There are lots of cheap hosts available that provide a decent service. WPEngine Caching Plugin
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 evaluation for WordPress.
WP Engine is a WordPress-specific web host, providing managed strategies that are completely enhanced for the platform. Obviously, when compared to lots of other WordPress hosts, WP Engine’s strategies aren’t precisely low-cost. You’ll want to understand whether this hosting service is worth the cost prior to making a purchase.
To help you out, we’re going to carry out a thorough WP Engine review for WordPress. We’ll discuss its key functions, support choices, efficiency 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 one of the leading managed WordPress hosting companies in the market. Serial business owner Jason Cohen started WP Engine when he saw a requirement for specialized WordPress hosting due to the rising popularity 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 numerous awards for Best Place to Work in Austin and consistently contributes to the WordPress core and neighborhood.
WP Engine Features
The core reasons to select WP Engine over less expensive WordPress hosting are increased reliability, efficiency, support, and management, but these are difficult to measure. Some features stand apart when you browse the interface, nevertheless, that can offer you some insight into the service provided.
WP Engine Page Performance is a cool tool developed to help you speed up your WordPress site by providing significant metrics on efficiency.
Running a test returns you a page-performance report that details how rapidly your page rendered, how long it required to fill in its whole, and the overall size of the page. It even consists of historic data on your website’s efficiency over the past 6 months and suggestions 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 embarrassing errors on your site by making changes to a copy of your site before it goes live. This is called Staging, and it allows your designers to make comprehensive changes to your site without affecting your customers.
WP Engine has a thorough list of plugins that are prohibited (Image credit: WP Engine) In a reasonably unusual relocation, WP Engine limits the WordPress plugins you can set up. Those typically restricted are plugins that have been noted to cause efficiency issues and security holes. For essential features such as caching, backups, and search engine optimization tools, WP Engine has actually made alternatives readily available that do not put a high load on the server.
WP Engine Hosting Plans
WP Engine just uses managed WordPress hosting. There are five various plans readily available: Startup, Growth, Scale, and Custom.
All plans include unrestricted information transfer. The plans vary based upon:
- number of WordPress sets up
- traffic volume (# of visits per month)
- disk storage amount
- Customized strategy includes dedicated dev. environments, consumer success, and priority support
WP Engine includes some unique features for WordPress users that many hosts do not use, or charge additional for. These unique features consist of:.
- Git version control
- Staging: immediately develop a copy of your website for testing
- Easy transferable installs from totally free to paid accounts
- Innovative technologies including latest PHP version.
In our WP Engine review, we found that WP Engine offers the most innovative and comprehensive 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 professional and well laid out, however the effective functions might indicate a steep knowing curve for unskilled users. If you have an understanding of terms like Git, CNAME, and redirect guidelines, you’ll be right at home here, however otherwise you’ll require to spend a long time on the support site.
In our testing, the default WordPress web page filled in just over two seconds. This is one of the fastest reactions we’ve evaluated, with rival Liquid Web only somewhat behind.
Support
A handled WordPress service need to use extra worth through its assistance, and WP Engine provides. The assistance site includes videos and posts of a quality you ‘d anticipate from a paid training course, with help on much deeper WordPress functionality that many WordPress hosts don’t go into.
There’s 24/7 live chat support and a ticket system, too. In our testing, the response fasted and the agent experienced. For all plans except for single-site strategies, there’s telephone support, too.
Pros
Remarkable 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 innovation guarantee that your web pages load rapidly. NGINX extension prioritizes human demands over robot demands and provides load balancing, giving your visitors a much better experience. For its part, CDN delivers site content to your visitors based upon their area to increase your website’s speed and lower latency. You get this ability totally free with all WP Engine plans.
High Performance: It’s tough to beat WP Engine’s efficiency, which is why people continue to pay a premium rate for this service. WP Engine guarantees 99.95% server uptime, roughly 4 and a half hours of downtime a year. You can further increase your uptime to 99.99% with boosted 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 an eye on all the traffic going to your site and instantly discovers and obstructs possible attacks. In addition, the hosting service automatically updates and patches the WordPress core to get rid of potential vulnerabilities. In a worst-case situation, WP Engine instantly backups your site every day and has a one-click restoration feature to get you back up and running quickly. Finally, this hosting service protects your site 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 connect with customer care through chat. The support group has an outstanding knowledge base and can assist you fix issues quickly. You get 24/7 phone assistance for all plans except the Growth Plan, in addition to 24/7 live chat support on all plans.
Useful Staging Environment: The staging area allows you to clone your website’s live version and make changes or evaluate new plugins and styles. Anything you carry out in the staging area does not impact your live site. This feature enables developers to work on websites without hindering the live website’s functionality or user experience.
