There are a lot of cheap hosts available that offer a good service. WPEngine Down
What if you’re looking for more of a performance-oriented, concierge service? In that case, you’ll want to have a look at our WP Engine evaluation for WordPress.
WP Engine is a WordPress-specific webhosting, using managed plans that are fully optimized for the platform. Obviously, when compared to numerous other WordPress hosts, WP Engine’s strategies aren’t precisely cheap. For that reason, you’ll need to know whether this hosting service is worth the cost before purchasing.
To help you out, we’re going to carry out an extensive WP Engine review for WordPress. We’ll discuss its essential features, assistance alternatives, performance abilities, and everything else you’ll need to know. Let’s start!
WP Engine Video Review
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About WP Engine
Founded in 2010, WP Engine is now among the leading managed WordPress hosting business in the market. Serial entrepreneur Jason Cohen began WP Engine when he saw a need for specialized WordPress hosting due to the increasing popularity of WordPress.
WP Engine is Headquartered in Austin, Texas with offices in San Antonio (Texas), London (England), Limerick (Ireland), Brisbane (Australia), and Kraków (Poland).
The company has actually won several awards for Best Place to Work in Austin and regularly contributes to the WordPress core and community.
WP Engine Features
The core reasons to choose WP Engine over less expensive WordPress hosting are increased reliability, efficiency, support, and management, however these are difficult to measure. Some features stick out 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 developed to assist you accelerate your WordPress website by offering meaningful metrics on performance.
Running a test returns you a page-performance report that details how rapidly your page rendered, how long it required to fill in its totality, and the overall size of the page. It even includes historical information on your website’s performance over the past six months and recommendations on how you can reduce page load.
You can establish your WordPress site in a Staging or Development environment prior to making the modifications live (Image credit: WP Engine) Avoid humiliating errors on your website by making changes to a copy of your site prior to it goes live. This is called Staging, and it enables your developers to make comprehensive modifications to your website without impacting your clients.
WP Engine has a comprehensive list of plugins that are prohibited (Image credit: WP Engine) In a relatively unusual move, WP Engine restricts the WordPress plugins you can set up. Those generally restricted are plugins that have been kept in mind to trigger performance problems and security holes. For crucial features such as caching, backups, and search engine optimization tools, WP Engine has made options offered that don’t put a high load on the server.
WP Engine Hosting Plans
WP Engine just uses handled WordPress hosting. There are five various plans available: Startup, Growth, Scale, and Custom.
All plans include unrestricted information transfer. The strategies differ based upon:
- number of WordPress installs
- traffic volume (# of visits per month)
- disk storage amount
- Custom strategy includes dedicated dev. environments, customer success, and priority support
WP Engine includes some special features for WordPress users that a lot of hosts don’t offer, or charge extra for. These unique functions include:.
- Git version control
- Staging: quickly produce a copy of your website for testing
- Easy transferable installs from complimentary to paid accounts
- Leading edge technologies consisting of newest PHP variation.
In our WP Engine review, we found that WP Engine offers the most sophisticated 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 powerful features may indicate a steep learning curve for inexperienced users. If you have an understanding of terms like Git, CNAME, and reroute guidelines, you’ll be right at home here, but otherwise you’ll require to invest some time on the support site.
In our testing, the default WordPress home page packed in simply over two seconds. This is among the fastest reactions we’ve tested, with competitor Liquid Web just a little behind.
Support
A managed WordPress service must offer extra value through its assistance, and WP Engine delivers. The support website consists of videos and articles of a quality you ‘d anticipate from a paid training course, with aid on much deeper WordPress performance that numerous WordPress hosts don’t go into.
There’s 24/7 live chat support and a ticket system, too. In our testing, the action fasted and the representative experienced. For all strategies except for single-site strategies, there’s telephone assistance, too.
Pros
Exceptional Load Speed: If website packing speed is a top concern, WP Engine does well in this regard. The host’s mix of customized NGINX extension, integrated Content Delivery Network (CDN), and SSD technology ensure that your websites load rapidly. NGINX extension focuses on human requests over robotic demands and provides load balancing, offering your visitors a much better experience. For its part, CDN delivers site material to your visitors based upon their location to improve your website’s speed and reduce latency. You get this ability for free with all WP Engine strategies.
High Performance: It’s difficult to beat WP Engine’s performance, which is why people continue to pay a premium price for this service. WP Engine guarantees 99.95% server uptime, approximately 4 and a half hours of downtime a year. You can even more increase your uptime to 99.99% with enhanced 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 listed below the warranty.
