Liquid Web vs Kinsta – Hard to Choose, but I Did 2021

It’s a tough matchup between Liquid Web and Kinsta. While both hosts have a lot of similarities, each one caters to different needs. Liquid Web is more suitable for enterprise-level hosting, whereas Kinsta only provides WordPress hosting and targets small to medium-sized websites.

Keeping that in mind, I was surprised to find that Liquid Web offers cheaper WordPress hosting prices than Kinsta.

To compare Liquid Web and Kinsta, I assessed the WordPress hosting offerings in terms of value for money, features, customer support, performance, and security. Liquid Web won four out of five categories.

Click here to see Liquid Web’s latest deals or keep reading to see what makes Liquid Web the winner of this comparison.

1. Plans and Pricing

Kinsta Has More WordPress Hosting Plans, but Liquid Web Is Cheaper

Neither of these hosts offers shared hosting. However, Liquid Web provides various hosting solutions such as managed WordPress and WooCommerce hosting, fully managed VPS, dedicated servers, reseller hosting, and other cloud-based hosting packages.

Kinsta, on the other hand, has a wide range of managed WordPress hosting and WooCommerce packages.

With both hosts, you can subscribe on a monthly or annual basis. Liquid Web offers slightly fewer managed WordPress hosting plans than Kinsta, but it’s much cheaper, and you get more resource allocations (see the Features section).

You won’t get a free domain name with either host, but you will get free site migration. Kinsta has a 30-day money-back guarantee, while Liquid Web provides a 14-day free trial.

With Kinsta, you can get two months for free with annual billing, while Liquid Web offers promotional discounts.

The winner? Liquid Web. Even though both hosts aren’t the cheapest in the market, Liquid Web offers more affordable managed WordPress hosting than Kinsta.

2. Features

Both Offer Feature-Packed Plans, but Liquid Web Has More Resource Allocations

Several features come as standard with Liquid Web and Kinsta, such as free SSL certificates, SSD storage, automatic daily backups, and staging areas. They also offer free CDN – KeyCDN with Kinsta and Cloudflare CDN with Liquid Web.

Now for the game-changer. Kinsta gives you from 10 GB to 250 GB of disk space, and 1 to 150 WordPress installs. In contrast, you get 15 GB to 800 GB disk storage, and 1 to 250 WordPress installs with Liquid Web. Liquid Web also provides a free website builder (Beaver Builder Lite) with all its WordPress hosting plans.

Take a look at this detailed comparison table to compare Liquid Web and Kinsta further:

Despite the similarities and generous freebies, Liquid Web outshines Kinsta in this round by offering more storage space, more WordPress sites, and a free website builder.

3. Performance

Liquid Web Can’t Beat Kinsta’s Nearly Flawless Performance

Liquid Web has three server locations, including two in the U.S.A. and one in the Netherlands. Kinsta, on the other hand, has 24 global server locations, including seven in the U.S.A. and the rest in Canada, Brazil, the U.K., Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, two in Japan, Australia, Taiwan, Indonesia, South Korea, and Switzerland.

Both hosts use SSD storage by default. SSD performs faster than regular HDD storage in processing website data, reflecting directly on your website’s loading speed and overall performance.

Liquid Web includes free Cloudflare CDN with all its plans, while Kinsta offers free KeyCDN. A CDN, or Content Delivery Network, places your website on a global cloud server network to boost loading speeds from different locations.

When I tested the loading speed of Liquid Web, I found that the speeds of the U.S. servers weren’t bad, but all other locations were disappointing.

See how Liquid Web performed in this detailed expert Liquid Web review.

In contrast, Kinsta topped the charts with a perfect score and perfect loading speeds globally.

You can see its impressive speed test results yourself in this full Kinsta review.

Liquid Web promises a 100% uptime guarantee, and Kinsta promises 99.9%. Neither disappointed in that area, as users reported no major downtimes.

Kinsta’s global server locations and faster loading speeds make it the clear winner in the performance round.

4. Security

Both Are Good, but Liquid Web Has More Security Features

Both Liquid Web and Kinsta secure hosted websites with free SSL certificates. They also share the following security features:

• DDoS protection
• Integrated firewalls
• 24/7 server monitoring

Liquid Web also provides HTTP intrusion protection and daily security audits with all its plans and supports CloudLinux OS. CloudLinux OS securely isolates your account from others on the same server to protect it against unwanted external threats targeting those accounts. At the same time, it ensures the fair allocation of server resources.

As previously mentioned, both hosts offer free CDNs. In addition to the performance-boosting nature of a CDN, it also secures your website from unwanted external cyber threats targeting the network.

Both hosts take automatic backups of your website daily, which you can easily restore from the control panel.

While not top-of-the-range, Liquid Web offers more features to secure your website than Kinsta, making it the winner of this round by a slim margin.

5. Support

Liquid Web Has More Support Channels than Kinsta

Both Liquid Web and Kinsta have elegant and organized websites. They include exhaustive knowledgebases that contain numerous guides and tutorials. You’ll also find detailed FAQ sections.

Liquid Web’s customer support is available 24/7 through phone, live chat, email, and support ticket. The fastest and most reliable online channel is live chat, so that’s what I went for. I was instantly connected to an agent who answered all my questions promptly.

Kinsta also offers 24/7 support via live chat, email, and tickets. However, it doesn’t have phone support, and the live chat option is only available for registered customers. In other words, it only provides support via email and support tickets for pre-sales inquiries. Once you are a client, it’s easy to get in touch with the live chat from your dashboard, and the agents are quite helpful.

Liquid Web’s more expansive range of communication channels, and its pre-sales availability, make it a more reliable host when it comes to support.

Kinsta Loses Out to Liquid Web by a Nose

In this neck-and-neck battle, Liquid Web defeated Kinsta in almost all categories, but only by a slim margin. Liquid Web has the upper hand when it comes to friendly prices, allocated resources, and swift customer support. While Kinsta dominated the performance round, thanks to its impeccable test results. Both hosts are average when it comes to security.

It’s no surprise that both Liquid Web and Kinsta are featured on our top 10 list of the best recommended web hosting services.

FAQ

Which is better, Liquid Web or Kinsta?Both Liquid Web and Kinsta are among the best managed WordPress hosting services. Liquid Web is suitable for large websites and demanding businesses. Kinsta meets the needs of small to medium-sized companies.

Liquid Web is cheaper and provides more hosting options and resources. Kinsta excels in performance.Is Liquid Web good for VPS hosting?Yes. Liquid Web offers a broad range of fully managed VPS hosting plans for Linux and Windows operating systems. Thanks to its feature-packed VPS plans, Liquid Web has made it to our expert list of the best cheap and trusted VPS services.Does Kinsta offer shared hosting?No. Kinsta specializes in managed WordPress hosting and offers WooCommerce hosting as well. If you’re looking for reliable shared hosting, don’t miss our list of the best shared hosting services.Which Liquid Web plan should I choose?I recommend starting with the cheapest (smallest) package, whether it’s WordPress hosting, VPS, dedicated server, or shared hosting, to test the service and make sure you’re fully satisfied. You can always upgrade later on.