There are lots of inexpensive hosts available that supply a good service. WPEngine Max Upload Size
What if you’re looking for more of a performance-oriented, concierge service? Because case, you’ll want to have a look at our WP Engine evaluation for WordPress.
WP Engine is a WordPress-specific web host, providing handled plans that are fully optimized for the platform. Of course, when compared to lots of other WordPress hosts, WP Engine’s plans aren’t exactly cheap. You’ll desire to understand whether this hosting service is worth the cost before making a purchase.
To help you out, we’re going to conduct an extensive WP Engine evaluation for WordPress. We’ll discuss its essential functions, support options, performance capabilities, and everything else you’ll need to know. Let’s begin!
WP Engine Video Review
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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 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 business has won numerous awards for Best Place to Work in Austin and consistently adds to the WordPress core and community.
WP Engine Features
The core factors to choose WP Engine over more affordable WordPress hosting are increased dependability, performance, assistance, and management, however these are tough to measure. Some functions stick out when you browse the user interface, nevertheless, that can offer you some insight into the service offered.
WP Engine Page Performance is a cool tool developed to assist you accelerate your WordPress website by offering significant metrics on performance.
Running a test returns you a page-performance report that information how quickly your page rendered, the length of time it required to load in its whole, and the overall size of the page. It even consists of historical data on your site’s performance over the past six months and suggestions on how you can decrease page load.
You can develop your WordPress site in a Staging or Development environment prior to making the modifications live (Image credit: WP Engine) Avoid awkward errors on your website by making changes to a copy of your site before it goes live. This is called Staging, and it enables your designers to make comprehensive changes to your website without affecting your customers.
WP Engine has a detailed list of plugins that are prohibited (Image credit: WP Engine) In a relatively unusual relocation, WP Engine limits the WordPress plugins you can set up. Those typically limited are plugins that have actually been noted to trigger efficiency issues and security holes. For essential functions such as caching, backups, and seo tools, WP Engine has actually made options available that don’t put a high load on the server.
WP Engine Hosting Plans
WP Engine just provides handled WordPress hosting. There are five various strategies offered: Startup, Growth, Scale, and Custom.
All strategies include unlimited information transfer. The strategies vary based upon:
- number of WordPress installs
- traffic volume (# of visits per month)
- disk storage amount
- Custom strategy consists of dedicated dev. environments, customer success, and priority assistance
WP Engine consists of some distinct functions for WordPress users that most hosts do not provide, or charge extra for. These unique features include:.
- Git version control
- Staging: quickly create a copy of your website for testing
- Easy transferable installs from free to paid accounts
- Innovative technologies including latest PHP version.
In our WP Engine evaluation, we discovered that WP Engine uses the most sophisticated and detailed handled WordPress hosting features.
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, however the effective features might imply a high knowing 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 need to invest some time on the assistance site.
In our screening, the default WordPress web page packed in just over 2 seconds. This is among the fastest actions we’ve tested, with competitor Liquid Web only a little behind.
Assistance
A handled WordPress service ought to use extra value through its assistance, and WP Engine delivers. The assistance website includes videos and posts of a quality you ‘d expect from a paid training course, with aid on deeper WordPress performance that numerous WordPress hosts do not go into.
There’s 24/7 live chat support and a ticket system, too. In our screening, the reaction fasted and the representative experienced. For all plans except for single-site strategies, there’s telephone support, too.
Pros
Remarkable Load Speed: If site loading speed is a top concern, WP Engine does well in this regard. The host’s combination of custom NGINX extension, built-in Content Delivery Network (CDN), and SSD technology make sure that your web pages load rapidly. NGINX extension prioritizes human demands over robot demands and offers load balancing, offering your visitors a better experience. For its part, CDN delivers site material to your visitors based upon their area to increase your website’s speed and decrease latency. You get this ability for free with all WP Engine strategies.
High Performance: It’s hard to beat WP Engine’s efficiency, which is why people continue to pay a premium cost 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 improved SLA, which translates 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 keeps track of all the traffic going to your website and instantly finds and obstructs potential attacks. Additionally, the hosting service immediately updates and patches the WordPress core to remove potential vulnerabilities. In a worst-case circumstance, WP Engine automatically backups your website every day and has a one-click restoration feature to get you back up and running rapidly. Lastly, this hosting service secures your website against JavaScript/SQL-injection attacks, strength efforts, and DDoS attacks.
Remarkable Customer Support: The hosting service has a transparent and trackable ticketing system to get in touch with client care through chat. The assistance group has an exceptional knowledge base and can help you solve issues rapidly. You get 24/7 phone assistance for all plans other than the Growth Plan, in addition to 24/7 live chat assistance on all strategies.
