WP Engine is probably the most popular WordPress-only hosting companies on the internet.
They’re a common hosting solution for people who want the pages on their WordPress site to load up with lightning speed.
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WP Engine was founded in 2010 and has only grown with the increasing popularity of WordPress sites.
Here is how they’ve trended over the years:
Features
WP Engine offers some unique features that you won’t find with all hosting companies (see: Dot5, WestHost, or Pair Networks).
1) Engine Labs Project: A common problem in the world of web hosting companies is the failure to innovate. Putting websites and other files online has remained the same with very little advancement (beside hardware upgrades).
WP Engine has worked diligently to not only host your sites with great speed, they have created a project incubation lab that works on advancing internet and hosting software tech. This lab works entirely within WP Engine and solely works on cutting edge projects to improve the customer experience with their hosting platform. Everything they produce is also open source for further development.
One of the projects they’re working on is WP Search Engine, which is a powerful way to add search navigation to your WordPress site. Other plug-ins don’t seem incredibly intuitive, but when this one is released it promises to improve search capabilities from your website.
2) Expect Everything: This slogan is on the WP Engine homepage and is meant to let you know that you’ll get all of the services they offer standard with every hosting plan. There are several plans available, but they are only based on the amount of resources you’ll use to host your websites. With their smallest to the largest account you’ll have access to all the software they’ve developed.
Some of these items include daily backups of all your files and a 1 click restore process, should you need to use one of those backups. You’ll also get multiple firewalls and malware scans to keep your files safe from hackers and viruses.
For speed, you will be able to access their caching system as well as their state of the art CDN to spread files and improve site speed as much as possible. This mentality transfers into their company culture where you’ll receive amazing support from some very qualified experts.
3) WordPress Only: WP Engine is one of the best known hosting companies that only offers to host the popular content management system, WordPress. Not only are they experts when it comes to the platform, they offer the best equipment and servers that are tuned specifically to make WP sites blazing fast (see all WP hosting companies).
Their software development team is constantly creating tools and aids to help make your site better, and they are free to all users. Their tech support staff are some of the most knowledgeable people when it comes to WordPress and claim to log over 800 support hours each and every day. If you want to put up a site using WP, this may be the best option for you. It’s trusted by some huge names in the corporate and internet marketing space due to it’s speed and service.
Customer Support
WP Engine offers a customer support team that can be contacted by live chat, phone, and ticket, although the ticketing system is somewhat difficult to locate.
They also offer a library of help documentation to cover frequently asked questions.
Reviews
We looked over several online sources to find honest reviews for WP engine. We found users were happy with its ease of use and uptime.
One happy customer writes: “This is the perfect host if you want to host a wordpress site. This site makes it easy for you to install wordpress, It’s just a simple 1 click install. It may be a bit expensive but it’s worth it.”
Another reviewer raves: “I was impressed. Their uptime is great and support is out of this world. Everything was a breeze, fast and easy.”
We also found negative reviews however. Users here are upset at lack of customer support and poor response times.
One frustrated reviewer warns: “Migration assistance was non-existent. I guess that’s why they tell you it’s free. You better be a developer with back end experience if you want to have any hope for migration in less than 48 hours.”
Another disappointed customer states: “They were unreachable, it took 72 hours to get a response from support – and they were unable to fix the problem. This might be acceptable for a real cheap hosting service… but this is a PREMIUM hosting.”
Pros
1) WordPress Experts: WPengine is solely focused on hosting and supporting wordpress sites.
2) Secure Backups: Backups are stored in a heavily redundant, geographically separate location, to ensure you have everything you’d need to get up and running again if your primary data were destroyed.
3) Hack Protection: In the unlikely event that your site is compromised, WPengine will fix it at no extra cost to you.
4) 60 Day Money-Back Guarantee: Cancel and request a refund within the first 60 days to get your subscription fee back, excluding enterprise plans.
5) Evercache: This proprietary caching technology is made specifically for extremely high traffic levels and is available on their enterprise level plans.
Cons
1) No Uptime Tracking: No server data is available on their website and no plans specifically state an uptime guarantee.
2) Support Limitations: Chat is only available during certain hours and phone support is not available on their Personal plan.
3) Higher Cost: With their cheapest plan starting at $29/month WPengine is more expensive than other hosting providers.
Summary
WP Engine knows how to host WordPress sites and is one of the best options available to make your new blog as fast as it can be. With the versatility of the CMS, you can have any type of webpage using WP, and WP Engine can keep it running perfectly. Serious WP fans will enjoy everything this host has to offer.
If you are a developer, currently have a site (not on WordPress), or simply don’t want to use the software then WP Engine isn’t for you.