Transferable Installs: Also targeting developers, this function allows you to construct a website from your WP Engine account. You don’t have to wait on the customer to include you to their WordPress site. Once finished, you can transfer the website to the client or host the website on WP Engine. This functionality conserves time if you routinely construct websites 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 only works with WordPress. From an organization point of view, it makes sense to focus on a single market and deal remarkable services because area. This model locks out many individuals who could otherwise benefit from WP Engine’s services.
No Domains or Email Hosting: If you choose to host your email account and register your domain through your site host, you’ll need to look in other places. You’ll have to utilize third-party services for domain registration or e-mail accounts.
Inflexible Pricing: WP Engine runs a tight ship, and this is reflected in its rates structure. You will be penalized for surpassing your strategy’s visitor limits. This may not be an issue if you have foreseeable traffic, and you can always upgrade your strategy as your site grows. However, substantial spikes in traffic during item launches or seasonal business can cost you significant overage charges.
There is no other way to put it: WP Engine is pricey. Is it worth the cost? The answer lies in figuring out what you are paying for.
You can get shared hosting that can handle the same quantity of traffic as WP Engine for a fraction of the price. You can even get dedicated hosting for the exact same rate as WP Engine. What you are really spending for here is security, efficiency, speed, and, most significantly, peace of mind. The ultimate concern is just 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 strategy, you are normally spending for performance & not needing to believe excessive about upkeep, security & speed. If you look at WP Engine’s prices based upon the functions you’re getting- you really don’t get a whole lot.
And if you are the type who will think of your website’s health anyhow (ie, keeping WordPress updated and typically logging in often), you’ll likely be spending for “management” that is unneeded.
Lots of shared hosting servers can deal with the same traffic numbers as WP Engine- and cost a portion of the rate. My personal site a shared hosting strategy from HostGator with fundamental caching) handled more than 15,000+ check outs in a 24 hour period when a post of mine And if you are running a reliable VPS, you can certainly handle a lot more for much less. The site you are on handles more than 110,000+ check outs per month with plenty of space left to 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 plan.
They are relatively transparent about how they count visits, but it can still be quite a surprise for “little” website owners how quickly they can enter the $290 per month tier. I have a customer who started with the Startup plan, however rapidly wound up with a custom plan.
And as pointed out earlier that does not even include many of the features you don’t get with WP Engine’s strategies. You can’t run any e-mail from your servers. You have low limits on regional media storage. Anything above the limits requires additional costs & technical execution of Amazon cloud services.
And most importantly for me- you are restricted on your installs. If you have a couple of side projects or low-traffic test sites, you have to factor those into the rate. You can’t use them to spread out the cost of your plan- particularly if you are hitting your visitor cap instead of your install cap.
If you are aiming to pay for hosting- ie, a server that will hold & provide your website files- WP Engine is a costly alternative, especially compared to other non-managed hosting alternatives.
Startup
The Startup bundle is one of the most standard strategy and will set you back $25 each month. With this bundle, you get:.
25,000 check outs per month.
50GB bandwidth each month.
10GB storage.
One website included.
WP Engine targets small websites and blog sites with this plan, however we believe it might be overkill for many people in this classification. You can get a far much better handle shared hosting at Bluehost However, if you do not want to take any opportunities with uptime or need an assurance that your site can deal with 25,000 visitors each month, WP Engine is a sure thing. We ‘d suggest this alternative to small businesses, affiliate sites, and blogs making good money and want guarantees that nothing will alter.
You can save $60 annually or 2 months free if you pay yearly.
Growth
The development plan targets growing companies and will cost you $95 monthly. Here you get:.
100,000 gos to monthly.
200GB bandwidth each month.
25GB storage.
Ten sites included a while.
This plan is a terrific entry point for a growing service, and it might be a while before you require to upgrade. With this plan, you likewise get 24/7 phone support in addition to round-the-clock chat assistance. This addition will be available in convenient if you have a complicated issue that you require to fix rapidly.
You can conserve a cool $230 or more months free with yearly billing.
Scale
WP Engine markets its scale plan as the very best value option. This one expenses $241 monthly. Here you get:.
400,000 gos to per month.
500GB bandwidth each month.
50GB storage.
30 websites consisted of.
We suggest this option for a fast-growing blog site or service. You get access to 24/7 live chat and 24/7 phone assistance in addition to the support.
You can conserve $580 or 2 months totally free with annual pre-paid billing.
Customized
Finally, if you have a mission-critical site or big company, the Custom strategy may be appealing. With this strategy, you get:.
Millions of visits per month.
400GB+ bandwidth per month.
100GB-1TB storage.
30 sites included.
