7 Best WP Engine Alternatives of 2024 : Top Recommendations
Looking for a reliable managed host for your WordPress website like WPEngine? Here’s a great list of the best WPEngine alternatives for quality web hosting.
WP Engine is a well-known and reputed company that provides managed WordPress hosting with strong security and high performance.
It’s a tempting choice for bloggers, designers, and developers. Due to managed WordPress services, they are costly and you’re only able to install WordPress CMS on their servers.
For learning about the Pros and Cons of managed services you should look at our managed WordPress hosting article.
WP Engine is a stable and high performance dedicated WordPress hosting service that offers trustable solutions for high resource-consuming sites. We would love to use and recommend their services for a number of reasons;
- Round-the-clock expeditious customer support by experts on live chat, phone, and emails
- Offer a choice of data center located near your target audience
- Advanced security protocols for safe operations and security
- Free SSL, daily backups, along with easy restoration
- Top-notch performance with server-side optimization
Having such qualities makes WPEngine an exceptional web host. However, we observed a number of reasons that might lead you to search out WP Engine alternatives. If you haven’t experienced them yet, then look at the causes before actually trying them out;
- The sky-high pricing deterred the customer. For example, the smallest plan (Personal) costs $29/month. And when you are going to pay a lump sum amount, your wallet will grumble.
- Even though you paid a handsome amount for the “Personal” plan, they demand $19.95/month for CDN.
- At the $29 plan, you can host only one website. This is discouraging, as you paid a tremendous amount, but they only allow you to host a single website. By paying an additional $14.95/month, you can add an extra site—that’s strange.
- You are not allowed to install some plugins in any of their hosting plans.
- Did not include email hosting, so you are unable to create the branded email accounts.
So the question where should I host my website? Should I shift back to shared cheap WordPress web hosting?
If you are seeking premium quality managed services like WP Engine or even better, there are some very potential WPEngine competitors to try.
Top WPEngine Alternatives for Managed WordPress Hostin 2024
1. Kinsta – Ultimate Performance based on Google Cloud
When talking about WPEngine alternatives, Kinsta is an exceptionally managed host and could be a wise choice. A notable thing that differentiates Kinsta from WPEngine is that all their plans are backed by Google Cloud’s infrastructure and further enhanced by an enterprise-level Cloudflare integration.
This enables Kinsta to well control the most crucial hosting features – uptime and speed. Founded in 2013, the company aimed to focus on the WordPress niche with its managed services. Since then, they have also extended their services to accommodate applications, databases, and static sites.
So, what enables Kinsta to deliver ultimate speed to its WordPress hosting users? Along with utilizing Google Cloud’s Premium Tier infrastructure, Kinsta servers are empowered by Linux containers technology, PHP8+, Nginx, MariaDB, and the most crucial resource isolation feature.
Another significant advantage of opting for Kinsta is that you don’t have to worry about site outages occurring due to resource shortages. The WordPress hosting plans come with numerous features and optimizations and a generous amount of RAM and CPU resources to ensure that your site stays live while there are huge instant traffic spikes.
Kinsta fairly outranks the WPEngine when it comes to low- latency locations. You can choose between 36 global locations which are really a decent amount of locations compared to most hosting providers. Moreover, unlike WP Engine, Kinsta won’t charge you any additional fee for selecting a particular data center. Thanks to the Cloudflare integration included for free in all plans, a global CDN network with 260+ PoPs is also available for increased latency.
WP Engine stamps its plans with slightly lower price tags, but it will burn a big hole in your pocket when it comes to add-ons. Just take the example of Geo-IP, which allows you to present personalized data to your site visitors based on location—WPEngine charges $15, while Kinsta offers it free in all plans.
Another outstanding thing by Kinsta is full peace of mind security. They do not just focus on keeping their system up to date but also provide full assistance if someone somehow gets hacked. Their rapid response support team is available 24/7/365 to help you out from any undesired events.
