There are plenty of cheap hosts readily available that supply a good service. WPEngine Go Live Process
Nevertheless, what if you’re trying to find 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, providing managed plans that are completely optimized for the platform. Obviously, when compared to lots of other WordPress hosts, WP Engine’s strategies aren’t exactly cheap. Therefore, you’ll wish to know whether this hosting service is worth the cost before buying.
To assist you out, we’re going to carry out a comprehensive WP Engine review for WordPress. We’ll discuss its crucial features, support options, performance abilities, and whatever else you’ll require to know. Let’s get started!
WP Engine Video Review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oklmdvSL7s
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About WP Engine
Founded in 2010, WP Engine is now one of the leading handled WordPress hosting companies in the market. Serial business owner Jason Cohen started WP Engine when he saw a need 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 company has actually won multiple awards for Best Place to Work in Austin and regularly adds to the WordPress core and neighborhood.
WP Engine Features
The core factors to choose WP Engine over more affordable WordPress hosting are increased reliability, performance, assistance, and management, but these are hard to measure. Some features stick out when you browse the user interface, however, that can provide you some insight into the service provided.
WP Engine Page Performance is a neat tool developed to help you accelerate your WordPress site by providing meaningful metrics on performance.
Running a test returns you a page-performance report that information how rapidly your page rendered, the length of time it took to load in its totality, 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 establish your WordPress site in a Staging or Development environment prior to making the modifications live (Image credit: WP Engine) Avoid awkward errors on your site by making changes to a copy of your website before it goes live. This is called Staging, and it enables your designers to make substantial changes to your website without affecting your consumers.
WP Engine has a thorough list of plugins that are disallowed (Image credit: WP Engine) In a fairly uncommon relocation, WP Engine limits the WordPress plugins you can set up. Those usually limited are plugins that have actually been kept in mind to trigger performance concerns and security holes. For important features such as caching, backups, and search engine optimization tools, WP Engine has made alternatives readily available that do not put a high load on the server.
WP Engine Hosting Plans
WP Engine only offers handled WordPress hosting. There are five different plans offered: Startup, Growth, Scale, and Custom.
All strategies consist of endless information transfer. The plans differ based upon:
- number of WordPress installs
- traffic volume (# of visits per month)
- disk storage amount
- Customized strategy consists of dedicated dev. environments, customer success, and priority assistance
WP Engine consists of some distinct features for WordPress users that most hosts don’t use, or charge additional for. These unique features consist of:.
- Git version control
- Staging: instantly develop a copy of your site for testing
- Easy transferable installs from totally free to paid accounts
- Innovative innovations including newest PHP version.
In our WP Engine review, we found that WP Engine provides the most advanced 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 set out, but the powerful features may imply a steep knowing curve for unskilled 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 a long time on the assistance website.
In our testing, the default WordPress home page filled in just over 2 seconds. This is one of the fastest responses we’ve evaluated, with rival Liquid Web just slightly behind.
Assistance
A handled WordPress service ought to provide extra worth through its support, and WP Engine delivers. The assistance website consists of videos and articles of a quality you ‘d get out of a paid training course, with help on deeper WordPress functionality that numerous WordPress hosts don’t go into.
There’s 24/7 live chat assistance and a ticket system, too. In our testing, the response fasted and the representative educated. For all strategies except for single-site strategies, there’s telephone support, too.
Pros
Remarkable Load Speed: If site filling speed is a top priority, WP Engine succeeds in this regard. The host’s mix of custom-made NGINX extension, built-in Content Delivery Network (CDN), and SSD innovation make sure that your websites load rapidly. NGINX extension prioritizes human demands over robotic demands 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 enhance your website’s speed and minimize latency. You get this ability totally free with all WP Engine strategies.
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 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 improved SLA, which translates to a little under an hour of downtime annually. WP Engine will compensate you with hosting credit if your uptime falls below the warranty.
Advanced Security: WP Engine keeps track of all the traffic going to your site and automatically detects and obstructs potential attacks. Additionally, the hosting service automatically updates and patches the WordPress core to remove possible vulnerabilities. In a worst-case circumstance, WP Engine immediately backups your site every day and has a one-click repair feature to get you back up and running rapidly. This hosting service secures your site against JavaScript/SQL-injection attacks, brute force efforts, and DDoS attacks.
