There are a lot of inexpensive hosts readily available that provide a good service. WPEngine Upload Files
What if you’re looking for more of a performance-oriented, concierge service? Because case, you’ll want to check out our WP Engine evaluation for WordPress.
WP Engine is a WordPress-specific web host, using handled plans that are completely enhanced for the platform. Of course, when compared to numerous other WordPress hosts, WP Engine’s strategies aren’t precisely cheap. For that reason, you’ll wish to know whether this hosting service is worth the cost prior to buying.
To assist you out, we’re going to conduct a thorough WP Engine review for WordPress. We’ll discuss its essential features, support options, efficiency abilities, and everything else you’ll need to know. Let’s get started!
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 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 offices 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 neighborhood.
WP Engine Features
The core factors to choose WP Engine over less expensive WordPress hosting are increased reliability, efficiency, support, and management, but these are hard to measure. Some features stand apart when you search the interface, nevertheless, that can give you some insight into the service offered.
WP Engine Page Performance is a cool tool created to help you speed up your WordPress site by providing 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 fill in its whole, and the overall size of the page. It even includes historic information on your website’s efficiency over the past 6 months and recommendations on how you can reduce page load.
You can develop your WordPress website in a Staging or Development environment before making the changes live (Image credit: WP Engine) Avoid awkward errors on your website by making changes to a copy of your website before it goes live. This is called Staging, and it permits your developers to make substantial modifications to your site without impacting your clients.
WP Engine has an extensive list of plugins that are prohibited (Image credit: WP Engine) In a reasonably unusual relocation, WP Engine limits the WordPress plugins you can install. Those generally limited are plugins that have been kept in mind to trigger efficiency problems and security holes. For important functions such as caching, backups, and search engine optimization tools, WP Engine has made alternatives available that do not put a high load on the server.
WP Engine Hosting Plans
WP Engine just uses handled WordPress hosting. There are 5 different strategies offered: Startup, Growth, Scale, and Custom.
All plans consist of unlimited information transfer. The plans differ based on:
- number of WordPress sets up
- traffic volume (# of visits per month)
- disk storage amount
- Custom plan consists of dedicated dev. environments, customer success, and priority assistance
WP Engine includes some unique features for WordPress users that many hosts don’t use, or charge additional for. These unique functions include:.
- Git version control
- Staging: immediately produce a copy of your website for screening
- Easy transferable installs from complimentary to paid accounts
- Cutting edge technologies consisting of latest PHP variation.
In our WP Engine evaluation, we discovered that WP Engine uses the most innovative and thorough 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 professional and well laid out, however the powerful features might mean a steep learning 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, however otherwise you’ll require to spend some time on the support website.
In our screening, the default WordPress home page filled in simply over two seconds. This is among the fastest responses we’ve checked, with rival Liquid Web just somewhat behind.
Support
A handled WordPress service must offer additional value through its support, and WP Engine delivers. The support website consists of videos and short articles of a quality you ‘d expect from a paid training course, with help on deeper WordPress performance that lots of WordPress hosts do not go into.
There’s 24/7 live chat support and a ticket system, too. In our testing, the action was quick and the representative educated. For all strategies except for single-site plans, there’s telephone assistance, too.
Pros
Extraordinary Load Speed: If website filling speed is a leading concern, WP Engine does well in this regard. The host’s mix of customized NGINX extension, built-in Content Delivery Network (CDN), and SSD innovation guarantee that your websites load quickly. NGINX extension focuses on human requests over robotic demands and offers load balancing, offering your visitors a better experience. For its part, CDN provides site material to your visitors based on their area to improve your website’s speed and minimize latency. You get this capability totally free with all WP Engine strategies.
High Performance: It’s difficult to beat WP Engine’s performance, which is why people continue to pay a premium cost for this service. WP Engine ensures 99.95% server uptime, approximately four and a half hours of downtime a year. You can further increase your uptime to 99.99% with boosted 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 site and automatically spots and obstructs possible attacks. Additionally, the hosting service instantly updates and spots the WordPress core to get rid of potential vulnerabilities. In a worst-case situation, WP Engine instantly backups your website every day and has a one-click restoration function to get you back up and running quickly. This hosting service secures your site versus JavaScript/SQL-injection attacks, brute force attempts, and DDoS attacks.
Remarkable Customer Support: The hosting service has a transparent and trackable ticketing system to contact consumer care through chat. The support group has an outstanding knowledge base and can assist you fix problems rapidly. You get 24/7 phone support for all plans other than the Growth Plan, in addition to 24/7 live chat support on all strategies.
