7 Best managed WordPress hosting providers in 2023 compared
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Miglė Šeikytė
Content Lead
Managed WordPress hosting is a solution that makes hosting WordPress sites easier, more efficient, secure, and faster. That’s due to specific server and software stacks, tools, and other features that should be in any good WordPress hosting.
So if you’re looking for any of these features of just simply a little more help and assistance with your WordPress hosting, the managed solution will suit you well.
To make the selection process easier for you, we tested and selected the top managed WordPress hosting providers. We looked at their pricing, WordPress-specific features, and performance to see if they’re really capable of making hosting less of a hassle.
Keep reading to find out the best managed WordPress hosting providers, as well as outlined the pros and cons of this hosting solution.
Best managed WordPress hosting: ranked
- Hostinger – the best managed WordPress hosting overall
- SiteGround – fastest managed WordPress hosting
- Bluehost – affordable managed WordPress hosting
- Liquid Web – premium managed WordPress hosting
- DreamHost – secure managed WordPress hosting
- WP Engine – top managed WordPress hosting
- Flywheel – fully managed WordPress hosting
📢 LIMITED OFFER: Get Hostinger, only now 75% OFF!
Best managed WordPress hosting – our detailed list:
To make the job of finding the ideal WordPress hosting solution for you, we initially tested the best web hosting 2023 providers. From this assessment, we then focused on managed WordPress hosting providers, analyzing them in terms of features, performance, usability, pricing, and other key aspects. Let’s check out the picks.
1. Hostinger – the best WordPress hosting solution
| Features: | Free SSL, custom domain, weekly backups, SSD storage, LiteSpeed web server |
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Average response time: | 511ms |
| Best for: | Affordable performance-focused hosting |
| Current deal: | 🔥Get 78% OFF Hostinger!🔥 |
Hostinger sits on top of the best managed WordPress hosting solutions list. It offers quality services, has really affordable WordPress hosting plans, and exceeds in other parts of features.
Managed WordPress features: This provider offers 3 fully managed WordPress hosting plans that are deployed on LiteSpeed servers. Whichever plan you choose, you’ll get all ready-to-use features, including automatic WordPress updates, automated weekly backups, a free domain name, free SSL certificates, basic WooCommerce optimizations, and more.
Interface: Hostinger provides an easy-to-navigate and slick interface. It’s available in multiple languages, a well-organized dashboard lets you control websites easily.
Performance: Thanks to the LiteSpeed servers implemented, the high-speed performance of Hostinger is guaranteed. During our tests, Hostinger kept 100% uptime and a solid average response time. The site’s loading time was also very speedy, and on-site traffic was steady with no massive slowdowns.
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Average response time: | 511ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 0.8s |
| On-site traffic: | 50VUs |
Customer support: Even though your WordPress site is going to be fully managed by Hostinger, you might still run into some technical issues. For that, Hostinger provides excellent customer support, including 24/7 via live chat and an extensive knowledge base.
Price: Hostinger offers 3 fully managed WordPress hosting plans, with the cheapest one retailing for just $2.99/month. Plus, there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee if you change your mind.
Simply put, Hostinger is the ideal choice for managed WordPress hosting, as it excels in all categories – ease of use, performance, speeds, value for money, and support. It’s suitable for small projects, more advanced, and pro users.
To find more information, read our Hostinger review.
2. SiteGround – premium managed WordPress hosting with great performance
| Features: | WordPress staging, caching, Ultrafast PHP, backups |
| Uptime: | 99.99% |
| Average response time: | 217ms |
| Best for: | Small and medium business websites |
| Current deal: | 🔥 Get up to 83% OFF SiteGround + FREE TRANSFER! 🔥 |
Among the WordPress-recommended providers, SiteGround is an extremely popular choice for managed WordPress hosting. Fully optimized for the platform, the provider banks on its wonderful WordPress-centric features to attract users.
Managed WordPress features: SiteGround has a full focus on WordPress – it has a staging environment integrated into its control panel to create an exact copy of your site. Also, there’s 3-level caching, which includes NGINX Direct Delivery, Dynamic Cache, and Memcached works to speed up your WordPress site for visitors. Other features also include tools for boosting WordPress speed.
