There’s no shortage of hosting providers out there. At Atarim we were already using what was considered to be the fastest managed hosting. So when we saw Rocket’s claim of being the “World’s Fastest WordPress Hosting”, we took it with a pinch of salt.
And boy – were we wrong. For Atarim’s website presence, we needed a host that matched our ambitions, and Rocket.net delivered with aplomb.
In this post, we are going to go over Rocket.net’s hosting service and tell you just what convinced us to switch hosts – and move to Rocket.net.
Rocket.net – An Introduction
Rocket.net is a managed WordPress hosting provider that was founded in 2020. The company was the first managed hosting platform that came fully integrated with Cloudflare Enterprise, which is definitely a plus.
The company’s headquarters are located in West Palm Beach, FL, and they are fully remote. The company has more than 250 server locations that they use to offer caching and security services.
They house their hosting servers in Internet Exchanges, with each exchange connected directly to a local ISP, which helps reduce latency and increases speeds.
Rocket.net claims that this offers faster TTFB (time-to-first-byte), full page caching, and significantly lower latency as a result. They also have 15+ Edge Hosting Locations, which is essentially a data server that’s installed within an Internet Exchange.
Server Infrastructure Designed for WordPress
One of the things that we really liked about Rocket.net was that their infrastructure is really optimized for WordPress websites. They use an optimized stack that integrates Cloudflare Enterprise and improves performance, no matter the nature of your site.
Rocket.net servers offer built-in caching, NVMe drives (which significantly improve performance), and are powered by NGINX. Every WordPress install is cached automatically and is secured by the Cloudflare Enterprise Network, which further improves content delivery.
Full Control Over Your WordPress Site
You don’t need Plesk or cPanel with Rocket.net. Rocket.net’s dashboard is clean and thoughtfully designed, offering you important information and controls right where you need them.
You can deploy WordPress in a single click, test out new features in a dedicated staging environment, and you can even bring on more users and assign them roles to create a proper team.
Other features include 2FA support, and here’s one of the things that we really liked: free migrations! The team at Rocket.net was kind enough to manage the migration of our site for us, which happened quickly and seamlessly.
For a site like Atarim, we wanted to make sure that it was moved in its exact condition. Their team was incredibly helpful in managing the migration and made sure that everything went smoothly.
And the instant performance boost right after was definitely the cherry on top!
Pricing
We know how important pricing is for new customers, and compared to other providers, it’s plain to say that Rocket.net isn’t the cheapest hosting provider out there.
That’s their base annual payment structure for their managed hosting. Obviously, if you want enterprise hosting or need a custom solution tailored to the needs of your agency, you’ll have to pay more.
But, their basic plan comes with a bunch of amenities, including:
- Web Application Firewall (WAF)
- Automatic database optimization
- Hands-free migration
- 30 days money-back guarantee (included with all plans)
- 20+ server locations
- Multisite support
- 14 days backup retention
- Automated backups on a daily basis
- Git integration
- SSH access
- Automatic plugin and theme updates
- Automatic WP Core safe updates
Incredibly Fast Performance
Here’s how Atarim fares in terms of TTFB across Europe, as measured using SpeedVitals. As you can see, Atarim does quite well across the board. And, here’s the global performance map:
The speed boost was instantaneous:
For those who know a thing or two about hosting, you may appreciate just how powerful this is. An optimized, fast-loading website is critical for a tool like Atarim, and that’s just what we get with Rocket.net.
Cloudflare Enterprise Beats Out the Competition
First off, we know that there are other providers that offer Cloudflare Enterprise right out of the box. But Rocket.net does a better job of integrating it into its core platform.
For starters, Cloudflare Enterprise is free and automatically deployed on every website that you launch. You can access all 270+ Cloudflare PoPs with Rocket.net without doing a thing.
And many of Rocket.net’s servers are situated in the same data centers as Cloudflare’s. Other competitors often charge a small fee per domain to use Cloudflare Enterprise, and some require you to configure it too.
With Rocket.net, there’s nothing to worry about. The moment you launch your server, everything’s configured without any hassle.
You also get added benefits like Argo Smart Routing and Tiered Cache (which detect traffic congestion in real-time and reroute the traffic through the fastest paths).
Unlimited PHP Workers
Another thing that we really liked about Rocket.net is that you don’t have to constantly worry about upgrading PHP worker limits or enhancing the CPU limits. Rocket.net doesn’t limit your PHP workers since they use Cloudflare Enterprise so effectively.
Unrivaled Customer Support
We’ve already touched upon this, but this definitely deserves a separate section. Rocket.net’s support is exceptional, and we know just how important good support can be for retaining customers.
They have a team of professionals who are available 24/7 to answer questions. They offer support via email, and phone, and you can also use their live chat. Every time we’ve contacted them, we have been pleasantly surprised at just how prompt the response was.
Robust Security Stack
Security is obviously going to be a major concern for you. Rocket.net excels on this front, as it uses two firewalls: a website firewall and a web application firewall, both of which work together to protect your site.
More importantly, you also get a host of additional security features, such as:
- Cross-site scripting (XSS)
- OWASP Top 10 protection
- SQL injection prevention
- Protection against brute force attacks
They’ve also incorporated malware protection, so each request to your WP site is scanned in real time for any harmful code. This also includes FTP uploads and HTTP requests.
The Atarim x Rocket Integration Is Now Available
Here’s the thing: we were so impressed with Rocket.net that we worked with their team to introduce an official integration with Rocket.net. Now, if you’re using Rocket.net, you can simply launch an Atarim instance straight from their dashboard:
All you need to do is to toggle a button through your Rocket.net dashboard, and you’ll be able to access Atarim. This makes it incredibly easy for agencies that have to collaborate on multiple sites with clients:
Conversely, if you’re using Atarim and want to create a site and launch it on Rocket.net, you can now do so from within the dashboard:
You can even manage your site more efficiently straight from Atarim, instead of having to go into the Rocket.net dashboard. Here’s how it’ll look:
All of this makes client collaboration and communication insanely easy. You don’t need to worry about sending emails, communicating over Slack or WhatsApp, or doing long video calls. Clients can simply leave their requests in Atarim, giving you access to visual information that you can use.
Many of our clients will benefit from the faster speeds and better support that Rocket.net has to offer, just as we did. From creating staging environments in Rocket.net or managing sites conveniently through Atarim and Rocket.net, we believe this is the ultimate combo that will hugely benefit agency owners.
Rocket.net is the Best Managed WordPress Hosting Platform Out There
We’ve been in the WordPress ecosystem for a while now, so we have a comprehensive understanding of just how difficult it is to call one hosting provider “the best”.
In this case, though, we can confidently say that Rocket.net has led to an instant performance boost for Atarim, and moving to Rocket.net was absolutely the right choice for us!
Why not supercharge your website? Sign up for a Rocket.net account today and see for yourself just why we agree that they’re the world’s fastest web hosting provider.