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WP Engine Review — The Best Overall Managed WordPress Hosting. WP Engine was the first. What is a managed WordPress site? To understand this, you first need to understand what hosting is in general. Website hosting refers to storing your website data on a public computer (called.

Most managed hosting solutions tweak and tailor their service to the needs of a specific platform or CMS (content management system). With nearly 35% of the world’s websites being built on WordPress, it’s hardly surprising that managed WordPress hosting is becoming a must have for the less code-savvy among us.

In this article, we’ll look at why managed WordPress hosting is becoming so desirable and review some affordable options.

The problem with generic hosting

Traditional hosting providers offer infrastructure, but often don’t have the skill force to help users navigate through WordPress-related queries. For anyone who isn’t experienced in building websites, running a site on WordPress often means slow loading and downtime if the host they’ve chosen isn’t up to par.

If hiring a sysAdmin or spending the time it takes to learn about plugin compatibility, certificates, or server optimization in general is not something you see yourself doing, fret not.

With managed WordPress hosting, all server optimization tasks, plugin updates and lots more are handled for you. With automated backups, committed support from WordPress enthusiasts, top notch security, and almost no outages, it’s hardly surprise managed WordPress hosting has grown so much in popularity.

The main drawback when you’re starting out, though, can be pricing. Some of the top-of-the-line managed hosts – such as Kinsta, for example – can cost you from $30 to $60 and $100 a month or more for small plans. Surely not a cost you’d like to take upon yourself, and especially if you’re just starting out.

What I want to point out is that if chosen right, managed hosting can be very cost effective for marketers, content creators, aspiring bloggers and small to medium sized businesses.

Managed Wordpress

What follows is our rundown of the most important traits of managed WordPress hosting and some top recommendations of the hosting companies that offer some interesting managed hosting options.

The best part, with some of them you can get a quality managed hosting plan for less than $15 a month … or even less than $8 with one or two of them.

Thus, some key points to consider:

Speed indeed

Managed hosting plans generally offer better loading times. However, in all honesty, this is not usually the result of some “added WordPress magic,” but is more due to the overall quality of the host’s infrastructure across all of their available hosting plans, nut just managed.

Overall, though, it is fair to say that going with a managed WordPress hosting solution gives you all the right to expect better performance.

For instance, here’s a chart presenting our own experiments in terms of load times when comparing a standard web hosting plan against a managed one:

(Charts by Visualizer Lite.)

Under the hood, managed WordPress hosting packages also tend to include other optimizations that go alongside the server itself. Those are things such as an optimized CDN (content delivery network), good caching (integrated caching plugins), plus optimal configurations of PHP, MySQL and Apache, enhancing the performance even more.

Support support support!

A key differentiator lies in the fact that managed WordPress hosting providers usually have a team of trained individuals ready to hold your hand through the ins and outs of your WordPress site.

For instance, one of our top recommended companies, SiteGround, has been known for their great support that’s willing to bend even their own policies just to please the customer. As a matter of fact, their support has gotten a 4.7 / 5 score from our audience in a hosting survey that we did last year.

So, before snapping up a managed hosting offer solely based on low pricing, find out about their support by reading user reviews.

Optimized user experience

Think of managed WordPress hosting in terms of software as opposed to infrastructure. Personally, the killer selling points of managed WordPress hosting are user friendly dashboards, simplified control panels, and easy to navigate GUI.

The more comfortable you grow with your WordPress site the more you may want to do with it. Check if the managed WordPress host pack you’re considering includes staging environment too. This will help you try out new themes and plugins before deploying to live production. Another point to consider, If you’re coming from another hosting provider or server, migrating becomes much easier and is usually included in managed WordPress plans for free.

If you want to learn more about the types of WordPress hosting or how to get started with WordPress in general, check out either of these guides of ours:

Now, let’s go through the top affordable managed WordPress hosting offers in the market:

Top recommended managed WordPress hosting plans available

1. Hostinger

Hostinger is a recent addition to our managed WordPress hosting list. They offer 100% uptime speed and robust performance while being cheapest of all the hosting services we tested.

You can set up a single WordPress site for unbeatable $0.80 per month (for the first billing cycle). Interestingly, when it’s time to renew, Hostinger will still offer you a better price than most hosts do for the initial period. The renewal price starts from $2.15 per month.

Hostinger has WordPress specific features like WP-CLI to help you install plugins and configure multisite installations. But do know that Hostinger has a comparatively slower response rate when it comes to support. We’d recommend choosing SiteGround if support is your main concern.

Read our in-depth Hostinger review here.

2. SiteGround

We love the fact these guys have grown so much in the last decade. With entry level pricing at $6.99 a month, bullet-fast loading times, great uptime and heavenly support, SiteGround is number one on our list of affordable managed WordPress hosting.

