoscaling
Free Cloudflare CDN.
Cloud VPS Hosting
The other option is “cloud VPS hosting,” which offers multiple plans.
It’s similar to the “Cloud Sites” plan, except that you get more resources for what you pay.
The main thing you give up is the built-in autoscaling. So unless your site regularly gets high traffic, you’ll get more value from a cloud VPS hosting plan than the cloud sites plan.
As with all Liquid Web plans, it’s fully managed.
Pricing and Features
Cloud VPS Hosting packages start from $19.99/month at Liquid Web.
The intro cloud VPS basic plan includes:
Choice of cPanel or Plesk control panels
Linux (can get Windows with higher tier plan)
2vCPU
40 GB SSD Disk Space
10 TB Bandwidth.
Dedicated Hosting
If your website actually needs a dedicated server, then performance is nearly always the most important factor for you.
Dedicated Hosting is generally a better option for those expecting (or experiencing) heavy website traffic – in other words, mid-sized to large companies.
You can compare the performance of Liquid Web’s dedicated hosting plans against other hosts and Liquid Web will almost always win.
Notable Features
A few features of note on these plans:
All have Intel Xeon (E3 or E5) processors
Comes with free Cloudflare CDN
No set-up fee
You get to choose which datacenter your server is in
You have root access to the server.
Dedicated hosting from Liquid Web starts with prices from $199/month. The introductory plan comes with:
4 cores @ 3.5 GHz
16 GB RAM
2 x 240 GB SSD Primary Disk
1 x 1 TB SATA Backup Disk
5 TB Bandwidth.
Interested in Liquid Web?
Our readers can currently save up to 50% on Liquid Web’s super fast managed plans. Use this special discount link to get the best deal.
Control Panel Options
Managed WordPress plans come with a custom control panel specifically designed for managing multiple WordPress sites.
For every other plan on Liquid Web, you get a choice of using cPanel / WHM, or using Plesk.
cPanel/WHM
WHM provides more options for configuring servers, while cPanel provides access to configuring a single site on a server.
Your single WHM interface can be used to create multiple sites on your account, each of which can be managed with cPanel individually.
Plesk
Plesk is another popular control panel. It rolls both server management and site management into a single control panel.
Comparison
Let’s take a look at a quick comparison of Plesk and cPanel side by side:
| cPanel | Plesk | |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | Slightly older but familiar | Clean and tidy, slick design |
| Migration | Simple | Simple |
| Admin Panel | WHM | Single log-in |
They’re both reliable control panels.
Which one is “better” is usually a matter of personal preference.
6 Reasons Why Liquid Web Is Better than Other Hosts
There are too many ways to list that Liquid Web stands out from your average hosts, but here are the most important:
Migrations
Fully Managed
Cloudflare CDN
Simple Scaling
Premium Business Email (Add-On Product)
Migrations
Liquid Web has a migration team that will migrate your sites to Liquid Web for free. If they can’t for some reason, they will support you through the process.
Fully Managed
As I’ve mentioned, all servers come fully managed.
They take care of everything regarding server health, like updates, security, hardware maintenance, and more.
Cloudflare CDN
Most plans comes with a Cloudflare CDN to serve resources from local copies of your site even quicker.
Simple Scaling
Depending on the plan, it takes either no clicks or one click to scale up to handle an increase in site traffic.
Premium Business Email
Liquid Web provides a managed email solution.
They have inexpensive plans where Liquid Web will take care of email spam, setup, maintenance, and more.
SSD storage
All plans come a significant amount of SSD disk space.
SSDs are much faster than with HDDs, which means server operations and site loading times will be faster.
What is “Heroic Support”?
Liquid Web refers to their customer service system as “heroic support.” This tagline highlights their mission to exceed expectations.
There are a few standout features:
100% network and power uptime guarantee
Customer and tech support is available 24/7/365
Support is available via phone, email, or live chat
Sonor Monitoring Team
Liquid Web’s “Sonar Monitoring Team” scans for and identifies issues on customers’ servers before they cause any downtime.
