There are lots of cheap hosts available that offer a good service. WPEngine Response Time
However, what if you’re searching for more of a performance-oriented, concierge service? Because case, you’ll wish to check out our WP Engine review for WordPress.
WP Engine is a WordPress-specific web host, using managed plans that are totally optimized for the platform. Naturally, when compared to many other WordPress hosts, WP Engine’s plans aren’t exactly inexpensive. You’ll desire to understand whether this hosting service is worth the cost prior to making a purchase.
To assist you out, we’re going to conduct an extensive WP Engine evaluation for WordPress. We’ll discuss its crucial functions, assistance options, performance capabilities, and everything else you’ll require 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 handled 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 company has actually won several awards for Best Place to Work in Austin and regularly adds to the WordPress core and community.
WP Engine Features
The core reasons to pick WP Engine over more affordable WordPress hosting are increased reliability, performance, assistance, and management, but these are difficult to quantify. Some features stand apart when you browse the interface, nevertheless, that can offer you some insight into the service offered.
WP Engine Page Performance is a neat tool developed to assist you accelerate your WordPress website by providing significant metrics on efficiency.
Running a test returns you a page-performance report that details how quickly your page rendered, for how long it required to pack in its totality, and the total size of the page. It even consists of historic information 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 before making the modifications live (Image credit: WP Engine) Avoid humiliating mistakes on your website by making changes to a copy of your website before it goes live. This is called Staging, and it allows your designers to make extensive changes to your site without affecting your customers.
WP Engine has a comprehensive list of plugins that are prohibited (Image credit: WP Engine) In a relatively uncommon relocation, WP Engine restricts the WordPress plugins you can install. Those typically restricted are plugins that have been noted to trigger efficiency problems and security holes. For crucial features such as caching, backups, and seo tools, WP Engine has made alternatives readily available that don’t put a high load on the server.
WP Engine Hosting Plans
WP Engine only provides managed WordPress hosting. There are 5 various strategies offered: Startup, Growth, Scale, and Custom.
All strategies consist of unlimited data transfer. The strategies vary 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 support
WP Engine includes some special features for WordPress users that a lot of hosts don’t use, or charge additional for. These special functions include:.
- Git version control
- Staging: instantly develop a copy of your website for testing
- Easy transferable installs from complimentary to paid accounts
- Leading edge technologies consisting of latest PHP variation.
In our WP Engine evaluation, we discovered that WP Engine uses the most advanced and detailed managed WordPress hosting features.
Get 3 months free when you sign up for WP Engine.
User interface and in use
WP Engine’s interface is professional and well set out, however the effective features might mean a high learning curve for inexperienced users. If you have an understanding of terms like Git, CNAME, and redirect guidelines, you’ll be right in the house here, but otherwise you’ll need to spend a long time on the assistance site.
In our testing, the default WordPress home page filled in just over 2 seconds. This is among the fastest responses we’ve evaluated, with competitor Liquid Web just a little behind.
Assistance
A managed WordPress service need to provide extra worth through its assistance, and WP Engine delivers. The support website consists of videos and posts of a quality you ‘d get out of a paid training course, with aid on deeper WordPress performance that lots of WordPress hosts do not enter into.
There’s 24/7 live chat assistance and a ticket system, too. In our testing, the reaction fasted and the representative experienced. For all strategies except for single-site plans, there’s telephone support, too.
Pros
Extraordinary Load Speed: If site packing 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 innovation guarantee that your websites load quickly. NGINX extension prioritizes human demands over robot requests and provides load balancing, offering your visitors a better experience. For its part, CDN provides website content to your visitors based on their area to improve your website’s speed and reduce latency. You get this ability free of charge with all WP Engine plans.
High Performance: It’s hard 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 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 below the guarantee.
Advanced Security: WP Engine monitors all the traffic going to your website and automatically identifies and blocks possible attacks. In addition, the hosting service immediately updates and spots the WordPress core to get rid of potential vulnerabilities. In a worst-case circumstance, WP Engine automatically backups your site every day and has a one-click restoration feature to get you back up and running rapidly. Lastly, this hosting service secures your site versus JavaScript/SQL-injection attacks, strength efforts, and DDoS attacks.
