There are plenty of low-cost hosts readily available that provide a decent service. WPEngine Elementor
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 webhosting, offering managed strategies that are fully enhanced for the platform. Naturally, when compared to lots of other WordPress hosts, WP Engine’s plans aren’t precisely low-cost. Therefore, you’ll wish to know whether this hosting service deserves the cost prior to purchasing.
To help you out, we’re going to carry out a comprehensive WP Engine review for WordPress. We’ll discuss its essential features, support alternatives, performance abilities, and everything else you’ll need to understand. Let’s start!
WP Engine Video Review
Sign up for a WP Engine plan and receive the Genesis Framework and 35+ StudioPress Themes free!
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 need 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 business has won numerous 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 reliability, efficiency, support, and management, but these are tough to measure. Some features stand apart when you browse the interface, nevertheless, that can give you some insight into the service offered.
WP Engine Page Performance is a neat tool developed to help you speed up your WordPress website by providing significant metrics on performance.
Running a test returns you a page-performance report that details how rapidly your page rendered, the length of time it took to load in its whole, and the total size of the page. It even includes historic data on your website’s performance over the past six months and suggestions on how you can reduce 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 errors on your site by making changes to a copy of your website prior to it goes live. This is called Staging, and it enables your designers to make substantial changes to your website without affecting your clients.
WP Engine has a thorough list of plugins that are disallowed (Image credit: WP Engine) In a relatively unusual move, WP Engine restricts the WordPress plugins you can set up. Those normally restricted are plugins that have actually been noted to trigger efficiency issues and security holes. For important functions such as caching, backups, and search engine optimization tools, WP Engine has actually made options available that do not put a high load on the server.
WP Engine Hosting Plans
WP Engine only provides handled WordPress hosting. There are 5 different plans available: Startup, Growth, Scale, and Custom.
All plans include unlimited information transfer. The plans vary 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 unique features for WordPress users that a lot of hosts don’t use, or charge extra for. These special features consist of:.
- Git version control
- Staging: immediately develop a copy of your site for testing
- Easy transferable installs from complimentary to paid accounts
- Innovative technologies consisting of latest PHP version.
In our WP Engine evaluation, we discovered that WP Engine offers the most advanced and detailed 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, but the powerful features may mean a high knowing curve for inexperienced users. If you have an understanding of terms like Git, CNAME, and reroute rules, you’ll be right in the house here, however otherwise you’ll need to spend a long time on the assistance site.
In our screening, the default WordPress home page loaded in just over two seconds. This is one of the fastest reactions we’ve evaluated, with rival Liquid Web only somewhat behind.
Assistance
A managed WordPress service must use additional worth through its assistance, and WP Engine provides. The assistance website includes videos and short articles of a quality you ‘d anticipate from a paid training course, with help on much deeper WordPress performance that many WordPress hosts don’t enter into.
There’s 24/7 live chat assistance and a ticket system, too. In our testing, the action was quick and the agent knowledgeable. For all plans except for single-site plans, there’s telephone assistance, too.
Pros
Extraordinary Load Speed: If website packing speed is a leading priority, WP Engine succeeds in this regard. The host’s mix of custom-made NGINX extension, built-in Content Delivery Network (CDN), and SSD technology ensure that your websites load rapidly. NGINX extension prioritizes human requests over robotic demands and offers load balancing, offering your visitors a better experience. For its part, CDN provides website content to your visitors based on their area to enhance your site’s speed and reduce latency. You get this capability totally free with all WP Engine plans.
High Performance: It’s difficult to beat WP Engine’s efficiency, which is why people continue to pay a premium price for this service. WP Engine ensures 99.95% server uptime, roughly four 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 below the guarantee.
Advanced Security: WP Engine monitors all the traffic going to your site and instantly spots and obstructs possible attacks. In addition, the hosting service automatically updates and spots the WordPress core to eliminate possible vulnerabilities. In a worst-case circumstance, WP Engine instantly backups your website every day and has a one-click restoration function to get you back up and running quickly. Lastly, this hosting service protects 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 assistance group has an exceptional knowledge base and can assist you resolve issues rapidly. You get 24/7 phone assistance for all plans except the Growth Plan, in addition to 24/7 live chat support on all strategies.
