Unbiased WP Engine Web Hosting Review 2024: Is WP Engine Worth it? Read this First!
Are you considering WP Engine web hosting to create a website, but not sure if it’s for you? Some ask..Why use WP Engine? Is WP Engine worth it? These are questions that MILLIONS of people just like YOU want to know. In this unbiased WP Engine web hosting review FIRST before signing up to see what I discovered! If you don’t, you will regret it later!
Disclaimer: This page has affiliate links. If used, I may receive referral commission. This doesn’t affect your WP Engine pricing at all, rather gives you the best discount on web hosting services.
Table of Contents
What to Expect In This WP Engine Web Hosting Review?
In this WP Engine review, you will learn more about who WP Engine is, the pricing of their managed web hosting packages. Also, you will also learn about their uptime performance on their servers, customer support and finally what I think about WP Engine web hosting in comparison to their competitors. You will read about WP Engine benefits of using them along with pros and cons.
I have been online for several years and during this time I have tried several web hosting services. Some have been shared web hosting while others where managed. WP Engine is a dedicated “WordPress specific” managed hosting service. This means in a nutshell WordPress is their main focus and all they do.
Some web hosting providers offer a wide range of different web hosting services, but don’t really focus or specialize any one field. This is one thing that really makes WP Engine web hosting services unique from others in this same playing field. I will discuss shortly a few other competitors and they differ in this unbiased WP Engine web hosting review.
Why Use WP Engine Anyway?
As a blogger, I know how important it is to find a good and super reliable web hosting company to create websites. So I know and understand where you are right now. You simply want to make sure that decision that you make is a good one and that you don’t feel sorry about it later. That’s why when I saw many promos online about WP Engine web hosting, I wanted to look into it myself.
I had to ask myself that very question before signing up..Why use WP Engine? So I went on a search to get answers to this very question with some research..
Well some time I decided to do some hard research and really give WP Engine a try back in January 2017. Since then, there have been some slight changes with WP Engine pricing, benefits and resources.
The New WP Engine Pricing
Let’s review first what they offer quickly. You can 4 Months FREE with any of the plans below at checkout.
- Is great to just 1 website
- Only costs $13/month on yearly plans
- 20 GB Bandwidth
- 5 GB Storage
- Can handle up to 5,000 visitors each month
- Free Site Migrations
- Free CDNs
Startup Plan
- Is great to just 1 website
- Only costs $20/month on yearly plans
- 50 GB Bandwidth
- 10 GB Storage
- Can handle up to 20,000 visitors each month
- Free Site Migrations
- Free CDNs
Professional Plan
- Allows you to create 3 websites
- Only costs $40/month if billed yearly
- 125 GB bandwidth
- 15 GB Storage
- Can handle up to 75,000 visitors each month
- Free Site Migrations
- Free CDNs
- Allows you to create 10 websites
- Only costs $77/month if billed yearly
- 200 GB bandwidth
- 20 GB Storage
- Can handle up to 100,000 visitors each month
- Free Site Migrations
- Free CDNs
Scale Plan
- Allows you to create 30 websites
- Only costs $194/month
- 500 GB bandwidth
- 50 GB Storage
- Can handle up to 400,000 visitors each month
- Free Site Migrations
- Free CDNs
The pricing above reflects the yearly WP Engine pricing of their Worpress managed hosting. Get started right now and 4 months FREE of WP Engine managed WordPress hosting today! [Lite Plan will give 2 Months]
What Do People Think About WP Engine?
To make sure that this is an unbiased WP Engine review, I wanted to highlight some positives and negatives.
WP Engine Reddit
When you search for WP Engine reviews on reddit, you will see many mixed thoughts. Many praise them for their awesome support, fast performance and ability to host several WordPress websites. However, there are a short few that think that they are a bit pricey. The is the case in one thread titled “WP Engine Worth the Dollars“.