Interface: All SiteGround’s tools in the control panel are made to make WP easier. Plus, SiteGround is constantly developing software to speed up and secure WordPress sites specifically.
Performance: This provider delivers reliable and speedy results. Over 2 months, SiteGround had an uptime of 99.99%. SiteGround doesn’t lag behind when it comes to loading websites too. Plus, you can choose a data center in the USA, UK, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Australia, or Singapore.
| Uptime: | 99.99% |
| Average response time: | 217ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.1s |
| On-site traffic: | 50VUs |
Customer support: Apart from the rich tools and features, there’s also the human factor. SiteGround has been known to offer unparalleled customer service. Friendly, efficient, and knowledgeable, you can reach its agents via live chat, phone, and ticket.
Price: SiteGround offers 3 managed WordPress Hosting plans: StartUp ($2.99/month), GrowBig ($4.99/month), and GoGeek ($7.99/month). All the plans come with daily backups, SSL certificates, integrated caching, and email accounts. SiteGround has a pretty standard 30-day money-back guarantee in case you want to kick it to the curb.
All in all, SiteGround is one of the best-managed WordPress providers. For the price, it delivers a CMS-centered solution with many helpful tools. Plus, the focus on performance is obvious.
For more information, visit our SiteGround review.
3. Bluehost – easy-to-use fully managed WordPress hosting solution
| Features: | Free domain and SSL, staging, WordPress website builder, auto-setup |
| Uptime: | 99.99% |
| Average response time: | 361ms |
| Best for: | Flexible WordPress hosting options |
| Current deal: | 🔥 Get up to 77% OFF Bluehost! 🔥 |
Bluehost is another pick of ours that mainly focuses on WordPress and is one of only 3 providers endorsed by the platform. For the most part, its appeals lie in its functional dashboard and WordPress-centric features.
Managed WordPress features: Besides a functional dashboard and WordPress-only staging area, Bluehost has a website builder that is specifically meant for WordPress. That’s a great tool for beginners that are not fully comfortable with doing everything through the CMS yet. It leaves that option open. With managed WordPress plans, you’ll get daily backups, domain privacy, and more.
Interface: Bluehost will take you through a setup process, which is simple. It’s meant to automatically install WordPress and configure it to your needs. There’s also an all-in-one marketing and configuration center built into the dashboard, where you can manage performance and marketing activities from a single dashboard.
Performance: Bluehost is not a performance-oriented provider. It delivers steady results but doesn’t try to be the fastest among the bunch. Over a bit more than 2 months, Bluehost remained up for 99.99% of the time. This is excellent, considering that it has no uptime guarantee. However, be mindful that the host has data centers in the US alone.
| Uptime: | 99.99% |
| Average response time: | 361ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.8s |
| On-site traffic: | 15VUs |
Customer support: Bluehost offers 24/7 customer support via live chat and phone. You can rest assured all of your technical issues will be resolved in a professional manner.
Price: Bluehost has both shared hosting that features all the WordPress-specific tools (starting at $2.75/month) for smaller sites and WP Pro hosting (starting at $19.95/month) for larger sites or users that need more guidance. Both options feature quite a few similarities: a one-click staging environment and CDN are there. Plus, you have a 30-day money-back guarantee.
To put it all together, Bluehost is a very beginner-friendly WordPress option that has great tools, features, and prices. Keep in mind that it does not focus on performance, so you won’t get the speediest results.
For more information, visit our Bluehost review.
4. Liquid Web – managed WordPress hosting for larger projects
| Features: | Automatic backups, website staging, premium builder for WordPress |
| Uptime: | >99.99% |
| Average response time: | 521ms |
| Best for: | Large business projects |
| Current deal: | 🔥 Get Liquid Web, now 75% OFF 🔥 |
Liquid Web has carved a place for itself in the industry by offering various powerful fully-managed hosting solutions. Managed WordPress hosting is one of them. Its plans are deployed on Nexcess’ cloud infrastructure and come with heaps of features.
Managed WordPress features: Among the essentials offered are free migration, automatic WordPress and plugin updates, automatic daily backups, and a website builder — Beaver Builder Lite. All of its WordPress plans very conveniently come with iThemes Sync and iThemes Security Pro, too. iThemes Sync helps to easily update all plugins and themes via one central dashboard. These are excellent for managed WordPress – you will only need to manage it minimally.
