WP Engine was founded in 2010 and is based in Austin, Texas. WP Engine provides managed shared hosting that is strictly for WordPress sites. Maintenance, updates, backups, and more, are handled by the WP Engine staff. Since WP Engine is a WordPress specific site, the servers are Linux-based. The company has data centers in Austin, Tokyo, and London. WP Enterprise serves over 30,000 customers in 120 countries. Read our WP Engine review below.
OverviewJust to be entirely clear – if you do not have a WordPress site, WP Engine is not for you like other types of websites will not run on WP Engine’s servers. That said, WP Engine has five plans – three defined and one, Premium, that is a custom tailored (and custom priced) plan. There is also an Enterprise plan that is custom tailored to large business needs.
The Premium and Enterprise plans are on dedicated servers while the other three plans are on shared servers. WP Engine’s approach is to offer the same features for each plan, including unlimited bandwidth.
The plans are defined by the number of sites you host, the amount of storage used, and the number of visitors to your site per month. This scalability means that as your site grows, WP Engine will still be able to accommodate your needs.
WP Enterprise uses Evercache, a proprietary method of caching and serving pages of your website that is fast and scalable. Visitor spikes and surges are handled without loss in page-load speed.
Fast load times are also aided by the use of CDN, offered for a small monthly fee to the Personal plan and free to the others. This allows static content, such as media, to be served to visitors from servers near them for faster load times with fewer bottlenecks in service.
An interesting feature is the ability to clone your site. Staging allows you to make changes to your site without affecting the live version. Once happy with the changes, you can use Git Push to apply those changes to your live site.
Except the Enterprise plan, WP Engine offers a 60-day full money-back guarantee for its plans. There are no required contracts for the length of terms.
However, WP Engine does run promotions at times with reduced fees for one-year or longer terms, so if you are interested in long-term, be sure to check for specials.
The selling feature for WP Enterprise is that it is managed hosting. Being managed means it is optimized for WordPress. Patches and updates are applied automatically (though users can opt to make updates through the WordPress dashboard themselves if preferred), servers are monitored for hacks and viruses, backups are automatically made daily, and WordPress experts are available for customer support.
This level of service comes at a price that is higher than most shared hosting, but the extras that are provided for WordPress customers make it worthwhile for most WP Engine customers.
With its reputation, its wide range of plans that support scalability, its security, and its WordPress optimized managed servers, WP Engine is perfect for the blogger or e-commerce owner who uses WordPress and desires risk-free dependability and speed, without the need to be an expert in all the technical stuff. Fittingly, WP Engine’s website is WordPress powered.
Key FeaturesExpert reviews of WP Engine are a bit of a mixed bag. While some really recommend the platform,others are unsure if it is the “ideal” choice for managed WordPress. Here’s what the experts had to say about the good points of WP Engine:
Here’s what they had to say about the service’s bad points:
Overall, they rated it highly for a particular kind of customer – developers who want to take care of design without delving into too much admin, website owners annoyed with their current shared services providers, and new website owners who are looking for a scalable solution.
There seems to be a lot to like from customers of WP Engine – compared to the platform just a short while ago. They seem to be listening to what their customers are saying, and making adjustments as necessary.
Here’s what customer liked about them:
There’s not a great deal of chatter amongst customers of WP Engine, but here are some of the more recent negative points brought up by customers of the service:
Reliability & UptimeWP Engine is one of the few companies that guarantees 100% uptime. Customers are refunded 5% of their monthly bill for each hour of downtime, should it occur. They can make the guarantee because of their reliability record.
WP Engine has three fully redundant data centers with servers that are constantly scanned for hacks and viruses. For reduced latency, you can choose the data center closest to your location for hosting.
Two security firms regularly conduct audits to look for exploits. Servers are backed up daily with one-button restore for you should you need recovery, and users can create manual backups at any time through the User Portal for roll-backs whenever they like.
Features & Tools The following is a more in-depth look at some of the features WP Engine provides.