On another WP Engine reddit thread, many commentors state that they would recommend them to others being they are great for non-techies. They state that the premium pricing for their managed WordPress hosting is justified with their fast support, solid, reliable service. One client mentioned that he had been using WP Engine for several years and very happy with service. They automatically make backups and restore points, easily setup SSL certificates and renew them.
Once complaint referenced some banned WP Engine plugins. Some feel that being that it’s a self-hosted blog or website that they should be able to install any WordPress plugin that they want to use. However, being that WP Engine servers and platform already have the features built in, there is no need to install these 3rd-party plugins.
Also, many past users have complained & shared feedback about overcharges for website hits, bad customer support, lots of site downtime and more. [Sources Matthew Woodard, ShoutmeLoud]
WP Engine Reviews On Trustpilot
On respected websites like Trustpilot.com, there is a lot of positive feedback there as well regarding how WP Engine. However, you can see a breakdown of how people feel that have wrote WP Engine reviews on the site.
- 88% of people said WP Engine was Excellent
- 2% said that they are Great
- 3% said that WP Engine services are Poor
- 7% say that they are Bad
So why do I share all of these reviews and feedback with you? Well, as stated before I wanted to make sure that this is an unbiased WP Engine review. This way you can decide for yourself if there are really for you or not.
The fact of the matter is that ALL web hosting providers will have something that a client doesn’t like. The truth is that you can’t please everyone. However, when comparing WP Engine with many others online, they have a superior and robust performance overall.
Currently over 1,500,000 websites are using WP Engine managed WordPress hosting in over 150 countries. This means that they are a trusted and reliable brand.
I remember when I got started with them a few years ago, they only had about 50,000 hosted on their servers. So they have really grown exponentially over the years.
If you are someone that is cheap and really don’t care about having super fast performance online right now, then perhaps you should look elsewhere. That’s my honest opinion.
However, you should know that Google values and gives preference to certain websites. Google gives higher SEO rankings in search engines to sites with better website speed performance on servers. This means that the higher your Google rankings are, the more traffic you will get and thus sales and conversions. I mean think about it, you made it to this WP Engine review for reason.
Of course having the best web hosting comes with a price that is worth it IF and only IF you are willing to pay for high quality & better customer support.
So as part this WP Engine web hosting review, I wanted to share a few competitors of WP Engine.
WP Engine Alternatives and Competitors..
To make sure that this was a transparent & unbiased WP Engine web hosting review, I wanted to provide you with some alternatives to WPEngine. These would be great if you currently host there and want migrate to another host or simply just looking for a more affordable option for your pockets.
When you perform a search for the best WordPress hosting, you will no doubt come across many to create websites online fast. Take a look at these a few that also provide managed WordPress hosting services that compete with WP Engine web hosting.
NOTE: These competitors below are more reliable than WP Engine.
Cloudways, a cloud based managed host with 60 data centers globally starts at only $10/month. They currently offer a FREE TRIAL HERE on their cloud services.
Kinsta – starts are $30/month with 28 data centers globally and is built on Google Cloud Platform. Kinsta offers a 30 day money back guarantee with 2 Month Free on annual plans. Click here www.kinsta.com to get started right now!
Devrims premium managed hosting has a 6 DAY FREE TRIAL HERE money back guarantee & starts at only $10.95/month. The cool thing is that you can pay as you go month to month or pay per hour you use, whichever you prefer. You can pick out your own servers to use and select which resources are needed along with your preferred CMS platform to build on. Click here www.devrims.com to get started now!
Nestify starts at only $9/month. Nestify offers an 7 DAY FREE TRIAL HERE & there is no credit card needed. Similar to WP Engine, Nestify also offers a 60 day money back guarantee and it’s really designed for VPS users with AWS. One advantage over WP Engine plans is that all of Nestify VPS plans support unlimited web traffic & lets you create unlimited sites. Click here www.nestify.io to get started right now!
SiteGround – starts at only $2.99/month & offers a 30 day money back guarantee with free site transfers and SSL certificates. Click here www.siteground.com for more details!
