There are a lot of inexpensive hosts available that provide a good service. WPEngine A Record
Nevertheless, what if you’re looking for more of a performance-oriented, concierge service? Because case, you’ll wish to have a look at our WP Engine review for WordPress.
WP Engine is a WordPress-specific web host, offering managed plans that are completely optimized for the platform. Naturally, when compared to many other WordPress hosts, WP Engine’s strategies aren’t precisely low-cost. For that reason, you’ll need to know whether this hosting service is worth the cost prior to purchasing.
To help you out, we’re going to perform an extensive WP Engine review for WordPress. We’ll discuss its crucial functions, assistance alternatives, performance capabilities, and whatever else you’ll need to know. Let’s get going!
WP Engine Video Review
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About WP Engine
Founded in 2010, WP Engine is now among the leading managed WordPress hosting companies in the market. Serial entrepreneur Jason Cohen began WP Engine when he saw a requirement for specialized WordPress hosting due to the rising appeal of WordPress.
WP Engine is Headquartered in Austin, Texas with workplaces in San Antonio (Texas), London (England), Limerick (Ireland), Brisbane (Australia), and Kraków (Poland).
The company has won multiple awards for Best Place to Work in Austin and consistently contributes to the WordPress core and community.
WP Engine Features
The core factors to select WP Engine over more affordable WordPress hosting are increased dependability, performance, assistance, and management, however these are hard to measure. Some features stand apart when you search the user interface, nevertheless, that can offer you some insight into the service provided.
WP Engine Page Performance is a cool tool designed to help you accelerate your WordPress site by offering meaningful metrics on efficiency.
Running a test returns you a page-performance report that details how quickly your page rendered, the length of time it required to pack in its entirety, and the total size of the page. It even consists of historic data on your website’s efficiency over the past 6 months and recommendations on how you can minimize page load.
You can develop your WordPress website in a Staging or Development environment before making the changes live (Image credit: WP Engine) Avoid humiliating mistakes on your website by making changes to a copy of your site before it goes live. This is called Staging, and it allows your developers to make extensive changes to your website without impacting your consumers.
WP Engine has a comprehensive list of plugins that are disallowed (Image credit: WP Engine) In a fairly unusual relocation, WP Engine limits the WordPress plugins you can set up. Those normally limited are plugins that have been kept in mind to cause performance problems and security holes. For important features such as caching, backups, and search engine optimization tools, WP Engine has made options readily available that do not put a high load on the server.
WP Engine Hosting Plans
WP Engine just offers handled WordPress hosting. There are five different strategies available: Startup, Growth, Scale, and Custom.
All plans consist of unrestricted data transfer. The strategies differ based on:
- number of WordPress installs
- traffic volume (# of visits per month)
- disk storage amount
- Custom-made strategy includes dedicated dev. environments, customer success, and priority support
WP Engine consists of some distinct features for WordPress users that a lot of hosts don’t provide, or charge extra for. These special functions consist of:.
- Git version control
- Staging: immediately create a copy of your website for testing
- Easy transferable installs from complimentary to paid accounts
- Cutting edge technologies including latest PHP variation.
In our WP Engine evaluation, we found that WP Engine provides the most innovative and extensive handled WordPress hosting functions.
Get 3 months free when you sign up for WP Engine.
Interface and in use
WP Engine’s user interface is expert and well set out, however the powerful features might mean a high learning curve for unskilled users. If you have an understanding of terms like Git, CNAME, and redirect guidelines, you’ll be right in your home here, however otherwise you’ll require to spend some time on the assistance website.
In our testing, the default WordPress web page filled in just over two seconds. This is one of the fastest responses we’ve tested, with rival Liquid Web only slightly behind.
Support
A managed WordPress service must offer extra value through its support, and WP Engine delivers. The assistance site includes videos and short articles of a quality you ‘d get out of a paid training course, with aid on much deeper WordPress functionality that lots of WordPress hosts do not go into.
There’s 24/7 live chat assistance and a ticket system, too. In our screening, the reaction fasted and the representative experienced. For all plans except for single-site strategies, there’s telephone assistance, too.
