There are plenty of cheap hosts offered that supply a good service. WPEngine Woocommerce
However, what if you’re trying to find more of a performance-oriented, concierge service? In that case, you’ll wish to have a look at our WP Engine evaluation for WordPress.
WP Engine is a WordPress-specific webhosting, offering handled strategies that are completely enhanced for the platform. Naturally, when compared to lots of other WordPress hosts, WP Engine’s strategies aren’t precisely low-cost. Therefore, you’ll wish to know whether this hosting service is worth the expense prior to making a purchase.
To help you out, we’re going to conduct a comprehensive WP Engine review for WordPress. We’ll discuss its essential features, assistance alternatives, efficiency capabilities, and everything else you’ll require to understand. Let’s get started!
WP Engine Video Review
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About WP Engine
Founded in 2010, WP Engine is now one of the leading managed WordPress hosting companies in the market. Serial entrepreneur Jason Cohen began 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 actually won several awards for Best Place to Work in Austin and consistently contributes to the WordPress core and neighborhood.
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 hard to quantify. Some features stick out when you browse the interface, nevertheless, that can offer you some insight into the service offered.
WP Engine Page Performance is a cool tool designed to help you accelerate your WordPress website by providing significant metrics on efficiency.
Running a test returns you a page-performance report that information how quickly your page rendered, the length of time it took to fill in its entirety, and the overall size of the page. It even includes historic information on your site’s efficiency over the past six months and suggestions on how you can lower page load.
You can establish your WordPress website in a Staging or Development environment before making the modifications live (Image credit: WP Engine) Avoid awkward mistakes on your site by making changes to a copy of your website prior to it goes live. This is called Staging, and it permits your designers to make comprehensive changes to your website without impacting your clients.
WP Engine has a comprehensive list of plugins that are prohibited (Image credit: WP Engine) In a reasonably unusual move, WP Engine restricts the WordPress plugins you can set up. Those normally restricted are plugins that have been kept in mind to cause performance concerns and security holes. For important functions such as caching, backups, and search engine optimization tools, WP Engine has actually made alternatives available that don’t put a high load on the server.
WP Engine Hosting Plans
WP Engine just uses handled WordPress hosting. There are five different strategies readily available: Startup, Growth, Scale, and Custom.
All strategies consist of endless information transfer. The strategies differ based on:
- number of WordPress installs
- traffic volume (# of visits per month)
- disk storage amount
- Custom-made plan includes dedicated dev. environments, consumer success, and priority assistance
WP Engine includes some special features for WordPress users that the majority of hosts do not use, or charge extra for. These special features consist of:.
- Git version control
- Staging: quickly develop a copy of your site for screening
- Easy transferable installs from free to paid accounts
- Innovative technologies including newest PHP version.
In our WP Engine review, we found that WP Engine uses the most sophisticated and comprehensive managed WordPress hosting functions.
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 functions might suggest a steep knowing curve for inexperienced users. If you have an understanding of terms like Git, CNAME, and reroute rules, you’ll be right at home here, but otherwise you’ll need to spend some time on the support site.
In our testing, the default WordPress home page filled in just over 2 seconds. This is among the fastest reactions we’ve tested, with rival Liquid Web only slightly behind.
Support
A managed WordPress service ought to offer extra worth through its assistance, and WP Engine provides. The assistance website includes videos and articles of a quality you ‘d anticipate from a paid training course, with aid on much deeper WordPress functionality that lots of WordPress hosts do not go into.
There’s 24/7 live chat assistance and a ticket system, too. In our testing, the reaction fasted and the representative well-informed. For all plans except for single-site strategies, there’s telephone support, too.
Pros
Extraordinary Load Speed: If site loading speed is a leading priority, WP Engine does well in this regard. The host’s mix of custom NGINX extension, built-in Content Delivery Network (CDN), and SSD technology ensure that your web pages load rapidly. NGINX extension prioritizes human demands over robot requests and provides load balancing, offering your visitors a much better experience. For its part, CDN delivers site content to your visitors based upon their location to improve your site’s speed and decrease latency. You get this ability free of charge with all WP Engine strategies.
High Performance: It’s hard to beat WP Engine’s efficiency, which is why individuals continue to pay a premium price for this service. WP Engine guarantees 99.95% server uptime, approximately 4 and a half hours of downtime a year. You can even more increase your uptime to 99.99% with enhanced SLA, which equates to a little under an hour of downtime each year. WP Engine will compensate you with hosting credit if your uptime falls listed below the assurance.
