{"id":679,"slug":"managed-wp-ttfb-hostingstep-2025","title":"Managed WordPress host TTFB benchmarks (HostingStep 2025, 34 hosts, 1,960+ days of 24/7 monitoring)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","claude-code","candid-team"],"topics":["core-web-vitals","wordpress","hosting-platforms"],"reference_body":"**Source:** HostingStep 2025 benchmark, hostingstep.com/wordpress-hosting-benchmarks/. 24/7 Pingdom monitoring of identical WordPress test installs, US-East probe.\n\n**TTFB (p75 mobile-equivalent, US):**\n\n- Hostinger Business: 351 ms\n- WP Engine: 365-367 ms\n- Rocket.net: 373 ms\n- WPX: 411 ms\n- Cloudways: 449 ms\n- Kinsta: 459-469 ms\n- Liquid Web (Cloudflare-backed): 497 ms US / 349 ms global via CDN\n\n**For comparison (edge platforms, from multiple 2026 third-party benchmarks — directional, vendor-influenced):**\n\n- Cloudflare Pages/Workers: 12-18 ms (BKK), 45-50 ms (EU); V8 isolate cold starts <5 ms\n- Vercel: 32-70 ms (EU/SEA static); SSR adds RTT\n- Netlify: 48-90 ms\n\n**Confidence:** High for HostingStep (independent, methodology disclosed). Directional for edge platforms — the gap *pattern* (Cloudflare < Vercel < Netlify) is consistent across benchmarks but absolute numbers are sensitive to region.\n\n**Shared hosting WordPress (entry-tier):** 900-1,400 ms pre-cache (CoreDash field data, 2025). This is the baseline most KW SMB sites are starting from.\n\n**Single most damning datapoint in the platform-comparison literature: ~32% of WordPress origins have good TTFB.** A site whose TTFB is 800 ms cannot achieve a 2.5 s LCP on mobile networks without serving the LCP element from cache. A Cloudflare-hosted Astro site delivers its first byte ~20× faster than the typical WordPress origin.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[],"incoming":[{"slug":"wordpress-cwv-causal-attribution-2026","title":"WordPress CWV gap causal decomposition (May 2026): ~40-50% hosting/TTFB, ~20-30% page builders, ~15-20% plugins, ~5-10% core, ~5-10% theme","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"wp-gutenberg-managed-host-matches-astro","title":"A well-optimized WordPress + Gutenberg + Kadence/GeneratePress site on managed hosting can plausibly match an Astro-on-Cloudflare site in CWV","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}]},"created_at":"2026-05-22T21:24:18.395Z","updated_at":"2026-05-22T21:24:18.395Z"}