As you can see, there are many WordPress hosting options to create websites. Should you use WP Engine web hosting services? I honestly must say in this WP Engine web hosting review that I do recommend them to others to create and host sites online.
Why? When WP Engine first started out, they had super reliable and fast page loads and great server performance. Today, it’s even better!
Of course, speed is extremely important especially for SEO rankings and also user experience. However, all of this has changed with their platform and also had an affect on clients.
Why do I mention this? Choosing the right hosting company is probably the most important decision that you will EVER make for your website and business. I believe that you can be cheap with your web hosting and yet sometimes suffer later. Or you can pay a little bit more now for a rock solid reliable host and not have to worry later.
The reality is that downtime affects your website many ways especially with cheap shared hosting. Your website will lose money daily, SEO rankings will drop, bad user experiences and more. But if your website is up, then you are making money online and ranking higher in the SERPS. It’s that simple and really easy to understand.
So in this WP Engine web hosting review you should understand that it’s important to choose well when it comes to where you host. You should not settle for less performance. This is a big reason why I do recommend using WP Engine for hosting sites online.
WP Engine uptime performance is 99.99%. This means that they are super reliable and have rock-solid servers.
FREE CDNs
So you may or may not know, but as your website grows online your web traffic will also. When this happens and you experience spikes in web traffic, CDNs will be your best friend and there are many reasons to use them.
When you search for web hosting online, a reliable one like WP Engine should have FREE CDNs.
A CDN is a Content Delivery Network and they are super important because they avoid your website from experiencing downtime or crashing due to surges and increased traffic. They also distribute your website’s content across the globe no matter where your visitors come from.
Many web hosting providers online charge for CDNs, but I have shared with you above some of the best managed WordPress hosting alternatives to WP Engine that you can use that offer it as well. But again, WP Engine is fully equipped with these with every package.
WP Engine Refund Policy
WP Engine web hosting services offers a 60–day money back guarantee. There are some web hosting providers out there that actually extend the same or longer.
For example, other managed WordPress hosting providers like Pressidium and Hostwinds offer 60 days refunds to clients.
Inmotion hosting gives 90 days.
However, Dreamhost, mentioned above is only $2.59/month and offers a 97 day money back guarantee!
Mochahost offers a 180 day refund policy.
I mention these WP Engine alternatives again to show you what’s available out there for creating websites online. All of these providers comparable managed WordPress, VPS and dedicated hosting options that are cheaper than WP Engine. However, there is one thing that you need to consider that is extremely important for your SEO rankings and also your customers that search for you online.
Do you really want to go cheap and settle for slower page performance and speeds? Or do you want rock solid web hosting services that are super reliable with fast knowledgeable customer support? Buying managed WordPress hosting is like having a Mercedes Benz versus a Hyundai. Both cars run and will get you where you need to go. However, only one has better quality and overall performance and it obviously comes with a premium attached. So it really breaks down to what do you want for your online business?
I highly recommend that you tryout WP Engine to test it out for yourself! Remember that they offer a 60 day money back guarantee on managed WordPress hosting services. Get started by clicking below right now! Be sure to use WP Engine code wpe4free at checkout to get 4 Months FREE!
Overall Benefits of Using WP Engine
- Great for Companies of All Sizes
- Global Content Delivery Network
- FREE SSL Certificates & SSH Access
- Fast Page Loads
- Awesome Customer Support
- Genesis Framework
- Over 35 StudioPress Themes
- Staging Environments
- Multisite Funtions
- Free Site Migrations
- Fully Managed WordPress (Automatic Updates of Plugins, Cores, PHP, etc)
- Protection Against DDos & Brute Force Attacks
- Page Performance Monitoring
- 60 Day Money Back Guarantee
Overall Disadvantages Of Using WP Engine
- No email hosting
- You must purchase a domain name externally and then connect it to your hosting plan to create your WordPress website. Super easy to do, but FYI.