Pros
Exceptional Load Speed: If website loading speed is a top priority, WP Engine does well in this regard. The host’s mix of customized NGINX extension, built-in Content Delivery Network (CDN), and SSD technology make sure that your websites load rapidly. NGINX extension focuses on human demands over robotic requests and provides load balancing, providing your visitors a much better experience. For its part, CDN provides website content to your visitors based on their location to enhance your site’s speed and reduce latency. You get this ability totally free with all WP Engine strategies.
High Performance: It’s hard to beat WP Engine’s efficiency, which is why individuals continue to pay a premium rate for this service. WP Engine guarantees 99.95% server uptime, roughly four and a half hours of downtime a year. You can further increase your uptime to 99.99% with boosted SLA, which translates to a little under an hour of downtime per year. WP Engine will compensate you with hosting credit if your uptime falls listed below the guarantee.
Advanced Security: WP Engine monitors all the traffic going to your site and immediately identifies and blocks potential attacks. Additionally, the hosting service immediately updates and patches the WordPress core to get rid of potential vulnerabilities. In a worst-case circumstance, WP Engine instantly backups your website every day and has a one-click repair function to get you support and running rapidly. This hosting service secures your site versus JavaScript/SQL-injection attacks, brute force efforts, and DDoS attacks.
Sensational Customer Support: The hosting service has a transparent and trackable ticketing system to connect with client care through chat. The support group has an excellent knowledge base and can assist you fix problems quickly. You get 24/7 phone assistance for all strategies other than the Growth Plan, in addition to 24/7 live chat assistance on all plans.
Useful Staging Environment: The staging area permits you to clone your site’s live variation and make changes or evaluate new plugins and styles. Anything you perform in the staging area doesn’t impact your live website. This feature permits designers to deal with websites without interfering with the live site’s performance or user experience.
Transferable Installs: Also targeting designers, this function allows you to develop a website from your WP Engine account. You don’t need to wait for the customer to add you to their WordPress site. When completed, you can transfer the site to the customer or host the website on WP Engine. This performance saves time if you regularly develop sites for customers.
Cons
WordPress-Only Hosting: If you are using any other content management system aside from WordPress, then you are out of luck. WP Engine just works with WordPress. From a service point of view, it makes sense to concentrate on a single market and offer exceptional services because location. This design locks out numerous people who could otherwise benefit from WP Engine’s services.
No Domains or Email Hosting: If you prefer to host your email account and register your domain through your website host, you’ll require to look elsewhere. You’ll need to utilize third-party services for domain registration or email accounts.
Inflexible Pricing: WP Engine runs a tight ship, and this is shown in its pricing structure. You will be punished for surpassing your strategy’s visitor limits. This might not be a problem if you have predictable traffic, and you can constantly upgrade your plan as your website grows. Nevertheless, considerable spikes in traffic during item launches or seasonal service can cost you significant excess charges.
There is no other method to put it: WP Engine is expensive. Is it worth the cost? The answer depends on determining what you are paying for.
You can get shared hosting that can manage the exact same quantity of traffic as WP Engine for a portion of the price. You can even get committed hosting for the exact same rate as WP Engine. What you are actually paying for here is security, performance, speed, and, most importantly, assurance. The supreme question is how much these things are worth to you.
Plans and Pricing
Get 3 months free when you sign up for WP Engine.
With a WP Engine plan, you are normally spending for performance & not having to believe excessive about upkeep, security & speed. If you look at WP Engine’s rates based upon the functions you’re getting- you truly do not get a great deal.
And if you are the type who will consider your website’s health anyhow (ie, keeping WordPress updated and generally visiting often), you’ll likely be spending for “management” that is superfluous.
Numerous shared hosting servers can handle the very same traffic numbers as WP Engine- and cost a fraction of the rate. My individual website a shared hosting strategy from HostGator with fundamental caching) handled more than 15,000+ visits in a 24 hour duration when a post of mine And if you are running a trustworthy VPS, you can certainly handle a lot more for much less. The site you are on deals with more than 110,000+ check outs per month with plenty of room left to spare for side-projects, gigabytes of media, email, RSS apps, etc with an InMotion VPS. I pay for the VPS plus a CDN for less than WP Engine’s starter strategy.
