There are lots of cheap hosts available that provide a good service. WPEngine Remove Environment
Nevertheless, what if you’re trying to find more of a performance-oriented, concierge service? Because case, you’ll want to take a look at our WP Engine evaluation for WordPress.
WP Engine is a WordPress-specific webhosting, offering handled strategies that are totally optimized for the platform. Of course, when compared to lots of 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 making a purchase.
To help you out, we’re going to carry out an extensive WP Engine evaluation for WordPress. We’ll discuss its key functions, assistance alternatives, efficiency abilities, and everything else you’ll need to understand. Let’s start!
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 need for specialized WordPress hosting due to the rising 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 won numerous awards for Best Place to Work in Austin and regularly adds to the WordPress core and community.
WP Engine Features
The core factors to select WP Engine over less expensive WordPress hosting are increased dependability, efficiency, support, and management, however these are tough to quantify. Some functions stick out when you browse the interface, however, that can offer you some insight into the service provided.
WP Engine Page Performance is a cool tool created to assist you accelerate your WordPress site by using meaningful metrics on efficiency.
Running a test returns you a page-performance report that details how quickly your page rendered, the length of time it required to load in its totality, and the overall size of the page. It even consists of historic information on your website’s efficiency over the past 6 months and suggestions on how you can decrease page load.
You can establish your WordPress site in a Staging or Development environment before making the modifications live (Image credit: WP Engine) Avoid humiliating errors on your website by making changes to a copy of your website prior to it goes live. This is called Staging, and it permits your developers to make extensive modifications to your site without impacting your customers.
WP Engine has a thorough list of plugins that are disallowed (Image credit: WP Engine) In a reasonably unusual relocation, WP Engine restricts the WordPress plugins you can set up. Those typically limited are plugins that have actually been noted to cause performance concerns and security holes. For important functions such as caching, backups, and seo tools, WP Engine has made options readily available that do not put a high load on the server.
WP Engine Hosting Plans
WP Engine just offers managed WordPress hosting. There are five different strategies available: Startup, Growth, Scale, and Custom.
All strategies consist of unrestricted information transfer. The plans vary based on:
- number of WordPress sets up
- traffic volume (# of visits per month)
- disk storage amount
- Customized plan consists of dedicated dev. environments, customer success, and priority support
WP Engine includes some special features for WordPress users that many hosts don’t offer, or charge additional for. These unique functions consist of:.
- Git version control
- Staging: immediately develop a copy of your website for testing
- Easy transferable installs from complimentary to paid accounts
- Innovative innovations consisting of latest PHP version.
In our WP Engine evaluation, we found that WP Engine provides the most sophisticated and extensive handled WordPress hosting features.
Get 3 months free when you sign up for WP Engine.
User interface and in use
WP Engine’s interface is expert and well set out, but the effective functions may imply a steep learning curve for inexperienced users. If you have an understanding of terms like Git, CNAME, and redirect guidelines, you’ll be right at home here, but otherwise you’ll need to invest some time on the assistance site.
In our testing, the default WordPress web page loaded in just over 2 seconds. This is among the fastest responses we’ve tested, with rival Liquid Web only somewhat behind.
Assistance
A handled WordPress service must use additional value through its assistance, and WP Engine delivers. The support site consists of videos and posts of a quality you ‘d get out of a paid training course, with aid on deeper WordPress performance that numerous WordPress hosts do not enter into.
There’s 24/7 live chat support and a ticket system, too. In our screening, the response was quick and the agent knowledgeable. For all strategies except for single-site plans, there’s telephone assistance, too.
Pros
Extraordinary 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 innovation ensure that your web pages load rapidly. NGINX extension prioritizes human requests over robot demands and offers load balancing, providing your visitors a better experience. For its part, CDN provides website material to your visitors based upon their place to enhance your website’s speed and reduce latency. You get this capability free of charge 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 cost for this service. WP Engine guarantees 99.95% server uptime, roughly 4 and a half hours of downtime a year. You can even more increase your uptime to 99.99% with boosted SLA, which equates to a little under an hour of downtime annually. WP Engine will compensate you with hosting credit if your uptime falls listed below the assurance.
Advanced Security: WP Engine keeps track of all the traffic going to your website and automatically spots and blocks prospective attacks. In addition, the hosting service instantly updates and patches the WordPress core to eliminate prospective vulnerabilities. In a worst-case scenario, WP Engine immediately backups your site every day and has a one-click repair function to get you back up and running quickly. Finally, this hosting service protects your website against JavaScript/SQL-injection attacks, brute force efforts, and DDoS attacks.
