Rocket.net Review (December 2023) – CloudFlare Enterprise Benefits in Budget

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About Rocket.net

Rocket.net is a fully managed WordPress hosting platform recently founded in 2020. 

Ben Gabler, the CEO of Rocket.net, has worked with big names in the tech industry, like StackPath, Hostgator, GoDaddy, Help.com, etc, which makes his company trustworthy and reliable. 

Rocket.net has also recently received a funding of $1.1 million from HostPapa! I’m curious to know what they do with it in the future. 

The one thing that sets Rocket.net apart from other web hosting providers is the use of Cloudflare Enterprise CDN! What is it and how is it beneficial for you? Let’s find that out. 

What is Cloudflare Enterprise CDN?

Cloudflare Enterprise CDN is an enterprise level Content Delivery Network offered by Cloudflare. It guarantees a 100% uptime, lightning fast loading speeds, and advanced security. Its pricing starts from $6000/month. 

On Rocket.net, this premium CDN service is divided among multiple users, which lowers down its costs significantly. Thus, it allows their users to enjoy some exceptional benefits at super low prices!

But what benefits does the Cloudflare Enterprise CDN have over other competition? Let’s find out. 

1. Google Font Optimization: It caches Google font files for upto 36 hours. Thus, text-based content on your website loads super swiftly! 

2. Brotli Compression: It is a modern compression format that ensures better page load speeds. 

3. WAF (Web Application Firewall) Protection: It helps secure your website from online threats like bots and similar attacks.

4. Automatic WebP Conversion: It optimizes images on your website by converting them into WebP format, which reduces the size of images without compromising on their quality.

5. Full Page Caching: It helps your web pages load at lightning speeds and offers a better user experience!

So, Cloudflare Enterprise CDN provides advanced security, faster speeds, and a better performance to your website. 

Rocket.net Overview

Speed	780 ms (New York) 2.41 sec (Bangalore – 1st time) 867 ms (Bangalore – 2nd time)
Uptime	100% (last 76 days)
Data Centers	Cloud Servers placed at 21 locations  Asian data center located in Tokyo (Japan)
Backups and Restoration	Automated daily backups stored for 14 days. Create manual backups and restore with a single click
Migration	Free migrations for unlimited websites
Customer Support	24/7 support through email tickets, live chat, and phone, limited knowledge base
Features	Free Cloudflare CDN, Website Staging, Litespeed servers, Sub-account control, built-in cache plugin, Rocket.net Reporting, Affiliate Program.
Security	Cloudflare Enterprise WAF, Imunify 360, 2FA, Free Digicert SSL Certificate, SSH Access.
Payment Methods	International Credit and Debit Cards, PayPal
Refund Policy	30-day refund policy
Pricing (Billed Annually)	Starting from $25/month

Rocket.net Review Video

If you are a video person, you can watch my video review of Rocket.net here. (It’s in Hindi with English subtitles)

Testing Parameters

In order to test Rocket.net hosting, I have purchased their Starter Managed WordPress Hosting plan that comes for $25/month when billed annually. 

I have used the following configurations with it:

• OceanWP Theme (Elementor based)
• Gym Template (Elementor based)
• US based Servers
• Default cache settings 

Rocket.net User Interface

The interface of Rocket.net looks quite attractive with a modern design and colors. As you log in, the Dashboard shows metrics about your disk usage, bandwidth usage and number of monthly visitors.

You can also create and manage websites, billing, affiliate, and support tickets from the same dashboard. A helpful Live chat button is always available at the bottom of the page. 

An interesting thing to note here is that Rocket.net does not provide a cPanel like other web hosts. It has its own intuitive and easy-to-use control panel, which is especially beneficial for beginners!

Because Rocket.net is a fully managed WordPress hosting service, ease of use is enhanced to a large extent. You don’t need to worry about the website’s security, optimization, or CDN installations. Everything is managed by their system itself!

Rocket.net Server Response Time

Server Response Time refers to the time interval between a user making a request and the server responding to it. According to Google’s Page Speed Insights, your server response time should ideally remain under 200ms. 

Rocket.net justifies its name in this case because when I tested the Server Response Time of Rocket.net, it came out to be under 10 ms in all locations!

This is incredibly fast, thanks to their use of Litespeed Servers and Cloudflare Enterprise on their plans! A low SRT ensures that your audience doesn’t have to wait for longer intervals to access a web page. This, in turn, leads to better engagements. 

Rocket.net Speed

Page Load Speed refers to the time taken by a website to load completely on your browser. 

Talking about the speeds of Rocket.net, when I tested it from New York, my website loaded in merely 780.9 ms! 

Next, I switched to the Bangalore location in India, which took 2.41 sec to load for the first time. 