Incredible Customer Support: The hosting service has a transparent and trackable ticketing system to get in touch with consumer care via chat. The assistance group has an outstanding knowledge base and can help you resolve problems quickly. You get 24/7 phone support for all strategies other than 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 site’s live variation and make changes or evaluate new plugins and themes. Anything you perform in the staging area does not affect your live website. This feature enables designers to deal with websites without disrupting the live website’s performance or user experience.
Transferable Installs: Also targeting designers, this function enables you to construct a site from your WP Engine account. You don’t need to wait on the customer to include you to their WordPress site. When completed, you can move the site to the customer or host the site on WP Engine. This functionality saves time if you routinely develop websites for customers.
Cons
WordPress-Only Hosting: If you are using any other content management system aside from WordPress, then you run out luck. WP Engine only deals with WordPress. From a business perspective, it makes sense to focus on a single market and offer exceptional services in that location. 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 site host, you’ll need to look somewhere else. You’ll have to use third-party services for domain registration or e-mail accounts.
Inflexible Pricing: WP Engine runs a tight ship, and this is shown in its rates 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 always upgrade your plan as your site grows. Significant spikes in traffic throughout product launches or seasonal business can cost you substantial excess charges.
There is no other method to put it: WP Engine is pricey. Is it worth the cost? The response depends on figuring out what you are paying for.
You can get shared hosting that can handle the same quantity of traffic as WP Engine for a portion of the price. You can even get devoted hosting for the very same rate as WP Engine. What you are actually paying for here is security, efficiency, speed, and, most importantly, comfort. 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 performance & not needing to believe too much about upkeep, security & speed. If you take a look at WP Engine’s prices based on the functions you’re getting- you really do not get a lot.
And if you are the type who will think of your site’s health anyway (ie, keeping WordPress upgraded and normally logging in often), you’ll likely be paying for “management” that is superfluous.
Numerous shared hosting servers can manage the same traffic numbers as WP Engine- and cost a fraction of the rate. My personal 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 trusted VPS, you can definitely manage a lot more for much less. The site you are on deals with 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 quite a surprise for “small” site owners how quickly they can enter the $290 monthly tier. I have a client who started with the Startup strategy, however rapidly wound up with a custom plan.
And as mentioned previously that doesn’t 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 regional media storage. Anything above the limits requires additional expenses & 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 sites, you have to factor those into the rate. You can’t utilize them to expand the cost of your plan- particularly if you are hitting your visitor cap instead of your install cap.
If you are aiming to pay for hosting- ie, a server that will hold & dish out your website files- WP Engine is a costly choice, particularly compared to other non-managed hosting choices.
Startup
The Startup bundle is one of the most fundamental strategy and will set you back $25 each month. With this plan, you get:.
25,000 gos to per month.
50GB bandwidth per month.
10GB storage.
One website included.
WP Engine targets small sites and blog sites with this plan, however we think it may be overkill for most people in this category. You can get a far much better deal with shared hosting at Bluehost However, if you don’t want to take any opportunities with uptime or need a warranty that your site can handle 25,000 visitors per month, WP Engine is a sure thing. We ‘d suggest this choice to small companies, affiliate sites, and blog sites making good cash and desire guarantees that nothing will change.
You can save $60 each year or two months free if you pay annually.
Growth
The development plan targets growing organizations and will cost you $95 per month. Here you get:.
100,000 check outs per month.
200GB bandwidth per month.
25GB storage.
Ten websites included a while.
This strategy is a fantastic entry point for a growing company, and it might be a while before you need to upgrade. With this strategy, you also get 24/7 phone assistance in addition to round-the-clock chat support. This addition will come in useful if you have an intricate issue that you need to resolve rapidly.
You can conserve a cool $230 or more months free with yearly billing.
Scale
WP Engine markets its scale strategy as the very best value option. This one costs $241 per month. Here you get:.
400,000 sees monthly.
500GB bandwidth monthly.
50GB storage.
30 websites consisted of.
We recommend this choice for a fast-growing blog or organization. You get access to 24/7 live chat and 24/7 phone support in addition to the assistance.
You can conserve $580 or two months totally free with yearly pre-paid billing.
Custom-made
If you have a mission-critical site or large business, the Custom strategy may be appealing. With this plan, you get:.