For secure HTTPS connection, they integrate enterprise-level Cloudflare SSL which can be turned on with just a click and is available at no extra costs for all customers. Just like its rival, Kinsta also offers free backup services with both automatic and manual options.
No matter if you want to start a blog or eCommerce site or want a reliable hosting solution for developing, Kinsta houses a variety of features for everyone. Running WooCommerce sites on Kinsta will be smooth because of their server-level caching and optimization features included..
Furthermore, certain pages, such as the checkout process and my account, etc. are set to be never cached by default.
Developers can enjoy their premium services with the availability of SSH access, staging area, support of the latest PHP versions, Git, WP-CLI, and lots of other features like Edge Caching or Early Hints. There is a site cloning feature too, that is available on all plans except Starter.
Just like WPEngine, Kinsta provides an in-house built dashboard that is enormously easy to operate. If you are going to start a project with a team, then the Kinsta multi-user feature is a great tool to use.
You can assign them roles like admin or developer or give them access to specific sites. The feature-rich dashboard displays all the stats, such as visitors, bandwidth, response time, etc.
With all considerations, we can say that Kinsta is a remarkable web host whether it is a matter of uptime, speed, or security, they cover every type of customer (individual to enterprise) from each side.
2. WPX Hosting
You may not be aware of WPX Hosting, which was renamed in 2016 from Traffic Planet Hosting, which had been operating since 2013. Similar to WP Engine, they offer WordPress-devoted managed plans.
One of the big advantages of selecting them as a WP Engine alternative is they also provide domain registration services at industry-beating prices. You can buy .com domain for just $10.99/year that comes with a free lifetime privacy guard.
The best thing about WPX is its pricing structure, which is unbeatable compared to competitors. If you’re starting out and aim to set up multiple small projects on blazing fast hosting, then WPX’s smallest plan (Business) might be good to go. They allow you to host five websites with a total of 10 GB storage and 50 GB bandwidth. You can locate a server near the target audience by choosing from the US and UK datacenters.
They provide dedicated WP storage that runs your site smoothly. Your site is fully hosted on the SSD servers. Another notable thing they offer a 99.95% uptime guarantee which is the foremost part of any website.
We also admire their security initiatives against DDoS attacks. Their daily scanning process detects viruses and hunts down vulnerabilities. Additionally, all accounts receive a free unlimited SSL certificate and 28 days of automatic backup.
Manual site migration involves technical work and may cause a problem for beginners. The web host like BlueHost charge sky-high amount for site migration. It is your fortune that WPXHosting doesn’t charge even a penny for site migration. Unlike the WPE, WPX allows you to create custom email accounts at no additional cost.
The most remarkable part is you can enjoy their seamless services freely. Not even a single plugin disallowed like WPE did. You can freely install any of the backup, security and cache plugins. They officially recommend Sucuri, Wordfence, and iThemes security to tighten the security.
It’s a bit annoying that they only offer free MaxCDN to ThriveThemes users for the first year. Although ThiveThemes developed amazing themes like FocusBlog and the leading Thrive Architect builder, WPX should not make their themes conditional.
As we always said, don’t consider a company that does not offer 24/7 customer support. WPX employs expert-level support that navigates their users, and you will be amazed to see how quick they are and assist in a very friendly way.
They have a live chat, support tickets, and phone lines for assistance. In our opinion, WPX is a rapidly growing dedicated WordPress hosting, and you can try it as an alternative to WPEngine. They support 30 30-day no-question money-back guarantee.
3. SiteGround – Cheaper Alternative to WPEngine
Since starting its service in 2004, SiteGround has gradually grown as the best web hosting company. It is well-known for its few customer support services.
You can guess the excellence by the fact that they are trusted by over 2 million domains and multiplying. Thanks to their competitive pricing, their nifty managed WordPress web hosting is affordable.