If you’re dealing with sites that generate significant revenue, this type of proactive security is critical.
Knowledgebase
On top of that, Liquid Web has a solid knowledgebase.
There are hundreds of tutorials and help articles in it.
You can find just about any topic you need with a quick search.
Technical Support
Liquid Web is one of very few hosts that sets guarantees on support responses.
You have 3 options that are available 24/7.
59-Second Response
If you need urgent help, always use phone or chat support, which both guarantee a 59-second initial response.
These aren’t just templated responses, but a real person looking into your issue.
When to Use the Ticketing System
You can also submit a ticket through the helpdesk, but that only has a 59-minute guarantee for an initial response.
This is better for casual questions and potential hosting issues that you’re concerned about in the future.
Perhaps the biggest strength of Liquid Web’s tech support over other hosts is that they are equipped to deal with major issues at all times.
Datacenters Staffed 24/7
Their advanced datacenters – owned by Liquid Web – are staffed 24/7/365 by Level 3 technicians.
Any server issues are addressed in-house, not outsourced to third parties.
Behind the Scenes
Migrating to a new host always seems like a pain.
It’s not too hard on Liquid Web, though, and support will help you if you get stuck.
If you’re coming from WordPress in particular, it’s pretty easy using the migrate to Liquid Web plugin.
Once activated, the plugin will redirect you to a migration form in your Liquid Web account:
After you complete the form, Liquid Web’s migration team will take care of the rest. Migrations are completed usually in 2 to 7 days.
Customer Support
I’ve used live chat support many times over the years.
I’ve always gotten a near-instant response, and support staff have proven remarkably knowledgeable and helpful.
Alternatives to Liquid Web
Liquid Web is a great high-performance hosting plans, but this host is not the right choice for everyone.
Maybe you have a limited budget, would prefer having more datacenter locations to choose from, or just don’t like Liquid Web for some reason.
In that case, there are 3 hosts that I’d recommend taking a look at instead:
SiteGround
If you love the high performance that Liquid Web offers but shared hosting fits your needs better, give SiteGround a try.
InMotion Hosting
If great support is important to you, but you’d like a host with cheaper plans, InMotion Hosting is a good alternative.
Rackspace
Another host with a good reputation that focuses on premium hosting, mainly for enterprise clients. They offer a 100% uptime guarantee and also have 24/7/365 support. Rackspace offers additional services like email hosting and security.
| Hosting Type | Liquid Web | Rackspace |
|---|---|---|
| Dedicated | Yes | Yes |
| Cloud Dedicated | Yes | No |
| Managed (VPS) Cloud | Yes | Yes |
| Colocation | Yes | Yes |
Uptime and Server Response Time
We’ve been monitoring Liquid Web’s server response times for a couple of years.
Here are some typical statistics, taken from the month of February 2019:
An average server response time of 241 ms (milliseconds)
100% uptime
Below is a color-coded map displaying response times for the month across a select group of countries. (The darker the green, the faster the response time.)
What we see are strong server response times on both sides of the Atlantic.
Liquid Web Quick Overview
This quick overview will help you when comparing Liquid Web to other potential hosts.
Specializations
“Heroic” Support
High Performance Servers
Managed Servers.
Migration Policy
No specific limit. Free migration to multiple sites is offered on all plans whenever possible (migrating from cPanel or Plesk).
If their migration team can’t do it for you, they will guide you through the process if you get stuck.
Quality of Support Material
Excellent.
Control Panel
Choose from WHM/cPanel or Plesk.
Available Datacenters
Three datacenters, located in Michigan, Arizona, and Amsterdam.
Money-back Guarantee Trial Period
No money-back guarantee or trial period.
Lowest Price for Shared Hosting or Other Cheapest Plans
Liquid Web’s cheapest plan is $19.99 per month.
Backup Policy
Free account-level backups (you can pick the schedule). Optional backup plan add-ons with advanced backup options for small monthly fee.
