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You have an idea and you want to create a website, you bought a domain name and now you are looking for hosting. You bought a cheap one and year later you are getting a good traffic. But now you have other things to do and you can’t spend much more time operating and solving website issues, you rather spend time writing and creating content. That is when WP engine comes in. here is the review of WP engine in which we will describe every aspect of it.
What is WP engine?
It’s a premium hosting and managing service. Which mean not only they offer hosting but they will manage your site as well. They provide a complete solution to run your website flawlessly and the owner doesn’t need to worry about it.
Founded in 2010, WP engine has grown rapidly in the cut-throat market of WordPress hosting because of one factor. They provide VIP services and managed a website which no other hosting does. Few of the well-known name on the internet like Yelp, Asana, National Geographic and PBS are using their services. Based in Texas, this VIP hosting services could do wonder with their features and solutions.
Hosting and Pricing
Now when we learn about the company and the reputation they hold, let’s jump into the pricing.
Basic or Personal plan
Their starting plan starts at 29$ per month, which is far more costlier than few of the other hosting plans. Also, they have something to add in, it supports one install, managed up to 25,000 visits per month, 10 GB local storage and free automated SSL certificate.
Professional plan
If you are not just a hobbyist and doing something professionally than they have planned for you too. 99$ per month,10 installs, 100K visit per month, 20GB local storage and SSL certificate. Now, remember, you are not just paying for hosting but rather more the tedious task of managing a whole website.
Business plan
If you are running a business and driving a great number of traffic than their plan is 249$ per month. What you will get is 400K views per month, 30GB local storage, 25 installs and automated and imported SSL certificate.
In their Custom Plan, they have dived it into two, Premium Plan in which you will get up to millions of visits, 25+ install, 100 to 300GB storage.
In the enterprise, you will get the same thing except for 400GB to 1 TB storage and Customer Success Management, 24/7 ticket support and High availability of service which they offer to no other. To know the price, you need to call them first.
Now one thing you need to understand that with all those expensive price tags you will get world class services. For someone who can afford that kind of price for their peace of mind, it’s a great deal. Let’s look at their Pros and Cons.
Pros of WP Engine
- Hosting
As far as the Hosting goes, they have great response and reviews in it. they are dedicated to run your website. With every new website upgrade they will be rolling out same integration and with more feature to run.
It has 100% compatibility with WordPress and they are focused to solve any problem and run your website professionally. They have earned reputation on that merit.
- Speed & Performance
When you get a WP engine, it means that you have been getting a good amount of traffic. It’s really a hard task to manage a website while getting more and more views every day. WP engine exceeded in that task to manage the speed of your website.
They maintain the performance even if you have 1 visitor or even 100 at the same time. They provide CDN services which are free from professional plans which allow your website to load faster than ever. If you don’t know what is CDN, it’s content delivery network which allows the website to load faster.
They have multi-cluster servicer, great hardware support with in-RAM catching and super fast CDN, makes them one of the best managed hosting services ever.
- Support
With that much high-value price, they have the support that matches its pricing. 24/7 phone support and 24/7 ticket support they will solve your every problem in a matter of minutes. As they also managed your WordPress website, they offer something else as well.
Like, strategic consultative service to plan for your success, analytic and Active-active configuration with multi-zone redundancy for strongest uptime protection and failover. They have really achieved something else in the field of hosting management that is why WP engine is called VIP hosting services cause they serve their customers with VIP like treatment.
Cons of WP Engine
- Pricing
Let be clear, if a hosting website is pricing 25$ per month for a small website which gets 25k views than why not use other hosting plans which started at few dollars per month. This is one of the biggest drawbacks of this hosting services. They say they will manage your website as well but when you look carefully into their plans, you will find much more gaps.
Like in basic, they offer CDN at almost 20$ per month and then in other plan its free but there is the catch of how many GBs you can use for it. there is more reason that its more expensive and costlier to have than buying it for someone who just started their journey.
- Disallowed Plugins
Now, what is the use of the website if we cannot install the plugin into it. then there is no difference between WordPress subdomain blog and WP engine as they both don’t support some of the plugins. If you are paying hefty of price than at least you should have the freedom to use a plugin to enhance your work.
The list of Disallowed Plugins is long and contain some of the best plugins we can use on daily bases, like broken link checker. If they have any alternative to that plugin, then we could understand, but without giving the benefit of that plugin, they just take it away. That is why more and more people are running away from them.
- No Domain
Most of the hosting company give away free domain when you buy a hosting plan, those hosting plans are cheap and yet they give free domain. But after spending 249$ per month, you need to buy a domain from another services. You need to maintain it and look after it. what kind of website managing service is that if it does not even provide domain option.
- Customer support
Its look like what they are best in it, also lacking in it. in the basic plan, there is no support whatsoever. No phone support, no ticket support and there are some reviews out there who have face problem while connecting with their customer support.
- Visit per month
If you have check their plans, one thing came to your mind is views per month. Now if you have just starting than reaching 25K view is a dream but you get a good support and you have created great content and suddenly you are getting more hits, than what? Then they will charge. If your views exceeded than your limit in the plan, you will get a charge. Then you have to buy another plan which is more expensive.
- No email
The even small hosting company can provide email feature into your website, but WP engine does not do that. You need to find another service for your email.
What’s Our Take?
Even with the sky-high price of hosting, WP engine does a great job maintaining if you go for Professional plan or above. They have much more Cons than Pro as you can see above, but for people who need someone to maintain their website, it’s a bliss. If you look into their managing part with a magnifying glass than you would know, without them, you would have to pay to every other person to do their services in your websites like WordPress updating, plugin update and downtime fixing, hotfix and premium security would cost you tons of money. So apart from costly hosting service, you can rely on their services.
Have you ever used WP engine? How’s your experience? Good or Bad? Tell us your story in the comment and if you know any better managed WordPress hosting, do let us know.