You will have to speak to a sales associate to get your tailored quote depending on your requirements. This plan also offers proprietary assistance should something go wrong.
Migrate WordPress websites in just a few clicks.
Solid Uptime
WP Engine attains over 99% uptime thanks to its world-class network infrastructure.
The company also has three information centers in London, Tokyo, and Midwest USA.
As a result, you can improve website speeds by picking to host your site on servers that are closest to your target audience.
WP Engine obstructs malicious attacks on your site.
Speed & Performance
There are a great deal of variables that enter into site speed, but the rule of thumb is that the more intricate your website is, the more complex the services to speed become.
Out of package- WordPress is relatively lean and fast. If you are running a mainly text site with a few basic plugins and a few small images, you’ll be fine with a cost effective shared hosting plan from somebody like InMotion HostGator Bluehost But couple of site owners keep their WordPress install lean. There’s usually extra plugins, customized theme files, lots of images, widgets, advertisements, kinds and more.
All these functions integrated with good levels of traffic can begin to decrease your WordPress installation.
A slow website does not imply that you require a bigger, better server. It does indicate that you require to get smarter about speed. Sometimes it’s as easy as getting a more powerful server, but sometimes it’s more about caching particular resources in a certain order and optimizing your files. In other words- it gets complex.
Imagine you are trying to carry a trailer with a pickup truck. Picture your trailer keeps getting much heavier. It’s meaningless to keep grumbling that your truck is not big enough when you may just need to get rid of the emergency brake, set up a turbocharger, revitalize the transmission fluid and consolidate your load.
The point is that WordPress needs assistance to stay quickly as you grow. There are a lot of options … however either you or a designer should implement them.
That’s where managed WordPress hosting is available in. WP Engine takes care of (almost) all speed concerns. They have customized servers with exceptionally aggressive caching and even more sophisticated “stack” than a typical web host. They likewise have trained assistance who will go into your WordPress install and identify the exact chokepoint to get your site moving.
They do not even allow caching plugins on their installs since they have actually such a customized caching setup.
The fascinating thing is that even unoptimized WordPress installs still do well on their platform due to the fact that their platform does the additional work.
Here’s the speed test for among my clients on WP Engine (who has a bloated style, additional scripts, too many uncompressed images, among other things)- Note the Time To First Byte and the Start Render numbers. That determines how rapidly the server returned enough data to begin loading the page.
It’s great to have that sort of speed right out of the box- and have it remain that way no matter how huge or intricate 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 since you are complimentary to focus on speed aspects that you can quickly manage like image compression, usage of scripts, and so on
. The last observation on speed- WP Engine not just offers an incorporated CDN, however they likewise supply international information centers in case your audience is mostly in Asia and/or Europe.
If you are trying to get top speeds without tinkering layered caching plugins- the WP Engine does precisely that. And because they work on Google Cloud, you do not need to stress over uptime either.
CDN Included
All strategies include a worldwide CDN (content delivery network).
The CDN will assist your website load quick for consumers 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 sites, according to Sucuri, a web security company. Often the “open doors” are plugins that weren’t upgraded.
Protecting sites is among the strong suits of WP Engine’s managed WordPress hosting service.
The business takes several procedures to protect WordPress websites:.
WP Engine runs day-to-day malware/virus scans in collaboration with Sucuri.
They keep track of an upgraded firewall to obstruct the latest hazards.
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 site provides 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 relating to security.
They provide webinars on security.
They publish security guidelines and lists for designers and engineers.
If your website gets hacked, WPE will clean it totally free.
Online Resources
WP Engine supplies webinars, guides, post, updates, tutorials, and a knowledgebase. With these you can discover how to:.
Launch your very first website.
Troubleshoot common problems.
Make improvements to your website.
Manage your hosting account with higher performance.
Both newbies and experienced WordPress website owners will find the support paperwork vital.
WP Engine’s 60-Day Guarantee
WP Engine’s 60-day money-back warranty on all membership charges is distinct in the hosting market.
It allows you to check out the service in a safe way.
Keep in mind: this alternative is not available on customized hosting plans.
Is WP Engine Worth It?
Like any service, it’s not about what is best overall, however what is finest for you based on your objectives, spending plan, resources & routines.
If you remain in what I think of as WP Engine’s core markets- they offer a terrific service with a solid item. As a managed WordPress host, their pricing is competitive. They offer more features than “WordPress hosting” plans from other hosting brands. Their feature-set is unrivaled for savvy DIYers, WordPress website developers and/or high-traffic sites that don’t wish to worry about hosting issues.
If managed 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 guarantee. So do a test set up and see what you think of their backend. Be sure to talk w/ assistance & sales.
Get 3 months free when you sign up for WP Engine.