- WP Engine pricing may be a bit much for beginners on a super tight budget creating their first website online.
- There are some 3rd party WordPress plugins that are banned for use with WP Engine being these functions are already in place on a server level. So this means that many plugins for caching that you might be used to installing are not authorized.
Unbiased WP Engine Web Hosting Review Conclusion
As I mentioned in this WP Engine review, WP Engine was a super reliable web hosting service to create your business websites, however no longer is.
As a blogger, I realize how hard it is for most people to find a web host that’s actually affordable and reliable. Sometimes it’s equally hard to find a web hosting provider that has all the resources you actually need. Thankfully, I have used many web hosting companies over the years and know which ones actually work and have great uptime performance & customer support.
As mentioned in the beginning, I simply wanted to provide you with some true value and help you to see the WP Engine benefits. Also, I wanted to show you some better ways to save tons of money on your business by using web hosting that is reliable with great reputations.
As you could see with this unbiased WP Engine web hosting review, WP Engine plans are not cheap, BUT they offer true value and rock solid uptime performance on servers and fast page loads.
I hope that you enjoyed this review and found it helpful. If so, share it!
So what do you personally think about WP Engine web hosting plans? Have you used them in the past? If so, what was your experience with them? Which plan will you get started with today? Give me your comments below..
WP Engine Frequently Asked Questions:
How much does WP Engine cost annually?
If you want to save the most money online with ANY web hosting provider, it’s always recommended and best to pay yearly versus going month to month. In the case of WP Engine pricing, they have several plans that you can select from whether you are looking for WordPress hosting, WooCommerce or something custom made.
If you just want to get started right now with their Startup that lets you create 1 website, then the normal costs are $360/year. However, you can get it for only $240/year if paid upfront. This breaks down to only $20/month. This means that you are getting 4 months FREE if you get the annual plan versus going month-to-month. This will save you more money with your managed WordPress hosting plan.
What is WP Engine best for?
I think that WP Engine is best for those who have tried shared web hosting and looking to make a change with their business online. Shared web hosting typically has very slow page loads, bad uptime performance and customer support. If you have outgrown your shared web hosting provider and looking upgrade to a more robust web hosting provider, then you should consider migrating your site to WP engine servers today. Site migrations are FREE and they even have plugin that can used to do entire thing once your files are backed up.
WP Engine is best for small business owners, companies of all sizes, enterprises, agencies, eCommerce, bloggers, WooCommerce, media sites, LMS course sites, multilingual sites and more!
Is WordPress Engine good?
WordPress Engine is super reliable with 99.99% uptime guarantee on servers. They put security first with websites protecting 24/7/365 against brute & DDoS attacks. There are website monitoring and scanning services that alert you when something is wrong. They have really fast customer support that is very knowledgeable with everything WordPress. Every web hosting plan offers fully managed services that automatically update software, daily backups, php, cores, plugins, etc. They offer a 60 day money back guarantee on web hosting packages.
Is WP Engine the same as WordPress?
WordPress is a very popular CMS that is used to create millions of websites, blogs and eCommerce online. It doesn’t require any techie or coding experience to use it. WordPress is not owned by WP Engine, however WP Engine focuses solely on fully Managed WordPress hosting services. This is all that they do and what sets them apart from their competitors online.
With WordPress software you must typically update it from time to time when bugs are fixed by developers. These updates keep your website safe and security from hackers online. The cool thing about using WP Engine WordPress hosting is that they will manage all of this for you automatically. This means that you can focus more of your time and energy on running your business versus on the mechanics, plugins and server related matters.
How much does WP Engine multisite cost?
If you want to convert your WordPress site into a multisite, you can do this with any EXCEPT the Startup plan. It will allow you do a number of things such as authorize others to build sites for you, create a company intranet, use server space more efficiently, streamline backups for consistency, lets you adds multiple administrators to perform several functions and more!
