If you are looking for a good managed WordPress host, then WPEngine should be on your list. They are one of the fastest hosts around.
WPEngine is one of the best known managed WordPress hosting providers. It was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas, United States.
In this review, I will take a close look at their hosting service including their security, performance, customer support and pricing plans.
Pros and Cons of WPEngine
Pros
- Amazing support which is well versed in WordPress
- Fast servers on GCP and AWS
- Free CDN, SSL and StudioPress themes
- Automatic backups
Cons
- Slightly more expensive compared too its competitions
- No webmail
- Limitations on certain plugins
History of WPEngine
WPEngine was founded on 1st March, 2010 by Ben Matcalfe, Bullen Wilson, and Jason Cohen. They are headquartered in Austin, Texas, United States.
They currently have offices in San Francisco, San Antonio, London, and Limerick, Ireland.
WPEngine Datacenter Locations
Choosing a datacenter closest to your visitors is important for increasing site speed. It can also benefit SEO.
WPEngine has datacenters on both AWS and GCP (although AWS is reserved for more expensive plans). They are located in these places:
GCP Datacenters
| Region | Location | Region ID |
| North America | Iowa | us-central1 |
| North America | South Carolina | us-east1 |
| North America | Oregon | us-west1 |
| North America | Montreal | northamerica-northeast1 |
| Europe | Belgium | europe-west1 |
| Europe | London | europe-west2 |
| Europe* | Frankfurt* | europe-west3* |
| Europe | Netherlands | europe-west4 |
| Asia/Pacific | Taiwan | asia-east1 |
| Asia/Pacific | Tokyo | asia-northeast1 |
| Asia/Pacific | Sydney | australia-southeast1 |
AWS Datacenters
| Region | Location | Region ID |
| North America | Virginia | us-east-1 |
| North America | Ohio | us-east-2 |
| North America | Oregon | us-west-2 |
| North America | Montreal | ca-central-1 |
| Europe | Ireland | eu-west-1 |
| Europe | London | eu-west-2 |
| Europe | Frankfurt | eu-central-1 |
| Asia/Pacific | Signapore | ap-southeast-1 |
| Asia/Pacific | Sydney | ap-southeast-2 |
ALSO READ: Hostinger WordPress Hosting Review
Hosting Plans
Below are the hosting plans offered by WPEngine:
Managed Hosting
Managed Hosting Plus
Secure Hosting
Ecommerce Hosting
They may seem like they are really expensive but once you consider what you are getting, you will realize that WPEngine is actually cheaper than some of its competitors.
Control Panel
WPEngine uses a custom control panel which is very easy and intuitive to use. From here, you can control everything from CDN to caching to SSL and more.
Migration
WPEngine has free and easy migration with the help of a custom migration plugin created by Blogvault. This plugin was released in 2019.
WPEngine Support
WPEngine support is outstanding. Their support reps are highly versed in WordPress and usually it takes less than 2 mins to get connected to a support rep.
Support is available 24×7, 365 days a year. You can get support through the following ways:
- Live Chat
- Phone (Excluding the lowest plan)
They also have a vast knowledge base of FAQ articles.
WPEngine Performance and Security
For starters, they have automated backups. So in an event of some attacks or some accidental changes, its really quick and easy to restore the site from a backup. Also, WPEngine auto updates minor versions of WordPress. They also have a WAF to protect websites from threats.
Why is WPEngine so fast? For starters, they use GCP or AWS (depending on the plan). Also, they have a homegrown caching solution named EverCache. With the combination of these things, WPEngine manages to serve WordPress sites really fast.
Verdict
No doubt WPEngine is one of the best managed WordPress hosts out there. Their whole support team is well versed in WordPress. Their server performance is great. But, it can be expensive for some. For them, I would highly suggest to take a look at SiteGround.
If you have any queries or suggestions, then please let me know in the comments down below.
