ChemiCloud Review – LiteSpeed Hosting, 9/11 Data Centers Use NVMe, And Scalable CPU/RAM With Their Turbo+ Boost Add-on

Sure, ChemiCloud uses LiteSpeed. But they also solve 2 big problems.

1st problem is that some hosts only have 2-3 data centers, like NameHero and Scala. And only their US data center uses faster NVMe storage (most other LiteSpeed hosts like Hostinger don’t use NVMe at all). The 2nd problem is you have to sign up for 3 years upfront to get the cheapest price, but most hosts don’t let you scale CPU cores/RAM if your traffic or resource usage goes up.

ChemiCloud solves both these by using NVMe SSDs on 9/11 data centers. And while you still have to sign up for 3 years to get the cheapest price, you can use their Turbo+ Boost add-on to scale cores/RAM from 3 cores + 3GB RAM to 6 cores + 6GB RAM for an extra $6-7/mo. So even if you sign up for 3 years, you don’t have to upgrade to an entirely new plan just to add resources.

Aside from those, you get standard cPanel, Imunify360 for security, and multiple free migrations. ChemiCloud also has a 5/5 star TrustPilot rating where you can see people moving from SiteGround, Bluehost, GoDaddy, HostGator, and other lower quality shared hosts – all of which use slower SATA SSDs, strict CPU or I/O limits, and Chemi also has much better support.

For shared hosting, ChemiCloud/NameHero are usually my top 2 picks (it mainly depends where your visitors are). And with a 45-day refund policy, I’d say they’re definitely worth a try.

 

1. LiteSpeed On All Shared Plans

All ChemiCloud plans use LiteSpeed servers.

This is usually more CPU efficient than Apache (what most hosts use) and means you’ll use the LiteSpeed Cache plugin, then use it to connect Memcached and QUIC.cloud’s CDN with 81 data centers. This is a faster (and often cheaper) setup than something like SiteGround who charges $14.99/mo for their CDN on top of having to use a premium cache plugin to get optimal results.

 

2. NVMe Storage On 9/11 Data Centers

NVMe SSDs are faster than SATA used on most hosts, often with 6x faster read/write speeds.

Unlike many hosts who have less data centers or only use NVMe in the US, ChemiCloud uses NVMe in 9/11 data centers (soon to be all 11). If visitors aren’t close to these, I suggest using QUIC.cloud CDN’s standard plan which serves both static/dynamic content from 81 locations.

Choose your data center at checkout:

 

3. Scalable CPU Cores/RAM Using Turbo+ Boost Add-On

The Turbo+ Boost add-on doubles the number of cores/RAM, letting you go from 3 CPU cores + 3GB RAM to 6 CPU cores + 6GB RAM. Hostwinds recommends keeping resource usage under 50% or it can lead to performance issues… so this is a good alternative instead of buying a new plan. They also have add-ons for shared/VPS/reseller plans, like one for disk space and dedicated IP.

Price:

• 12 months (7% Discount) $77.40 ($6.45/mo)
• 24 months (10% Discount) $150 ($6.25/mo)
• 36 months (14% Discount) $214.20 ($5.95/mo)

 

4. Why I Recommend The WordPress Turbo Plan

Because you get object cache (Memcached), OPcache, and more CPU cores + RAM. Which between these, means better performance and less chance of high CPU usage. You also get more disk space and inodes which you may need more if you also use your hosting for email.

Here’s the table from their website:

Here’s what the damage would be for 3 years:

 

5. Request Free Migration(s)

Their migrations include 200 free cPanel migrations + 10 non-cPanel migrations. You can also search “migrations” on TrustPilot to see other people’s experiences with migrations + support.

 

6. Configure LiteSpeed Cache

Once your site is moved, configure LiteSpeed Cache using my tutorial.

This does a great job optimizing core web vitals and is arguably faster than WP Rocket (and definitely faster than SiteGround’s Optimizer plugin which can’t even delay JavaScript or remove unused CSS). You also get server-side caching and the developers do a good job of releasing new features which you can follow in the LiteSpeed WordPress Community FB group.