Advanced Security: WP Engine keeps an eye on all the traffic going to your site and instantly detects and obstructs prospective attacks. Furthermore, the hosting service automatically updates and patches the WordPress core to eliminate possible vulnerabilities. In a worst-case scenario, WP Engine immediately backups your website every day and has a one-click repair function to get you back up and running rapidly. This hosting service protects your website against JavaScript/SQL-injection attacks, brute force attempts, and DDoS attacks.
Phenomenal Customer Support: The hosting service has a transparent and trackable ticketing system to contact consumer care via chat. The assistance group has an outstanding knowledge base and can assist you resolve problems quickly. You get 24/7 phone support for all strategies except 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 do in the staging area does not impact your live website. This function enables designers to work on websites without interfering with the live website’s functionality or user experience.
Transferable Installs: Also targeting developers, this feature allows you to construct a site from your WP Engine account. You do not have to wait on the customer to include you to their WordPress website. As soon as finished, you can transfer the website to the client or host the website on WP Engine. This performance conserves time if you regularly develop 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 just works with WordPress. From a service perspective, it makes sense to focus on a single market and deal exceptional services in that area. This model 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 require to look in other places. You’ll need to utilize third-party services for domain registration or email accounts.
Inflexible Pricing: WP Engine runs a tight ship, and this is reflected in its pricing structure. You will be penalized for exceeding your strategy’s visitor limitations. This might not be an issue if you have predictable traffic, and you can constantly update your strategy as your site grows. Considerable spikes in traffic during item launches or seasonal organization can cost you significant excess charges.
There is no other way to put it: WP Engine is pricey. Is it worth the cost? The answer lies in determining what you are spending for.
You can get shared hosting that can manage the same amount of traffic as WP Engine for a portion of the rate. You can even get devoted hosting for the exact same cost as WP Engine. What you are actually paying for here is security, efficiency, speed, and, most significantly, comfort. The ultimate 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 plan, you are typically paying for performance & not needing to think too much about maintenance, security & speed. If you look at WP Engine’s rates based on the functions you’re getting- you really do not get a whole lot.
And if you are the type who will think about your site’s health anyway (ie, keeping WordPress upgraded and generally visiting often), you’ll likely be spending for “management” that is unnecessary.
Numerous shared hosting servers can handle the same traffic numbers as WP Engine- and cost a fraction of the rate. My personal site a shared hosting strategy from HostGator with basic caching) dealt with more than 15,000+ visits in a 24 hour period when a post of mine And if you are running a dependable VPS, you can certainly manage a lot more for much less. The site you are on manages more than 110,000+ check outs per month with plenty of room 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 strategy.
They are relatively transparent about how they count sees, however it can still be rather a surprise for “little” site owners how rapidly they can enter into the $290 per month tier. I have a customer who began with the Startup strategy, but quickly wound up with a custom plan.
And as discussed earlier that does not even include a number of the features you do not get with WP Engine’s strategies. You can’t run any email from your servers. You have low limits on regional media storage. Anything above the limits requires extra costs & technical implementation 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 cost. You can’t utilize them to spread out the expense of your strategy- particularly if you are hitting your visitor cap instead of your install cap.
If you are looking to spend for hosting- ie, a server that will hold & dish out your website files- WP Engine is a costly option, particularly compared to other non-managed hosting alternatives.
Startup
The Startup bundle is the most fundamental strategy and will set you back $25 each month. With this bundle, you get:.
25,000 sees monthly.
50GB bandwidth monthly.
10GB storage.
One site included.
WP Engine targets little sites and blogs with this plan, however we believe 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 wish to take any opportunities with uptime or require a warranty that your website can manage 25,000 visitors each month, WP Engine is a certainty. We ‘d recommend this option to small businesses, affiliate websites, and blog sites making good money and want assurances that nothing will alter.
You can save $60 annually or two months free if you pay each year.
Growth
The development strategy targets growing services and will cost you $95 per month. Here you get:.
100,000 visits per month.
200GB bandwidth each month.
25GB storage.
10 sites included a while.
This plan is a terrific entry point for a growing organization, and it might be a while prior to you require to update. 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 a complicated issue that you require to solve quickly.
You can save a cool $230 or more months totally free with yearly billing.
Scale
WP Engine advertises its scale plan as the best value choice. This one costs $241 each month. Here you get:.
400,000 gos to per month.
500GB bandwidth per month.
50GB storage.
30 websites consisted of.
We suggest this option 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 assistance.
You can save $580 or more months free with yearly pre-paid billing.
Customized
Lastly, if you have a mission-critical website or big service, the Custom strategy may be appealing. With this plan, you get:.
