Summary
WP Engine offers managed WordPress hosting with enterprise-class infrastructure, which is WordPress-optimized for websites worldwide, backed by exceptional customer support.
But, is it the right choice for you? This WP Engine review will help clarify that question.
For
- Personalized control panel with advanced features
- Leveraging premium cloud infrastructure
- Comprehensive security measures
- Excellent customer support
- Free SSL, CDN, and Website Backups
- Fast Loading Time
Against
- Premium pricing
- Some WordPress plugins are blocked
- Complicated domain management
- No email hosting included
- It doesn’t support .htaccess
- Fairly minimal server resources
- No free domain
Introduction
WP Engine, founded in 2010, is one of the industry’s major managed WordPress hosting providers. Jason Cohen, a serial entrepreneur, founded WP Engine after recognizing a demand for dedicated WordPress hosting because of the expanding popularity of WordPress.
WP Engine has offices in Austin, San Antonio, London, Limerick, Brisbane, and Krakow. They have many notable clients, including National Geographic, Yelp, PBS, Asana, MyFitnessPal, and many more.
WP Engine is an excellent option for individuals searching for high-quality WordPress hosting with minimal fuss.
As part of our WP Engine review, we take a closer look at this well-known web hosting service so you can make an informed decision. By analyzing features, cost, user interface, and support quality, you can assess whether or not it is a suitable option for your website.
Plans and pricing
WP Engine offers a wide range of services, but the primary reason to pick one package over another is the number of monthly visits you receive. The local storage and bandwidth caps can also be limiting, but generally speaking, it’s easy enough to optimize your site so you can control the size of what’s on it.
It’s worth mentioning that all listed package fees in this section must be paid upfront for the whole year to get a discount. Expect a 20-30% premium if you opt for monthly payments.
Business WordPress Hosting
Managed Hosting Startup
- 1 website
- 10 GB storage
- 25,000 monthly visits
- 50 GB traffic
Managed Hosting Professional
- 3 websites
- 15 GB storage
- 75,000 monthly visits
- 125 GB traffic
Managed Hosting Growth
- 10 websites
- 20 GB storage
- 100,000 monthly visits
- 200 GB traffic
Managed Hosting Scale
- 30 websites
- 50 GB storage
- 400,000 monthly visits
- 500 GB traffic
As you can see from the above list, WP Engine plans have several constraints, including the number of sites you may host, the number of monthly visits, and space and traffic. Still, individual plans share certain features, including:
- Development and staging environments for website testing
- 24/7 chat assistance
- Versioning control with Git integration
- Unlimited SFTP accounts and SSH access are provided.
- Manual and automatic backups
- Free WordPress themes from Studiopress
- Global Content Delivery Network and in-built caching
- WordPress features, including staging
- Free cancellation for 60 days
Startup plan: This would be an excellent plan for a minor website or blog. Only if you deal with many big video or music files will the 10GB be too restrictive.
Professional plan: An excellent hosting plan for a developing enterprise, professional blog, or Ecommerce. Price- and feature-wise, it’s a significant upgrade over the Startup plan. This package makes more sophisticated capabilities, such as Multisite and Geo-targeting, accessible.
Growth plan: The most significant advantage of this plan over the Professional plan is that it allows you to host 10 websites.
Scale plan: Another significant improvement concerning the number of visitors and monthly cost, at $193 per month. The features are almost identical to those of the Growth plan; therefore, the focus is on optimizing bandwidth for a large, popular website.
WooCommerce Hosting
Ecommerce Hosting Startup
- 1 website
- 10 GB storage
- 25,000 monthly visits
- 50 GB traffic
Ecommerce Hosting Professional
- 3 websites
- 15 GB storage
- 75,000 monthly visits
- 125 GB traffic
- WordPress MultiSite
Ecommerce Hosting Growth
- 10 websites
- 20 GB storage
- 100,000 monthly visits
- 200 GB traffic
- WordPress MultiSite
Ecommerce Hosting Scale
- 30 websites
- 50 GB storage
- 400,000 monthly visits
- 500 GB traffic
- WordPress MultiSite
As with the Business WordPress Hosting plans, all Ecommerce packages essentially share the same features, and the only differentiator is the number of monthly visits, storage, bandwidth, and traffic. Otherwise, all plans are optimized for WordPress eCommerce and have the same capabilities, except the Startup plan can’t use the WordPress MultiSite feature. It would be best to choose your Ecommerce package based on the storage and traffic your website uses.
Headless WordPress Hosting / Atlas
Headless WordPress is a concept used to distinguish between the back-end and front-end components of WordPress. Due to its widespread use, developers and businesses may look to use the WordPress back end in various situations. Using the headless approach as an example, mobile applications may utilize WordPress as their backend and act like a typical mobile application.
