There are lots of inexpensive hosts available that offer a decent service. WPEngineer
However, what if you’re searching for more of a performance-oriented, concierge service? In that case, you’ll wish to have a look at our WP Engine review for WordPress.
WP Engine is a WordPress-specific web host, providing managed strategies that are fully enhanced for the platform. Obviously, when compared to many other WordPress hosts, WP Engine’s plans aren’t precisely cheap. You’ll want to know whether this hosting service is worth the cost prior to making a purchase.
To help you out, we’re going to conduct a comprehensive WP Engine evaluation for WordPress. We’ll discuss its crucial features, assistance alternatives, efficiency abilities, and everything else you’ll need to understand. Let’s get started!
WP Engine Video Review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re66PSKd7_E&t=7s
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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 business owner Jason Cohen started WP Engine when he saw a need for specialized WordPress hosting due to the rising appeal 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 numerous awards for Best Place to Work in Austin and regularly contributes to the WordPress core and neighborhood.
WP Engine Features
The core factors to choose WP Engine over less expensive WordPress hosting are increased reliability, performance, assistance, and management, however these are tough to quantify. Some features stand out when you search the user interface, nevertheless, that can give you some insight into the service provided.
WP Engine Page Performance is a neat tool designed to assist you accelerate your WordPress site by providing significant metrics on efficiency.
Running a test returns you a page-performance report that information how rapidly 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 historical data on your website’s efficiency over the past 6 months and recommendations on how you can decrease page load.
You can develop your WordPress site in a Staging or Development environment prior to making the changes live (Image credit: WP Engine) Avoid embarrassing mistakes on your website by making changes to a copy of your site before it goes live. This is called Staging, and it allows your developers to make substantial modifications to your website without affecting your customers.
WP Engine has a thorough list of plugins that are disallowed (Image credit: WP Engine) In a reasonably unusual relocation, WP Engine limits the WordPress plugins you can set up. Those normally limited are plugins that have actually been noted to trigger performance issues and security holes. For crucial features such as caching, backups, and search engine optimization tools, WP Engine has actually made alternatives offered that do not put a high load on the server.
WP Engine Hosting Plans
WP Engine only provides handled WordPress hosting. There are five different plans available: Startup, Growth, Scale, and Custom.
All strategies consist of limitless data transfer. The strategies vary based on:
- number of WordPress installs
- traffic volume (# of visits per month)
- disk storage amount
- Customized plan consists of 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 additional for. These special functions consist of:.
- Git version control
- Staging: immediately produce a copy of your site for screening
- Easy transferable installs from free to paid accounts
- Leading edge innovations consisting of latest PHP variation.
In our WP Engine review, we found that WP Engine offers the most advanced and comprehensive managed WordPress hosting features.
Get 3 months free when you sign up for WP Engine.
Interface and in use
WP Engine’s user interface is professional and well laid out, however the effective features might mean a high knowing curve for inexperienced users. If you have an understanding of terms like Git, CNAME, and redirect rules, you’ll be right at home here, however otherwise you’ll need to invest some time on the support site.
In our testing, the default WordPress web page loaded in just over 2 seconds. This is one of the fastest responses we’ve checked, with rival Liquid Web only a little behind.
Assistance
A handled WordPress service must provide additional value through its support, and WP Engine provides. The support site consists of videos and articles of a quality you ‘d anticipate from a paid training course, with aid on deeper WordPress functionality that lots of WordPress hosts do not enter into.
There’s 24/7 live chat support and a ticket system, too. In our testing, the response was quick and the representative educated. For all plans except for single-site plans, there’s telephone support, too.
Pros
Remarkable Load Speed: If website filling speed is a top concern, WP Engine succeeds in this regard. The host’s mix of custom NGINX extension, integrated Content Delivery Network (CDN), and SSD technology guarantee that your web pages load quickly. NGINX extension prioritizes human demands over robotic requests and provides load balancing, providing your visitors a much better experience. For its part, CDN delivers site material to your visitors based upon their place to improve your site’s speed and minimize latency. You get this capability for free with all WP Engine plans.
High Performance: It’s difficult to beat WP Engine’s efficiency, which is why individuals continue to pay a premium rate for this service. WP Engine ensures 99.95% server uptime, approximately 4 and a half hours of downtime a year. You can further increase your uptime to 99.99% with improved SLA, which equates to a little under an hour of downtime per 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 website and automatically finds and blocks potential attacks. Additionally, the hosting service instantly updates and spots the WordPress core to eliminate possible vulnerabilities. In a worst-case scenario, WP Engine immediately backups your site every day and has a one-click restoration function to get you back up and running quickly. This hosting service protects your website against JavaScript/SQL-injection attacks, brute force attempts, and DDoS attacks.