Useful Staging Environment: The staging area permits you to clone your website’s live version and make changes or check brand-new plugins and themes. Anything you carry out in the staging area does not impact your live site. This function enables developers to deal with websites without hindering the live site’s performance or user experience.
Transferable Installs: Also targeting designers, this feature enables you to develop a site from your WP Engine account. You don’t have to await the client to add you to their WordPress website. As soon as completed, you can transfer the website to the client or host the site on WP Engine. This functionality saves time if you routinely construct websites for clients.
Cons
WordPress-Only Hosting: If you are utilizing any other content management system aside from WordPress, then you run out luck. WP Engine only works with WordPress. From a service viewpoint, it makes sense to concentrate on a single market and deal exceptional services because area. However, this design locks out lots of people who could otherwise benefit from WP Engine’s services.
No Domains or Email Hosting: If you choose to host your e-mail account and register your domain through your website host, you’ll need to look elsewhere. You’ll need 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 prices structure. You will be punished for exceeding your strategy’s visitor limitations. This may not be a problem if you have predictable traffic, and you can constantly upgrade your strategy as your site grows. Significant spikes in traffic throughout product launches or seasonal service can cost you considerable overage charges.
There is no other way to put it: WP Engine is costly. Is it worth the cost? The response depends on figuring out what you are spending for.
You can get shared hosting that can deal with the exact same quantity of traffic as WP Engine for a fraction of the rate. You can even get committed hosting for the very same cost as WP Engine. What you are truly spending for here is security, performance, speed, and, most notably, peace of mind. The ultimate 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 strategy, you are generally spending for efficiency & not having to think excessive about maintenance, security & speed. If you take a look at WP Engine’s prices based upon the features you’re getting- you truly do not get a whole lot.
And if you are the type who will consider your site’s health anyway (ie, keeping WordPress upgraded and generally logging in often), you’ll likely be spending for “management” that is unnecessary.
Lots of shared hosting servers can handle the same traffic numbers as WP Engine- and cost a fraction of the cost. My individual site a shared hosting strategy from HostGator with standard caching) managed more than 15,000+ check outs in a 24 hour period when a post of mine And if you are running a dependable VPS, you can definitely manage a lot more for much less. In fact, the website you are on manages more than 110,000+ sees monthly with lots of space delegated 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 sees, but it can still be rather a surprise for “little” website owners how quickly they can enter into the $290 per month tier. I have a customer who began with the Startup plan, however quickly wound up with a custom-made strategy.
And as discussed earlier that does not even consist of a lot of the features you do not get with WP Engine’s plans. You can’t run any e-mail from your servers. You have low limits on local media storage. Anything above the limits needs extra 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 need to factor those into the price. You can’t use them to expand the cost of your plan- especially if you are striking your visitor cap rather than your set up cap.
If you are aiming to spend for hosting- ie, a server that will hold & serve up your site files- WP Engine is a pricey option, particularly compared to other non-managed hosting options.
Start-up
The Startup bundle is the most fundamental plan and will set you back $25 per month. With this bundle, you get:.
25,000 visits per month.
50GB bandwidth per month.
10GB storage.
One website consisted of.
WP Engine targets small sites and blogs with this plan, however we think it may be overkill for most people in this category. You can get a far better deal with shared hosting at Bluehost However, if you do not want to take any chances with uptime or need an assurance that your website can manage 25,000 visitors each month, WP Engine is a certainty. We ‘d suggest this choice to small businesses, affiliate websites, and blogs making good cash and desire guarantees that nothing will alter.
You can conserve $60 annually or 2 months totally free if you pay annually.
Growth
The development plan targets growing businesses and will cost you $95 each month. Here you get:.
100,000 visits each month.
200GB bandwidth per month.
25GB storage.
10 sites consisted of a while.
This strategy is an excellent entry point for a growing organization, and it might be a while before you require to update. With this plan, you likewise get 24/7 phone assistance in addition to round-the-clock chat assistance. This addition will come in helpful if you have a complex issue that you need to fix rapidly.
You can save a cool $230 or more months free with annual billing.
Scale
WP Engine advertises its scale plan as the best worth option. This one costs $241 monthly. Here you get:.
400,000 check outs each month.
500GB bandwidth monthly.
50GB storage.
30 websites included.
We recommend 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 center.
You can save $580 or more months totally free with annual pre-paid billing.
Custom-made
Finally, if you have a mission-critical website or large organization, the Custom plan might be appealing. With this plan, you get:.
Millions of gos to monthly.
400GB+ bandwidth monthly.