Useful Staging Environment: The staging area allows 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 affect your live website. This function enables developers to work on sites without interfering with the live website’s performance or user experience.
Transferable Installs: Also targeting designers, this feature permits you to develop a website from your WP Engine account. You don’t have to wait for the customer to include you to their WordPress site. Once completed, you can transfer the website to the customer or host the site on WP Engine. This functionality saves time if you frequently construct websites 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 just deals with WordPress. From a service viewpoint, it makes good sense to concentrate on a single market and offer remarkable services in that area. This model locks out lots of people who might otherwise benefit from WP Engine’s services.
No Domains or Email Hosting: If you choose to host your email account and register your domain through your website host, you’ll need to look in other places. You’ll need 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 exceeding your strategy’s visitor limits. This might not be a problem if you have foreseeable traffic, and you can constantly upgrade your plan as your website grows. However, considerable spikes in traffic during product launches or seasonal organization can cost you considerable overage charges.
There is no other way to put it: WP Engine is expensive. Is it worth the cost? The answer lies in finding out what you are spending for.
You can get shared hosting that can handle the exact same quantity of traffic as WP Engine for a portion of the price. You can even get devoted hosting for the exact same price as WP Engine. What you are really spending for here is security, efficiency, speed, and, most significantly, assurance. The ultimate question 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 strategy, you are usually paying for performance & not needing to think too much about maintenance, security & speed. If you look at WP Engine’s pricing based upon the features you’re getting- you truly do not get a lot.
And if you are the type who will consider your website’s health anyway (ie, keeping WordPress upgraded and normally visiting frequently), you’ll likely be paying for “management” that is unnecessary.
Lots of shared hosting servers can manage the exact same traffic numbers as WP Engine- and cost a portion of the cost. My personal site a shared hosting strategy from HostGator with basic caching) handled more than 15,000+ sees in a 24 hour duration when a post of mine And if you are running a trustworthy VPS, you can definitely handle a lot more for much less. In fact, the website you are on manages more than 110,000+ visits per month with a lot of space left to spare for side-projects, gigabytes of media, e-mail, 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 relatively transparent about how they count gos to, however it can still be quite a surprise for “small” site owners how rapidly they can get into the $290 each month tier. I have a customer who began with the Startup strategy, however quickly wound up with a customized strategy.
And as discussed earlier that doesn’t even consist of a lot of the features 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 needs additional expenses & technical implementation 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 sites, you need to factor those into the rate. You can’t utilize them to spread out the expense of your plan- specifically if you are striking 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 pricey choice, especially compared to other non-managed hosting alternatives.
Startup
The Startup plan is the most standard strategy and will set you back $25 monthly. With this plan, you get:.
25,000 visits monthly.
50GB bandwidth per month.
10GB storage.
One site included.
WP Engine targets small websites and blog sites with this strategy, however we believe it might be overkill for most people in this category. You can get a far better handle shared hosting at Bluehost However, if you do not wish to take any chances with uptime or need a guarantee that your website can handle 25,000 visitors monthly, WP Engine is a sure bet. We ‘d suggest this choice to small companies, affiliate websites, and blog sites making great cash and want guarantees that absolutely nothing will change.
You can save $60 per year or 2 months free if you pay each year.
Growth
The growth strategy targets growing companies and will cost you $95 monthly. Here you get:.
100,000 visits monthly.
200GB bandwidth each month.
25GB storage.
Ten sites consisted of a while.
This strategy is an excellent entry point for a growing company, and it might be a while before you require to upgrade. With this strategy, you likewise get 24/7 phone assistance in addition to round-the-clock chat assistance. This addition will be available in handy if you have a complicated problem that you need to deal with quickly.
You can conserve a cool $230 or two months totally free with yearly billing.
Scale
WP Engine promotes its scale strategy as the very best worth option. This one costs $241 monthly. Here you get:.
400,000 gos to monthly.
500GB bandwidth monthly.
50GB storage.
30 sites included.
We advise this alternative for a fast-growing blog site or service. You get access to 24/7 live chat and 24/7 phone support in addition to the assistance center.
You can conserve $580 or more months totally free with annual pre-paid billing.
Custom
If you have a mission-critical website or large company, the Custom plan might be appealing. With this plan, you get:.
Countless sees each month.
400GB+ bandwidth per month.
100GB-1TB storage.