You can get started right now hosting a multisite for only $20 per month. If you need to additional sites, then you can do simple add-ons with your hosting plan. These features will allow your business to handle and manage more tasks.
What is WP Engine?
WP Engine is a premium managed WordPress hosting provider. Think of it as the VIP section of WordPress hosting: exclusive, high-quality, and designed for those who need the best performance and security for their WordPress websites. WP Engine handles all the technical details behind the scenes, from updates to security patches, so you can focus on creating great content. It’s like having a team of WordPress experts at your disposal 24/7. This means less hassle and more peace of mind, knowing that your site is in good hands.
How does WP Engine handle security?
Security is one of WP Engine’s top priorities. They have a multi-layered security approach that includes daily malware scans, real-time threat detection, and a firewall tailored specifically for WordPress. Plus, they automatically install WordPress updates and security patches to ensure your site is always protected against the latest threats. Imagine having a security guard who never sleeps, always watching over your site. WP Engine also offers free SSL certificates and backups, so in the unlikely event something does go wrong, you can quickly restore your site to a previous state.
What kind of support does WP Engine offer?
WP Engine’s support is top-notch. They offer 24/7 support via chat and phone, ensuring that help is always just a click or call away. Their support team is composed of WordPress experts who can assist with everything from simple troubleshooting to complex issues. It’s like having a tech-savvy friend you can rely on anytime you hit a snag. Additionally, WP Engine provides an extensive knowledge base and a community forum where you can find answers and advice from other users. This makes solving problems quicker and more efficient.
How does WP Engine ensure fast page load times?
Speed is crucial for website performance, and WP Engine excels here. They use a combination of caching technologies, a content delivery network (CDN), and fast SSD storage to ensure your site loads quickly. WP Engine’s EverCache technology optimizes the delivery of your site’s content, making sure that pages load almost instantly. Think of it as having a supercharged engine under the hood of your website. Moreover, WP Engine’s infrastructure is designed specifically for WordPress, which means it’s fine-tuned to deliver peak performance at all times.
Can WP Engine handle high traffic sites?
Absolutely! WP Engine is built to scale with your site, whether you have a small blog or a high-traffic ecommerce site. They offer various plans that cater to different levels of traffic, and their infrastructure is designed to handle traffic spikes without breaking a sweat. This is particularly beneficial if you experience sudden increases in visitors, such as during promotions or viral content. It’s like having a highway that expands to accommodate more cars during rush hour, ensuring smooth and uninterrupted traffic flow.
What are the pricing plans for WP Engine?
WP Engine pricing plans cater to different needs and budgets. Their Startup plan is great for small websites and blogs, offering basic features and support. The Growth plan is ideal for growing businesses, providing more resources and advanced features. For larger enterprises, the Scale plan offers premium features and top-tier performance. They also have custom plans for sites with specific requirements. Although WP Engine might be pricier than some other hosting options, the quality of service, security, and performance justifies the cost. It’s an investment in peace of mind and superior site performance.
How easy is it to migrate a site to WP Engine?
Migrating your site to WP Engine is quite straightforward, thanks to their automated migration plugin. This tool simplifies the process, allowing you to transfer your site with minimal hassle. You don’t need to be a tech wizard to get it done. Simply install the plugin, follow the step-by-step instructions, and your site will be moved over seamlessly. WP Engine also offers support during the migration process, so if you run into any issues, help is readily available. It’s like having a moving company handle all the heavy lifting for you, ensuring a smooth transition.
What makes WP Engine different from other hosting providers?
WP Engine stands out due to its exclusive focus on WordPress hosting, offering a managed service that takes care of all the technical aspects of running a WordPress site. Unlike general hosting providers, WP Engine provides optimized performance, enhanced security, and expert support specifically for WordPress. Their infrastructure is designed to get the best out of WordPress, from speed to security. Plus, their team consists of WordPress experts who are always available to assist. This specialized approach means you get a higher level of service and reliability, tailored specifically for your WordPress needs.