Useful Staging Environment: The staging area enables you to clone your website’s live variation and make changes or evaluate brand-new plugins and styles. Anything you perform in the staging area does not impact your live site. This function permits developers to deal with sites without disrupting the live website’s functionality or user experience.
Transferable Installs: Also targeting developers, this feature enables you to build a site from your WP Engine account. You do not need to wait on the client to add you to their WordPress site. When finished, you can move the site to the client or host the website on WP Engine. This functionality saves time if you routinely develop 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 service perspective, it makes good sense to concentrate on a single market and offer remarkable services in that area. Nevertheless, this design locks out many people who might otherwise benefit 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 need to look somewhere else. 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 prices structure. You will be punished for surpassing your plan’s visitor limitations. This may not be an issue if you have foreseeable traffic, and you can constantly upgrade your plan as your website grows. However, significant spikes in traffic during item launches or seasonal business can cost you substantial overage charges.
There is no other method to put it: WP Engine is pricey. Is it worth the expense? The answer lies in 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 cost. You can even get committed hosting for the exact same rate as WP Engine. What you are truly spending for here is security, efficiency, speed, and, most significantly, assurance. The supreme concern 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 efficiency & not needing to think excessive about upkeep, security & speed. If you take a look at WP Engine’s rates based on the features you’re getting- you really don’t get a lot.
And if you are the type who will consider your website’s health anyway (ie, keeping WordPress upgraded and typically visiting regularly), you’ll likely be spending for “management” that is unneeded.
Many shared hosting servers can handle the exact same traffic numbers as WP Engine- and cost a portion of the rate. My personal website a shared hosting plan from HostGator with basic caching) handled more than 15,000+ check outs in a 24 hour duration when a post of mine And if you are running a reputable VPS, you can certainly handle a lot more for much less. The site you are on handles more than 110,000+ gos to per month with plenty of space 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 plan.
They are fairly transparent about how they count check outs, however it can still be rather a surprise for “small” website owners how quickly they can enter into the $290 each month tier. I have a client who began with the Startup strategy, but rapidly wound up with a customized strategy.
And as pointed out previously that does not even include a lot of the functions you don’t get with WP Engine’s plans. You can’t run any e-mail from your servers. You have low limitations 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 websites, you need to factor those into the rate. You can’t use them to spread out the cost of your strategy- especially if you are striking your visitor cap instead of your install cap.
If you are seeking to spend for hosting- ie, a server that will hold & provide your site files- WP Engine is a pricey alternative, especially compared to other non-managed hosting choices.
Startup
The Startup package is one of the most fundamental strategy and will set you back $25 each month. With this bundle, you get:.
25,000 check outs monthly.
50GB bandwidth each month.
10GB storage.
One site consisted of.
WP Engine targets little websites and blog sites with this plan, however we believe it may be overkill for many people in this classification. You can get a far better handle shared hosting at Bluehost However, if you don’t want to take any possibilities with uptime or need an assurance that your website can deal with 25,000 visitors monthly, WP Engine is a sure thing. We ‘d suggest this option to small businesses, affiliate sites, and blog sites making good money and desire assurances that nothing will change.
You can conserve $60 annually or more months free if you pay every year.
Growth
The growth plan targets growing services and will cost you $95 each month. Here you get:.
100,000 visits per month.
200GB bandwidth per month.
25GB storage.
10 websites included a while.
This plan is an excellent entry point for a growing business, and it might be a while before you require to update. With this plan, you likewise get 24/7 phone support in addition to day-and-night chat support. This addition will be available in convenient if you have a complex problem that you require to deal with quickly.
You can save a cool $230 or two months complimentary with yearly billing.
Scale
WP Engine promotes its scale plan as the very best worth option. This one expenses $241 monthly. Here you get:.
400,000 gos to per month.
500GB bandwidth per month.
50GB storage.
30 websites consisted of.
We advise this alternative 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 center.
You can save $580 or 2 months complimentary with annual pre-paid billing.
Custom
Finally, if you have a mission-critical website or large business, the Custom strategy might be appealing. With this plan, you get:.
Countless check outs per month.
400GB+ bandwidth each month.
100GB-1TB storage.
30 sites consisted of.
You will have to speak to a sales rep to get your customized quote depending on your requirements. This strategy also provides proprietary assistance must something go wrong.