Does this mean it’s slow for the Indian audiences? Before you start making any conclusions, hear me out. 

I thought of re-testing it in the Bangalore location, and this time my website loaded in just 967.96 ms! How did this happen? 

Well, when we tested it for the second time, all the web content was already cached in its servers and the built-in Cloudflare Enterprise CDN was activated. This ensures faster delivery of content across the globe!

The page speed score stood at 84, with absolutely no optimizations. Overall, I found the speeds offered by Rocket.net to be exceptional in all the locations. You can also check out Cloudways or FastComet if your priority is speed!

Rocket.net Uptime

I have been checking the uptime of my website for the more than 1 year, and have experienced a flawless 100% uptime! This means that my website has not been down for even a second since I started using it! 

Last 12 months average uptime:

November 2023	100%
October 2023	100%
September 2023	100%
August 2023	100%
July 2023	100%
June 2023	100%
May 2023	100%
April 2023	100%
March 2023	100%
February 2023	100%
January 2023	100%
December 2022	100%

This is so much better compared to web hosts like ChemiCloud, FastComet, or Hostinger!

Rocket.net Load Handling

Load Handling refers to exposing a website to real-life traffic conditions and analysing how it performs under high pressure. 

I conducted the load test of Rocket.net from two different locations – US and Mumbai. For both the tests, I sent 50 virtual users over to my website. Now, let’s check out the results below. 

Talking about the US Region, the virtual users made a total of 7304 requests, and fortunately, none of them failed. 

The average response time stood at 29 ms, which is quite amazing! 

When I did the same test from the Mumbai region, the average response time came out to be a mere 16 ms, which is really good.

So, overall, Rocket.net handled the load very well. However, you can also take a look at Cloudways, ChemiCloud, and FastComet for better load management capacities!

Rocket.net Cache 

Rocket.net has a built-in cache system that runs in the background by default. It provides 250+ caching locations to ensure that your data loads quickly for your users around the globe. 

However, you can only make limited changes to the cache settings. For example, you can either deactivate the plugin or clear the cache. They provide no other settings with it. 

In case you want an additional caching plugin for your WordPress website, they highly recommend using the W3 Total Cache plugin or the WP Rocket plugin. 

They also offer automatic image optimization to guarantee faster load speeds! However, you cannot find out which images have been converted. Most optimizations happen behind the scenes and cannot be controlled by the users. 

If you need more control over your optimizations, you can get the WP Rocket plugin!

Rocket.net Data Centers

They have their data centers spread across the globe in 21 different locations, with most of them in the North American regions.

Continent	Data Center Location
North America	New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Miami, Montreal, Seattle, San Jose, Phoenix, Orlando, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Atlanta, Austin, Dallas
Europe	London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt
Australia	Sydney
Asia	Tokyo

However, talking about Asia, the servers are only available in Tokyo. I hope they establish their data centers in India or Singapore for the Indian users.

Rocket.net Domains

Unlike other hosting solutions like Hostinger, or Bluehost, Rocket.net does not function as a domain name registrar. This means that you cannot purchase new domain names on this platform.

So, naturally, it does not provide any free domains either! (If you’re struggling with finding the right name for your business, do try out domain name generators!)

However, it does provide a temporary domain or a preview URL (similar to Hostinger, Cloudways, and FastComet) to help you test how your website would appear without connecting your domain with your hosting account!

In case you want a hosting with a free lifetime domain, ChemiCloud would be the best bet for you! 

Rocket.net Backups and Restoration

Rocket.net stands out in terms of Backups! You get to see daily automatic backups taken for free. 

These are essentially offsite backups, meaning they are stored on a different server than your original website for enhanced security.

On all plans, your backups are stored for a period of 14 days. The best part is that you are free to create manual backups and restore them anytime you want with a single click!

Rocket.net Support

They offer 24/7 customer service through email tickets, live chat, and phone. Even though their knowledge base is quite limited at the moment, they are developing at a good pace!

I personally found their ticket system and their live chat representatives to be quick at replying. However, being a new player, they lacked technical experience. 

Even simple queries like a list of their data center locations took an unreasonable 5 minutes! 

At other times, I also found their replies to be unsatisfactory and conflicting, which is why I had to generate a support ticket and confirm with the experts. I hope to see their support team improve with time. ChemiCloud and A2 Hosting are my personal favourites when it comes to customer support.

Rocket.net Inode Count

Generally, all hosting providers restrict the number of inodes available on your plan. It’s interesting to see that Rocket.net does not impose any restrictions on the inode count. 

This means that you can store an unlimited number of files on your account, irrespective of your plan. 

Rocket.net Emails

The ability to create and manage email accounts is important for a hosting platform. Sadly, Rocket.net does not support email hosting, just like Cloudways. So, if you want email support, you can go with other web hosts like Hostinger, ChemiCloud, A2 Hosting etc.