Millions of gos to monthly.
400GB+ bandwidth each month.
100GB-1TB storage.
30 sites consisted of.
You will have to talk to a sales associate to get your individualized quote depending on your requirements. This plan also uses proprietary assistance ought to something go wrong.
Migrate WordPress websites in just a few clicks.
Strong Uptime
WP Engine attains over 99% uptime thanks to its world-class network facilities.
The business likewise has three data centers in London, Tokyo, and Midwest USA.
As a result, you can improve site speeds by selecting to host your site on servers that are closest to your target market.
WP Engine blocks malicious attacks on your website.
Speed & Performance
There are a great deal of variables that enter into website speed, however the general rule is that the more intricate your site is, the more complicated the options to speed become.
Out of the box- WordPress is relatively lean and quick. If you are running a mostly text website with a few standard plugins and a few small images, you’ll be great with a cost effective shared hosting plan from someone like InMotion HostGator Bluehost But few site owners keep their WordPress install lean. There’s normally additional plugins, custom theme files, lots of images, widgets, advertisements, kinds and more.
All these features combined with good levels of traffic can begin to decrease your WordPress installation.
But a slow site doesn’t indicate that you need a larger, better server. It does suggest that you require to get smarter about speed. Sometimes it’s as simple as getting a more effective server, but sometimes it’s more about caching particular resources in a particular order and enhancing your files. In other words- it gets complex.
Envision you are attempting to haul a trailer with a pickup. Imagine your trailer keeps getting heavier. It’s meaningless to keep grumbling that your truck is not big enough when you may simply need to remove the emergency brake, install a turbocharger, revitalize the transmission fluid and consolidate your load.
The point is that WordPress needs help to remain fast as you grow. There are plenty of services … but either you or a developer need to implement them.
That’s where handled WordPress hosting comes in. WP Engine takes care of (almost) all speed concerns. They have actually tailored servers with extremely aggressive caching and even more innovative “stack” than a typical web host. They also have trained assistance who will go into your WordPress set up and recognize the precise chokepoint to get your website moving.
They do not even permit caching plugins on their installs due to the fact that they have such a personalized caching setup.
The fascinating thing is that even unoptimized WordPress installs still succeed on their platform because their platform does the additional work.
Here’s the speed test for among my customers 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 begin filling the page.
It’s great to have that type of speed right out of the box- and have it remain that way no matter how huge or complicated 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 may get with other services given that you are complimentary to focus on speed aspects that you can quickly control like image compression, usage of scripts, etc
. The last observation on speed- WP Engine not just supplies an incorporated CDN, but they also offer global information centers in case your audience is primarily in Asia and/or Europe.
If you are trying to get top speeds without messing with layered caching plugins- the WP Engine does exactly that. And since they operate on Google Cloud, you do not need to worry about uptime either.
CDN Included
All strategies include an international CDN (content shipment network).
The CDN will assist your site load fast for consumers worldwide 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 websites, according to Sucuri, a web security firm. Frequently the “open doors” are plugins that weren’t updated.
Securing sites is among the strong suits of WP Engine’s managed WordPress hosting service.
The company takes several measures to safeguard WordPress sites:.
WP Engine runs everyday malware/virus scans in partnership with Sucuri.
They monitor an upgraded firewall program to block the latest dangers.
All sites are supported 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 support for any questions regarding security.
They provide webinars on security.
They release security guidelines and lists for developers and engineers.
If your website gets hacked, WPE will clean it totally free.
Online Resources
WP Engine provides webinars, guides, post, updates, tutorials, and a knowledgebase. With these you can learn how to:.
Release your very first website.
Troubleshoot common problems.
Make improvements to your site.
Manage your hosting account with higher efficiency.
Both novices and experienced WordPress site owners will discover the assistance paperwork important.
WP Engine’s 60-Day Guarantee
WP Engine’s 60-day money-back assurance on all membership fees is special in the hosting industry.
It allows you to experiment with the service in a risk-free method.
Keep in mind: this choice is not available on customized hosting strategies.
Is WP Engine Worth It?
Like any service, it’s not about what is best overall, but what is best for you based upon your objectives, spending plan, resources & practices.
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 prices is competitive. They provide more functions than “WordPress hosting” strategies from other hosting brand names. Their feature-set is unrivaled for smart DIYers, WordPress website developers and/or high-traffic sites that do not want to stress over hosting problems.
If managed 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 set up and see what you believe of their backend. Make certain to chat w/ assistance & sales.
Get 3 months free when you sign up for WP Engine.