There are a lot of inexpensive hosts offered that provide a good service. WPEngine Cache
What if you’re looking for more of a performance-oriented, concierge service? In that case, you’ll want to take a look at our WP Engine evaluation for WordPress.
WP Engine is a WordPress-specific web host, providing managed plans that are fully optimized for the platform. Obviously, when compared to numerous other WordPress hosts, WP Engine’s strategies aren’t exactly inexpensive. Therefore, you’ll need to know whether this hosting service is worth the expense before buying.
To assist you out, we’re going to perform an extensive WP Engine review for WordPress. We’ll discuss its crucial features, support alternatives, efficiency abilities, and everything else you’ll require to understand. Let’s get going!
WP Engine Video Review
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About WP Engine
Founded in 2010, WP Engine is now one of the leading managed WordPress hosting business in the market. Serial business owner Jason Cohen started WP Engine when he saw a requirement for specialized WordPress hosting due to the increasing 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 business has won several awards for Best Place to Work in Austin and regularly adds to the WordPress core and community.
WP Engine Features
The core factors to select WP Engine over less expensive WordPress hosting are increased dependability, performance, support, and management, however these are tough to quantify. Some functions stand apart when you browse the interface, however, that can provide you some insight into the service offered.
WP Engine Page Performance is a cool tool developed to help you speed up your WordPress website by using meaningful metrics on performance.
Running a test returns you a page-performance report that details how rapidly your page rendered, for how long it required to fill in its whole, and the overall size of the page. It even consists of historical data on your website’s performance over the past six months and recommendations on how you can minimize page load.
You can develop your WordPress site in a Staging or Development environment before making the changes live (Image credit: WP Engine) Avoid embarrassing mistakes on your site by making changes to a copy of your site prior to it goes live. This is called Staging, and it allows your designers to make extensive changes to your site without affecting your consumers.
WP Engine has a thorough list of plugins that are disallowed (Image credit: WP Engine) In a reasonably unusual relocation, WP Engine limits the WordPress plugins you can install. Those usually restricted are plugins that have actually been noted to trigger performance concerns and security holes. For important features such as caching, backups, and search engine optimization tools, WP Engine has made options available that don’t put a high load on the server.
WP Engine Hosting Plans
WP Engine only uses managed WordPress hosting. There are five various strategies available: Startup, Growth, Scale, and Custom.
All strategies consist of limitless information transfer. The strategies vary based on:
- number of WordPress sets up
- traffic volume (# of visits per month)
- disk storage amount
- Custom-made plan consists of dedicated dev. environments, client success, and priority assistance
WP Engine includes some distinct functions for WordPress users that most hosts do not offer, or charge additional for. These unique functions consist of:.
- Git version control
- Staging: instantly 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 review, we found that WP Engine uses the most sophisticated and thorough handled WordPress hosting features.
Get 3 months free when you sign up for WP Engine.
User interface and in use
WP Engine’s user interface is expert and well set out, but the powerful functions may mean a steep knowing curve for inexperienced users. If you have an understanding of terms like Git, CNAME, and reroute rules, you’ll be right in your home here, but otherwise you’ll require to spend some time on the assistance site.
In our screening, the default WordPress home page packed in simply over 2 seconds. This is among the fastest responses we’ve tested, with rival Liquid Web only slightly behind.
Support
A handled WordPress service need to offer additional value through its support, and WP Engine delivers. The assistance site includes videos and posts of a quality you ‘d get out of a paid training course, with assistance on much deeper WordPress functionality that numerous WordPress hosts don’t go into.
There’s 24/7 live chat support and a ticket system, too. In our testing, the response was quick and the agent knowledgeable. For all strategies except for single-site strategies, there’s telephone support, too.
Pros
Remarkable Load Speed: If site loading speed is a leading concern, WP Engine does well in this regard. The host’s mix of custom-made NGINX extension, integrated Content Delivery Network (CDN), and SSD innovation make sure that your websites load quickly. NGINX extension prioritizes human requests over robot requests and provides load balancing, providing your visitors a better experience. For its part, CDN delivers website material to your visitors based upon their location to improve your website’s speed and minimize latency. You get this ability free of charge with all WP Engine plans.
High Performance: It’s difficult to beat WP Engine’s performance, which is why people continue to pay a premium rate for this service. WP Engine ensures 99.95% server uptime, roughly four and a half hours of downtime a year. You can further increase your uptime to 99.99% with improved SLA, which equates to a little under an hour of downtime each year. WP Engine will compensate you with hosting credit if your uptime falls below the assurance.
Advanced Security: WP Engine keeps track of all the traffic going to your site and automatically detects and obstructs possible attacks. Additionally, the hosting service immediately updates and patches the WordPress core to get rid of possible vulnerabilities. In a worst-case situation, WP Engine immediately backups your website every day and has a one-click repair function to get you support and running rapidly. This hosting service secures your website against JavaScript/SQL-injection attacks, brute force efforts, and DDoS attacks.