We here at HostingSprout always adore SiteGround due to their tech initiatives to deliver secure, faster and up-to-date services. They have developed own backup system, security protocols, and plugin for speed optimization.
Except for managed hosting, you are allowed to install many applications on their hosting with a one-click installer, such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, etc.
By utilizing cutting-edge hardware, SiteGround brings speedy services. First of all, databases and all other files are processed by SSDs which are much faster than spinning drives. Secondly, the speed-friendly technologies such as NGINX, HTTP/2, PHP 7, HHVM, and their SuperCacher help to reduce the load time.
Moreover, they owned multiple data centers to choose from. A data center near to your target audience can render data more quickly.
We think web hosting with poor uptime should be considered a ” no-go area.” Uptime is more crucial than anything else in web hosting. Just imagine what we do with speed if the site is down. So SiteGround brings in the Linux container, which intelligently allocates the resources to provide stability.
BruteForce attacks are the major problem, and many hosts do not offer any protection against them. So, SiteGround introduced an AI system to prevent unauthorized access. Just like WP Engine, they have a daily backup system, free SSL, account isolation, and pro-monitoring.
WPEngine does not include email hosting in any of their plans. On the other hand, all of the SiteGround plans come with free email hosting which allows you to create branded email accounts. Moreover, as the WPE does not offer domain registration services, so you are required to do a bit of additional work for domain name pointing.
Compared to WPEngine, SiteGround also very well known for its customer support. They provide help via live chat, support ticket, and phone.
All in all, you will get more than WPEngine at significantly low pricing. The only thing to care about that they limit the number of visitors and CPU cycles. So far, we have a great experience with them and surely recommend it.
Quick Tip: For big savings, buy their yearly plan.
4. FlyWheel
Founded in 2012, Flywheel soon makes a substantial position in the market and termed as a strong WPEngine alternative. It provides very compatible WordPress hosting solution to designers, developers, and bloggers. Currently, handling more than 72 Million websites and domains. Their robust services offer high speed hosting and consistent services.
The best thing is you can make your site fly by their services and choose from multiple plans. Unlike the WPEngine, they offer web hosting at just $14/mo for tiny websites. FlyWheel’s second plan (Personal) cost nearly the WPEngine’s basic plan with almost the same specifications.
However, they add more value to their plans by adding multiple fancy features. Both charge an additional amount for CDN, but Fly Wheel costs almost half ($10) of WPEngine.
Speed is one of the major issues people face when they move to managed hosting plans. Managed hosting is well optimized by company experts, and you don’t need to install multiple cache plugins—crucial in the case of shared hosting. FlyWheel is integrated with a caching tool installed on the server side to lower load times. If that’s still not enough, try their CDN for better speed.
FlyWheel is very much fanatic about providing full peace of mind managed hosting. They give a preloaded web hosting with multiple security features such as protection against Brute Force, malicious IP blocking, and automatic WP updates.
Furthermore, by having a partnership with Sucuri which is a well-reputed WordPress security tool, they perform free malware scanning. Not over yet, every plan included free SSL and nightly backups. Also, you are allowed to install any third party SSL while WP Engine restricts such action on their basic plan.
If you have a team, you’ll love their collaboration feature. Creating multiple logins or sharing passwords with team members usually creates serious security issues. This feature allows you to add teammates and specify control. The tool will automatically provide them with access without compromising security.
FlyWheel permits you to create a demo site on their server without paying. When you decide on an on-site layout or design, you may go live by selecting a suitable plan. That’s a nice feature for developers and designers.
FlyWheel undoubtedly provides excellent customer support, which is available Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. CST. You can contact their expert staff using live chat, email, and phone. However, if your site was temporarily suspended, just send them an email at emergency@getflywheel.com, and their team will find and resolve the issues.
Honestly, Flywheel is fantastic for high performance, a handful of support, and more features than WPEgnine. You can migrate to their server for free with 30 30-day refund policy.