Millions of sees per month.
400GB+ bandwidth per month.
100GB-1TB storage.
30 sites consisted of.
You will need to talk to a sales representative to get your personalized quote depending upon your requirements. This strategy likewise provides exclusive assistance needs 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 facilities.
The business likewise has three information centers in London, Tokyo, and Midwest USA.
As a result, you can get better site speeds by choosing to host your website on servers that are closest to your target audience.
WP Engine blocks harmful attacks on your site.
Speed & Performance
There are a lot of variables that go into website speed, however the general rule is that the more intricate your website is, the more complex the services to speed ended up being.
Out of the box- WordPress is relatively lean and fast. If you are running a primarily text website with a few basic plugins and a couple of little images, you’ll be fine with an economical shared hosting strategy from somebody like InMotion HostGator Bluehost But few site owners keep their WordPress set up lean. There’s generally additional plugins, custom theme files, lots of images, widgets, advertisements, kinds and more.
All these functions combined with decent levels of traffic can start to decrease your WordPress setup.
A slow website doesn’t imply that you need a larger, better server. It does imply that you need to get smarter about speed. In some cases it’s as simple as getting a more powerful server, but often it’s more about caching particular resources in a particular order and optimizing your files. To put it simply- it gets complex.
Imagine you are trying to transport a trailer with a pickup truck. Imagine your trailer keeps getting much heavier. It’s meaningless to keep grumbling that your truck is not big enough when you may just require to eliminate the emergency brake, install a turbocharger, refresh the transmission fluid and combine your load.
The point is that WordPress requires assistance to stay quickly as you grow. There are a lot of services … however either you or a designer need to execute them.
That’s where managed WordPress hosting can be found in. WP Engine takes care of (almost) all speed concerns. They have actually tailored servers with incredibly aggressive caching and even more innovative “stack” than a typical webhosting. They likewise have actually trained assistance who will enter into your WordPress install and identify the specific chokepoint to get your website moving.
They don’t even permit caching plugins on their installs because they have actually such a personalized 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 additional work.
Here’s the speed test for one of my clients on WP Engine (who has a puffed up 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 quickly the server returned enough information to start loading the page.
It’s great to have that sort of speed right out of package- and have it stay 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 even much better numbers with WP Engine than you might get with other services because you are free to concentrate on speed elements that you can quickly control like image compression, usage of scripts, and so on
. The last observation on speed- WP Engine not only supplies an incorporated CDN, however they also offer worldwide data 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 precisely that. And since they operate on Google Cloud, you don’t need to worry about uptime either.
CDN Included
All plans consist of a worldwide CDN (material delivery network).
The CDN will help your site load fast for clients around the globe 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 company. Frequently the “open doors” are plugins that weren’t upgraded.
Protecting websites is among the strong suits of WP Engine’s handled WordPress hosting service.
The company takes a number of steps to protect WordPress websites:.
WP Engine runs day-to-day malware/virus scans in partnership with Sucuri.
They monitor an upgraded firewall software to obstruct the latest threats.
All sites are supported daily.
You get a one-click bring back function that can help you recuperate your site 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 relating to security.
They supply webinars on security.
They release security standards and checklists for designers and engineers.
If your site gets hacked, WPE will clean it for free.
Online Resources
WP Engine offers webinars, guides, article, updates, tutorials, and a knowledgebase. With these you can learn how to:.
Launch your first website.
Troubleshoot common issues.
Make improvements to your site.
Handle your hosting account with greater efficiency.
Both newbies and skilled WordPress website owners will find the assistance paperwork vital.
WP Engine’s 60-Day Guarantee
WP Engine’s 60-day money-back warranty on all membership costs is distinct in the hosting industry.
It allows you to check out the service in a risk-free method.
Note: this choice is not available on custom hosting plans.
Is WP Engine Worth It?
Like any service, it’s not about what is best overall, but what is finest for you based upon your objectives, budget, resources & practices.
If you are in what I consider WP Engine’s core markets- they provide an excellent service with a solid item. As a handled WordPress host, their rates is competitive. They offer more functions 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 take a look at WP Engine’s plans here View Current Plans They do a 60-day money-back assurance. 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.