Incredible Customer Support: The hosting service has a transparent and trackable ticketing system to connect with consumer care through chat. The support group has an excellent knowledge base and can help you resolve problems 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 permits you to clone your website’s live variation and make changes or evaluate new plugins and styles. Anything you perform in the staging area doesn’t impact your live website. This function enables designers to deal with websites without interfering with the live website’s performance or user experience.
Transferable Installs: Also targeting designers, this feature permits you to develop a site from your WP Engine account. You do not need to wait on the customer to include you to their WordPress site. When completed, you can transfer the site to the customer or host the website on WP Engine. This functionality saves time if you frequently build sites for clients.
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 an organization viewpoint, it makes good sense to focus on a single market and offer remarkable services because area. This design locks out numerous individuals 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 have to utilize third-party services for domain registration or email accounts.
Inflexible Pricing: WP Engine runs a tight ship, and this is shown in its rates structure. You will be penalized for surpassing your plan’s visitor limitations. This may not be an issue if you have predictable traffic, and you can constantly upgrade your strategy as your site grows. Substantial spikes in traffic throughout item launches or seasonal organization can cost you significant overage charges.
There is no other way to put it: WP Engine is pricey. Is it worth the expense? The answer lies in figuring out what you are paying for.
You can get shared hosting that can deal with the very same amount of traffic as WP Engine for a fraction of the price. You can even get committed hosting for the very same price as WP Engine. What you are truly spending for here is security, performance, speed, and, most importantly, peace of mind. The supreme question 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 generally paying for efficiency & not having to believe excessive about upkeep, security & speed. If you look at WP Engine’s rates based on the features you’re getting- you actually don’t get a whole lot.
And if you are the type who will think of your site’s health anyhow (ie, keeping WordPress updated and generally visiting often), you’ll likely be spending for “management” that is unnecessary.
Many shared hosting servers can handle the very same traffic numbers as WP Engine- and cost a portion of the price. My personal website a shared hosting strategy from HostGator with standard caching) dealt with more than 15,000+ check outs in a 24 hour period when a post of mine And if you are running a reputable VPS, you can definitely handle a lot more for much less. In fact, the site you are on manages more than 110,000+ visits each month with lots of space delegated 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 strategy.
They are relatively transparent about how they count visits, however it can still be quite a surprise for “little” website owners how rapidly they can enter into the $290 monthly tier. I have a client who started with the Startup plan, however rapidly ended up with a custom-made plan.
And as discussed previously that does not even consist of a lot of the functions you do not get with WP Engine’s plans. You can’t run any e-mail from your servers. You have low limitations on regional media storage. Anything above the limits needs extra expenses & technical execution of Amazon cloud services.
And most notably for me- you are limited on your installs. If you have a few 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 hitting your visitor cap rather than your set up cap.
If you are aiming to pay for hosting- ie, a server that will hold & dish out your site files- WP Engine is an expensive option, specifically compared to other non-managed hosting choices.
Startup
The Startup package is the most basic plan and will set you back $25 each month. With this package, you get:.
25,000 visits per month.
50GB bandwidth each month.
10GB storage.
One website consisted of.
WP Engine targets small websites and blogs with this strategy, but we think it might be overkill for many people in this category. You can get a far much better handle shared hosting at Bluehost However, if you don’t want to take any opportunities with uptime or require an assurance that your website can deal with 25,000 visitors monthly, WP Engine is a certainty. We ‘d suggest this alternative to small businesses, affiliate sites, and blogs making good money and want guarantees that nothing will change.
You can conserve $60 annually or more months free if you pay annually.
Growth
The growth strategy targets growing companies and will cost you $95 each month. Here you get:.
100,000 sees per month.
200GB bandwidth monthly.
25GB storage.
Ten websites consisted of a while.
This strategy is a terrific entry point for a growing service, and it might be a while before you need to update. With this strategy, you also get 24/7 phone assistance in addition to round-the-clock chat assistance. This addition will can be found in helpful if you have a complicated concern that you require to fix quickly.
You can save a cool $230 or two months complimentary with annual billing.
Scale
WP Engine markets its scale plan as the best worth alternative. This one expenses $241 each month. Here you get:.
400,000 sees monthly.
500GB bandwidth each month.
50GB storage.
30 websites included.
We suggest this alternative for a fast-growing blog or organization. You get access to 24/7 live chat and 24/7 phone support in addition to the support.
You can conserve $580 or 2 months complimentary with annual pre-paid billing.
Custom-made
Lastly, if you have a mission-critical site or large service, the Custom strategy might be appealing. With this plan, you get:.
