WPEngine Hosting Reviews – Recommended WordPress Hosting For 2017
WPEngine has only been in business since 2010, but they have quickly grown to be one of the best hosting companies in the world. Unlike most hosting companies that attempt to attract every type of customer out there, WPEngine is really focused on hosting WordPress sites. Of course, because WordPress is the most popular content management system in the world, they are able to offer their services to the majority of all people who are looking for hosting. Hopefully, this wpengine review will help shed some lights on why they are probably the best wordpress hosting available online.
WP Engine Review
One of the many things that has helped to set this company apart from other hosting providers is that they are dedicated to long term success. They frequently comment that they never cut corners just to save a little money. Based on my research, this is not just empty talk either. They have done a great job at keeping up with the latest technologies (both hardware and software) and they are continuously pushing to ensure their customers are 100% satisfied at all times.
Another thing that this company really prides itself on is customer service. They know that website owners need more than just a set of hardware to keep their data on. They need a true partner that will help them to grow and scale their businesses along the way, and that is just what WPEngine is known for doing.
Well-Known Customers
One of the things that will help show you just how great a hosting partner this company will be is looking at a few of their existing customers. The following are well known companies that use WPEngine for some or all of their hosting needs:
- AMD – One of the world’s largest computer chip manufacturers
- Foursquare – A very popular location based social network
- Constant Contact – A major business in the email marketing industry
- HTC – A smart phone maker
There are many other companies that trust WPEngine with their hosting, which may give you a good indication of the quality of hosting you will receive.
WP Engine Hosting Options
One of the first things I noticed when conducting my wpengine review was WPEngine is a higher end hosting provider, and that is reflected somewhat in the price. They don’t have the ‘bargain basement’ plans that you often see with other companies. While this may seem like a negative at first, it is actually a significant benefit when you look closer. This is because even at their lowest level plan, you are still getting an extremely high quality service that will keep your site up and running properly at all times.
Read through the following hosting options and you’ll quickly see that they are well worth the money, and that they are able to provide you with exactly what you need.
Personal Hosting – The personal hosting package starts at $29 per month, and allows 1 WordPress install. They recommend this package for anyone who is expecting 25,000 visits per month or fewer, though this will depend on the type of site you are hosting. For basic text sites, you can likely get away with a higher amount of traffic. If you are hosting a lot of videos, images or apps, on the other hand, you might want to go with a higher package for this much traffic. The package allows unlimited data transfer, and 10 GB of local storage.
Professional Hosting – The next package is the professional hosting package, and will cost $99 per month. This one is designed to manage up to 10 WordPress sites, with a combined total of about 100,000 visits per month. Your total data storage will jump up to 20GB if you opt for this package. This is still a shared hosting package, but with a very limited number of other clients on the server to help ensure your sites enjoy great reliability and fast load times.
Business Hosting – The business package is $249 per month and permits up to 25 WordPress installs at a time. With 400,000 visits per month, this is a nice option for most larger sized sites. You’ll also get 30 GB of local storage, which is more than enough for just about any type of site you’ll want to run. This option runs in a virtual private server, which gives you more power to do things like reset your environment and install custom options if necessary.
Custom Hosting – The custom package price varies depending on exactly what you need. This is a dedicated server (or even multiple servers) which means you have full control over virtually every aspect of your hosting. You will work directly with the technical staff at WPEngine to design the perfect hosting server for your site. You are allowed as many WordPress installs as you would like, and this plan can be scaled up to handle millions of visits per month. This is the best option for anyone running extremely popular websites.
WPEngine Plan Features
As you browse through the four different hosting packages, you will see a breakdown of the main features that are offered. This is an easy to understand list of different features that will help you to choose the right package for you. Some of the key features that are offered are unlimited data transfer at all hosting levels, a dedicated IP address for business and custom solutions, full support and much more. Look at the main features that are offered here:
WPEngine Data Center Information
If there is one area of complaint about this company, it is that they don’t really provide you with enough information about the data centers that they use. Many people will say that this is actually a benefit, as it helps to keep everything more secure, and there is certainly an argument to be made for that.
Based on the information that is available on their site, and some additional research I performed, I was able to find that they operate out of three different data centers. One in the United States, one in Europe and one in Asia. You will be able to select which location you want your site hosted in based on your target audience. Each of the data centers they manage has high end network connections and redundant power to help prevent any possible outages.