Migrate WordPress websites in just a few clicks.
Solid Uptime
WP Engine accomplishes over 99% uptime thanks to its world-class network infrastructure.
The business likewise has three data centers in London, Tokyo, and Midwest USA.
As a result, you can get better website speeds by selecting to host your website on servers that are closest to your target audience.
WP Engine obstructs malicious attacks on your website.
Speed & Performance
There are a lot of variables that enter into website speed, however the general rule is that the more complex your website is, the more intricate the services to speed become.
Out of package- WordPress is fairly lean and quick. If you are running a mostly text site with a couple of basic plugins and a couple of small images, you’ll be fine with an affordable shared hosting strategy from someone like InMotion HostGator Bluehost But couple of site owners keep their WordPress install lean. There’s typically additional plugins, custom-made style files, great deals of images, widgets, advertisements, forms and more.
All these features integrated with decent levels of traffic can begin to slow down your WordPress setup.
A sluggish site doesn’t suggest that you need a bigger, 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 often it’s more about caching certain resources in a particular order and optimizing your files. Simply put- it gets complex.
Imagine you are trying to transport 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 may just require to get rid of the emergency brake, install a turbocharger, refresh the transmission fluid and combine your load.
The point is that WordPress needs aid to remain quickly as you grow. There are a lot of options … but either you or a designer should execute them.
That’s where handled WordPress hosting is available in. WP Engine looks after (nearly) all speed concerns. They have tailored servers with exceptionally aggressive caching and even more innovative “stack” than a common web host. They also have actually trained assistance who will go into your WordPress set up and determine the exact chokepoint to get your website moving.
They do not even allow caching plugins on their installs since they have actually such a tailored caching setup.
The intriguing 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 puffed up style, 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 information to begin filling the page.
It’s great to have that sort of speed right out of package- and have it remain that way no matter how huge or complicated the site gets.
* Note that the other point here is that if you are obsessed about speed, you can get back at better numbers with WP Engine than you may get with other services given that you are free to concentrate on speed aspects that you can quickly manage like image compression, use of scripts, and so on
. The last observation on speed- WP Engine not just provides an incorporated CDN, however they also supply international information centers in case your audience is mainly in Asia and/or Europe.
If you are attempting to get top speeds without tinkering layered caching plugins- the WP Engine does exactly that. And given that they run on Google Cloud, you do not need to stress over uptime either.
CDN Included
All strategies include a global CDN (material shipment network).
The CDN will assist your site load fast for customers worldwide by serving it to them from the network node that’s geographically closest to them.
Security and Backups
An estimated 78% of hacked websites are WordPress websites, according to Sucuri, a web security company. Frequently the “open doors” are plugins that weren’t updated.
Protecting sites is among the fortes of WP Engine’s handled WordPress hosting service.
The business takes several measures to safeguard WordPress websites:.
WP Engine runs daily malware/virus scans in collaboration with Sucuri.
They keep an eye on an upgraded firewall software to obstruct the latest hazards.
All websites are supported daily.
You get a one-click restore function that can assist you recover your site in case of an attack.
The WP Engine site 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 questions concerning security.
They provide webinars on security.
They publish security standards and lists for designers and engineers.
If your website gets hacked, WPE will clean it totally free.
Online Resources
WP Engine offers webinars, guides, article, updates, tutorials, and a knowledgebase. With these you can learn how to:.
Introduce your very first website.
Troubleshoot common issues.
Make improvements to your website.
Manage your hosting account with higher performance.
Both novices and experienced WordPress site owners will discover the support documentation important.
WP Engine’s 60-Day Guarantee
WP Engine’s 60-day money-back guarantee on all membership fees is distinct in the hosting industry.
It enables you to experiment with the service in a risk-free method.
Keep in mind: this alternative is not offered on custom-made hosting plans.
Is WP Engine Worth It?
Like any service, it’s not about what is best overall, however what is best for you based upon your goals, spending plan, resources & habits.
If you remain in what I think of as WP Engine’s core markets- they provide a terrific service with a solid product. 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 unrivaled for savvy DIYers, WordPress site 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 check out WP Engine’s plans here View Current Plans They do a 60-day money-back assurance. Do a test set up and see what you believe of their backend. Make certain to chat w/ support & sales.
Get 3 months free when you sign up for WP Engine.