Millions of sees each month.
400GB+ bandwidth per month.
100GB-1TB storage.
30 websites consisted of.
You will have to speak with a sales rep to get your personalized quote depending upon your requirements. This strategy likewise uses exclusive assistance should something fail.
Migrate WordPress websites in just a few clicks.
Strong Uptime
WP Engine achieves over 99% uptime thanks to its first-rate network facilities.
The company also has three data centers in London, Tokyo, and Midwest USA.
As a result, you can get better website speeds by selecting to host your site on servers that are closest to your target audience.
WP Engine blocks malicious attacks on your website.
Speed & Performance
There are a great deal of variables that enter into website speed, but the rule of thumb is that the more intricate your site is, the more intricate the options to speed ended up being.
Out of package- WordPress is fairly lean and fast. If you are running a primarily text site with a couple of fundamental plugins and a couple of little images, you’ll be fine with a cost effective shared hosting strategy from somebody like InMotion HostGator Bluehost But few site owners keep their WordPress set up lean. There’s typically additional plugins, custom-made style files, lots of images, widgets, advertisements, types and more.
All these features combined with decent levels of traffic can begin to slow down your WordPress setup.
A sluggish site does not suggest that you require a bigger, much better server. It does mean that you require to get smarter about speed. Sometimes it’s as basic as getting a more powerful server, but sometimes it’s more about caching particular resources in a particular order and enhancing your files. Simply put- it gets complex.
Envision you are trying to transport a trailer with a pickup. 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, install 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 plenty of options … but either you or a designer must implement them.
That’s where handled WordPress hosting comes in. WP Engine looks after (nearly) all speed issues. They have actually tailored servers with very aggressive caching and a lot more innovative “stack” than a common web host. They likewise have actually trained assistance who will enter into your WordPress install and identify the exact chokepoint to get your website moving.
They do not even allow caching plugins on their installs since they have actually such a customized caching setup.
The intriguing thing is that even unoptimized WordPress installs still do well on their platform because their platform does the extra work.
Here’s the speed test for among my customers on WP Engine (who has a puffed up theme, additional scripts, too many uncompressed images, to name a few things)- Note the Time To First Byte and the Start Render numbers. That determines how quickly the server returned enough information to start filling 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 intricate the website gets.
* Note that the other point here is that if you are obsessed about speed, you can get even much better numbers with WP Engine than you may get with other services considering that you are totally free to concentrate on speed elements that you can easily manage like image compression, usage of scripts, etc
. The last observation on speed- WP Engine not just offers an incorporated CDN, but they likewise provide global information centers in case your audience is mainly 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 given that they run on Google Cloud, you don’t need to stress over uptime either.
CDN Included
All plans include a worldwide CDN (content delivery network).
The CDN will help your site load quickly for clients around the world by serving it to them from the network node that’s geographically closest to them.
Security and Backups
An estimated 78% of hacked sites are WordPress sites, according to Sucuri, a web security firm. Regularly the “open doors” are plugins that weren’t upgraded.
Securing websites is one of the strengths of WP Engine’s handled WordPress hosting service.
The business takes several measures to safeguard WordPress sites:.
WP Engine runs day-to-day malware/virus scans in partnership with Sucuri.
They keep an eye on an updated firewall program to block the most recent hazards.
All sites are supported 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 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 questions relating to security.
They supply webinars on security.
They release security standards and checklists for developers and engineers.
If your website gets hacked, WPE will clean it for free.
Online Resources
WP Engine supplies webinars, guides, post, updates, tutorials, and a knowledgebase. With these you can discover how to:.
Introduce your very first website.
Troubleshoot typical problems.
Make improvements to your website.
Manage your hosting account with higher effectiveness.
Both novices and knowledgeable WordPress website owners will find the support paperwork important.
WP Engine’s 60-Day Guarantee
WP Engine’s 60-day money-back warranty on all subscription fees is special in the hosting industry.
It enables you to check out the service in a safe way.
Note: this option is not offered on custom 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, budget plan, resources & routines.
If you remain in what I think of as WP Engine’s core markets- they offer a great service with a strong item. As a managed WordPress host, their rates is competitive. They offer more functions than “WordPress hosting” strategies from other hosting brands. Their feature-set is unmatched for smart DIYers, WordPress site designers and/or high-traffic sites that don’t wish to worry about hosting concerns.
If handled hosting is a fit for you- then go check out 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 think about their backend. Make certain to chat w/ assistance & sales.
Get 3 months free when you sign up for WP Engine.