WPEngine Review by ODMWorld: Pros and Cons of WPEngine Web Hosting
Launched just nine years ago in 2010, WPEngine has become one of the most established web hosting services available, attracting clients who require premium hosting for high-performance personal sites, complex sites for enterprises, and hosting for webmasters. In this WPEngine review, we’ll explore WPEngine’s pros and cons so you can decide whether WPEngine is the right web hosting service for you.
WPEngine Review: Pros and Cons
WPEngine generally attracts a clientele who require a premium service, and in WPEngine’s case, that means great performance, amazing customer service, and intuitive usability. But do they deliver on what they promise? Let’s look at WPEngine’s pros:
Speed: One of the reasons for WPEngine’s popularity is the speed they offer. They are able to consistently maintain a fast load time (under a second) even when there are thousands of visitors using the site. They offer one of the best load speeds of all web hosting services available, so if speed is important to you WPEngine should definitely be a web host you consider.
Backup: The level of backup you get from WPEngine is far better than many other web hosting services. They offer automatic daily back up and free support and damage repair if you are hacked.
Customer Support: One of the reasons WPEngine is so beloved by its users is for the customer support they offer. WPEngine only offers WordPress hosting, so all their support technicians are experts and able to tackle any problem you may have. Their live chat support staff respond instantaneously, are always human beings (no bots) who speak good English, and they are happy to answer any query you may have. Plus, they offer an extensive knowledgebase resource area, so if you’d rather look it up for yourself, you can find step-by-step guides for almost anything there.
Uptime: WPEngine offers impressive uptimes of over 99.99% so your website will
likely never experience downtime, even when there are thousands of visitors using the site. If uptime is the most important factor for your choice in web host, you won’t find a hosting service better, though there are some who come close.
Site Migration: WPEngine offers free site migration for all new customers.
SSL: WPEngine understands the importance of SSL certificates, and all plans include automatic certificates.
Storage: WPEngine’s offers storage that is as good as all other hosting services at this level. (10GB for their STARTUP level.)
Server Locations: WPEngine offers a huge number of server locations – currently 19 across the world, and there aren’t many web hosting services who can compete with this.
FTP: WPEngine only works with SFTP accounts. (Which is a good thing!)
WPEngine offers a service that is capable of holding up under heavy use – even when thousands of people are using the site. They deliver high-performance hosting and their speed and uptimes are second-to-none.
So, what about WPEngine’s Cons?
Pricing: As you might already expect, WPEngine’s pricing reflects their premium service and branding. They offer three main plans, “STARTUP”, “GROWTH”, and “SCALE”. STARTUP is their plan for personal sites, and it starts at $35 a month for up to 25,000 visitors so is far more expensive than other personal-level plans. Their premium plan GROWTH is for sites achieving a high visitor rate (up to 400,000 a month) and is $290 a month.
Number of Visitors: WPEngine’s number of visitors allowed per pricing level isn’t high – there are cheaper hosting competitors which allow more visitors per month for significantly less money. For this level of service, the visitors allowed per month should really be higher. That said, it’s not uncompetitive, but you can find better.
Bandwidth: The bandwidth WPEngine offers is good (50GB – 400GB depending on your plan) but not unlimited. There are significantly cheaper hosting services which offer unlimited bandwidth.
Email Accounts: No email accounts are provided with WPEngine – which seems like an oversight. While large enterprises may need a dedicated email provider, smaller businesses and personal brands would likely benefit from managing their email hosting with their web hosting.
Unlimited Websites: They don’t have an unlimited site option – their SCALE level offers 15 websites, so if you are someone who owns a lot of small sites, WPEngine likely isn’t the right choice for you.
WPEngine is an ideal option for established businesses who know their sites need to be able to stand up to heavy traffic, but WPEngine’s pricing will push it out of the realm of affordability for most small businesses and personal blogs. We recommend WPEngine to large businesses for its incredible uptimes, speed, and customer care. If you want to learn more about WPEngine, visit their site by clicking here.
If you’re looking for a hosting service that’s more budget–friendly for personal blogs and small businesses, we recommend Siteground, so check out our Siteground Review,