	SG Optimizer	WP Rocket	LiteSpeed Cache
Price	Free	$59/year	Free
Server-side caching	✓	x	✓
Object cache integration	✓	x	✓
Delay JavaScript	x	✓	✓
Remove unused CSS	x	Inline	Separate file
Critical CSS	x	✓	✓
Host third-party code locally	x	x	✓
Image compression	✓	x	via QUIC
WebP	✓	x	via QUIC
Image placeholders	x	x	LQIP via QUIC
Add missing image dimensions	x	✓	✓
Exclude viewport images from lazy	By class/type	Helper plugin	Automatically
Lazy render HTML elements	x	x	✓
Preload links	x	✓	✓
First time visit optimization	x	x	Guest mode
Control cache TTL	x	✓	✓
Control preloading	x	✓	✓
ESI (edge side includes)	x	x	✓
Gravatar cache	x	x	✓
Limit post revisions	Delete all	Delete all	Keep some
CDN	Google Cloud	StackPath	QUIC.cloud
CDN PoPs	176	73	81 (standard plan)
CDN price	$14.99/month	$7.99/month	$.02-.08/GB
Full page caching	✓	x	✓
Bandwidth	Unmetered	Very limited	Unlimited
Frequent new features	x	x	✓

 

7. Connect Memcached + OPcache

Assuming you bought ChemiCloud’s WordPress Turbo plan, you’ll also want to enable Memcached + OPcache. ChemiCloud has instructions for Memcached which involves going to cPanel → LSMCD User Manager, then generating a password. Next, you’ll go to your LiteSpeed Cache settings and enable object cache (Memcached) while entering your username/password.

 

8. Connect QUIC.cloud’s CDN

QUIC.cloud’s CDN was also designed for LiteSpeed and caches both static/dynamic content on 81 PoPs. This should improve TTFB in multiple locations which you can measure in SpeedVitals and KeyCDN’s Performance Test. QUIC is also needed for page/image optimizations to work in LiteSpeed Cache with other benefits (like HTTP/3, Anycast smart routing, and DDoS protection).

Step 1: In the LiteSpeed Cache General settings, request a domain key and add your server IP. Once you have a domain key, click “link to QUIC.cloud” which adds a link to QUIC’s dashboard.

Step 2: In LiteSpeed Cache’s CDN settings, enable QUIC.cloud CDN (leave CDN Mapping off).

Step 3: Go to your QUIC dashboard, click your domain, and go to CDN → Enable CDN.

Step 4: Choose a method for connecting QUIC. I prefer QUIC’s DNS since it provides better routing and Anycast. And unlike the CNAME method, you can use it for both www or non-www.

• QUIC.cloud DNS: QUIC will copy DNS records, click “enable and add records,” and you’ll get 2 nameservers. Login to your domain registrar and change these to QUIC’s. Wait about 30 minutes and refresh the page. If successful, you’ll see “using DNS” in QUIC’s dashboard.
• CNAME: copy the address from QUIC and login to ChemiCloud’s cPanel. Head to the Zone Editor → Manage, and find your domain. If it has an A record, delete it and create a CNAME record. If you already have a CNAME record, edit it, then paste the address QUIC gave you. This only works if your site is using the www version in your WordPress “General” settings.
• Cloudflare: LiteSpeed has a video tutorial on this. You will change the CNAME record in Cloudflare to the one provided by QUIC.cloud. To do this, go to Cloudflare’s DNS settings and delete the A records for both your www and non-www domain. Next, create CNAME records for www and non-www domains. Make sure you use “DNS Only.” If you have Mail or MX records which use your root domain, you will need to create a subdomain and point the MX record to it. If you have issues, it may be caused by redirects in your .htaccess file.

Step 5: Verify QUIC.cloud’s CDN is working. You should see a confirmation message in your QUIC.cloud dashboard (i.e. Using DNS when using QUIC.cloud’s DNS). Eventually, you’ll see traffic is served through QUIC.cloud in the Analytics settings. You can also do an HTTP/3 Test.

Step 6: Review the free vs. standard plan differences. Unlike the free plan which only uses 6 PoPs, QUIC’s standard plan uses all 81 PoPs with DDoS protection. Especially if your visitors are far away from your ChemiCloud server, you’ll want the standard plan which is $.01-$.08/GB (depending on which regions you select) and requires adding credits to your QUIC dashboard.

 

9. Update To PHP 8+

Login to your ChemiCloud cPanel → Select PHP Version. Update to the latest version while testing your site for broken elements (which probably means a specific plugin isn’t compatible).