Site Builder Included?
No.
PCI Compliant?
Yes, Liquid Web’s support will help you make your site(s) PCI compliant on all plans.
Additionally, you can purchase an add-on scanning system which will periodically check if your sites are PCI compliant and send you a report.
Do any big brands use this host?
The Home Depot, National Geographic, FedEx, Motorola — to name a few.
Pros and Cons of Liquid Web
Even great hosts have both positives and negatives. Let’s take a look at a brief summary.
Liquid Web Pros
All plans are high performance, arguably the best you can buy
All support team members at well-trained and always available
One of the only hosts with a 100% uptime guarantee.
Liquid Web Cons
The price for each respective plan is relatively high
The knowledgebase could be organized a bit clearer.
Ready to enjoy high-performance hosting?
Our readers can currently save up to 50% on Liquid Web’s managed plans. Use this new discount link to get the best deal.
Is Liquid Web the Right Solution For You?
I find it hard not to recommend Liquid Web. The performance and support are miles ahead of most competitors.
But for your site(s) specifically, you need to determine how much performance and support you need, and what that’s worth.
Liquid Web is not the cheapest host. If budget is your primary consideration, you may want to explore bargain hosting options with fewer features.
If you do need excellent performance and support, go to Liquid Web now to see if they are the right fit.
Edited by Sherrie Gossett
Most Popular LiquidWeb Hosting Plans
| Managed WooCommerce Starter | 2 GB VPS | 2 GB+ VPS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Disk Space | 30GB | 40GB | 100GB |
| Bandwidth | 3TB | 10TB | 10TB |
| Price | $15.83 / mo (Billed as $15.83 Per Month) ⓘPrices in are approximate, based on current exchange rates. The host will likely charge you in USD, or at a different exchange rate. Usual price: – Get % off! | $59 / mo (Billed as $15.83 Per Month) ⓘPrices in are approximate, based on current exchange rates. The host will likely charge you in USD, or at a different exchange rate. Usual price: – Get % off! | $79 / mo (Billed as $15.83 Per Month) ⓘPrices in are approximate, based on current exchange rates. The host will likely charge you in USD, or at a different exchange rate. Usual price: – Get % off! |
| Visit LiquidWeb Now | Visit LiquidWeb Now | Visit LiquidWeb Now |
| Plan | Disk Space | Bandwidth | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal Managed WordPress Cloud | 100GB | Unlimited | $89 / mo Visit Host Now |
| Windows VPS Cloud | 100GB | 5TB | $99 / mo Visit Host Now |
| E3-1220 Server Dedicated | 2TB | 5TB | $129 / mo Visit Host Now |
| Professional Managed WordPress Cloud | 150GB | Unlimited | $149 / mo Visit Host Now |
| Colocation Cloud | 5TB | $150 / mo Visit Host Now | |
| E3-1240 Server Dedicated | 2TB | 5TB | $159 / mo Visit Host Now |
| HIPAA Server Dedicated | 2TB | 5TB | $338.84 / mo Visit Host Now |
Liquid Web Frequently Asked Questions
- Can you host an e-commerce site on Liquid Web?
Yes, you can host an e-commerce site on Liquid Web. You have 3 main options for this.
You can use your website’s control panel to install all the most popular e-commerce open source platforms like Magento, WooCommerce, and PrestaShop.
Secondly, Liquid Web offers managed WooCommerce hosting plans, with servers optimized for WooCommerce.
Finally, since you get root access with all VPS and dedicated hosting plans, you can install a custom built e-commerce site, as long as Liquid Web supports the programming language it uses.
- What payment options does Liquid Web offer?
For payment options, you have the choice of using credit cards and PayPal. You can also contact billing about paying with a check or wire transfer.
- Do they have a money-back guarantee?
They don’t offer a money-back guarantee, however, with most of their cloud hosting plans you will get a prorated refund if you cancel a server.
- Do they offer phone support? What language is their customer support available in?
