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Managed Hosting vs Control Panels: Which is the best for YOU?

If you are a WordPress speed fanatic who always looking to speed up your WordPress site, this post is exactly for you. When it comes to blazing fast WordPress site, it boils down to a few critical factors such as hosting solution, cache plugin configuration and having a bloat-free WordPress theme.

You can find my write up on configuring a WordPress cache plugin correctly and even my top choice for a bloat-free WordPress theme … but I had never ever talked about WordPress hosting. More specifically, managed hosting vs control panels.

I’m just like you. I love tweaking my blogs to make it loads faster. Here’s an example of my WordPress service blog, WPMaven.net.

It takes 807 ms to load (according to Pingdom Tools, click here for the result) and while I know this is some stats many would love, I decided to go deeper to see if there is anything else I could do to make my site loads even faster.

And I came across WordPress hosting panels.

What Is WordPress Hosting Panel?

If you do a quick search on Google for “WordPress hosting panel”, you will find tutorials such as how to login to cPanel or your WordPress wp-admin.

A WordPress hosting panel is the backend system of your web hosting solution that gives you advanced features and tools to have full control of your WordPress site. Yes, this includes performing backups, staging and even, making your WordPress site faster.

A WordPress hosting panel is not similar to cPanel. It is often an optimized backend system that is configured specially for WordPress.

Journey Towards Finding A Reliable Control Panel

I started checking through Facebook Groups and other forum related with WordPress and control panels. My journey had brought me to GridPane, RunCloud and Closte. For your information, Closte is a managed WordPress hosting solution just like Kinsta. MPMaven.net is hosted on Kinsta Business plan.

Among GridPane and RunCloud, I decided to head over to GridPane simply because it is more powerful and has better reviews. I migrated one of my live sites to GridPane and my journey in discovering which is better started.

If you are looking for a detailed comparison between GridPane, RunCloud, Closte and Kinsta, you can find a nice write up here.

Managed Hosting vs Control Panels

This is a tough comparison to make. No two websites operate the same and therefore, it really boils down to how your site is being setup.

If you are looking for a hand-free and powerful hosting solution, I recommend you to head over to managed hosting route. For example, managed hosting solution such as Kinsta makes it really easy for you to manage your WordPress site. As a matter of fact, you don’t have to worry about performance, security and backups. At anytime you need any help, just hit the live chat and support would be there under 30 seconds or less.

On the other hand, WordPress hosting panels such as GridPane offers you more flexibility, control and advanced setup to make your WordPress even more powerful. This option may not be the best for you if you are a blogger. However, a WordPress developer will find GridPane a better solution for clients.

January 6, 2025
5+ Web Hosting Malaysia Terbaik For Performance, Speed And Security
Which is the best web hosting solution in Malaysia? I’m glad you asked, because in this post, we will go through some of the best a.k.a. web hosting Malaysia terbaik!

I hope you are ready to dive in, so let’s get started right now.

Most Common CMS For Websites

Before we go into the best web hosting in Malaysia, it is important to understand the type of CMS you are using. The choice of CMS will affect the type of web hosting you should be using.

You might be reading this as a blogger, a writer or eCommerce—and WordPress is often the most popular CMS in Malaysia. Therefore, chances are you’re using WordPress.

And if that’s the case, you are in luck. Most of the web hosting solutions in Malaysia support WordPress.

Are you ready to discover web hosting Malaysia terbaik?

a) Web Hosting Malaysia Terbaik (Cheapest a.k.a. Murah)

There are many types of web hosting solutions and the most popular ones are always the cheapest web hosting Malaysia.

Here are the most popular ones that you should be using today (like seriously serious).

Web Hosting Malaysia Paling Murah a.k.a. Cheapest Web Hosting Malaysia

5.0

Exabytes EBIZ Lite, RM11.99/mo

Affordability, scalability and stable are three reasons why you need to use Exabytes. They offer one of the best web hosting deals in Malaysia.
- 10GB Disk Space
- 20GB Monthly Data Transfer
- 10 Email Accounts
- 1GB Memory
- 1 Website
5.0

Serverfreak Lite, RM16.58/mo

Integrity, reliability and powerful servers are three reasons why Serverfreak is well known as web hosting Malaysia terbaik. You can’t go wrong with Serverfreak (seriously).
- 10GB Ultra Fast SSD-Accelerated Disk Space
- 50GB Monthly Data Transfer
- 10 Email Accounts
- 1.5GB Server RAM
- 1 Website
4.5

Shijiru Eco Startup, RM11.94/mo

Shijiru is another great web hosting Malaysia that is often considered interesting. They provide great shared hosting solution that is affordable (look out for their ad-hoc promotions).
- 10GB Ultra Fast SSD Disk Space
- Un-metered Data Transfer
- Unlimited Email Accounts
- 1 Website
b) Web Hosting Malaysia Terbaik (WordPress Optimized)

The next web hosting Malaysia terbaik is WordPress optimized servers. What are the differences between WordPress optimized servers and shared hosting?