Sensational Customer Support: The hosting service has a transparent and trackable ticketing system to get in touch with customer care by means of chat. The support team has an outstanding knowledge base and can assist you solve issues quickly. You get 24/7 phone assistance for all strategies except the Growth Plan, in addition to 24/7 live chat support on all strategies.
Useful Staging Environment: The staging area allows you to clone your site’s live version and make changes or test brand-new plugins and styles. Anything you perform in the staging area doesn’t impact your live site. This function allows designers to deal with websites without interfering with the live website’s functionality or user experience.
Transferable Installs: Also targeting developers, this function allows you to develop a website from your WP Engine account. You don’t have to wait on the client to include you to their WordPress website. When finished, you can transfer the site to the client or host the website on WP Engine. This functionality saves time if you routinely build websites for clients.
Cons
WordPress-Only Hosting: If you are using any other content management system aside from WordPress, then you are out of luck. WP Engine only deals with WordPress. From a company perspective, it makes sense to concentrate on a single market and deal extraordinary services in that location. However, this design locks out many individuals who could otherwise gain from WP Engine’s services.
No Domains or Email Hosting: If you prefer to host your e-mail account and register your domain through your website host, you’ll require to look somewhere else. You’ll have to utilize third-party services for domain registration or email accounts.
Inflexible Pricing: WP Engine runs a tight ship, and this is reflected in its pricing structure. You will be penalized for exceeding your strategy’s visitor limitations. This might not be an issue if you have predictable traffic, and you can always upgrade your plan as your site grows. Significant spikes in traffic during item launches or seasonal organization can cost you substantial excess charges.
There is no other method to put it: WP Engine is expensive. Is it worth the expense? The answer lies in finding out what you are spending for.
You can get shared hosting that can handle the very same quantity of traffic as WP Engine for a portion of the price. You can even get dedicated hosting for the exact same rate as WP Engine. What you are truly paying for here is security, efficiency, speed, and, most significantly, assurance. The ultimate question is just how much these things deserve to you.
Plans and Pricing
Get 3 months free when you sign up for WP Engine.
With a WP Engine plan, you are generally spending for performance & not needing to believe excessive about maintenance, security & speed. If you take a look at WP Engine’s pricing based upon the functions you’re getting- you truly do not get a lot.
And if you are the type who will think about your website’s health anyway (ie, keeping WordPress updated and normally logging in frequently), you’ll likely be spending for “management” that is unnecessary.
Numerous shared hosting servers can manage the same traffic numbers as WP Engine- and cost a portion of the rate. My personal website a shared hosting plan from HostGator with fundamental caching) dealt with more than 15,000+ visits in a 24 hour period when a post of mine And if you are running a reliable VPS, you can definitely deal with a lot more for much less. In fact, the site you are on deals with more than 110,000+ gos to monthly with lots of room delegated spare for side-projects, gigabytes of media, email, RSS apps, etc with an InMotion VPS. I spend 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 rather a surprise for “small” site 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-made strategy.
And as pointed out previously that doesn’t even consist of a lot of the features you do not get with WP Engine’s plans. You can’t run any email from your servers. You have low limitations on local media storage. Anything above the limits requires extra expenses & technical application of Amazon cloud services.
And most significantly for me- you are limited on your installs. If you have a couple of side projects or low-traffic test sites, you have to factor those into the cost. You can’t use them to spread out the expense of your strategy- particularly if you are hitting your visitor cap instead of your install cap.
If you are seeking to pay for hosting- ie, a server that will hold & provide your site files- WP Engine is a pricey option, particularly compared to other non-managed hosting alternatives.
Startup
The Startup package is one of the most standard strategy and will set you back $25 each month. With this package, you get:.
25,000 gos to monthly.
50GB bandwidth monthly.
10GB storage.
One site consisted of.
WP Engine targets small websites and blog sites with this strategy, but we think it might be overkill for many people in this classification. You can get a far much better deal with shared hosting at Bluehost However, if you don’t wish to take any opportunities with uptime or require a guarantee that your site can handle 25,000 visitors each month, WP Engine is a sure bet. We ‘d suggest this choice to small companies, affiliate sites, and blogs making good cash and desire guarantees that absolutely nothing will change.
You can save $60 each year or more months complimentary if you pay annually.
Growth
The growth plan targets growing organizations and will cost you $95 each month. Here you get:.
100,000 gos to each month.
200GB bandwidth per month.
25GB storage.
10 sites included a while.
This plan is a great entry point for a growing service, and it might be a while prior to you require to upgrade. With this strategy, you likewise get 24/7 phone assistance in addition to round-the-clock chat assistance. This addition will can be found in useful if you have a complicated issue that you require to solve quickly.
You can save a cool $230 or more months free with annual billing.
Scale
WP Engine markets its scale plan as the very best value option. This one costs $241 each month. Here you get:.
400,000 gos to each month.
500GB bandwidth monthly.
50GB storage.
30 websites included.
We advise this choice for a fast-growing blog or service. You get access to 24/7 live chat and 24/7 phone assistance in addition to the support.
You can save $580 or more months totally free with annual pre-paid billing.
Customized
If you have a mission-critical site or large business, the Custom plan might be appealing. With this plan, you get:.