They are fairly transparent about how they count gos to, however it can still be quite a surprise for “small” website owners how rapidly they can enter the $290 each month tier. I have a client who began with the Startup plan, however quickly wound up with a custom plan.
And as mentioned earlier that does not even include a number of the features you do not get with WP Engine’s plans. You can’t run any e-mail from your servers. You have low limits on local media storage. Anything above the limits requires additional expenses & technical application of Amazon cloud services.
And most notably for me- you are restricted on your installs. If you have a couple of side projects or low-traffic test sites, you need to factor those into the rate. You can’t use them to spread out the cost of your plan- especially if you are hitting your visitor cap instead of your install cap.
If you are wanting to spend for hosting- ie, a server that will hold & dish out your site files- WP Engine is a costly option, especially compared to other non-managed hosting options.
Startup
The Startup package is the most basic strategy and will set you back $25 each month. With this plan, you get:.
25,000 visits each month.
50GB bandwidth each month.
10GB storage.
One site consisted of.
WP Engine targets small sites and blogs with this plan, but we think it might be overkill for most people in this category. You can get a far much better handle shared hosting at Bluehost However, if you do not wish to take any opportunities with uptime or need an assurance that your site can handle 25,000 visitors monthly, WP Engine is a certainty. We ‘d advise this option to small businesses, affiliate websites, and blogs making great cash and desire guarantees that absolutely nothing will alter.
You can conserve $60 annually or two months complimentary if you pay each year.
Growth
The growth strategy targets growing companies and will cost you $95 each month. Here you get:.
100,000 check outs per month.
200GB bandwidth each month.
25GB storage.
10 sites consisted of a while.
This plan is a fantastic entry point for a growing business, and it might be a while before you require to upgrade. With this strategy, you also get 24/7 phone assistance in addition to round-the-clock chat support. This addition will be available in useful if you have a complicated concern that you need to resolve rapidly.
You can save a cool $230 or 2 months totally free with annual billing.
Scale
WP Engine promotes its scale strategy as the best worth choice. This one costs $241 per month. Here you get:.
400,000 visits per month.
500GB bandwidth each month.
50GB storage.
30 websites included.
We advise this alternative for a fast-growing blog or business. You get access to 24/7 live chat and 24/7 phone support in addition to the assistance center.
You can save $580 or more months totally free with annual pre-paid billing.
Customized
If you have a mission-critical website or large company, the Custom strategy may be appealing. With this strategy, you get:.
Millions of sees monthly.
400GB+ bandwidth each month.
100GB-1TB storage.
30 websites included.
You will need to speak to a sales representative to get your personalized quote depending on your requirements. This plan likewise provides proprietary assistance must something fail.
Migrate WordPress websites in just a few clicks.
Strong Uptime
WP Engine accomplishes over 99% uptime thanks to its world-class network facilities.
The company also has three information centers in London, Tokyo, and Midwest USA.
As a result, you can improve website speeds by selecting to host your site on servers that are closest to your target audience.
WP Engine blocks malicious attacks on your website.
Speed & Performance
There are a great deal of variables that enter into site speed, but the general rule is that the more intricate your website is, the more complicated the services to speed become.
Out of the box- WordPress is relatively lean and quick. If you are running a primarily text site with a couple of standard plugins and a few little images, you’ll be great with a budget friendly shared hosting plan from someone like InMotion HostGator Bluehost But couple of website owners keep their WordPress set up lean. There’s normally extra plugins, custom style files, lots of images, widgets, advertisements, types and more.
All these functions integrated with good levels of traffic can begin to decrease your WordPress installation.
A slow website does not mean that you need a larger, much better server. It does mean that you need to get smarter about speed. In some cases it’s as basic as getting a more powerful server, but sometimes it’s more about caching particular resources in a specific order and optimizing your files. To put it simply- it gets complex.