“WordPress optimized servers are often servers that are designed to cater for WordPress CMS. This means that the infrastructure of the servers are tweaked to ensure that they perform at their peaks with WordPress. As a result, your WordPress site will load faster.”

Reginald Chan

WordPress Hosting Malaysia Terbaik (Only For WordPress)

5.0

Exabytes WP Blogger, RM16/mo

Exabytes takes Malaysia WordPress hosting to whole new level with Elementor Page Builder plugin pre-installed in all accounts. Plus, dedicated resources speed up your WordPress by over 2x!
- 1 WordPress Website
- Jetpack Pre-Installed
- 10GB SSD Storage
- Easy Backups & Restorations
- 2 Email Accounts
- Unlimited Data Transfer
5.0 5.0 5.0

Serverfreak WP Starter, RM19.91/mo

If you are looking for powerful WordPress hosting solution in Malaysia, Serverfreak offers LiteSpeed web server. Combined with LiteSpeed cache plugin, your website will load blazing fast and rank higher on Google.
- 1 Domain Allowed
- 25GB Monthly Data Transfer
- 10GB SSD RAID10 Powered Storage
- 1GB Server RAM
- 30 Days Retention Backup Included
5.0

Kinsta Starter, $30/mo (~RM145/mo)

Rated as one of the most powerful managed WordPress hosting solutions in the world, Kinsta offers premium WordPress hosting with superb customer support (live chat). All plans come with Google Cloud Platform and KeyCDN for faster loading speed.
- 1 Domain Allowed
- 20,000 Monthly Visits
- 10GB Disk Space
- Free SSL & CDN
- Google Cloud Platform
4.5 4.5

WPEngine Startup, $25/mo (~RM110/mo)

If your website requires a lot of server resources, WPEngine is another great alternative to Kinsta hosting. It is important to understand that this particular web hosting plan is on a shared hosting platform.
- 1 Domain Allowed
- 25,000 Monthly Visits
- 10GB Disk Space
- 50GB monthly bandwidth
- Free SSL
Which Is The Best Web Hosting Malaysia? (Web Hosting Malaysia Terbaik)

Personally, you can’t go wrong with any of the web hosing choices above. Each of them comes with different pricing and features. Therefore, you need to understand and define the ones that give you the best benefits.

As a summary, Exabytes are best for bloggers and small/medium sized blogs. If you are looking for more firepower and WordPress website is your core business, I recommend you to take a look at what Kinsta hosting has to offer.
January 6, 2025
Signs that Say Your Business is Ready to Go Global

Signs that Say Your Business is Ready to Go Global

Going international is never an easy road especially for ambitious entrepreneurs who want to take the global market, but it’s often a necessary step, helping to prevent business stagnation in a demanding economy and of course, increase in revenue. But, how do you know when you are ready to go global?

Below are some signs that your business is ready to enter an international market:

Taking the Next Step

If your business is in a tough spot where the business is booming but growth has become a challenge. It could be time to take the leap. Just like Uber, ten years ago, it was just a ride-hailing app based in San Francisco. Since then, the company has spread like wildfire across the globe and transformed from black-car service into food delivery. International expansion offers a wide variety of opportunities and potential significant growth.

Demand All Over The Globe

If clients from other parts of the world start to get interested in doing business with you, this could be a sign your company would do better globally. It is advised to understand how International marketing and SEO work or utilize other tools to track where the demand is and reach out through these platforms.

You are Confident in Your Ability to Balance High-Level and Localized Presence

When planning international expansion, you must be confident in your ability that your business can deliver a quality experience and can operate efficiently. For operations to be efficient, you need to have a middleman to trust and can handle your transactions. Make sure you have a clear pathway of communication between your existing business and new venture abroad. Enlist local support to assist you as you prepare to hit the market. It is a good approach that will pay off over the years.