For a start, from the moment you make your first inquiry till well after purchasing their service, SiteGround’s customer support will not let you down. If you’re looking to host one site only, the StartUp 10GB plan allows up to 10k visitors a month. However $9.99 for multiple sites and 20GB a month GrowBig plan is very reasonable for anyone expecting up to 25k visits per month.

Read our in-depth SiteGround review here.

3. DreamHost

One thing we can be sure of is DreamHost stay true to their uptime promise. They even go as far as giving users an extra day of service for every hour of downtime a site hosted with them may have. Added to this is a 97 day money back guarantee. The cheapest option is $16.95 a month.

Bear in mind that this is DreamHost’s shared WordPress hosting, ideal for those who will be optimizing the site themselves. For prime customer service and fully managed updates to your site the price goes up to $71.95 per month.

Read our in-depth DreamHost review here.

4. Flywheel

Flywheel is one of the few companies officially recommended at WordPress.org (along with SiteGround and DreamHost, by the way), and there’s a really good reason for it.

First off, interacting with the platform is truly beginner-friendly and easy to do. Basically no learning curve at all. They have data centers around the world (which helps your site performance guaranteeing good load times all around the world). Plus, there’s built-in caching and automatic backups.

Now, about the pricing. If you’re just getting started with your very first website, Flywheel has a plan called “Tiny.” It’s $13 a month (if paid annually), works up to 5,000 monthly visitors, you get 5GB of disk space, 20GB of bandwidth and an SSL certificate included for free.

Read our in-depth Flywheel review here.

5. WP Engine

WP Engine is perhaps the most well-known hosting company in the WordPress space. They offer really good hosting plans that are optimized for WordPress, 24/7 chat support of very high quality (currently rated 4.5 / 5 by our survey respondents), staging environments, and a load of other perks that make it a great one-stop solution for your WordPress site.

The downside, though, is the pricing. The cheapest option available is $30 a month ($27 with our discount if you sign up for 12 months up front). That plan allows you to have one WordPress install, get up to 25,000 visitors a month, and use up to 10GB of disk space.

Read our in-depth WP Engine review here.

6. A2 Hosting

Last but not least, we have A2 Hosting. Their managed plans run off a VPS setup – a virtual private server. This is a bit more of a heavy-hitter among hosting plans.

The $25 a month option allows you to use up to 75GB of storage and 2TB of transfer. You also get 4GB of server RAM and 4 vCPUs.

Overall, A2 Hosting has a good reputation in the market, and we’ve recommended them a number of times before for different purposes and types of websites. Overall, if you have the budget, you will be happy with their service.

Read our in-depth A2 Hosting here.

In summary

So there you have it. It is possible to enjoy the managed WordPress hosting experience even for under ten bucks a month. Or, you can get something more expensive too if you feel that you need a hosting setup that’s a bit more capable.

Remember to leave your comments below and share your experiences with managed WordPress hosting platforms.

Original text by Mercedes Arias-Duval and Karol K.

* This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links and then purchase the product, we’ll receive a commission. No worries though, you’ll still pay the standard amount so there’s no cost on your part.

In today’s world, creating a website and running it on WordPress is a common occurrence, but on second thoughts, it is indeed rare to find individuals who have the skills to manage upgrades, monitor servers, and fine tune management skills.

Many websites run on WordPress, and hence, it makes sense that we have a dedicated hosting type specially designed for handling WordPress, and Managed WordPress does this.

What Do We Mean by Managed WordPress Hosting?

Managed WordPress hosting is a type of web hosting service wherein all the technical intricacies involved in running WordPress is taken care of by the host. If you delve deeper, technical aspects include speed, security, backups, uptime, scalability, performance, and more. Other features included with this hosting service include website migration, scanning for viruses, caching, WordPress updates, and creating staging sites.

In a nutshell, WordPress hosting oversees all WordPress-related technicalities such as security issues besides offering a 1-click WordPress installation or migration. Generally, hosts run multiple software, and hence, many of them don’t optimize one exclusive software. For instance, they might run a Joomla site, a WordPress site, and more. A managed WordPress host specializes in running the WordPress site and assures A1 service—right from taking care of the OS and command-line tools to the file system. When a host offers customized WordPress service, the company takes every effort to highlight WordPress’s advantages while minimizing its disadvantages such that the output is commendable.

Advantages of Managed WordPress Hosting

Run as an exclusive hosting type by some hosting companies, Managed WordPress Hosting thrives as one of the best hosting types available to customers. It’s a pleasure to realize that there are some benefits available only in this hosting type.

