Liquid Web vs ScalaHosting: VPS hosting compared

Liquid Web and ScalaHosting are two of the best web hosting providers but which one has the best VPS for your project? Let’s dive in to the main differences between these two VPS providers and find out.

Infrastructure

(Liquid Web uses NVMe on dedicated hosting. Interestingly, Liquid Web also offers GPU hosting for dedicated servers intended for AI workloads.)

Meanwhile, ScalaHosting has data centers around the globe, with native hosting and AWS infrastructure in North America, native, AWS, and integrated cloud server farms in Europe, and cloud and AWS and cloud in Asia and Australia. VPS plans are hosted on servers running “Broadwell” Intel Core Processors, according to our testing, which again suggests a CPU in the Intel Xeon family. ScalaHosting VPS servers use NVMe SSD drives for storage.

Plans

Both hosting providers offer a range of plans, from basic WordPress-based shared hosting through cloud, VPS, and dedicated hosting.

ScalaHosting and Liquid Web each offer four standard VPS plans, along with custom options.

Liquid Web has as comprehensive server configuration tool, which doesn’t just give you various specs to work with, but also lets you choose self-managed, core managed ($21/mo), and fully managed ($39/mo) options.

ScalaHosting also has a custom Linux VPS option, starting at $24.95/mo (or $19.95 if paid annually) with your choice of virtual CPU cores, RAM, and SSD storage. Note that this can get expensive, however, and is more suited to very specific cases. ScalaHosting also has managed and unmanaged plans with the real value in managed.

Pricing

Liquid Web’s most affordable VPS is a basic part-managed plan at $5/mo, giving you a single vCPU, 1GB RAM, and 30GB SSD storage. At the other end of the scale is a $90/mo plan (discounted to $45/mo for two months) with 6 vCPU, 16GB RAM, and 440GB SSD.

ScalaHosting lists four “unmanaged” VPS plans which are similar enough to Liquid Web’s plans that they can both be considered part-managed.

Its most affordable plan, Build #1, is $19.95/mo (for 12 months, or $24.95/mo on a monthly rolling contract) with 2 vCPUs, 4GB RAM and 50GB NVMe storage. At the other end of the scale is a $122.95/mo (based on 12 months paid up-front, otherwise $183.95/mo) plan, with 16 vCPU cores, 32GB RAM, and 240GB NVMe storage. Note that the discounted plans renew at the standard monthly price.

There is clearly a difference in price between ScalaHosting and Liquid Web. While the $5/mo plan from Liquid Web is its most affordable, it is also lower spec than anything from ScalaHosting. The closest match is Liquid Web’s $8.50/month 4GB plan (with a 2-core vCPU and 80GB SSD), which is roughly equivalent to ScalaHosting’s Build #1, at $19.95/mo. However, this puts you in the position of essentially paying over $11 per month for 30GB less storage, albeit with a faster, more reliable NVMe drive.

Liquid Web

Liquid Web offers a collection of configurations that are either included or bolted on. You can select data locations, choose between a Linux OS (AlmaLinux 9, Debian 13, Rocky Linux 9, and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS) or Windows Server 2025 Standard Edition, and add backups. These are free if stored in the Liquid Web cloud, or an addition $17/mo if you use Acronis. Advanced DDoS protection and ThreatDown paid add-ons are also available, along with cloud block storage for efficient hosting. If you need a control panel, Interworx (Liquid Web’s proprietary tool) is available at $11/mo, or you can pay more for Plesk ($26/mo) or cPanel ($31/mo). You can also pay for additional IP addresses at $6/mo per address.

If you’re planning to use WordPress, Liquid Web offers a swift setup, and has SiteJet AI Website Creator. However, in our testing, we found it doesn’t automatically add images, which doesn’t match our experience with other hosts.

operating system.

(Note that by default, ScalaHosting will drop you into its first available data center. You need to edit the order to change this.)