The company offers 24/7 support by phone, chat, and through a support system which can be found on their website. English is the only available language from the support team.
- Where is Liquid Web located?
Liquid Web is based out of Lansing, Michigan. They have three datacenters located in Michigan, Arizona, and Amsterdam.
- What programming languages are supported?
Liquid Web offers support for most programming languages, including ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, Perl, and Ruby on Rails.
- Does Liquid Web provide all sites with an SSL certificate?
All sites on Liquid Web’s managed WordPress hosting plans do come with a free SSL certificate. On all other plans, you have to purchase SSL certificates separately.
Alternatively, if you just need a basic SSL certificate, you can generate one for free with Let’s Encrypt since you have root access to your server on most plans.
- Can they help with transferring an existing website?
Liquid Web offers an included site migration service to make new customer transfers as simple and painless as possible. This includes migrating WordPress, Joomla, Magento, and Drupal websites.
- Can I host more than one domain on a single hosting account?
Most plans allow you to host as many sites as you have resources for. The WordPress plans let you host between 1 and 25 websites, depending upon the plan you choose.
- Does Liquid Web include any software so that I can easily build a website?
While there are no wizards or software for building sites, they do offer easy access to several software platforms that make it easy to build a site such as WordPress and Joomla.
- Is Liquid Web suitable for an ecommerce website?
Yes, ecommerce websites are well supported and have access to features such as multiple payment gateways, coupon and gift certificate support, inventory stock control, full-customization, multi-currency/multi-lingual support, SSL, and more.
- Could I host an image-heavy site on their services? What about video streaming?
Image intensive sites and media streaming are not a problem as long as you stay within the limits of your bandwidth and storage.
- Do they provide a control panel?
Yes. cPanel and Plesk are the web hosting control panels of choice, depending on whether you are hosting on a Windows-based product or Linux-based product.
- Do they have an uptime guarantee?
The company maintains a 100% uptime guarantee and backs it up with service credits.
- Is there anything special about Liquid Web’s hosting plans?
Liquid Web offers a variety of features with each of their hosting plans.
They include comprehensive security service that protects systems from a variety of security issues, CDN services, DDoS protection, and Sonar Monitoring which ensures your server’s optimal performance through early detection of problems.
- What is Liquid Web’s backup policy?
The company offers local backup with flexible scheduling on each plan.
Full server backups on a daily basis are available as a paid add-on for each hosting plan and come with more features such as multiple layers of protection, painless recovery options, encryption, and off-site backups.
- Do they offer an affiliate program?
Liquid Web offers an affiliate program with generous one-time commissions and monthly recurring commissions for dedicated servers. The affiliate program is very straightforward, and they pay affiliates based on the account types they refer.
Most Popular LiquidWeb Alternatives
Starts at:
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(Billed as $15.83 Per Month) ⓘPrices in are approximate, based on current exchange rates. The host will likely charge you in USD, or at a different exchange rate.
Usual price: – Get % off!
Starts at:
$99
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(Billed as $15.83 Per Month) ⓘPrices in are approximate, based on current exchange rates. The host will likely charge you in USD, or at a different exchange rate.
Usual price: – Get % off!
Starts at:
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Suanlian
August 5, 2019
Great review. I am interested in their (Liquidweb) WordPress hosting $29 per month plan. Right now I am with siteground GoGeek plan $34/M which is expensive plus its a shared hosting. Is liquid web WordPress hosting a VPS? What worried about me is that they don’t have a server location near me. Most of my traffic is from India. What can you suggest for me?
Toni Allen
August 9, 2019
Thanks Suanlian!
I think SiteGround and Liquidweb are two of the most reliable hosts we have tested.
Neither are cheap, though.
My understanding is that Liquidweb WordPress managed sites are not VPS — they are similar to their cloud sites. (sort of like a cloud/shared hybrid).
One thing to keep in mind is that there is no cpanel/whm with Liquidweb’s Managed WordPress.
For India traffic, how is SiteGround for you? Are you using a CDN?