 

10. About Their Cloud VPS Plans

A VPS is obviously more powerful than shared and gives you more control. And from what I’ve seen, ChemiCloud is more on the affordable side. The major downside is ChemiCloud’s CPUs run at 2.20GHz where Vultr High Frequency runs at 3+ GHz. So Chemi probably won’t be as fast.

To use LiteSpeed on ChemiCloud’s Cloud VPS plans, add $9.95/mo since that’s the cost of the LiteSpeed license. Which means ChemiCloud’s “Cloud 1” plan will really end up costing $39.90.

This is still much cheaper than someone like Cloudways. Just for comparison, ChemiCloud’s Cloud 1 plan costs $39.90 and includes 2 CPU cores + 4GB memory. To get the same amount of cores/RAM on Cloudways Vultr HF would cost $60/mo (plus the cost of a premium cache plugin and their $5/mo Cloudflare Enterprise add-on). Which means you’re actually looking at $70/mo.

Here’s the table from their website:

 

11. ChemiCloud vs. Similar Hosts

ChemiCloud isn’t even comparable to GoDaddy, Bluehost, HostGator, and several other hosts (that’s why I didn’t list them). They’re night and day in terms of performance/support/reliability.

I’ll take ChemiCloud over SiteGround/Hostinger with LiteSpeed, NVMe, more cores/RAM, 5 star TrustPilot rating, and free migrations by a reliable team. NameHero/FastComet are more similar with LiteSpeed/cPanel, but they either don’t use NVMe or only use it for US. The 2 main cons of ChemiCloud are 3-year contracts to get the cheapest price, and Redis is faster than Memcached.

	SiteGround GrowBig	Hostinger Business WP	FastComet FastCloud Extra	NameHero Turbo Cloud	ChemiCloud WordPress Turbo
Type	Shared	Shared	Shared	Shared	Shared
Server	Apache + Nginx	LiteSpeed	LiteSpeed	LiteSpeed	LiteSpeed
Cores/RAM	Not listed	2 cores/1.5GB	6 cores/6GB	3 cores/3GB	3 cores/3GB (scalable to 6/6)
Storage	20GB / SATA	200GB / SATA	35GB / SATA	Unlimited NVMe (US data center)	40GB NVMe (9/11 data centers)
Database	MySQL	MariaDB	MySQL	MariaDB	MariaDB
Object cache	Memcached	Memcached	Memcached	Redis	Memcached
OPcache	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Inodes	400,000	600,000	500,000	500,000	500,000
Data centers	10	8	11	2	11
Email storage	10GB	1GB	2.048GB	Unlimited	Unlimited
Free domain	x	1 year	1 year	1 year	1 year
Major incidents	TTFB, DNS, CPU issues, controls Facebook groups	Downtimes, scams, fake reviews, bad poll	2022 DDoS attack on 3 data centers	2011 2-day node outage	None
Migrations	$30/site	Unlimited free (but screws it up)	3 free	1 free	200 cPanel + 10 non-cPanel
CDN	SiteGround CDN	QUIC.cloud	QUIC.cloud	QUIC.cloud	QUIC.cloud
Full page caching	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Cache plugin	SG Optimizer (view chart)	LiteSpeed Cache	LiteSpeed Cache	LiteSpeed Cache	LiteSpeed Cache
Control Panel	Site Tools	hPanel	cPanel	cPanel	cPanel
TrustPilot rating	4.6/5	4.6/5 (fake)	4.9/5	4.6/5	5/5
Intro price	$3.99/mo	$3.99/mo	$4.39/mo	$9.98/mo	$6.98/mo
Renewal price	$24.99/mo	$14.99/mo	$21.95/mo	$19.95/mo	$19.95/mo
Contract length	1 year	1-4 years	1 mo – 3 yrs	3 years	3 years

 
Most of their “stack” is listed on the partners page.

 

12. Facebook Feedback

As always, I recommend joining the WP Speed Matters Facebook group since most other Facebook groups are run by SiteGround (that’s the only reason they’re promoted everywhere).

 

As of writing this, I’ve referred 46 people to ChemiCloud and only 1 got reversed, which means about 98% of people who signed up stayed with them – thank you so much if you use my link :)

Cheers,
Tom