• WordPress functions dynamically, and increased traffic can affect server resources, thereby impacting uptime and site availability. Any hosting company that specializes in WordPress hosting comes to our rescue here as they take every optimized step possible to keep our site responsive and functional at all times.
• If a company takes care of multiple hosting types, there are ample chances that they face difficulty in handling WordPress-related technical issues. If you have any concerns and the concerned support technician isn’t knowledgeable to handle it, you lose precious business time that, in turn, leads to loss of finance. But, in managed WordPress Hosting, the customer service individuals expertise in WordPress-related areas and hence, find it easy to find solutions to all kinds of problems.
• One of the most commendable features of managed WordPress hosting is undeniable performance and uptime that means that we can expect high-performance— such hosts also guarantee the use of the latest technology and architecture.
• All updates, including security and WordPress-related ones, happen automatically. The host sends notifications of any updates well in advance such that you have time to prepare
• Automatic and manual backups happen regularly such that you don’t lose any important data, and restoration is easier.
• A one-click staging environment helps you test your latest updates, changes, PHP, and plugins on a different site from your production site. Hence, testing is made extremely simple and doesn’t affect your website’s performance at any time.
• Ability to get your WordPress site up and running in no time using the automatic WordPress setup option provided by the host company. Just use the WordPress install feature that comes loaded with all necessary database connections.
• The WordPress hosting dashboard is user-friendly, straightforward, and simple. The dashboard is a resource database as it helps gain insight into visitor/usage statistics, provides others with access to your account, prompts in case of outdated plugins, presents the current WordPress version used, and more that help individuals improve their overall usability and performance.
• Assured rapid page loading time as WordPress hosting takes care of your website’s server-level caching, thereby speeding up your site speed. When server-level caching is present, it helps you bypass the WordPress caching plugin, thereby optimizing performance to a great extent.
• Managed WordPress hosting guarantees one of the highest levels of security. For instance, if any popular plugin has a security leak that other hosts cannot do anything about, your WordPress hosting company helps stop installing the plugin, or if it has already been installed, even helps in the deactivation of the plugin. WordPress-specific hosts act faster, react smarter, and provide efficient security solutions compared to other hosts.
• Scalability is another commendable feature of WordPress hosts as they come fully equipped to handle sudden traffic spikes with plenty of resources allocated to your site.

Disadvantages of Managed WordPress Hosting

• You enjoy all the advantages of a WordPress-only host, but, at the same time, such provisioning is also disadvantageous as you cannot get any other site. Sometimes you might be able to run different sites, but mostly, they become inactive once the host discovers them
• Many plugins (such as third-party) are banned by Managed WordPress hosts but with a good reason such as security or performance. Better security can never be a disadvantage unless you are desperate to use the blocked plugin for some purpose
• The pricing is expensive and mostly on the higher side as there is no compromise made on the quality and features

Is Managed WordPress Hosting the Best Plan to Meet Your Needs?

Ask yourself whether you have a small or medium-scale business running, if your website attracts high-level traffic, or is looking for exclusive WordPress hosting. If the answer to any of these questions is positive, a managed WordPress hosting is an excellent plan to meet your needs as you save ample time and human resources, and improve performance.

Before choosing a Managed WordPress Host, make sure that the company doesn’t fool you by substituting modified sharing hosting with Managed WordPress hosting. Generally, Managed WordPress hosts fix a price for the resources offered but don’t fret if your usage goes above the set threshold. Find hosts that allow you to pay overage fees and charge by bandwidth.

Choose a host that divides the workload over a couple of servers, thereby preventing downtime or poor performance during high traffic or power outages.

Alternatives

A modified shared hosting is an excellent choice to Managed WordPress hosting as you enjoy staging sites and automatic updates. Don’t expect the same efficiency and performance as Managed WordPress hosting, but it is a better fit if that’s the only budget that could be afforded. You could also choose any host that offers support to various sites, including WordPress. Again here, the performance is compromised, but the pricing is lower.

Managed Wordpress Login

Final Words on Managed WordPress Hosting

You love WordPress for its simplicity, versatility, and ease of use, and if you have used WordPress to launch your blog or website, don’t hesitate to choose the WordPress hosting service and be free of all technical handling.

Choosing Managed WordPress hosting helps you stay in peace and incur traffic spikes without glitches besides providing the highest security, reliability, and performance.

Managed Wordpress Hosting

Any big business or organizations requiring high security, unmatched performance, and super reliability ought to choose Managed WordPress hosting. So, if your company uses a WordPress site, ensure that you select a host excelling in this CMS (Content Management System). There are a couple of excellent hosts available in the market. Look at each of their features, pricing, and quality, and then make an informed choice. Managed WordPress hosting costs higher but, consider this is an investment for your growing business. So, don’t hesitate to opt for the expensive Managed WordPress Hosting plan unless you run short of budget.