Interface: The interface of Liquid Web dashboard is simple and has smartly arranged navigation that feels intuitive. Installation is pretty easy too. You can choose what interface you want – InterWorx, Plesk, or cPanel.
Performance: When it comes to performance, Liquid Web has a lot to be proud of. That includes both reliability and speed. The response time was very stable, averaging 521ms. Next up, we have page load times – Liquid Web loads WordPress website in 1.2 seconds. Additionally, you can host your sites in a data center located in the US or EU.
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Average response time: | 521ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.2s |
| On-site traffic: | 50VUs |
Customer support: You can get support via 24/7 live chat, phone, or tickets. The team is super quick and helpful, so you won’t be disappointed. The host promises to respond to queries via live chat in less than 59s.
Price: Talking about the pricing structure, you have 2 options – either go for a regular plan (starting at $15.00/month) of your choice or opt for a Bundle & Save option. Nonetheless, all plans come with 30-day backups, unlimited email accounts, Beaver Builder Lite, iThemes Security Pro, and iThemes Sync.
Altogether, Liquid Web is a brilliant managed WordPress option for larger projects and advanced website needs. The performance needs a bit of work for each individual site, yet the security and tools that you get are worth the price.
For more information, visit our Liquid Web review.
5. DreamHost – managed WordPress hosting with steady performance and useful tools
| Features: | Website staging, website builder, caching, daily backups |
| Uptime: | >99.99% |
| Average response time: | 231ms |
| Best for: | Small and medium businesses, blogs, and news sites |
| Current deal: | 🔥 Get DreamHost, now 79% OFF 🔥 |
Another WordPress-recommended provider, DreamHost offers a very popular managed WordPress hosting solution — DreamPress. Designed to deliver a hassle-free WordPress experience, DreamPress mainly targets businesses.
Managed WordPress features: For starters, DreamPress simplifies staging by offering a one-click setup. Also, there’s built-in caching. This means that you don’t have to fuss around with caching plugins to speed up your WordPress site. Additionally, DreamPress also has a pretty nifty backup system that allows automated daily backups, on-demand backups, and one-click restores. DreamPress also offers additional features like Jetpack plugins, a website builder, and more.
Interface: The navigation and interface of DreamPress are very organized and easy to use. The DreamPress panel provides a good overview of current WP installations.
Performance: In the performance department, DreamHost is both fast and reliable. Over 2 months, DreamHost kept its uptime at >99.99%. Just a 1-minute outage in total. The response time was great too. It averaged at 231ms. Now, the page load times were steady. DreamHost fully loaded a WordPress site in 1.6 seconds. That’s a good average result on this list.
| Uptime: | 99.99% |
| Average response time: | 231ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.6s |
| On-site traffic: | 50VUs |
Customer support: With DreamHost, you can use a 24/7 live chat, phone callbacks between 6 AM – 10 PM PST (for an extra fee), and 24/7 email tickets. The support team is helpful and professional.
Price: DreamHost has 3 managed WordPress plans on a DreamPress platform that start at $16.95/month. All 3 plans can only host one WordPress website and include unlimited bandwidth. There are also freebies like free migration, an SSL certificate, automatic updates, and a domain. Also, there’s a 30-day guarantee for managed WordPress hosting.
To sum it up, DreamHost does a pretty good job when it comes to hosting WordPress sites. Its performance is as steady as it gets, and the tools included are enough to help you out a lot.
To learn more, read our DreamHost review.
6. WP Engine – highly customizable managed WordPress hosting
| Features: | Custom control panel for WordPress, 3-environment staging, custom caching |
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Average response time: | 489ms |
| Best for: | Agencies and freelancers that develop sites for clients |
| Current deal: | 🔥 Get up to 20% OFF WP Engine +4 months free! 🔥 |
WP Engine is one of the first and most popular managed WordPress hosting providers around. It offers WordPress-only hosting on Google Cloud servers. WP Engine is expensive but, in exchange, its plans are loaded with premium features and tools.
Managed WordPress features: WP Engine offers exclusive StudioPress themes, a custom dashboard, and development tools. Plus, the provider has various speed-related features to boost the performance of your WordPress site.
