WP Engine

WP Engine is perhaps the best known web host that offers specialized WordPress-optimized plans. They have more than 80,000 customers across 140 countries, although when compared to competitors, their packages are a bit more expensive. Is their hosting service worth the price? We’ll explore the pros and cons of WP Engine’s plans in this review.

• Daily backups
• Round the clock chat support
• High performing service
• User-friendly staging area

• Pretty pricey plans
• They don’t offer domain names
• No servers for Windows
• Setup can be a bit complicated

For starters, WP Engine is a WordPress optimized hosting service - so if you’re looking for traditional shared, cloud, VPS or dedicated hosting, this won’t be a good fit. Best for users who aren’t on a tight budget, you’ll get great performance but not for cheap. WP Engine does not register domain names or emails, so factor in the additional cost of third party companies for these vital elements of your website.

If all of the extra outside services sound like too much of a pain, WP Engine may not be the best hosting provider for you - there are other one-stop-shop options that are more efficient in terms of centralized services and in terms of pricing.

But what it does offer is a high-functioning, easy service, with simple steps to post on your site, add pages and more. It’s compatible with tons of WordPress plugins, but wisely leaves a few out because they negatively impact your site’s performance.  

WP Engine offers four managed WordPress plans. They’re all Linux-based, so if you need Windows hosting there’s nothing to see here. All of their plans come with a CDN (content delivery network) which helps pages load more quickly, staging environments to visualize changes before publication and their LargeFS software to transfer and store heavy duty data. Here are their plans in detail:

-Startup Plan - For $35/month, you’ll get one WordPress installation, an SSL certificate, up to 25,000 monthly visitors, 50GB/month of data transfers and 10GB of storage.

-Growth Plan - At $115/month, WP Engine offers 5 WordPress installations, SSL certificates, up to 100,000 visitors, 200GB data transfers each month and 20GB disk space.

-Scale Plan - For $290/month, they offer 15 WordPress installations, SSL certificates, a max of 400,000 site visits, 200GB/month data transfers and 30GB disk space.

-Custom Plans - For additional support, resources and features you can create your own plan with WP Engine. This will give you the option to upgrade to a dedicated server and scale your site as needed.

If you commit to an annual plan, you’ll get 2 months-worth off the price. But even so, these plans are quite expensive. They do offer a 60-day money back guarantee, but it doesn’t apply to the custom plans.

Because millions of websites are built using WordPress, many hosting services have positioned themselves as providers for this (rather large) niche. WP Engine is a competitive option amongst the group, with some great features, terrific uptime, fast-loading pages, a custom WordPress security system and more.

WP Engine includes helpful features like performance tracking and diagnostics, simple site migration (if you were using a different hosting service before), SSL certificates and automatic nightly backups. These are thorough backups - of your core files, templates, database and plugins - so you won’t have to worry about losing anything if you run into any issues.

They are also constantly adding new WordPress software updates to your site to ensure that it’s up to date. But they make sure to keep an eye on updates and test them to make sure that they’re solid and stable before applying to your site.

WP Engine also includes 35 templates and the Genesis Framework  (a popular foundation for building a WordPress site)  by StudioPress, a company that designs premium WordPress themes. The themes are divided into diverse categories, from blogs to eCommerce pages to online portfolios - WP Engine boasts that if you were to purchase these themes and the Genesis Framework on your own, you’d spend over $2,000.

WP Engine offers a high-performing, WordPress optimized service, with great security features, load times, daily backups, automatic software updates and dozens of great themes. There’s no doubt that what they’ve got is high quality. The question is: are you willing to pay for it? You’ll have to go elsewhere for email services and to register your domain, so keep in mind that the bills can rack up. But if you can pay, WP Engine is a great option for this specialized hosting sector.