30 sites consisted of.
You will have to talk to a sales associate to get your individualized quote depending upon your requirements. This strategy also offers exclusive support should something fail.
Migrate WordPress websites in just a few clicks.
Solid Uptime
WP Engine achieves over 99% uptime thanks to its world-class network facilities.
The company also has three data centers in London, Tokyo, and Midwest USA.
As a result, you can get better site speeds by choosing to host your site on servers that are closest to your target audience.
WP Engine obstructs harmful attacks on your website.
Speed & Performance
There are a lot of variables that go into website speed, however the general rule is that the more complex your website is, the more complicated the solutions to speed become.
Out of package- WordPress is fairly lean and quick. If you are running a primarily text site with a few basic plugins and a couple of little images, you’ll be great with a budget-friendly shared hosting plan from somebody like InMotion HostGator Bluehost But couple of website owners keep their WordPress install lean. There’s usually additional plugins, custom-made theme files, lots of images, widgets, ads, kinds and more.
All these features integrated with decent levels of traffic can begin to decrease your WordPress installation.
However a sluggish site does not imply that you need a bigger, much better server. It does suggest that you require to get smarter about speed. Sometimes it’s as basic as getting a more effective server, however 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.
Envision you are trying to carry a trailer with a pickup truck. Envision your trailer keeps getting much heavier. It’s pointless to keep complaining that your truck is not big enough when you might just require to eliminate the emergency brake, set up a turbocharger, refresh the transmission fluid and consolidate your load.
The point is that WordPress requires assistance to remain quickly as you grow. There are a lot of services … however either you or a developer must execute them.
That’s where handled WordPress hosting can be found in. WP Engine looks after (nearly) all speed concerns. They have personalized servers with very aggressive caching and even more innovative “stack” than a normal web host. They likewise have trained support who will enter into your WordPress set up 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 tailored caching setup.
The intriguing thing is that even unoptimized WordPress sets up still do well on their platform because their platform does the extra work.
Here’s the speed test for one of my customers on WP Engine (who has a bloated style, extra scripts, a lot of uncompressed images, to name a few things)- Note the Time To First Byte and the Start Render numbers. That determines how rapidly the server returned enough data to start loading the page.
It’s nice to have that type of speed right out of package- and have it stay that way no matter how huge or complex the website gets.
* Note that the other point here is that if you are obsessed about speed, you can get even better numbers with WP Engine than you might get with other services given that you are totally free to focus on speed aspects that you can easily control like image compression, usage of scripts, etc
. The last observation on speed- WP Engine not just supplies an incorporated CDN, but they likewise supply global 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 precisely that. And given that they work on Google Cloud, you do not need to stress over uptime either.
CDN Included
All strategies include an international CDN (content delivery network).
The CDN will assist your site load quick for consumers 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 websites are WordPress sites, according to Sucuri, a web security company. Frequently the “open doors” are plugins that weren’t upgraded.
Securing websites is among the fortes of WP Engine’s handled WordPress hosting service.
The company takes a number of measures to safeguard WordPress websites:.
WP Engine runs everyday malware/virus scans in collaboration with Sucuri.
They keep track of an upgraded firewall program to block the current dangers.
All websites are backed up daily.
You get a one-click restore function that can assist you recuperate 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 assistance for any questions concerning security.
They provide webinars on security.
They publish security guidelines and lists for developers and engineers.
If your website gets hacked, WPE will clean it free of charge.
Online Resources
WP Engine offers webinars, guides, post, updates, tutorials, and a knowledgebase. With these you can find out how to:.
Release your first site.
Troubleshoot typical problems.
Make improvements to your website.
Handle your hosting account with greater efficiency.
Both beginners and experienced WordPress website owners will discover the assistance documents vital.
WP Engine’s 60-Day Guarantee
WP Engine’s 60-day money-back assurance on all membership fees is unique in the hosting industry.
It enables you to try the service in a risk-free method.
Keep in mind: this option is not offered on customized hosting plans.
Is WP Engine Worth It?
Like any service, it’s not about what is finest overall, however what is finest for you based upon your goals, budget plan, resources & habits.
If you remain in what I think of as WP Engine’s core markets- they provide a fantastic service with a solid item. As a handled WordPress host, their prices is competitive. They offer more functions than “WordPress hosting” plans from other hosting brands. Their feature-set is unmatched for smart DIYers, WordPress website designers and/or high-traffic sites that do not wish to fret about hosting issues.
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 install 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.