Incredible Customer Support: The hosting service has a transparent and trackable ticketing system to get in touch with customer care through chat. The support team has an outstanding knowledge base and can assist you resolve problems quickly. You get 24/7 phone assistance for all strategies except 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 site’s live variation and make changes or check new plugins and styles. Anything you do in the staging area doesn’t affect your live website. This function permits designers to work on sites without interfering with the live website’s performance or user experience.
Transferable Installs: Also targeting designers, this feature allows you to construct a website from your WP Engine account. You do not need to await the client to include you to their WordPress website. Once finished, you can transfer the website to the customer or host the site on WP Engine. This performance conserves time if you frequently develop sites for clients.
Cons
WordPress-Only Hosting: If you are using any other content management system aside from WordPress, then you are out of luck. WP Engine just deals with WordPress. From a business perspective, it makes good sense to focus on a single market and deal extraordinary services in that location. Nevertheless, this model 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 email account and register your domain through your website host, you’ll need to look in other places. You’ll need 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 pricing structure. You will be penalized for surpassing your plan’s visitor limits. This may not be an issue if you have predictable traffic, and you can constantly update your strategy as your site grows. Substantial spikes in traffic during item launches or seasonal organization can cost you substantial overage charges.
There is no other way to put it: WP Engine is pricey. Is it worth the expense? The answer depends on finding out what you are paying for.
You can get shared hosting that can deal with the same quantity of traffic as WP Engine for a portion of the price. You can even get devoted hosting for the very same price as WP Engine. What you are really paying for here is security, performance, speed, and, most notably, peace of mind. The supreme concern is 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 plan, you are usually paying for efficiency & not needing to think excessive about upkeep, security & speed. If you take a look at WP Engine’s rates based on the features you’re getting- you truly don’t get a lot.
And if you are the type who will think of your website’s health anyway (ie, keeping WordPress updated and generally logging in frequently), you’ll likely be paying for “management” that is unneeded.
Numerous shared hosting servers can manage the exact 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) handled more than 15,000+ sees in a 24 hour duration when a post of mine And if you are running a reputable VPS, you can certainly manage a lot more for much less. In fact, the website you are on manages more than 110,000+ check outs monthly with a lot 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 gos to, but it can still be rather a surprise for “little” site owners how quickly they can enter the $290 each month tier. I have a client who started with the Startup strategy, however rapidly ended up with a customized plan.
And as discussed previously that does not even include 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 limits on local media storage. Anything above the limits needs extra costs & technical application 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 websites, you have to factor those into the price. You can’t utilize them to spread out the expense of your strategy- specifically 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 & dish out your website files- WP Engine is an expensive option, especially compared to other non-managed hosting alternatives.
Start-up
The Startup package is one of the most standard strategy and will set you back $25 per month. With this bundle, you get:.
25,000 check outs each month.
50GB bandwidth monthly.
10GB storage.
One website included.
WP Engine targets small websites and blogs with this plan, however we think it might be overkill for most people in this classification. You can get a far much better handle shared hosting at Bluehost However, if you do not wish to take any possibilities with uptime or require an assurance that your website can manage 25,000 visitors monthly, WP Engine is a certainty. We ‘d suggest this alternative to small companies, affiliate websites, and blogs making good cash and want assurances that absolutely nothing will change.
You can save $60 each year or two months free if you pay every year.
Growth
The development strategy targets growing companies and will cost you $95 monthly. Here you get:.
100,000 check outs each month.
200GB bandwidth per month.
25GB storage.
Ten websites included a while.
This plan is a terrific entry point for a growing organization, and it might be a while before you need to update. With this plan, you also get 24/7 phone support in addition to round-the-clock chat assistance. This addition will come in handy if you have a complex concern that you require to solve quickly.
You can save a cool $230 or 2 months complimentary with yearly billing.
Scale
WP Engine markets its scale plan as the best value option. This one expenses $241 per month. Here you get:.
400,000 check outs per month.
500GB bandwidth monthly.
50GB storage.
30 sites included.
We recommend this option for a fast-growing blog site or business. You get access to 24/7 live chat and 24/7 phone support in addition to the support.
You can save $580 or more months totally free with annual pre-paid billing.
Custom
Lastly, if you have a mission-critical site or large service, the Custom strategy might be appealing. With this strategy, you get:.
Countless sees monthly.
400GB+ bandwidth monthly.
100GB-1TB storage.
30 sites consisted of.
