wpengine review
Web Hosting

WP Engine Review: Is it worthwhile to choose WP Engine? (2021)

Building your new website has never been easier, thanks to the CMS platforms available at the moment. The most popular content management system, WordPress, has many fans for a good reason. It’s open-source, free, and easily customizable. However, you will find many additional benefits if you choose to host your WP website on WP Engine. This hosting company offers the best managed WP services out there. 

In this article, you will find the main reasons to choose WP Engine as a hosting provider for your websites.

About WP Engine

WP engine was founded by Jason Cohen in 2010, and its focus is on hosting WordPress sites. At the moment, the company has 40,000 customers and invested in data centers in the US, UK, and Japan. WP Engine is especially valuable for clients that are focused on value and not on finding a cheap option. If you are a professional WordPress developer, the managed service of this hosting will allow you to build easily websites from scratch. However, WP Engine targets users with some technical experience. But most importantly, you can always count on the help support center and friendly customer service for any issue you may encounter.

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Products and plans Offered By WP Engine

WordPress Managed Hosting 

WP Engine offers three main hosting plans. As all hosting packages are managed, you may find them a bit pricier than other hosts. 

Startup

If you are just starting with your first website, this may be the right option for hosting. Startup comes with 10 GB local storage, 50 GB bandwidth, and up to 25,000 visits per month. In addition, the WP Engine provides 10 premium themes, daily backups, free SSL and SSH, and many more at the price of $25 for a month with an annual discount applied. Apart from that, you may count on a one-click staging service, that is very convenient for web developers.

Professional

As your business grows, you may consider a Professional hosting plan that allows you to support up to 3 websites. It offers a few extra features, for example, up to 75,000 visits per month, 15 GB local storage, and 125 GB bandwidth. On top of that, you have a phone and chat support as well as a WordPress Multisite is available for purchase. The monthly price of this hosting plan is $49 per month.

Growth

The target of the Growth plan is businesses that grow faster and need more space and power. In addition to the features of previous plans, this plan offers 24/7 phone support in case you need a quick fix for any complex technical issue. As an advantage, the Growth hosting plan provides 20 GB local storage, 10 sites included, 200 GB bandwidth per month, and up to 100k visits monthly.

Scale

The scale hosting plan will be a perfect fit for you if you have a larger and growing business. This package ensures higher site limits and capacity and allows you to support 30 websites and 400k visits monthly. The starting price of the package is $241 for a month.

Custom

Apart from other managed plans, you can opt for custom dedicated hosting. Basically, it is a highly optimized, scalable, and hyper-secure solution that can be customized to your needs. Even better, unlike other plans, it provides 24/7 premium dedicated support and white glove onboarding with Launch Readiness Assessment. Other available enhancements include Application Performance Monitoring, Premium Plus service, and Dedicated Developer environment. 

WordPress Managed Hosting Plus

The main advantage of Hosting Plus plans is the option to automatically and safely update all your WP plugins and to ensure that your site will not break. Apart from automated updates, you can choose which plugins to auto-update, and you are supplied with auto-rollbacks in case an issue is detected. Each plugin update is tested with AI to assess it is convenient for your website. The prices of Managed hosting plus plan are slightly higher than the regular plans.

WordPress Secure Hosting

As the name suggests, the Secure Hosting Plans ensures additional protection for your website that is suitable for eCommerce sites. WP engine provides a security firewall for the traffic of your website and protection from malicious traffic spikes (DDoS).

Ecommerce Hosting

If you plan to build an online store or you have to migrate a WooCommerce website, an eCommerce hosting plan is the most reliable option. It offers Instant Store Search that is powered by ElasticPress and a One-click store creation. Additionally, you can opt for an optimized store theme and a WooCommerce template.

For most of its plans, the WP Engine uses Google Cloud in combination with a content delivery network. 

Key Features of WP Engine

Site Staging 

WP Engine provides site staging with every hosting plan and that way the host goes above what is normally expected in only higher-tier accounts. This feature allows you to support a clone of your website so you could test plugins and new themes before applying changes to your real website. As a result, the mistakes will be rectified before launching and your potential customers will not see them. On top of that, you can select to set up the staging site online or on a local machine. Apart from Staging, WP Engine offers also Development and Production environment. 

Excellent performance

To ensure better performance for your website, WP Engine optimizes page load with its EverCache system. Another possibility to assist the quick-serve of the content of your page is the global CDN. By using the closest to your customer’s node of the network, it supplies fast site loading.

Solid Uptime

As the company supports data centers in London, Midwest USA, and Tokyo, it can achieve over 99% uptime of your website. The hosting company guarantees up to 99.95% server uptime, which even can be increased with enhanced SLA. WP Engine provides compensation with hosting credit in case the uptime of your website falls below the promised level.

Security and backups

WP Engine takes strict measures to safeguard your WordPress website. The company runs malware and virus scans on a daily basis in partnership with Sucuri. In addition, all hosting plans include an automated SSL certificate. In case you want to import an SSL certificate, you have that possibility, except for the Startup package. WP Engine performs daily backups and monitors a firewall to block the threats. If you prefer, you could make a manual backup of your site. If an attack happens, you could quickly get a one-click function to restore your files. 

24/7 Customer Service

One of the great advantages of WP Engine is that their support team is an expert in WordPress and they provide specific support for your website. Simply you can trust the customer service to help you with all WP-related tasks, like installing updates, plugin configuration or compatibility, page loading issues, or problems with page speed. The support team has a trackable and transparent ticketing system to easier get in touch with users by chat. 

60 days money-back guarantee

The exceptional money-back guarantee is one thing that makes WP Engine different from its competitors. What’s more unique is that it is valid for all subscription fees and it allows you to test the hosting services without risks. However, you may be careful, as it does not include custom hosting plans.

Most asked questions for WP Engine

Where are located WP Engine data centers?

In order to provide reliable performance, WP Engine has many data centers located in United States, Canada, Belgium, Australia, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and Germany.

Can you host a non-WordPress site on WP Engine?

WP Engine is specialized in providing hosting services only for WordPress clients. 

Drawbacks of WP Engine

Besides all the benefits you get from WP Engine, there are some cons you may consider.

  • The hosting company offers only WordPress related services, so you can’t upload a Windows or Linux-based website that differs from the CMS. 
  • If you prefer to register a domain or host an email account through WP Engine, you may be disappointed. After all, you can use third-party services for email accounts or domain registration.
  • WP Engine will penalize you if you exceed the visitor limits of your plan. This is embarrassing if a significant spike in traffic happens suddenly and you have not predicted it. 

Conclusion

WP Engine is the best WordPress hosting provider for managed hosting as it offers excellent uptime, real-time threat detection, a high-performance hosting environment, and a variety of premium hosting features. However, WP Engine is a great option mainly for medium to large websites with high monthly traffic and requirements for more storage and stability. The hosting provider gives security and reliability for your business and better functionality.