| Feature | Overview |
|---|---|
| Control Panel | WP Engine doesn’t have a control panel like other hosts. Instead, your sites are accessed through the WordPress dashboard. There is a User Portal for account related administration, such as backups, new installs, creating redirects, and more. The User Portal was modified and updated in 2015 to provide better access to multiple sites |
| Disk Space | Disk space is allotted according to the plan selected. For the four plans, Personal, Professional, Business, and Premium, storage ranges from 10 GB up to 300 GB. The Enterprise plan depends on user needs and ranges from 400 GB to 1 TB |
| Bandwidth | Bandwidth is unlimited on WP Engine. Instead of bandwidth, the number of visitors is used as a limit on usage |
| Database Support | WP Engine supports MySQL databases. The administration is handled through phpMyAdmin in the User Portal |
| Free Domain | WP Engine does not provide a domain service. You’ll have to get your domain(s) from a domain registrar such as GoDaddy or Namecheap. WP Engine does have a wizard for migrating a site hosted elsewhere |
| Multiple Domains | The number of domains allowed depends on the plan selected. Personal only allows one site, while the Premium and Enterprise plans allow 150 installs |
| Data Backups | Manual backups can be made through the User Portal. WP Engine makes automatic backups daily, which are kept for 60 days |
| One-Click App Installer | Plugins and add-ons are done through the WordPress dashboard |
| Email Accounts | WP Engine does not provide an email in its hosting packages. You will have to look to third-party solutions to provide an email with your domain name as the address |
| Hosting Security | Multiple firewalls are in the WP Engine data centers. WP Engine makes daily backups, and the servers are constantly monitored for security issues. SSLs are available on all plans for purchase and automatic install through the User Portal for a $49 yearly fee. Third-party SSL certificates are also supported |
| Website Builder | There is no website builder software on WP Engine. WordPress is the only type of site supported on WP Engine. Though technically a CMS (content management system), the design and layout for WordPress is done in the dashboard. However, there are WordPress plugins that make creating your site easier and more graphical |
| Malware and Spam Protection | WP Engine automatically scans servers for hacks and viruses. There is no email service, so there are no filters in that regard. For individual comments on sites, WordPress has its internal settings, plus there are some WordPress plugins to fight spam |
| Shopping Carts | Shopping carts are added through the WordPress dashboard, with the most widely used shopping cart being WooCommerce. Due to how WP Engine caches pages to provide fast page loads, if you use a shopping cart on WP Engine, you will need to contact support and have the shopping cart page removed from caching |
| Programming Languages Support | WordPress uses PHP, so WP Engine naturally supports that |
| Site Statistics | Site statistic plugins are available for WordPress, and Google Analytics can be installed for a more detailed analysis of traffic. WP Engine uses its methods for counting visitors that may differ slightly from site statistic software results. One thing to note is that before changes made in 2015, bots used to count against your visitor rely on your plan – and there was no way to disallow them in the .htaccess file. Bots are no longer counted |
| Additional Features and Tools |
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Plans & Pricing It’s pretty easy to figure out what plan you need with WP Engine. All the plans offer most of the same features; you just need to find out how much storage and how many visitors a month you think you’ll have and get the appropriate plan.
Because WP Engine is Managed hosting and is optimized for WordPress, prices are higher than those of many other shared hosting companies.
For those with multiple sites, you will want to consider carefully the advantages WP Engine brings because the plans permitting more than one site are expensive. Pricing changes and they can be affected by promotions. The following prices are the standard plan rates at the time of this writing.
The Personal plan provides 10 GB of storage and 25,000 visitors per month for $29 per month. That is sufficient for most blogs and small business owners.
The Professional plan provides 20 GB of storage and 100,000 visitors for $99 per month. For larger sites, the Business plan offers 30 GB of storage and 400,000 visitors per month for $249 per month.
Pricing for the Premium and Enterprise plans are customized based on the customer needs. The Premium and Enterprise plans are also on dedicated servers rather than shared servers. Premium storage ranges from 100 to 300 GB, and 1 million plus visitors are allotted per month. The Enterprise plan offers 400 GB to 1 TB of storage and over 5 million visitors per month.
SSL certificates can be purchased for $49 per year, and because of the way WP Enterprise handles them, a dedicated IP is not necessary. The Personal plan will not support third-party SSL though the other plans will.
CDN is available free of charge for all the plans except Personal, which has a $19.99 a month charge. The Premium and Enterprise plans limit the free CDN content to 1 TB.
Customer Support Customer support was an essential feature of WP Engine when it started in 2010. Due to its rapid growth, more customer complaints were being lodged about limited and unknowledgeable support.
WP Engine again listened to its customers and made support an emphasis in 2015. Complaints about support have drastically fallen off. WP Engine acknowledges that paying for a managed WordPress site means there need to be WordPress experts in customer support, and that is a renewed priority.
There are multiple methods for contacting support. For email support, you can use the contact page on the WP Engine website. You can also find an Austin address on that page for contact via regular mail.
WP Engine has a support portal for communicating them with technical issues 24/7/365. A knowledge base for most problems that arise for the typical customer can be accessed through the Support Garage.
WP Engine can be reached by phone at 1-877-973-6446.
Live chat and support ticket submission is accessible via a drop-down menu in the User Portal.
For questions concerning system-wide issues, WP Engine provides a status page for all three data centers and support functions.
Ease of Use As previously mentioned, there is no control panel like cPanel or Plesk. Instead, site administration is done through the WordPress dashboard and the User Portal from WP Engine.
WP Engine revamped the User Portal in 2015 in response to customer requests. It is a cleaner, refreshed interface that primarily improved multi-site support.
For new installations, the one-click WordPress install sets everything up for you, including the MySQL database. WP Engine updates and routine maintenance, owning a WordPress site couldn’t be any easier.
Conclusion WP Engine is a highly regarded choice for WordPress Managed Hosting. While WP Engine may be a one-trick pony, it does that trick very well – albeit at a price. Demonstrating the willingness to listen to customers concerning support and the User Portal confirms the dedication WP Engine has to its clients.
WP Engine gets high marks for delivering reliability, security, and speed. Its pricing is higher than most shared hosting companies. However, its WordPress specific features help offset the additional cost.
WP Engine would be a good choice for the WordPress user who doesn’t want to deal with the technical side of things, yet have reliability, security, and fast-loading web pages. Its range of plans allows for scalability and the ability to handle websites of any size from startups to ones dealing with millions of visitors per month.
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