5. DreamHost
DreamHost came on this list not just for its valuable hosting plans but also because of its excellent performance in the industry since 1997.
The company made its prominent name in providing reliable Shared, Managed WordPress, Cloud, VPS, Dedicated as well as the domain names registration. They are also one of the cheap Linux VPS hosting providers and recommended company by WordPress.org
Dreamhost named managed WP hosting DreamPress, designed exclusively for WordPress users. Their infrastructure includes the latest technologies, such as NGINX with HTTP/2, PHP7, Brotli, and solid-state drives.
Plus, they have caching systems like object cache and Varnish caching for fast Provisioning. We want to say that they are pretty much trustworthy when it comes to speed. WordPress.org himself termed them one of the compatible providers for WP CMS-based websites.
DreamHost offers its services at significantly low fees compared to WP Engine. You’ll get limitless bandwidth and an unlimited number of visitors. The basic plan includes 10 GB SSD storage, which allows you to host one site.
DreamPress works out of the box that has a pre-installed WordPress platform as well as the most used Jetpack free version. There are also some other installations to diminish your work. The other plans come with Premium Jetpack. Here note that you’ll get a significant discount on annual plans.
Like SiteGround, DreamHost is free to install any type of plugin, while WPE banned a list of plugins, including caching, backup, broken links, etc., on their platform.
They take security issues seriously by taking timely action against DDoS, firewall, automatic updates, and Let’s Encrypt SSL. Additionally, they create multiple backups so you can sleep peacefully. DreamHost provides a nice playground for developers by including Git, SSH access, and cron jobs.
You may be disappointed that they charge $99 for automatic site migration, which is done for free by almost every hosting provider. So, if you have an existing site and want to migrate on DreamPress, you can save money by doing it manually. It’s not as difficult as they charge. There are many handfuls of tutorials on the web or even in the DreamHost knowledgebase.
Dream Host provides round-the-clock customer support via email, discussion forums, and a knowledge base. A live chat feature is also available after purchasing any of their plans. Moreover, they make the phone support a bit tricky.
By accessing your control panel provided by Dreamhost use “Request a callback” feature which will cost on the basic plans. All other managed hosting plans comprise some specific number of free call support. Managed plans provide 30 days risk free guarantee as well.
6. Pressable
Pressable, founded in 2010, offers web solutions to marketers, developers, and businesses. Like its competitor, it specializes in the WordPress platform. So, you can’t use its servers if you want to use a platform other than WordPress. Moreover, if you’re going to build an online store on its robust infrastructure, you can buy fast and secure WooCommerce hosting, too.
Multiple factors make Pressable a solid alternative to WPEngine. First, they significantly lower their prices ($20.83/month—basic plan) than the competition. Second, they provide 60K monthly visits, while the competitor WPEngine only allows 25 K visits.
Furthermore, you can host upto 5 domains and gain unlimited storage on Pressable, while WPE just allows one domain with 10 GB storage. Pressable provides a fully scalable solution and you can host up to 100+ sites on their high-end package.
Like the traditional shared hosting where speed is optimized by using caching plugins here at Pressable, you may not need to install such plugins. The company has its built-in caching technique to render the data to visitors rapidly through cached web pages.
In addition, server-side optimization helps in boosting the site performance. Another great advantage is they provide premium MaxCDN for free while WPE costs $19.95/month.
Pressable ensures security services for its users by combining various systems. They perform automatic nightly scanning for malware detection and removal and use a firewall application to secure your site. WordPress occasionally releases updates for bugs and improvements, which are vital for security.
The company experts take care of all of the WordPress updates so you can focus on work. Daily backups and SSL are added without additional cost, irrespective of the plan.
There is no deficiency of advanced features in any of their hosting packages. Cloning is a very small if you want to set up a site similar to the existing one. Staging is excellent for developers for testing updates without affecting the main site. Moreover, they included the Jetpack premium version for free.