You Feel Comfortable with the Suppliers and Customers You Will Work with Abroad

Logistics can be challenging in the early days of your operations abroad but being able to trust your supplier that they can meet your standards will be essential to your success. There are times businesses are in slow-moving phase, sales are starting to stay still, and can not run in its full potential, look overseas to retain optimal profits.

You Understand the Task Ahead and Think Big

Making a decision for your business comes with a lot of risks. Selecting the right approach to your global expansion can manage your chance of success and can be your way to failure. Do your research and make sure your business plan is aligned with your individual needs.

Going global from the very beginning is challenging but when you take the time to plan your strategy, invest in your presence, and localize your approach, you will be able to go with the trend and adapt to challenges from the start, allowing you to open a vast number of opportunities as time goes on. And that puts you and your business in a fruitful position, local and international.

January 6, 2025
31 WordPress Agency Tools That Everyone Should Be Using Today
What are the tools used by WordPress agencies? For starters, no two WordPress agencies are using similar set of tools. But in this post, you will find popular WordPress agency tools that are commonly used by WordPress agencies around the world.

Let’s start, shall we?

WordPress Builders And WordPress Themes

Most WordPress agencies would use WordPress builders to build websites. These tools are fast and easy to use, as well as creating templates to make the website development even faster.

Here’s the list:
Using WordPress builders are not compulsory but they certainly helps when it comes to WordPress development.

Analytics Tools

WordPress agencies don’t only create WordPress websites, they often offer SEO and content writing services. In this case, analytics tools are critical for performing the tasks properly.

Here’s the list of analytics tools most agencies are using:
Using the right analytics tool will help you create better content and UI to create conversion-focused WordPress designs.

WordPress Hosting Solutions

One of the best way to upsell a client is to offer WordPress hosting solution. This allows the WordPress agency to have better control of the server and perform the need speed optimization to make WordPress faster.

Here are some of the best WordPress hosting solutions for WordPress agencies:
I recommend you to take your time to decide on choosing the best WordPress hosting solution for your client. Going with the wrong one will create a lot of headache and unforeseen challenges.

WordPress Plugins

The right WordPress plugin is going to save you a lot of time and gives you tons of advantages when building WordPress posts and pages.

At the same time, WordPress plugins give you functionabilities that would take a long time to craft if you are hard-coding yourself.

Here’s the list of WordPress plugins that are used by WordPress agencies:
It is important to note that some of these WordPress plugins come with lifetime deal (LTD). This makes it even more profitable for the WordPress agencies in the long run—since they only need to pay once and use forever.
January 6, 2025
Do I Need A WordPress Care Package?
WordPress care packages are pretty much on demand WordPress support. WordPress is a powerful and user-friendly CMS for beginners but at times, it can be really challenging for those who have no experience with coding.

If you have ever encountered your WordPress going down (error 404, ouch) or a totally destroyed website layout thanks to the incompatibility of new plugins, you know exactly what I mean.

Launching a WordPress agency with the right skills and people can be really profitable — that’s why there are so many companies including large ones are promoting WordPress care package.

But, do you know that you DO NOT need WordPress care package as much as you thought you need it?

Here’s why!

The Truth About WordPress Care Packages

When you sign up for a WordPress care package like the ones I personally promote in WP Maven, you are guaranteed with support whenever you need it. This means that you don’t need to wait for day for a response for your support ticket.

These on-demand WordPress support allows you to solve WordPress related problems fast and effectively, avoiding any downtime or loss of income.

Here are some reasons why you NEED a WordPress care package:
- High traffic website (over 100k traffic per month)
- A complex WordPress site, making out of over 20+ plugins
- Cases of hacking and invulnerability
- Using shared web hosting or low powered web hosting plans
- You want to sleep well at night knowing that your website is taken care of
Here are some reasons why you DON’T NEED a WordPress care package:
- Paying a subscription fee on a monthly basis can be heavy for your wallet
- You require less than 5 hours of support each month
- Your website has under 100k traffic per month
- Your website revenue generation is under $100 per month
- You don’t mind ‘trying an error’ and fixing WordPress problems
You see, WordPress care packages are often billed on a monthly basis. This can be rather heavy for many website owners especially when they are only generating under $100 a month.