Rocket.net Security

Security is one of the strongest points of Rocket.net hosting. You get to experience powerful and advanced protection from online intrusions with services like:

• Cloudflare Enterprise WAF: It is a global firewall that filters all bots and online attackers coming to your website. 

• Imunify 360 WAF: It is their local in-house firewall that provides ultimate protection against malware, SQL injection, malicious files uploads, spam comments, etc. 

In case of migrations, it automatically cleans your WordPress site and removes any malicious code.

• SSL: You get free Digicert SSL Certificates for your websites on all plans that are renewed automatically and never expire.

• Linked Accounts: It lets you connect your Google account with Rocket.net to simplify the sign in process.

• 2FA: You can enable two factor authentication on your account with 2FA apps like Authy, Google Authenticator, etc to enhance your account’s security. 

• Reports: Check detailed reports and analytics for CDN and WAF from the Reports tab. 

• SSH Access: It lets you edit and customize your server settings and also shares files securely over the Internet. 

I absolutely love the security features that they offer. However, you cannot manually control any of the security settings. They all work on their own in the backend. It would’ve been much easier if they had provided manual control options. 

Rocket.net Pricing

Rocket.net does not offer a range of hosting packages. Because it is a managed WordPress hosting company, you only get to see 4 different pricing plans. 

	Starter Plan	Pro Plan	Business Plan	Agency Plan
Annual Pricing	$25/month	$50/month	$83/month	$166/month
WordPress Installations	1	3	10	25
SSD Storage	10 GB	20 GB	40 GB	50 GB
Bandwidth	50 GB	100 GB	300 GB	500 GB
Monthly Traffic	2.5 lakh	10 lakh	25 lakh	50 lakh
Inode Count	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited

On all the plans, you get Domain Validated Digicert SSL certificates, built-in CDN support, and WAF support for free.

Talking about traffic, unlike other web hosts, Rocket.net only counts unique visitors on your website. 

This means that if the same person views your website 15 times within 24 hours, it would still be counted as 1 view and not 15 views. Thus, 250k unique visitors on the Starter plan is really appreciable!

If you opt for annual billing on their Starter plan that is priced at $30/month, the price goes down to $25/month and you get 2 months off on top of that! 

They also have custom pricing plans that can be designed according to your requirements. So, if you have over 25 websites, you can contact them for a custom plan. 

I agree their plans are quite expensive, which is why you can also check out the plans of Hostinger, Chemicloud & Cloudways. And if you want a special discounted offer on Rocket.net itself, I have got it all covered in detail below!

 Payment Options

They accept payments through Paypal and International credit and debit cards. If you want Indian Payment options like UPI, you can go with Hostinger or Bluehost. 

Rocket.net Refund Policy

You get the standard 30-day money-back guarantee on all plans of Rocket.net. Other hosts like StableHost and HostArmada offer a 45-days refund policy. 

Whereas A2 Hosting offers a pro-rata based refund policy which is much better for testing out all the features for as long as you want and only paying for the time you use their services.

Rocket.net Coupon Code

If you purchase a hosting plan through my link, you can get it the best discounted prices. Let’s see how you can avail it.  

• Use my link and click and on the homepage of Rocket.net, click on ‘Get Started’.

• Sign up for an account and, on the payments page, enter coupon code LAUNCH to get your hosting for merely $1 for the first month! 

• If the above code does not work, you can enter coupon code KRIPESH to get 30% off your hosting for the first three months!

That’s it. So, go ahead and get your favourite plan right away!

Rocket.net Migrations

Rocket.net leaves behind ChemiCloud hosting that offers 50 cPanel migrations. Here, on Rocket.net, you will find free migrations for unlimited websites on all the plans!

That’s commendable, but also seems quite appropriate for the pricing that it is charging from its customers!

Rocket.net Website Staging

Website Staging is helpful if you want to test out some codes and plugins locally before they go live on your website. Rocket.net lets you create a staging environment with ease.

So, you basically get two options in your control panel: – Production and Staging. Production refers to your live website. We won’t be making any modifications to that. 

You can implement staging by clicking on the Staging button right under your website URL. This would create a local copy of your website.

Now, you can go to your WordPress dashboard and test changes on this local version. Once you are happy with your edits, you can hit the ‘Publish’ button. This will push the changes to the original site. 

Overall, it looks quite straightforward. But I find the staging process of Cloudways to be much smoother!

Rocket.net Reporting

In case of security threats to your website, Rocket.net also has a reporting feature put in place.

It shows you real-time analytics produced by their Cloudflare Enterprise CDN and Web Application Firewall as colorful, easy-to-understand graphs. 