Phenomenal Customer Support: The hosting service has a transparent and trackable ticketing system to contact customer care via chat. The support group has an excellent knowledge base and can assist you resolve problems rapidly. You get 24/7 phone support for all plans other than the Growth Plan, in addition to 24/7 live chat assistance on all plans.
Useful Staging Environment: The staging area enables you to clone your site’s live variation and make changes or evaluate new plugins and styles. Anything you perform in the staging area does not impact your live website. This feature permits designers to deal with websites without hindering the live site’s performance or user experience.
Transferable Installs: Also targeting developers, this function permits you to construct a website from your WP Engine account. You do not have to await the customer to include you to their WordPress website. As soon as completed, you can move the website to the client or host the site on WP Engine. This functionality conserves time if you regularly build 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 only works with WordPress. From a company viewpoint, it makes sense to focus on a single market and deal extraordinary services because location. However, this design locks out many individuals who might 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 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 shown in its prices structure. You will be penalized for surpassing your strategy’s visitor limitations. This might not be a problem if you have foreseeable traffic, and you can always update your plan as your website grows. Substantial spikes in traffic throughout product launches or seasonal business can cost you substantial excess charges.
There is no other way to put it: WP Engine is expensive. Is it worth the cost? The answer depends on finding out what you are paying for.
You can get shared hosting that can manage the very same quantity of traffic as WP Engine for a fraction of the rate. You can even get devoted hosting for the exact same price as WP Engine. What you are truly paying for here is security, performance, speed, and, most significantly, comfort. The supreme concern is 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 normally paying for efficiency & not needing to believe too much about upkeep, security & speed. If you look at WP Engine’s prices based upon the features you’re getting- you truly don’t get a lot.
And if you are the type who will think about your site’s health anyway (ie, keeping WordPress updated and generally visiting often), you’ll likely be spending for “management” that is superfluous.
Lots of shared hosting servers can handle the very same traffic numbers as WP Engine- and cost a portion of the rate. My individual site a shared hosting plan from HostGator with standard caching) handled more than 15,000+ gos to in a 24 hour period when a post of mine And if you are running a trusted VPS, you can certainly handle a lot more for much less. In fact, the website you are on deals with more than 110,000+ check outs monthly with a lot of space left to spare for side-projects, gigabytes of media, e-mail, 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 sees, however it can still be rather a surprise for “little” website owners how rapidly they can enter into the $290 monthly tier. I have a client who began with the Startup strategy, however rapidly ended up with a customized plan.
And as pointed out earlier that does not even consist of a number 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 additional costs & technical execution of Amazon cloud services.
And most significantly for me- you are limited on your installs. If you have a few side projects or low-traffic test websites, you have to factor those into the rate. You can’t utilize them to expand the expense of your strategy- specifically if you are striking your visitor cap rather than your set up cap.
If you are seeking to pay for hosting- ie, a server that will hold & dish out your website files- WP Engine is a costly alternative, especially compared to other non-managed hosting options.
Startup
The Startup bundle is the most basic strategy and will set you back $25 per month. With this package, you get:.
25,000 gos to per month.
50GB bandwidth per month.
10GB storage.
One website consisted of.
WP Engine targets little websites and blog sites with this strategy, but we think it may be overkill for the majority of people in this category. You can get a far much better handle shared hosting at Bluehost However, if you don’t wish to take any chances with uptime or need a warranty that your site can manage 25,000 visitors per month, WP Engine is a certainty. We ‘d suggest this alternative to small businesses, affiliate websites, and blog sites making good cash and desire assurances that nothing will alter.
You can conserve $60 annually or two months totally free if you pay yearly.
Growth
The development strategy targets growing companies and will cost you $95 per month. Here you get:.
100,000 sees each month.
200GB bandwidth per month.
25GB storage.
Ten sites included a while.
This strategy is a fantastic entry point for a growing business, and it might be a while prior to you need to update. With this strategy, you likewise get 24/7 phone assistance in addition to round-the-clock chat assistance. This addition will be available in convenient if you have a complex issue that you require to resolve quickly.
You can save a cool $230 or 2 months totally free with yearly billing.
Scale
WP Engine advertises its scale strategy as the very best value choice. This one costs $241 monthly. Here you get:.
400,000 visits each month.
500GB bandwidth per month.
50GB storage.
30 sites included.
We advise this alternative for a fast-growing blog site or organization. You get access to 24/7 live chat and 24/7 phone support in addition to the support center.
You can save $580 or more months free with yearly pre-paid billing.