You will have to speak to a sales associate to get your personalized quote depending on your requirements. This strategy likewise provides exclusive support needs to something go wrong.
Migrate WordPress websites in just a few clicks.
Solid Uptime
WP Engine accomplishes over 99% uptime thanks to its first-rate network infrastructure.
The business also has three data centers in London, Tokyo, and Midwest USA.
As a result, you can improve website 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 great deal of variables that go into site speed, however the rule of thumb is that the more complex your site is, the more complicated the solutions to speed become.
Out of package- WordPress is relatively lean and quick. If you are running a mostly text site with a few standard plugins and a couple of small images, you’ll be fine with an economical shared hosting plan from somebody like InMotion HostGator Bluehost But couple of site owners keep their WordPress set up lean. There’s generally additional plugins, custom-made style files, lots of images, widgets, ads, kinds and more.
All these functions integrated with good levels of traffic can begin to decrease your WordPress installation.
However a sluggish website does not suggest that you require a larger, much better server. It does indicate that you require to get smarter about speed. Sometimes it’s as easy as getting a more powerful server, but in some cases it’s more about caching certain resources in a particular order and enhancing your files. To put it simply- it gets complex.
Picture you are trying to transport a trailer with a pickup. Picture your trailer keeps getting heavier. It’s meaningless to keep grumbling that your truck is not big enough when you may simply require to eliminate the emergency brake, install a turbocharger, revitalize the transmission fluid and combine your load.
The point is that WordPress requires aid to remain quickly as you grow. There are plenty of services … but either you or a designer must execute them.
That’s where handled WordPress hosting is available in. WP Engine looks after (nearly) all speed issues. They have customized servers with extremely aggressive caching and much more innovative “stack” than a common webhosting. They likewise have trained assistance who will go into your WordPress set up and recognize the precise chokepoint to get your website moving.
They don’t even enable caching plugins on their installs since they have such a tailored caching setup.
The fascinating thing is that even unoptimized WordPress installs still do well on their platform since their platform does the extra work.
Here’s the speed test for one of my customers on WP Engine (who has a puffed up style, extra scripts, too many uncompressed images, among other things)- Note the Time To First Byte and the Start Render numbers. That measures how rapidly the server returned enough data to start loading the page.
It’s good to have that sort of speed right out of the box- and have it stay that way no matter how huge 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 considering that you are complimentary to concentrate on speed factors that you can quickly manage like image compression, usage of scripts, etc
. The last observation on speed- WP Engine not just supplies an incorporated CDN, but they also supply worldwide information centers in case your audience is mainly in Asia and/or Europe.
If you are trying to get top speeds without messing with layered caching plugins- the WP Engine does precisely that. And given that they work on Google Cloud, you don’t have to fret about uptime either.
CDN Included
All strategies include a global CDN (material delivery network).
The CDN will assist your site load quick for consumers 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 websites are WordPress websites, according to Sucuri, a web security firm. Often the “open doors” are plugins that weren’t upgraded.
Protecting websites is among the strengths of WP Engine’s handled WordPress hosting service.
The business takes a number of measures to protect WordPress sites:.
WP Engine runs daily malware/virus scans in partnership with Sucuri.
They keep an eye on an updated firewall program to obstruct the most recent dangers.
All websites 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 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 relating to security.
They provide webinars on security.
They release security standards and lists for designers and engineers.
If your website gets hacked, WPE will clean it totally free.
Online Resources
WP Engine offers webinars, guides, post, updates, tutorials, and a knowledgebase. With these you can find out how to:.
Introduce your very first website.
Troubleshoot typical problems.
Make improvements to your website.
Handle your hosting account with higher effectiveness.
Both newbies and experienced WordPress website owners will discover the assistance documentation vital.
WP Engine’s 60-Day Guarantee
WP Engine’s 60-day money-back assurance on all subscription fees is distinct in the hosting industry.
It allows you to try out the service in a risk-free method.
Keep in mind: this alternative is not available on customized hosting strategies.
Is WP Engine Worth It?
Like any service, it’s not about what is finest overall, however what is finest for you based on your objectives, spending plan, resources & practices.
If you are in what I consider WP Engine’s core markets- they offer a terrific service with a solid item. As a managed WordPress host, their prices is competitive. They use more features than “WordPress hosting” strategies from other hosting brand names. Their feature-set is unrivaled for smart DIYers, WordPress website developers and/or high-traffic websites that don’t wish to worry about hosting concerns.
If managed hosting is a suitable 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 certain to chat w/ support & sales.
Get 3 months free when you sign up for WP Engine.