Imagine you are trying to carry a trailer with a pickup truck. Envision your trailer keeps getting heavier. It’s pointless to keep complaining that your truck is not big enough when you may simply need to remove the emergency brake, install a turbocharger, revitalize the transmission fluid and consolidate your load.
The point is that WordPress needs assistance to remain quickly as you grow. There are plenty of services … but either you or a developer need to execute them.
That’s where managed WordPress hosting comes in. WP Engine takes care of (nearly) all speed issues. They have actually personalized servers with very aggressive caching and much more innovative “stack” than a normal webhosting. They also have trained assistance who will enter into your WordPress install and identify the precise chokepoint to get your site moving.
They do not even enable caching plugins on their installs because they have actually such a personalized caching setup.
The intriguing thing is that even unoptimized WordPress installs still succeed on their platform because their platform does the extra work.
Here’s the speed test for among my clients on WP Engine (who has a puffed up theme, extra scripts, too many uncompressed images, among other things)- Note the Time To First Byte and the Start Render numbers. That determines how quickly the server returned enough data to start filling the page.
It’s nice to have that sort of speed right out of the box- and have it remain that way no matter how huge or complex the website gets.
* Note that the other point here is that if you are obsessed about speed, you can get back at much better numbers with WP Engine than you may get with other services because you are complimentary to concentrate on speed factors that you can quickly control like image compression, use of scripts, etc
. The last observation on speed- WP Engine not only offers an incorporated CDN, however they likewise offer worldwide data centers in case your audience is primarily in Asia and/or Europe.
If you are trying to get top speeds without messing with layered caching plugins- the WP Engine does exactly that. And since they operate on Google Cloud, you don’t have to worry about uptime either.
CDN Included
All plans include a worldwide CDN (content shipment network).
The CDN will help your website load quickly for clients around the globe by serving it to them from the network node that’s geographically closest to them.
Security and Backups
An approximated 78% of hacked websites are WordPress websites, according to Sucuri, a web security company. Often the “open doors” are plugins that weren’t upgraded.
Protecting websites is among the strengths of WP Engine’s handled WordPress hosting service.
The business takes numerous steps to safeguard WordPress websites:.
WP Engine runs daily malware/virus scans in collaboration with Sucuri.
They monitor an updated firewall program to obstruct the current hazards.
All sites are supported daily.
You get a one-click bring back function that can assist you recuperate your site in case of an attack.
The WP Engine website supplies a guide on “Tips to Protect Your WordPress Site From Being Hacked.”.
You’ll have access to 24/7/365 technical support for any concerns regarding security.
They offer webinars on security.
They publish security standards and lists for developers and engineers.
If your site gets hacked, WPE will clean it free of charge.
Online Resources
WP Engine provides webinars, guides, post, updates, tutorials, and a knowledgebase. With these you can learn how to:.
Launch your first site.
Troubleshoot common problems.
Make improvements to your site.
Handle your hosting account with greater effectiveness.
Both beginners and experienced WordPress site owners will find the support documentation invaluable.
WP Engine’s 60-Day Guarantee
WP Engine’s 60-day money-back assurance on all subscription charges is special in the hosting industry.
It enables you to try the service in a safe method.
Note: this alternative is not available on custom hosting plans.
Is WP Engine Worth It?
Like any service, it’s not about what is finest overall, however what is finest for you based upon your goals, spending plan, resources & practices.
If you remain in what I consider WP Engine’s core markets- they use a fantastic service with a solid item. As a managed WordPress host, their rates is competitive. They provide more functions than “WordPress hosting” strategies from other hosting brand names. Their feature-set is unrivaled for savvy DIYers, WordPress website designers and/or high-traffic sites that do not want to worry about hosting issues.
If handled hosting is a fit for you- then go have a look at WP Engine’s plans here View Current Plans They do a 60-day money-back warranty. Do a test install and see what you believe of their backend. Make sure to talk w/ support & sales.
Get 3 months free when you sign up for WP Engine.