Where speed comes from

Three things that make your site faster

No marketing, just the three places where a website loses time, and what we do about them.

NVMe storage

Every page WordPress or another CMS builds reads dozens of files and runs database queries. On NVMe that does not wait on a disk; it adds up on every request.

CloudLinux: no noisy neighbours

On shared hosting you share a server. CloudLinux gives every account fixed CPU, memory and I/O limits, so a spike at someone else does not slow your site.

Our own network with direct peering

Our network AS211588 peers directly with more than 600 networks, including the big Dutch ISPs. Traffic to your visitors takes no detour.

The stack under your site

What runs on every web hosting server, and why.

  • NVMe SSD storage for fast I/O on every request
  • CloudLinux OS with LVE: fixed resources per account
  • Imunify360: malware scanning, firewall and brute-force protection
  • DirectAdmin: a light and fast control panel
  • PHP version per site, including the latest 8.x
  • Free Let's Encrypt SSL, renewed automatically
  • SSH and SFTP access for deploys and WP-CLI
  • Servers in our own racks in Ede and Naaldwijk, on AS211588

Why the Netherlands

Why host your website in the Netherlands?

Location is more than a flag on a map. It decides which network your visitors arrive over, how short the path is and which law your data falls under.

Our own racks in Ede and Naaldwijk

The web hosting servers sit in our own racks at BIT in Ede and Greenhouse in Naaldwijk, on our own network. The network core runs at two Amsterdam sites, NorthC and NIKHEF, so a single failure does not take the network down. Your data stays in the Netherlands, under Dutch and EU law.

Our own network, not a resold line

Your traffic runs over our own AS211588. That network connects to five transit providers and sits on six internet exchanges: ERA-IX, NL-ix, Frys-IX, Speed-IX, nine and 1-IX EU, with ports of up to 100 Gbit/s. On top of that we peer directly with more than 600 other networks, including the big Dutch ISPs.

Short paths to your visitors

Because of that direct peering, traffic from Dutch, Belgian and German providers crosses the exchange straight to your site, without a detour through a transit network abroad. Fewer hops means a faster first byte. You can check the exact path yourself on bgp.tools.

See our data centres and network Live connectivity on bgp.tools

The numbers

Own network
AS211588
Internet exchanges
6
Transit providers
5
Direct peers
600+
IX ports
up to 100 Gbit/s
Core
NorthC + NIKHEF, Amsterdam
Web hosting
Amsterdam

Source: PeeringDB and bgp.tools, AS211588 (Innovation Harbor B.V.).

Traffic: fair use, no small print

We do not sell "unlimited", because it does not exist. What you get is fair use, measured at the 95th percentile: a busy day or a viral post costs you nothing, only structurally high usage counts. If your site structurally outgrows that, it is time to talk about a VPS.

How we measure traffic

Measure it

Speed is measurable, so measure it

Do not take any hosting company at its word, including us. Measure your site with PageSpeed Insights or WebPageTest and look at the time to first byte (TTFB): that is the part the hosting is responsible for. Everything after that, images, scripts and fonts, lives in your site itself.

What you may expect on our side: a short TTFB thanks to NVMe and fixed resources, and a short path to Dutch visitors thanks to direct peering. What you can do yourself: pick a current PHP version in DirectAdmin, use a caching plugin if you run WordPress, and shrink images before uploading them. Not sure where the time goes? Send us your measurement and we will look with you.

When a VPS is faster

Shared web hosting is fast for websites. If you run an application with many concurrent users, a large shop or your own software outside PHP, you want guaranteed cores and memory that are yours alone. That is a VPS on the same Ryzen 9 hardware, in the same network. Rather not manage it yourself? A managed VPS with a control panel gives you your own resources without the admin work.

See VPS hosting See managed servers Read why your hosting is slowing down your project
When a VPS is faster

The same speed in every plan

The difference between the plans is space, domains and email, not speed. NVMe, CloudLinux and the network are the same everywhere.

Webhosting Small

€5.00 /mo

Or €60.00 €50.00 /yr Save 17% · 2 months free

Webhosting Small
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  • 1 Domeinnaam (2 alias domeinnamen)
  • 15GB Opslagruimte
  • Fair-use bandbreedte
  • 1 Email inbox
  • DirectAdmin controlepaneel
  • Gratis SSL-certificaten
  • 2 MySQL databases

Webhosting Medium

€10.00 /mo

Or €120.00 €100.00 /yr Save 17% · 2 months free

Webhosting Medium
Order now
  • 2 Domeinnamen (4 alias domeinnamen)
  • 50GB Opslagruimte
  • Fair-use bandbreedte
  • 5 E-mail inboxen
  • DirectAdmin controlepaneel
  • Gratis SSL-certificaten
  • 4 MySQL databases

Running WordPress? See what our WordPress hosting adds. Want to compare first? All plans side by side.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions about fast web hosting

Question not listed? Get in touch, we are happy to think along.

In our own racks at BIT in Ede and Greenhouse in Naaldwijk, connected to our own network AS211588. The network core runs at two Amsterdam sites, NorthC and NIKHEF. Your data stays in the Netherlands.

With CloudLinux. Every account gets fixed limits for CPU, memory and I/O. A spike at another account stays within its own limits. You can see how much your site uses in DirectAdmin.

For websites, yes. A CMS reads dozens of files and runs several database queries per page. NVMe has much lower latency and more parallel capacity than SATA SSDs or hard drives, so each of those small waits disappears.

The hosting itself does not cache for you; you do that in your CMS, for instance with a caching plugin in WordPress, and that works here as normal. You can put a CDN in front of your site yourself. For Dutch visitors the gain is limited, because your site already sits directly on the Dutch exchanges.

Then a VPS is the logical step: your own cores and memory, root access and the same NVMe storage, on the same network. If you do not want to manage a server, a managed VPS with a control panel is the middle road: no shared hosting, but an easy start. We move your site and tell you honestly when web hosting is still enough.

How to check your site's resource usage is explained in the knowledge base.

Ready for hosting you can measure?

Pick a plan and measure it yourself. If it disappoints, we look together at where the time goes.

See the plans