100GB-1TB storage.
30 websites consisted of.
You will need to speak to a sales rep to get your customized quote depending upon your requirements. This plan also uses proprietary support should something fail.
Migrate WordPress websites in just a few clicks.
Solid Uptime
WP Engine attains over 99% uptime thanks to its world-class network facilities.
The business also has 3 information 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 audience.
WP Engine blocks destructive attacks on your website.
Speed & Performance
There are a great deal of variables that go into website speed, however the guideline is that the more intricate your website is, the more intricate the options to speed ended up being.
Out of package- WordPress is relatively lean and fast. If you are running a mostly text website with a few basic plugins and a couple of small images, you’ll be fine with a budget-friendly shared hosting strategy from someone like InMotion HostGator Bluehost But few site owners keep their WordPress install lean. There’s typically additional plugins, customized style files, great deals of images, widgets, advertisements, kinds and more.
All these functions combined with good levels of traffic can start to slow down your WordPress setup.
But a slow site doesn’t suggest that you require a larger, much better server. It does mean that you require to get smarter about speed. Sometimes it’s as easy as getting a more effective server, but in some cases it’s more about caching specific resources in a specific order and optimizing your files. To put it simply- it gets complex.
Picture you are trying to transport a trailer with a pickup truck. Envision your trailer keeps getting heavier. It’s meaningless to keep grumbling that your truck is not big enough when you may just require to remove the emergency brake, set up a turbocharger, revitalize the transmission fluid and combine your load.
The point is that WordPress requires assistance to remain quick as you grow. There are lots of services … but either you or a designer must implement them.
That’s where managed WordPress hosting is available in. WP Engine looks after (almost) all speed issues. They have actually tailored servers with exceptionally aggressive caching and a lot more innovative “stack” than a normal web host. They also have actually trained support who will enter into your WordPress install and identify the exact chokepoint to get your site moving.
They don’t even permit caching plugins on their installs since they have such a customized caching setup.
The fascinating thing is that even unoptimized WordPress sets up still succeed on their platform due to the fact that their platform does the additional work.
Here’s the speed test for among my customers on WP Engine (who has a bloated style, extra scripts, a lot of uncompressed images, among other things)- Note the Time To First Byte and the Start Render numbers. That determines how rapidly the server returned enough information to begin loading the page.
It’s great to have that kind of speed right out of the box- and have it remain that way no matter how big or complex the website 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 may get with other services since you are complimentary to concentrate on speed elements that you can quickly control like image compression, usage of scripts, etc
. The last observation on speed- WP Engine not just offers an integrated CDN, however they likewise offer international information centers in case your audience is mostly 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 because they work on Google Cloud, you do not need to worry about uptime either.
CDN Included
All strategies consist of a worldwide CDN (content delivery network).
The CDN will assist your website load quickly 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 websites, according to Sucuri, a web security firm. Frequently the “open doors” are plugins that weren’t upgraded.
Securing websites is one of the strong points of WP Engine’s handled WordPress hosting service.
The business takes numerous procedures to safeguard WordPress sites:.
WP Engine runs day-to-day malware/virus scans in partnership with Sucuri.
They monitor an updated firewall software to obstruct the latest hazards.
All sites are backed up daily.
You get a one-click restore function that can assist you recover your site in case of an attack.
The WP Engine website 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 release security standards and lists for designers and engineers.
If your site gets hacked, WPE will clean it free of charge.
Online Resources
WP Engine provides webinars, guides, post, updates, tutorials, and a knowledgebase. With these you can find out how to:.
Release your very first site.
Troubleshoot common issues.
Make improvements to your website.
Handle your hosting account with higher efficiency.
Both novices and experienced WordPress website owners will discover the assistance documentation indispensable.
WP Engine’s 60-Day Guarantee
WP Engine’s 60-day money-back assurance on all membership costs is unique in the hosting industry.
It enables you to check out the service in a risk-free method.
Keep in mind: this alternative is not readily available on custom hosting plans.
Is WP Engine Worth It?
Like any service, it’s not about what is finest overall, however what is best for you based on your objectives, spending plan, resources & routines.
If you are in what I consider WP Engine’s core markets- they provide a terrific service with a strong item. As a managed WordPress host, their prices is competitive. They use more features than “WordPress hosting” strategies from other hosting brands. Their feature-set is unmatched for smart DIYers, WordPress website developers and/or high-traffic sites that don’t wish to stress over hosting problems.
If handled hosting is a fit for you- then go take a look at WP Engine’s strategies 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 sure to chat w/ support & sales.
Get 3 months free when you sign up for WP Engine.