ScalaHosting has an automated setup built into its WordPress installation, although this is not AI, instead relying on the Spectra Website Builder and Astra theme. Setup is very quick, however – it took around the same length of time to install as it did to input the site name and user credentials.

WordPress template system

ScalaHosting VPS offers a WordPress template system, rather than an AI tool (Image credit: Screenshot: Scala Hosting)

WordPress benchmarks

We installed WordPress and a WooCommerce store on each host, and tested with the WordPress Benchmark plugin to assess performance.

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Row 0 – Cell 0	Liquid Web	ScalaHosting
CPU & Memory	Row 1 – Cell 1	Row 1 – Cell 2
Operations with large text data	5.86	10
Random binary data operations	8.26	9.15
Recursive mathematical calculations	6.5	6.71
Iterative mathematical calculations	9.6	10
Floating point operations	8.7	8.97
Filesystem	Row 7 – Cell 1	Row 7 – Cell 2
Filesystem write ability	9.43	10
Local file copy and access speed	9.66	10
Small file IO test	10	10
Database	Row 11 – Cell 1	Row 11 – Cell 2
Importing large amount of data to database	7.77	6.59
Simple queries on single table	9.72	9.35
Complex database queries on multiple tables	9.64	10
Object cache	9.46	9.96
Persistent object cache enabled	4.42	4.74
WordPress core	8.71	8.76
Shortcode processing	Row 18 – Cell 1	Row 18 – Cell 2
WordPress Hooks	9.53	8.55
WordPress option manipulation	8.1	8.3
REGEX string processing	8.1	0
Taxonomy benchmark	8.36	8.94
Object capability benchmark	9.46	9.96
Content filtering	4.42	4.74
JSON manipulations	8.71	8.76
Network	Row 26 – Cell 1	Row 26 – Cell 2
Network download speed test	9.53	8.55
Server score	8.1	8.3

The scores indicate that while ScalaHosting might have slightly faster server hardware, the overall configuration of both delivers similar results.

Support

Both hosts offer a self-managed experience, which means that the server environment (LAMP, XAMP, WAMP, etc.) is pre-installed and largely configured. You won’t need to worry about installing WordPress, for example, as this can be done following the creation of an account within the control panel admin environment.

If you run into any problems, you can refer to documentation or call upon support staff for assistance. But with self-managed VPS hosting, they cannot fix anything unless it is a pre-configuration issue. Everything else is on you to fix, and this includes maintenance (updates, backups, etc.). Instructions can be provided for solving issues, but unless you pay for server management, it’s all on you.

I found Liquid Web were quick to respond to a password reset issue with my hosting account (not the server), but interaction was otherwise minimal. It has a good selection of support resources, however, which is useful as it offers less support for self-managed VPS customers than ScalaHosting does.

ScalaHosting fixed two issues for me quickly. The first was choosing the wrong data center, which I had inadvertently left as the default option (EU-based) when I needed a US server. As I spotted this quickly, they were able to sort it out almost immediately. However, the second was a little more complex (concerning missing credentials and welcome email), but this was solved within 10 minutes. For unmanaged hosting, this is excellent.

Verdict

The VPS hosting on offer from Liquid Web and ScalaHosting is quite evenly matched.

Both offer a streamlined, modern user interface, with clear icons and menus that guide you through each task without appearing to do so. I was particularly impressed with both hosts’ speed, particularly concerning the automated setup of WordPress. Given that this is marketed as unmanaged VPS hosting, I had surprisingly little to do.

Pricing does differ on a like-for-like basis with these hosts, but the WordPress performance is similar enough to let you base your decision purely on price, support, and features.

ScalaHosting’s support makes it ideal for any growing website – perhaps with an e-commerce store – particularly if you don’t have your own IT team of in-house web admin to fix issues. Meanwhile, Liquid Web’s VPS plans seem more suited for enterprise or fast-growing SMEs.