If you are heading a team, the collaborator tool proves handy for providing access to team members instead of creating multiple logins. The site migration tool requires few details and shifts your site to their servers.
Undoubtedly, Pressable’s plans include many things that are sufficient to make it one of the best WP Engine alternatives, but the non-existence of basic customer support channels such as anytime live chat and phone may be unacceptable for some users.
They maintain a phone line just for pre-sale queries. However, the ticketing system is available 24/7, whereas live chat can be accessed within fixed business hours. Still incredulous about them? Try a 15-day free trial account.
7. MediaTemple
MediaTemple was founded in 1998 with a mission to serve developers, designers, entrepreneurs, and enterprises by providing reliable hosting solutions. It offers a variety of packages, such as managed, VPS, dedicated, and cloud servers.
The famous Amazon AWS powers their cloud hosting. MediaTemple calls its shared hosting “Gird,” designed by blending cloud capabilities. Your site is hosted on multiple servers for maximum availability and security. They provide an uptime guarantee, and with 20 minutes of downtime, you are liable to pay 20% of the monthly hosting fees.
With MediaTemple, you’ll enjoy features similar to WP Engine but by paying a low sum. Just like the competitor, the smallest plan is called “Personal,” but MT fills up with more value like 50 GB SSD storage, 250,000 monthly visits, and unlimited data transfer. This will cost $20/month, but you can save money by making yearly or high-duration purchases like a 3-year plan will save you a handsome $180. Even you can host 2 websites.
The company adopts security measures to provide fully protected grounds. All core updates to WordPress, MySQL, and PHP are done automatically with no effort. All of your sites will get a malware detection and removal system and a DDoS protection system.
A 30-day automatic backup and restore service eliminates the need for any third party backup plugin and thus saves a slight cost. Here, note that they did not offer free SSL in the Personal plan, while the “Pro” plan includes 2 free SSLs for the first year.
As Media Temple’s mission includes gratifying the developer’s needs, so all of their managed plans are built up with tools like SSH/SFTP access, Git, WP-CLI, and phpMyAdmin.
Moreover, you can create a clone of your site with just a few clicks, as well as site staging to testify codes and plugins. They offer different add-ons at some additional cost, like CDN for $30, which is applicable to upto 5 websites.
Although they offer many useful features, they also have a few negatives. For instance, they charge a shocking $150 for automatic site migration. And just like WP Engine, you can’t create email accounts that end up with your domain name. Alternatively, you can use G-Suit by paying an additional $5.
Unfortunately, they also disallow a list of plugins related to caching, backup, and security, etc., which means you can’t enjoy as much flexibility as in SiteGround.
The support agent is available 24/7 on live chat, emails, and phone. Also, they have a community page containing articles and videos on almost every topic. Plus, contact can be made via Twitter.
The thing we notice is that they are slightly lazy (take 1-2min) in responding to each query and not as rapid as the SiteGround, WPEngine, etc. Overall, they are great and offer peace of mind services on which you can rely.
Conclusion
WPEngine is a dominant participant in providing stable dedicated WP hosting. But their excessive pricing will create a big hole in your pocket. So, we have created a list of cheaper WP Engine alternatives that offer a competitive pricing structure and service quality.
So whether you turned off because of their cost or for some other reason, there are alternatives to look at. We list the most potential competitors of WP Engine. You just need to scrutinize the features and then pick the web host, as every company has some positives and negatives.
We recommend SiteGround, whether you are just entering or have an existing site. They are amazing in all areas of web hosting and frankly, you will never regret your decision.
For more powerful hosting, Kinsta and WPXHosting are potential choices for handling high-traffic websites. Pressable is the best fit for setting up multiple sites, but they do not offer live chat, and calling them is not good for everyone, especially for non-native English speakers.
So, which one is cheaper and the best WPEngine alternative, in your opinion? Let us know about your choice via comments. If you are still confused, we will be happy to assist you. Just drop a comment below.
