NitroPack Vs. LiteSpeed – Which is Best?
This comprehensive post explains the pricing and features of the two leading WordPress performance optimization plugins. If you want good clarity on NitroPack Vs. LiteSpeed, you will need to read this post till the end.
NitroPack Vs. LiteSpeed – Overview
NitroPack is an all-in-one speed optimization tool, and most of it is done automatically without users being required to touch a single line of code. The tool uses a combination of advanced caching, code minification, image optimization, and CDN to make websites blazing fast.
LiteSpeed Cache is an all-in-one WordPress site acceleration plugin that uses exclusive server-level cache and other optimization features. The plugin is available for free. However, it requires LiteSpeed's server to work.
NitroPack Vs. LiteSpeed – Pricing
NitroPack is available in three pricing options alongside the free plan. The lowest tier plan starts at $17.50 per month, ideal for 1 Website and 50,000 per month page views, and comes with a CDN bandwidth of 25GB per month.
The plan is perfect for growing businesses, and advanced companies can choose the Growth plan for $42.50 per month. High-traffic websites can opt for the Scale plan for $146.67 per month for the maximum resources.
Follow the link to get a 5% discount on any NitroPack plan.
These are the features standard in all NitroPack plans:
- All-in-one automated performance optimization
- Advanced Caching Mechanism
- Complete Image Optimization Stack
- 14-day money-back guarantee
- Built-in global CDN
- Expert support team
LiteSpeed Web Server Enterprise is available in seven plans alongside the Free Starter plan. Site Owner is the lowest tier plan, which costs $10 per month for 5-Domain, 1-Worker, 8 GB Memory, and LSCACHE. The Web Host Elite is the highest tier plan with unlimited Domain, X-Worker, Unlimited Memory, and LSCACHE.
Comparing the pricing, LiteSpeed offers customers comparatively more options than NitroPack. Besides, LiteSpeed is more affordable than NitroPack. For example, the lowest tier LiteSpeed plan costs $10 per month, while the lowest tier NitroPack plan costs $17.50.
NitroPack Vs. LiteSpeed – Features
Ease of Use
When setting up NitroPack, it's effortless to set up and run without any configuration on the users' end. Users, however, can make some changes in the configuration if they want. To set up NitroPack for WordPress, one must have a NitroPack account and connect it to the NitroPack WordPress plugin.
LiteSpeed is comparatively a little hard to configure. Unlike NitroPack, it requires users to configure various settings for it to work up to the mark, and this certainly would need users to be technically sound.
Hence, it wouldn't be wrong to say that NitroPack is easier to handle than LiteSpeed.
Caching
NitroPack uses an advanced caching mechanism. The Smart Invalidation option serves optimized content to the visitors and, at the same time, updates new content in the background.
The Browser Caching functionality ensures only necessary resources are transferred to browsers only once, and this is especially ideal for slow networks. Besides, NitroPack uses Cookie & Device Awareness, and the tool also integrates well with 3rd party caching software like Varnish, NGINX Cache, Cloudflare, and Sucuri.
LSCWP works with the LiteSpeed Web Server to provide websites with the server-level full-page and private cache. LiteSpeed cache serves cached web pages to visitors without running any PHP scripts, and that way, it doesn't take much processing power and serves web pages to visitors in the least time.
The plugin uses a good blend of Browser Cache and Object Cache. Besides, the plugin allows you to force specific resources to be cached and exclude certain resources from public caching.
While NitroPack does cloud-based caching, LiteSpeed does PHP-based caching. Cloud caching doesn't take any server resources, while PHP caching does give a server load to sites.
Thus, NitroPack offers a faster caching solution than PHP-based services like LiteSpeed.
CDN
Both NitroPack and LiteSpeed come with CDN. However, we need to determine which one has the better CDN service. NitroPack's built-in CDN powered by Cloudflare uses modern compression formats for the quickest data delivery. Besides, the CDN allows users to deliver site content to their target audience from the closest global servers for blazing-fast content delivery and an excellent user experience. Furthermore, the CDN optimizes sites for HTTP/2 and delivers content over HTTP/2 whenever it's supported.
As far as the CDN in LiteSpeed goes, LiteSpeed uses QUIC.cloud CDN. QUIC.cloud CDN intelligently caches WordPress dynamic content with reduced transmission time. The CDN can reduce TTFB through HTTP/3, a vast global network of 70 PoPs, free image optimization, page optimization, and Anycast authoritative DNS.
NitroPack Cloudflare CDN has 270+ global locations, while LiteSpeed Quic Cloud has only 70 international CDN locations.
Thus, NitroPack is a clear winner in terms of CDN performance.
Image Optimization
NitroPack comprises comprehensive image optimization options comprising Preemptive Image Sizing, WEBP Support, Adaptive Sizing (BETA), Lazy Loading, and Lossy and Lossless Compression. NitroPack image optimization can make web pages pretty lightweight and fast.
NitroPack and LiteSpeed have a decent image optimization system, but NitroPack is slightly better with more image optimization features. LiteSpeed also has a proper image optimization system in place, and it does it through QUIC.cloud.
The plugin uses the WebP file format and can automatically reduce website image sizes. This can drastically boost the site's speed. However, LiteSpeed lacks Adaptive Sizing.
Winner: NitroPack
Code Optimization
Code optimization can make websites lightweight and super fast. NitroPack optimizes the HTML, CSS, and JS of websites intelligently. The plugin minifies and compresses the scripts. Besides, it comes with CSS Combining, JS Combining, and Deferred loading.
LiteSpeed has an equally effective Script Optimization system with CSS, JavaScript, HTML Minification, and CSS and JavaScript Combination. However, NitroPack is slightly better since it comes with Deferred loading.
Winner: Both
Database Optimization
Databases can grow over time and impact the site speed, so regular optimization is essential. NitroPack doesn't have a dedicated feature for database optimization, while LiteSpeed Cache has a comprehensive database optimization feature.
LiteSpeed Cache Database Optimization comprises Post Revisions, Auto Drafts, Trashed Posts, Spam Comments, Trashed Comments, Trackbacks & Pingbacks, and Expired Transients.
Winner: Both
Conclusion
Both NitroPack and LiteSpeed do their job of site speed optimization. However, NitroPack is ahead of LiteSpeed in comparisons like Caching, CDN, and image optimization.
If we consider pricing, LiteSpeed provides customers with more options and is more affordable than NitroPack.
One impressive thing about NitroPack is that it's super easy to use and doesn't need any configuration, unlike LiteSpeed Cache.