Advanced Security: WP Engine keeps track of all the traffic going to your website and immediately finds and obstructs potential attacks. Additionally, the hosting service immediately updates and spots the WordPress core to get rid of possible vulnerabilities. In a worst-case circumstance, WP Engine automatically backups your website every day and has a one-click remediation function to get you back up and running quickly. This hosting service protects your site versus JavaScript/SQL-injection attacks, brute force efforts, and DDoS attacks.
Extraordinary Customer Support: The hosting service has a transparent and trackable ticketing system to connect with consumer care via chat. The support group has an outstanding knowledge base and can help you solve problems rapidly. You get 24/7 phone support for all plans except the Growth Plan, in addition to 24/7 live chat assistance on all strategies.
Useful Staging Environment: The staging area allows you to clone your site’s live version and make changes or evaluate brand-new plugins and themes. Anything you do in the staging area does not affect your live site. This feature permits developers 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 site from your WP Engine account. You don’t need to wait on the customer to add you to their WordPress site. As soon as finished, you can transfer the website to the customer or host the site on WP Engine. This performance conserves time if you regularly develop sites for customers.
Cons
WordPress-Only Hosting: If you are utilizing any other content management system aside from WordPress, then you are out of luck. WP Engine just deals with WordPress. From a service point of view, it makes sense to concentrate on a single market and deal extraordinary services in that area. However, this design locks out many people who could otherwise take advantage of 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 use 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 surpassing your strategy’s visitor limitations. This may not be a problem if you have foreseeable traffic, and you can constantly update your strategy as your site grows. Nevertheless, substantial spikes in traffic throughout product launches or seasonal service can cost you substantial excess charges.
There is no other method to put it: WP Engine is expensive. Is it worth the cost? The response depends on determining what you are spending for.
You can get shared hosting that can handle the very same amount of traffic as WP Engine for a portion of the rate. You can even get devoted hosting for the exact same price as WP Engine. What you are really spending for here is security, efficiency, speed, and, most importantly, assurance. The supreme concern 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 efficiency & not needing to think too much about maintenance, security & speed. If you look at WP Engine’s prices based on the functions you’re getting- you really do not get a whole lot.
And if you are the type who will think about your website’s health anyhow (ie, keeping WordPress updated and normally visiting often), you’ll likely be paying 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 site a shared hosting strategy from HostGator with fundamental caching) dealt with more than 15,000+ check outs in a 24 hour duration when a post of mine And if you are running a dependable VPS, you can certainly manage a lot more for much less. In fact, the website you are on deals with more than 110,000+ visits each month with plenty of room 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 strategy.
They are fairly transparent about how they count visits, however it can still be quite a surprise for “little” site owners how rapidly they can get into the $290 per month tier. I have a client who began with the Startup strategy, however quickly ended up with a custom plan.
And as discussed previously that does not even consist of a number of the features you do not get with WP Engine’s strategies. You can’t run any e-mail from your servers. You have low limits on local media storage. Anything above the limits needs additional expenses & technical implementation of Amazon cloud services.
And most notably for me- you are restricted on your installs. If you have a few side projects or low-traffic test websites, you need to factor those into the price. You can’t utilize them to spread out the cost of your plan- specifically if you are hitting your visitor cap instead of your install cap.
If you are looking to pay for hosting- ie, a server that will hold & dish out your website files- WP Engine is a pricey alternative, specifically compared to other non-managed hosting alternatives.
Startup
The Startup plan is one of the most fundamental plan and will set you back $25 monthly. With this plan, you get:.
25,000 sees each month.
50GB bandwidth per month.
10GB storage.
One website consisted of.
WP Engine targets small websites and blog sites with this plan, but we think it may 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 warranty that your site can handle 25,000 visitors monthly, WP Engine is a sure bet. We ‘d advise this alternative to small businesses, affiliate websites, and blog sites making great money and desire assurances that absolutely nothing will alter.
You can conserve $60 each year or more months complimentary if you pay annually.
Growth
The growth plan targets growing organizations and will cost you $95 monthly. Here you get:.
100,000 gos to each month.
200GB bandwidth monthly.
25GB storage.
10 sites included a while.
This strategy is an excellent entry point for a growing organization, and it might be a while before you require to upgrade. With this strategy, you likewise get 24/7 phone support in addition to day-and-night chat support. This addition will be available in handy if you have a complex issue that you need to solve quickly.
You can save a cool $230 or 2 months free with annual billing.
Scale
WP Engine markets its scale strategy as the best value option. This one costs $241 each month. Here you get:.
400,000 visits per month.
500GB bandwidth each month.
50GB storage.
30 websites consisted of.
We suggest this alternative 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 assistance.
You can conserve $580 or more months free with yearly pre-paid billing.
Customized
Finally, if you have a mission-critical site or large business, the Custom strategy might be appealing. With this plan, you get:.
Countless check outs each month.
400GB+ bandwidth per month.
100GB-1TB storage.
30 websites included.