Thus, you can stay updated on the number of attacks blocked by the firewall and get detailed insights into it as well. You can also view important analytics for your web content like:

• Countries it is viewed in
• Devices it is viewed on
• Content that is consumed more, etc. 

Rocket.net Site Builder

Unlike HostArmada, ChemiCloud, and StableHost offering easy to use site builders, Rocket.net does not offer the website building feature at the moment. You can use Elementor Site Builder to edit and design your WordPress based website.  

Rocket.net Team Management

You get the ability to manage your team on Rocket.net. It lets you add team members and even specify access permissions through the Sub-accounts option. 

You can enable permissions like viewing and managing:

• Contacts
• Products and services
• Domain Settings
• Affiliate Accounts
• Invoices

Rocket.net Feature Request

If you wish to have a glimpse of the latest features to be implemented on Rocket.net, you can easily do so through their Feature Request page. 

At the moment, their Public API, File Manager, WP Page Caching, etc features are in progress and will be live soon! 

Rocket.net Pros

1. Cloudflare Enterprise 

Rocket.net provides the powerful Cloudflare Enterprise CDN on all its plans. Its 250+ cache locations make your web content available to everyone in no time!

2. Blazing Speeds 

You get to experience lightning fast speeds on Rocket.net mainly because they support the Cloudflare Enterprise CDN.

3. Unbeatable Uptime

 With their optimized cloud servers placed on 20+ locations around the world, you get a 10/10 uptime every single day!

4. Image Optimization 

The images on your website are automatically converted to WebP format, which is a more optimized format for search engines. It serves the same image quality, occupying less storage space!

5. Easy Backup and Restoration

Along with automatic daily backups for free, you can also create manual backups of your files and databases and restore them whenever you want with a single click!

6. Advanced Security

Rocket.net uses two powerful web application firewalls – Global Cloudflare WAF and Local Imunify 360 WAF to provide you all-round protection from any online threats. 

7. Unlimited Migrations

You get unlimited free website migrations on all of their plans, which is really impressive!

Rocket.net Cons

1. No Email Hosting

They do not offer email hosting on Rocket.net, so you need to implement this functionality via some other platforms. 

2. Doesn’t Support Ezoic Ads 

Rocket.net does not support using ads through Ezoic on your website hosted with them. So, if you use Ezoic ads, you can probably look at some other hosting provider like Cloudways.

3. Expensive for Beginners

Beginners who just started out and have little traffic or revenue coming through their website might find Rocket.net a quite expensive hosting solution. 

Thus, they might prefer going with other affordable options like Hostinger.

4. Cannot Create Sub-domains 

You can only host a single website on your WordPress Starter plan. Even a sub-domain is counted as a new website. So, if you need a sub-domain, you need to upgrade your plan, which could be expensive. 

Should you use Rocket.net?

Honestly, I would not recommend Rocket.net to beginners who have just started blogging. If you are a newbie, this hosting platform would be too expensive for you! 

However, if you are an experienced website owner earning a decent amount of revenue from your site, Rocket.net might be a value for money option for you.

With the Starter plan that comes for $30/month, you get 2.5 lakh visitors, Cloudflare CDN, good security feature, excellent uptime, and so many more features to make it worthy of the value spent.

Rocket.net is improving at a fantastic pace. You can try it for a month if you have an established website. The only problem is that the Ezoic ads service isn’t compatible with Rocket.net hosting.

Rocket.net Alternatives

Cloudways

Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting provider built on top of 5 unmanaged web hosts, namely AWS, Linode, Vultr, DigitalOcean, and Google Cloud. They offer 65+ data center locations around the world!

Cloudways promises lightning fast website speed, no downtime, reliable customer support, and easy scaling options, along with the ability to stage your website with ease. 

However, it lacks the email hosting feature, and charges higher fees on opting for a larger server! Its Managed Hosting plans start from $10/month (DigitalOcean Server).

Conclusion

Rocket.net is a budding web host with a lot of potential. It offers everything you need to build a perfect WordPress website. 

You get excellent speeds and uptime, along with easy backups, good support, security, free SSL, migrations, and WAF on all the plans! 

Litespeed servers and Cloudflare Enterprise CDN with 200+ caching locations ensures that your content is delivered swiftly around the globe. 

I hope this Rocket.net Review helped you gain in-depth information about all its major features. You can get an additional discount on any hosting plan you purchase from Rocket.net by using my links.

But if you’re still confused, you can check out my blog for reviews of other popular web hosts as well! Anyway, this is Kripesh signing off. 

You can get the latest updates on my YouTube videos, blog posts, and discount deals on digital tools by subscribing to my weekly newsletter. See you in the next article. Cheers and keep learning!

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