In this case, it is better for you to go for pay-as-you-go WordPress care packages that helps you to save money and only paying for WordPress services when you really need it.
January 6, 2025
How To Make My WordPress Lightweight And Loads Blazing Fast?
Having a fast loading WordPress website is important and there is absolutely no denial in this. While there are many tricks to improve the loading speed such as using cache plugin, it is important to understand that a lightweight WordPress website loads way faster than a heavy one.

So, how to make my WordPress lightweight?

I’m happy that you asked and in this article, I’ll share with you exactly how I made my WordPress lightweight and improved the loading speed dramatically.

But Wait. Who Am I?

My name is Reginald and you can call me “Reg”. I’m the founder of this blog as well as the founder of the WordPress agency, WP Maven. I do WordPress for a living and been doing this passionately since 2004.

A well optimized WordPress site is not only improves the loading speed, it makes your visitors happy and ranks better on Google too.

Here’s the latest speed optimization I did for my corporate site. Take a look.

Lightweight WordPress Site Loads Faster

For the record, the site above has 20 WordPress plugins (essential ones only), uses Kinsta hosting and WP Rocket. The website is build on Oxygen Builder and Advanced Gutenberg Blocks.

1. WordPress Hosting

First and foremost, the most effective way to make a WordPress website loads blazing fast is by using the right hosting solution.

And I don’t mean any hosting solution.

You see, a good WordPress host will ensure that the server is optimized for WordPress websites. NGINX, Apache etc. You get the point.

If you are going for a cheaper WordPress hosting solution, make sure that you understands what you are signing up for. An easy alternative is to use managed WordPress hosting solutions such as Kinsta or litespeed shared hosting.

“You don’t need to have a website loading under 1 second (even though it is very cool). Make it under 3 seconds and you will be just fine.”

Reginald Chan

Depending on your budget, there are quite a few great WordPress hosting that you can take a look at including:
- Kinsta hosting (starts at $30 per month)
- Litespeed WordPress hosting (starts at $10 per month)
2. WordPress Theme

Having a lightweight WordPress site means having a lightweight WordPress theme. A lightweight theme means that it is as bloat free as it can gets.

Building a WordPress site is easy—get yourself a nice website builder and create a beautiful template with drag and drop. But there’s a problem.

Some of these drag and drop builders come with tons of bloat items, from CSS to other irrelevant codes. This makes your website ‘heavy’ and this will slow down your site loading speed.

In other words, your website is not be that blazing fast anymore.

So, what are the best WordPress themes that are lightweight? Glad you asked. Here’s my favorite drag and drop WordPress theme builders that are super lightweight.
“This page that you are reading is build solely on Oxygen Builder and Thrive Architect. Oxygen Builder is extremely lean and lightweight while Thrive Architect allows me to curate engaging content in just a few clicks.”

– Reginald Chan –

3. Remove Unwanted Plugins

If you want to make your WordPress lightweight, focus in removing unwanted plugins. For example, I used to run over 40+ plugins on a single WordPress site. The sheer number of plugin makes it tough for me to manage my WordPress and optimize it properly.

With a few tweaks and customization, I was able to remove unwanted plugins and make my WordPress lighter.

Take a look at the plugins you had installed. Uninstall those who are no longer in use and redundant.

4. Use A Cache Plugin

Using a WordPress cache plugin goes a long way. From optimizing codes (HTML, CSS and JS) to preloading your site files so they get delivered faster to your web visitors.

There are many cache plugins found in the WordPress repository and I personally recommend WP Rocket. As a matter of fact, I was so happy with WP Rocket that I signed up for 24 months for additional discounts.

Some of the best WordPress cache plugins are:
- WP Rocket
- WP Super Cache
- Autoptimize
5. Use A CDN

A CDN has many usages, including serving files and images from the nearest datacenters. All my sites are using Kinsta CDN for general static files while I use Gumlet to as my image CDN.

There are also great alternatives such as Cloudflare CDN which performs decently well too.

6. Optimize Images

Last but not least, make it a point to optimize all images before uploading to WordPress. There are many ways to optimize the images and one of them is to resize the images based on your site’s image dimension.

Not sure how to do it?

Here are some of the best and free WordPress image optimizers that you can download today.
- Imagify
- Shortpixels
- Gumlet
- Cloudimage
Building A WordPress Website That Is Lightweight

The process of building a lightweight WordPress site isn’t a walk in the park. It takes time, effort and patience to get it right (such as configuring WP Rocket). Nonetheless, Google is playing the speed factor for websites and if you want better ranking on Google, make sure you are making your WordPress website as lightweight as possible.
January 6, 2025