WP Engine recently introduced its Atlas solution – headless WordPress plans. The business sells only a customized plan option, so you’ll need to contact them if you want to learn the pricing. In addition, they provide a free Sandbox solution for developers to test Atlas before committing.
Core features
WP Engine is a truly managed WordPress host, meaning it does more than simply host your WordPress website; it also offers a variety of tools to make your life simpler.
However, let’s first explore the fundamental hosting environment aspects. When you use WP Engine, you receive the following:
- Google Cloud network (for standard plans) or Amazon Web Services network (on the enterprise plans)
- Choose from eleven or more data centers for Google Cloud or nine or more data centers for AWS
- Integrated caching at the server level using Varnish and Memcached
- Integrated content distribution network (CDN)
- Free SSL certificates are available through Let’s Encrypt
- Web application firewall (WAF) to safeguard your website proactively
- Malware detection and free malware removal in the event of an infection
Then, you receive a plethora of useful features for handling simple maintenance and otherwise simplifying your life:
- 24/7 phone and live chat support
- Customized hosting control panel with helpful tools, such as a redirection manager
- Daily automated backups and storage for the 40 most recent backups
- Two staging environments (Staging and Development)
- Automatic core upgrades
- Automatic plugin upgrades with AI-powered evaluation (if a compatibility issue arises, WP Engine may roll back the modification automatically)
- User rights and activity log for your hosting service
WP Engine also provides a unique feature in that all users have free access to the popular Genesis Framework and StudioPress child themes.
You can enable their Geotarget function (a chargeable add-on), which identifies the user’s location and sends them customized information based on their location.
WP Engine lacks one standard function, though: email hosting. To create a bespoke email address ([email protected]), you’d have to use a different email hosting service.
In addition, it’s important to note that their support staff knows and breathes WordPress. Because they only focus on the CMS platform, you won’t have difficulty explaining your problem.
Interface
WP Engine’s hosting dashboard is well-designed and includes many essential features you won’t find on other providers. This is one of the benefits of managed WordPress hosting: you can access several features that simplify your life.
WP Engine designed its own unique hosting dashboard to assist you in managing your websites and service (there is no cPanel access, as with other shared hosts).
The primary dashboard provides an overview of the sites in your account and their actual usage:
As soon as you select a specific site, you’ll be presented with a specialized dashboard for that site, along with the following options:
Overall, the user experience of WP Engine is outstanding, and you have access to many helpful tools and features that will simplify your life.
Support options and quality
WP Engine provides support 24/7 for all plans. Live chat is the only method of assistance available on the StartUp plan. However, phone help is included in every other package. You must get the Professional package or above if you want phone assistance.
WP Engine provides exceptional customer service. It is common to receive a reply to your chat inquiries within a few seconds, as we did in most cases.
You may occasionally have to wait for a response if you call out during a busy period. Occasionally, we had to wait between 8 and 12 minutes for a reply to a message, but this was infrequent.
The WP Engine team is polite and helpful regarding the quality of assistance itself. In addition, because WP Engine only hosts WordPress websites, the support team is knowledgeable about both WordPress and the hosting infrastructure.
WP Engine does not disappoint when it comes to customer service.
The competition
Price is the primary reason you may want to avoid WP Engine. Even if you don’t need to host multiple websites, WP Engine might be expensive.
If you have numerous low-traffic sites (mainly non-profit ones), you may be able to save money without compromising too much performance by opting for a more typical shared host.
These are some viable options:
Skystra is an excellent alternative since it prioritizes fantastic performance, reliability, and assistance for WordPress and WooCommerce websites. Prices for hosting 1 WordPress website begin at $4.95 per month, and all hosting plans include free SSL, free CDN, free emails, and advanced features such as premium caching to increase website speed by up to 125%.
The primary distinction between Skystra and WP Engine is their superior support and performance. Learn more about Skystra by reading our review.
With shared hosting options beginning at $2.75 per month and a website builder accessible for $4.95 per month, HostGator is another excellent option for those on a tight budget. All HostGator plans include free SSL, a free domain in the first year, and live help around-the-clock. Please read our review of HostGator to learn more.
Final verdict
WP Engine’s pricing might be somewhat intimidating compared to other web hosting providers. WP Engine is, nonetheless, well worth the cost if you are searching for an enhanced, top-tier WordPress hosting experience.
WP Engine provides more than WordPress hosting, including quick page loads, content delivery, intelligent account management, and strong security measures. WP Engine is a viable hosting platform for its primary market, consisting of high-traffic site operators, internet do-it-yourselfers, and WordPress developers.
The platform’s pricing and complexity may make it less appropriate for beginners.
Infoceptor's editorial team handpicks all of the products and services it recommends, regardless of external influences. Affiliate links appear in some of our stories. We may receive an affiliate commission if you purchase something through one of these links, which helps us stay independent and support our great team.
