WP Engine: the pros and cons of this WordPress hosting

Given the success of WordPress as a solution for Digital Marketing, many companies provide services focused on the CMS — Content Management System. 

One good example of that is the WP hosting platforms. Those systems help customers get started on the web quickly. 

Considering the vast number of options on the internet, there’s one special: WP Engine. They offer a managed solution that takes care of all the technicalities and leaves teams focusing only on content.

This way, it’s easier to create a functional website to convert visitors into leads, boost sales, and help the company grow. 

However, it’s necessary to pay attention to the pros and cons of WP Engine so you can choose the suitable service for you.

Here’s what we’re going to address:

• What is WP Engine?
• What does the host offer?
• What are the pros and cons of WP Engine’s service?

Keep reading to find out!

 

What is WP Engine?

The company WP Engine started in 2010, founded by Jason Cohen. Since then, they’ve been providing WordPress-centered host services in order to support enterprises that need this kind of service. 

They offer many plans to supply flexibility, scalability, security, and easy-to-use tools. 

Those plans are diverse to fulfill the different demands of the companies. By doing that, they can talk to everyone, from big enterprises to small agencies. 

WP Engine focuses only on WordPress, which means they gather specialists and tools to boost results on the platform. It also implies that their members know all about WP: how to get better performance, how to be safe, and how to achieve stability.

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Themes, plugins, PHP, updates, security breaches: they master everything that is part of the WP world. 

Therefore, teams can have a better experience and get the best out of the CMS. Then, they can generate more value to their leaders, with more leads and revenue.

That’s the primary difference between WP Engine and other providers. The fact that they only work with one CMS makes them experts and authority.

Brands can rely on WP Engine because the company will know how to face the main problems and how to present the right solutions.

Managed vs. Shared

Their service is managed, which means it’s different from shared hosting. By the way, when we talk about “shared hosting”, we mean that many different customers will use the same resources needed to run a website. It’s like sharing a house. 

Shared hosts are easier to deal with and are also cheaper. However, they represent more significant risks for brands.

Besides, sharing the same server may cause uptime issues, once a member uses too many resources, or security issues when any of the users get attacked.

With managed services such as WP Engine, you don’t have to worry about that. The company will offer a server for you and a whole set of components for your demands. It indicates that the plan is personalized to meet your specific needs.

That also means that the chances of success are higher. The term “managed” comes from the fact that providers will control pretty much everything. Your team will only handle the content. 

Security, performance, and uptime will be WP Engine’s responsibility.

When we consider support, managed hosting plans are also great. By the way, WP Engine is known for its excellent assistance, which is fast and reliable.

Plus, you’ll have support from people who know WordPress to help you with infrastructure, themes, frameworks, plugins, and updates. 

 

What does the host offer?

So, let’s analyze what exactly the WP Engine is all about. 

They provide uptime, security, backups, and flexibility for their clients. They give you a powerful server and the tools to maintain it. Also, you get support for site migration and assistance 24/7.

One of the main resources of WordPress is its themes. 

That’s why a WP-focused host should offer something interesting when it comes to visual. For this matter, WP Engine provides a set of premium themes for free.

That indicates that people have more tools to personalize their site and create a unique presentation. Teams can decide which theme is better based on the company’s needs.

There is also a robust software for caching: Ever Cache. That’s a technology to store data on browsers and keep the visitor’s experience satisfying and fluid.

With that strategy, the site will be faster to load, which will also help your company rank higher on Google.

When we talk about WordPress, it is important to mention updates as well. They are a way to improve the performance and security of a website. 

WP Engine does offer automatic updates to enhance your site without you having to control it. 

Another exciting feature is the Transferable Installs. That’s essential to help developers build and test new ideas. They can keep those changes in a separate environment without getting them online right away.

When it comes to helping tools, WP Engine has experts ready to assist you, a knowledge base, and a blog. 

This way, they cover all the central topics on web hosting and WordPress issues. 

Let’s go over the plans and see the main differences among them. There are four different options to serve all kinds of companies: Startup, Growth, Scale, and Custom. 

Startup

The startup plan is for new brands. They are limited to 25000 visits, 10GB for storage, and 50GB of bandwidth per month. This first option only includes one website. 

For those starting with a low budget, that alternative will come in handy. 

Those startups can guarantee all the benefits that we talked about before without spending too much money. 

Growth

As the name suggests, the Growth plan is for brands getting bigger. In this kind of plan, you’ll get 100.000 visits per month, 20GB of local storage and 200GB of bandwidth. It includes up to 10 websites.

Scale

The Scale option is for those who need of 400.000 visits per month, 50GB of storage and more than 400GB of bandwidth. You can add 30 sites if you want. 

That is a plan for big companies that demand stability and more storage for their data.

Custom

Finally, we have the Custom plan. It’s for enterprises with millions of monthly visits, 1TB of data to store, and more than 400GB of bandwidth monthly. 

Managers can add up to 30 sites as well in this type.

 

What are the pros and cons of WP Engine’s service?

In this section, we are going to review the pros and cons of WP Engine’s service. 

Check it out!

Pros

One of the pros is the fact that WordPress comes preinstalled. It translates into automation. You won’t need to worry about technical parts, related to installation and maintenance.

Another benefit is the Ever Cache technology that we’ve mentioned previously, and the automatic updates and backup routines for free. If the team wants to restore the website to a previous point, it is easy as it was to make the backup copies in the first place.

Another good point about WP Engine’s hosting is the free global CDN offered. CDN stands for “content delivery network” and is a technology to make pages load faster. 

It redirects the site to servers around the world. So, whenever a visitor comes in, he will connect with the closest server. 

That means fewer seconds to load, better ranking on Google’s SERPs, and better user experience. 

SSL is another advantage. This is a standard to ensure the security and protection of data transference. Nowadays, it’s crucial to have that on a site since it’s a requirement from Google. 

There’s also a firewall and daily scans to make sure that each website is protected. For security, you also have searches for malicious plugins and the quick identification of common threats.

The partnership with Google Cloud Solutions and Amazon Web Services, foremost leaders on web hosting, helps with stability for real-time demands. You can always monitor your site’s performance and get useful insights and metrics.

WP Engine permits you to test their service before any commitment. The trial lasts up to 60 days. 

Cons

Well, it’s time to check the other side. What are the pitfalls of this hosting solution?

Firstly, WP Engine doesn’t offer email accounts or a domain name for free, like most of its competitors. 

Besides, they don’t provide cPanel interfaces. Their service focuses only on providing assistance and technical support for WordPress. That’s all. 

Despite the automation of technicalities, you have to be careful to configure SEO settings. They must be handled manually. 

Many people also complain about the prices. Since they are experts on WordPress and provide many unique resources for that, the solution is quite expensive. Their plans are not appropriate for brands that don’t need those many tools.

WP Engine also doesn’t provide infrastructure for other CMS. The lack of flexibility, in this case, might be a disadvantage.

There are a few sets of plugins and themes that don’t work with this host. Another con is: if you exceed your plan’s limitation, you will have to deal with additional charges. 

The support is available by chat and phone. But there’s a problem: for startups that acquired the first plan, the phone assistance is not an option.

WP Engine is one of the most popular hosting services in the world. They offer four main types of solutions to solve the problems of different teams and brands.

This company provides the infrastructure to build robust and stable websites. By partnering with it, the client will be able to work on a Digital Marketing strategy and even update the content in real-time. It is possible to do that without worrying about significant issues.

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