You will need to speak to a sales associate to get your personalized quote depending upon your requirements. This strategy also uses exclusive assistance ought to something fail.
Migrate WordPress websites in just a few clicks.
Strong Uptime
WP Engine accomplishes over 99% uptime thanks to its world-class network infrastructure.
The company also has three data centers in London, Tokyo, and Midwest USA.
As a result, you can improve site speeds by choosing to host your website on servers that are closest to your target market.
WP Engine blocks 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 complex your website is, the more complicated the solutions to speed ended up being.
Out of the box- WordPress is fairly lean and quick. If you are running a mainly text website with a couple of fundamental plugins and a couple of little images, you’ll be great with a budget-friendly shared hosting plan from somebody like InMotion HostGator Bluehost But couple of site owners keep their WordPress install lean. There’s normally additional plugins, custom-made theme files, great deals of images, widgets, ads, forms and more.
All these features combined with decent levels of traffic can start to slow down your WordPress setup.
But a slow site doesn’t imply that you need a bigger, better server. It does indicate that you require to get smarter about speed. Often it’s as easy as getting a more effective server, however sometimes it’s more about caching specific resources in a particular order and optimizing your files. To put it simply- it gets complex.
Picture you are attempting to haul a trailer with a pickup. Picture your trailer keeps getting heavier. It’s meaningless to keep grumbling that your truck is not big enough when you might just need to get rid of the emergency brake, set up a turbocharger, refresh the transmission fluid and consolidate your load.
The point is that WordPress needs assistance to remain quick as you grow. There are lots of options … however either you or a developer should implement them.
That’s where managed WordPress hosting comes in. WP Engine takes care of (nearly) all speed concerns. They have personalized servers with very aggressive caching and a lot more innovative “stack” than a common webhosting. They likewise have actually trained assistance who will go into your WordPress install and recognize the exact chokepoint to get your website moving.
They do not even enable caching plugins on their installs since they have such a customized caching setup.
The interesting thing is that even unoptimized WordPress sets up still do well on their platform due to the fact that their platform does the extra work.
Here’s the speed test for among my clients on WP Engine (who has a bloated style, additional scripts, a lot of uncompressed images, among other things)- Note the Time To First Byte and the Start Render numbers. That measures how rapidly the server returned enough data to begin packing the page.
It’s great to have that kind of speed right out of the box- and have it stay that way no matter how huge or complex the site gets.
* Note that the other point here is that if you are consumed about speed, you can get back at better numbers with WP Engine than you might get with other services considering that you are free to focus 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, but they likewise supply worldwide data 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 exactly that. And since they operate on Google Cloud, you do not need to fret about uptime either.
CDN Included
All strategies include an international CDN (material delivery network).
The CDN will help your site load fast for consumers around 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 sites are WordPress sites, according to Sucuri, a web security company. Frequently the “open doors” are plugins that weren’t updated.
Securing sites is among the strengths of WP Engine’s handled WordPress hosting service.
The company takes numerous procedures to safeguard WordPress websites:.
WP Engine runs everyday malware/virus scans in collaboration with Sucuri.
They monitor an upgraded firewall to obstruct the latest hazards.
All websites are backed up daily.
You get a one-click bring back function that can assist you recuperate your website in case of an attack.
The WP Engine website provides a guide on “Tips to Protect Your WordPress Site From Being Hacked.”.
You’ll have access to 24/7/365 technical assistance for any questions regarding security.
They offer webinars on security.
They release security guidelines and lists for designers and engineers.
If your site gets hacked, WPE will clean it free of charge.
Online Resources
WP Engine supplies webinars, guides, post, updates, tutorials, and a knowledgebase. With these you can discover how to:.
Introduce your very first site.
Troubleshoot common problems.
Make improvements to your site.
Manage your hosting account with greater performance.
Both beginners and knowledgeable WordPress website owners will find the support paperwork invaluable.
WP Engine’s 60-Day Guarantee
WP Engine’s 60-day money-back warranty on all subscription costs is distinct in the hosting market.
It allows you to try out the service in a risk-free way.
Note: this alternative is not readily available on custom hosting plans.
Is WP Engine Worth It?
Like any service, it’s not about what is best overall, but what is best for you based upon your objectives, 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 solid item. As a handled WordPress host, their rates is competitive. They use more features than “WordPress hosting” strategies from other hosting brand names. Their feature-set is unequaled for smart DIYers, WordPress website designers and/or high-traffic sites that do not want to fret about hosting concerns.
If handled hosting is a suitable for you- then go take a look at WP Engine’s strategies here View Current Plans They do a 60-day money-back guarantee. So do a test set up and see what you consider their backend. Make sure to chat w/ support & sales.
Get 3 months free when you sign up for WP Engine.