Millions of gos to per month.
400GB+ bandwidth per month.
100GB-1TB storage.
30 websites included.
You will have to speak to a sales representative to get your customized quote depending on your requirements. This strategy likewise offers exclusive support needs to something fail.
Migrate WordPress websites in just a few clicks.
Strong Uptime
WP Engine accomplishes over 99% uptime thanks to its first-rate network facilities.
The business likewise has 3 information centers in London, Tokyo, and Midwest USA.
As a result, you can improve site speeds by selecting to host your website on servers that are closest to your target audience.
WP Engine obstructs harmful attacks on your site.
Speed & Performance
There are a great deal of variables that go into site speed, but the rule of thumb is that the more complicated your site is, the more complicated the options to speed ended up being.
Out of the box- WordPress is fairly lean and quick. If you are running a primarily text website with a couple of basic plugins and a few little images, you’ll be fine with an affordable shared hosting plan from somebody like InMotion HostGator Bluehost But few site owners keep their WordPress set up lean. There’s usually extra plugins, custom theme files, lots of images, widgets, advertisements, kinds and more.
All these functions integrated with good levels of traffic can start to decrease your WordPress setup.
A sluggish website does not mean that you require a bigger, much better server. It does imply that you need to get smarter about speed. Often it’s as simple as getting a more effective server, however sometimes it’s more about caching certain resources in a certain order and enhancing your files. Simply put- it gets complex.
Envision you are trying to transport a trailer with a pickup. Imagine your trailer keeps getting heavier. It’s pointless to keep grumbling 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 help to remain fast as you grow. There are plenty of services … but either you or a developer need to implement them.
That’s where handled WordPress hosting can be found in. WP Engine takes care of (almost) all speed issues. They have actually tailored servers with extremely aggressive caching and much more innovative “stack” than a normal webhosting. They likewise have actually trained assistance who will go into your WordPress install and determine the exact chokepoint to get your site moving.
They don’t even permit caching plugins on their installs due to the fact that they have actually such a personalized caching setup.
The intriguing thing is that even unoptimized WordPress installs still succeed on their platform since their platform does the extra work.
Here’s the speed test for among my customers on WP Engine (who has a puffed up theme, extra scripts, a lot of uncompressed images, to name a few things)- Note the Time To First Byte and the Start Render numbers. That determines how rapidly the server returned enough data to start loading the page.
It’s nice to have that type of speed right out of the box- and have it remain that way no matter how big or complex the site gets.
* Note that the other point here is that if you are consumed about speed, you can get even better numbers with WP Engine than you might get with other services because you are free to focus on speed elements that you can easily control like image compression, use of scripts, etc
. The last observation on speed- WP Engine not just offers an integrated CDN, but they likewise supply worldwide information centers in case your audience is mostly in Asia and/or Europe.
If you are trying to get top speeds without messing with layered caching plugins- the WP Engine does precisely that. And because they work on Google Cloud, you do not have to stress over uptime either.
CDN Included
All strategies include a worldwide CDN (material delivery network).
The CDN will assist your website load quickly for customers all over the world 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 firm. Frequently the “open doors” are plugins that weren’t upgraded.
Securing sites is among the strong suits of WP Engine’s managed WordPress hosting service.
The company takes a number of procedures to safeguard WordPress sites:.
WP Engine runs daily malware/virus scans in collaboration with Sucuri.
They monitor an updated firewall software to block the most recent risks.
All websites are backed up daily.
You get a one-click bring back function that can help you recuperate your site in case of an attack.
The WP Engine website offers a guide on “Tips to Protect Your WordPress Site From Being Hacked.”.
You’ll have access to 24/7/365 technical support for any questions regarding security.
They offer webinars on security.
They release security standards and lists for designers and engineers.
If your website gets hacked, WPE will clean it for free.
Online Resources
WP Engine offers webinars, guides, article, updates, tutorials, and a knowledgebase. With these you can discover how to:.
Introduce your very first site.
Troubleshoot typical problems.
Make improvements to your website.
Handle your hosting account with higher efficiency.
Both newbies and knowledgeable WordPress website owners will discover the support documentation invaluable.
WP Engine’s 60-Day Guarantee
WP Engine’s 60-day money-back guarantee on all membership fees is special in the hosting industry.
It enables you to experiment with the service in a risk-free method.
Keep in mind: this option is not readily available on customized hosting strategies.
Is WP Engine Worth It?
Like any service, it’s not about what is finest overall, but what is best for you based on your goals, spending plan, resources & routines.
If you are in what I think of as WP Engine’s core markets- they provide a great service with a strong item. As a managed WordPress host, their pricing is competitive. They provide more features than “WordPress hosting” plans from other hosting brand names. Their feature-set is unmatched for smart DIYers, WordPress website developers and/or high-traffic sites that don’t wish to fret about hosting concerns.
If managed hosting is a suitable for you- then go check out WP Engine’s strategies here View Current Plans They do a 60-day money-back assurance. So do a test set up and see what you consider their backend. Make certain to talk w/ assistance & sales.
Get 3 months free when you sign up for WP Engine.