Another nice feature they offer is their ‘system status’ page, which gives the live status of a number of the most important services they provide. For example, you can click on this page any time to see that each of their three data centers are in ‘operational’ status. They also monitor their backup systems, user portals, chat systems, phone support and much more. This is an excellent way to provide customers an ‘at a glance’ update as to the current status of their most critical systems.
WPEngine Control Panel
WPEngine uses a custom control panel to power their servers. Their “WP Engine User Portal” has all the main features that you would find with cPanel or Plesk, and even a few others. This page will allow you to quickly and easily see important stats about your site as well as the overall system status of the WPEngine environment. You can see a quick look at the control panel dashboard here:
Those who are used to using cPanel or Plesk may be concerned about having to learn a new environment, but this will not be a problem. The custom control panel is quite intuitive and easy to understand. For those who are looking to use more advanced features, they also offer a full recorded webinar about their back end user portal, which can be viewed here:
This webinar will provide you with an in depth view into all the powerful features that are included with the WPEngine control panel.
While I normally don’t like custom options in this area, I have to admit that WPEngine has done a truly excellent job at both creating the control panel and helping their users to get the most out of it.
WPEngine Sales and Customer Service
Whenever evaluating a hosting company I try to put their customer service and sales staff through the ringer. In many cases I am able to quickly discover that their ‘employees’ are really no more than third party staff (or worse, automated programs). With WPEngine, I was pleasantly surprised to interact with real, knowledgeable people.
I contacted them through their phone system as well as their ‘live chat’ and in each case they were able to immediately answer all the questions I had, and explain all the services that they offer. In addition, they were extremely friendly and more than willing to take the time to talk to me as long as I needed to ensure I had a full understanding of the services they were offering.
One last note regarding their sales staff is that they honestly look to put the customer’s interests first. I discovered this by asking one of their staff about which of their hosting packages they recommended. I gave them a number of statistics about ‘my site’ that I knew should have me placed in their Professional package. Despite the fact that I pretended to have little information in this area, they recommended I go with the right package rather than encouraging me to go with a higher option that would earn them more money. This type of ethical recommendation is further proof that they truly are a customer focused company that is more interested in long term happy customers than making an extra dollar in the short term.
WPEngine Technical Service Support
No matter how good a hosting company is, I can never recommend them if they don’t have excellent technical support, which is why I spend so much time digging in to this area. Let me start off this section by saying that I am 100% satisfied with both the technical abilities of the WPEngine tech staff as well as their willingness to help you out in any situation.
The first thing about their technical staff is that they are easy to get ahold of. You can report issues via their ticketing system, which will get you a fast response, or you can use their online chat or live phone support. Whichever option you choose, you will be working directly with their in-house team of technical professionals who can help you every step of the way.
I talked to one of their team members about the different servers they had, the network connections, and many other fairly complex technical things and they were very comfortable speaking with me about it all. I also discussed potential WordPress issues with them, and I was impressed to find that their technical staff is far more knowledgeable than I am about WordPress (and I’ve been working with it for many years). The bottom line here is, if you need to get technical support, this company will be more than able to help you with any issues.
Beyond just their live support, they also have a nice knowledge base and a number of articles about their systems. This is a great resource for those who want to learn more about their hosting, as well as learn how to avoid problems with their sites. Their list of high quality articles will not only help you with your own hosting, but will also help you to stay up to date with the latest news and trends about Word Press and websites in general.
Pros & Cons of WPEngine
If you’ve read to this point, you likely can tell that I am very impressed with this company and would gladly recommend them to anyone looking for a high end hosting solution. That being said, I do want to be as objective as possible to help ensure you know exactly what to expect. With that in mind, the following are the key pros and cons I was able to discover during my research of this company.
[wpsm_divider top=”20px” bottom=”20px” style=”dotted”] [wpsm_column size=”one-half”][wpsm_pros title=”PROS:”]- They truly put the customer first
- High end hardware
- Never oversell their servers
- Top Notch Customer Service & Technical Service teams
- 60 Day Money Back Guarantee
- Custom Control Panel (as I mentioned in that section of the review, this is not really a con for me but some people who are strictly interested in cPanel may).
- Prices – The prices for hosting are not the cheapest. There is no doubt that this company is worth every dime, but if you just want the lowest possible prices, this is not the right choice.
WPEngine Review Hosting Conclusion
Not surprisingly, I can give this company a full recommendation to anyone who is looking for a high quality hosting solution. They have options that will meet any type of site no matter how large, which makes them an ideal solution for companies whether they are just starting out and looking to grow, or if they are already successful and just need a good reliable hosting partner. If you are ready to give them a try, please click the following link to be directed right to their page.