Custom
Lastly, if you have a mission-critical site or big service, the Custom strategy may be appealing. With this plan, you get:.
Countless visits each month.
400GB+ bandwidth each month.
100GB-1TB storage.
30 sites consisted of.
You will have to speak to a sales associate to get your individualized quote depending on your requirements. This strategy likewise provides proprietary support ought to something go wrong.
Migrate WordPress websites in just a few clicks.
Solid Uptime
WP Engine achieves over 99% uptime thanks to its world-class network infrastructure.
The company also has 3 data 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 market.
WP Engine blocks destructive attacks on your website.
Speed & Performance
There are a great deal of variables that enter into site speed, however the general rule is that the more complicated your website is, the more complex the services to speed ended up being.
Out of package- WordPress is fairly lean and quick. If you are running a mainly text website with a few fundamental plugins and a couple of small images, you’ll be great with an economical shared hosting plan from somebody like InMotion HostGator Bluehost But couple of site owners keep their WordPress install lean. There’s typically extra plugins, custom theme files, great deals of images, widgets, ads, types and more.
All these functions combined with good levels of traffic can begin to decrease your WordPress installation.
But a slow website does not mean that you require a bigger, much better server. It does imply that you require to get smarter about speed. Often it’s as basic as getting a more effective server, but often it’s more about caching specific 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 truck. Picture your trailer keeps getting much heavier. It’s pointless to keep grumbling that your truck is not big enough when you might just 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 quick as you grow. There are lots of options … but either you or a developer should implement them.
That’s where managed WordPress hosting is available in. WP Engine looks after (nearly) all speed issues. They have actually tailored servers with very aggressive caching and even more advanced “stack” than a common web host. They also have actually trained assistance who will go into your WordPress install and identify the exact chokepoint to get your website moving.
They do not even enable caching plugins on their installs because they have such a tailored caching setup.
The interesting thing is that even unoptimized WordPress installs 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 customers on WP Engine (who has a bloated 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 start loading the page.
It’s good to have that sort of speed right out of package- 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 obsessed about speed, you can get back at much better numbers with WP Engine than you might get with other services because you are complimentary to concentrate on speed factors that you can quickly manage like image compression, use of scripts, etc
. The last observation on speed- WP Engine not just supplies an integrated CDN, but they also supply international 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 since they run on Google Cloud, you don’t have to worry about uptime either.
CDN Included
All strategies include a worldwide CDN (content shipment network).
The CDN will assist your website load quickly for customers 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. Regularly the “open doors” are plugins that weren’t upgraded.
Protecting sites is one of the strengths of WP Engine’s handled WordPress hosting service.
The business takes several steps to protect WordPress websites:.
WP Engine runs day-to-day malware/virus scans in collaboration with Sucuri.
They keep track of an updated firewall program to obstruct the most recent dangers.
All websites are backed up daily.
You get a one-click restore function that can help you recuperate your site in case of an attack.
The WP Engine site 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 concerns relating to security.
They supply webinars on security.
They publish security guidelines and checklists for developers and engineers.
If your website gets hacked, WPE will clean it for free.
Online Resources
WP Engine supplies webinars, guides, article, updates, tutorials, and a knowledgebase. With these you can learn how to:.
Release your very first website.
Troubleshoot common problems.
Make improvements to your website.
Handle your hosting account with higher effectiveness.
Both newbies and knowledgeable WordPress site owners will find the assistance documentation important.
WP Engine’s 60-Day Guarantee
WP Engine’s 60-day money-back warranty on all membership costs is distinct in the hosting market.
It enables you to try out the service in a risk-free method.
Keep in mind: this alternative is not available on custom-made hosting strategies.
Is WP Engine Worth It?
Like any service, it’s not about what is best overall, but what is finest for you based on your objectives, budget plan, resources & routines.
If you are in what I consider WP Engine’s core markets- they use a fantastic service with a strong product. As a managed WordPress host, their pricing is competitive. They use more features than “WordPress hosting” plans from other hosting brand names. Their feature-set is unrivaled for smart DIYers, WordPress website designers and/or high-traffic websites that don’t wish to worry about hosting issues.
If handled hosting is a suitable for you- then go have a look at WP Engine’s strategies here View Current Plans They do a 60-day money-back warranty. Do a test install and see what you think of their backend. Be sure to chat w/ support & sales.
Get 3 months free when you sign up for WP Engine.