Interface: WP Engine come with its custom-made dashboard. Fresh and intuitive, the dashboard covers all you need to run and manage your WordPress site. This includes domain, file, and database editors as well as more advanced tools.
Performance: The provider offers various speed-related features like proprietary caching technology — EverCache. If you’re looking for reliability, WP Engine’s infrastructure is what you should go for. Over 2 months, WP Engine stayed online 100% of the time. The response time was also very stable, averaging at 489ms. More so, the host has data centers in over 20 locations all over the world.
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Average response time: | 489ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.1s |
| On-site traffic: | 50VUs |
Customer support: WP engine offers a range of support options. There’s a 24/7 live chat, email, and phone. Plus, you can make use of the extensive resource center.
Price: WP Engine offers 4 managed WordPress plans starting at $20.00/month for a standard package. All the plans include a free SSL certificate and CDN, access to the Genesis Framework and 35+ StudioPress themes, EverCache, and dev/stage/prod environments. There’s a 60-day money-back policy for hosting services.
Altogether, WP Engine mainly caters to bigger businesses that need a reliable platform for their sites. It has all the infrastructure and tools for agencies as well as popular sites to remain on top of their game.
For more information, visit our WP Engine review.
7. Flywheel – WordPress-exclusive managed hosting solution with collaboration tools
| Features: | Workflow tools, staging, managed security, caching, CDN |
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Average response time: | 371ms |
| Best for: | Fully managed platform for creatives and agencies |
| Current deal: | 🔥 Get up to 17% OFF Flywheel with annual plans + 2 months free! 🔥 |
A WordPress-exclusive managed cloud hosting provider, Flywheel has quite a reputation in the industry. For the most part, Flywheel sets itself apart by offering powerful features to enhance the WordPress experience.
Managed WordPress features: One of Flywheel’s top offerings for managed WordPress is its set of collaboration tools. Besides that, Flywheel also doubles down with some speed-related tools. Flywheel also uses its proprietary caching technology, FlyCache, to minimize load times for coming-back visitors.
Interface: Flywheel’s services focus on ease of use – quick and easy installation, modern design, and management efficiency. The platform deals with every technical detail, so you’ll be directed through the steps you need to take.
Performance: Flywheel is based on the same Cloud infrastructure as WP Engine, and we can see the trend – steady and reliable performance at all times. We monitored Flywheel for 2 weeks, but it remained online 100% of the time. The response time had a bump when all the testing was done, yet it still managed to average at a very good 371ms.
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Average response time: | 371ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 881ms |
| On-site traffic: | 50VUs |
Customer support: Flywheel’s customer support is excellent – you can contact the team via 24/7 live chat or phone. Also, there’s an insightful knowledge base.
Price: Flywheel offers 4 plans that start at a pretty affordable $13.00/month. There’s also an option to get a custom plan that matches your needs. The 4 plans have some common features like a free SSL certificate, StudioPress themes, auto-healing technology, and development tools. Flywheel has a 30-day money-back policy for hosting plans.
All in all, if you have no interest in technical details but want the best possible results – Flywheel is the best provider for you. You do lose some degree of control, though.
For more information, visit our Flywheel review.
Best managed WordPress hosting comparison
To give you a better side-by-side view of how all providers stack up against each other in terms of resources and WordPress-oriented tools, I have prepared this table below:
| Provider | Hostinger | SiteGround | Bluehost | Liquid Web | DreamHost | WP Engine | Flywheel |
| Brand: |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Rating: | |||||||
| Average response time: | 511ms | 217ms | 361ms | 521ms | 231ms | 489ms | 371ms |
| Uptime: | 100% | 99.99% | 99.99% | 100% | >99.99% | 100% | 100% |
| Data center location: | Yes, 8 | Yes, 5 | US only | Yes, 3 | US only | Yes, 20+ | Yes, 5 |
| Shared hosting: | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| WordPress hosting: | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| VPS or Cloud hosting: | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Control panel: | hPanel | Site Tools | cPanel | Multiple | Custom | Custom | Custom |
| Free SSL: | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Free domain: | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Customer support: | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 |
| Price range: | From $2.99/month | From $2.99/month | From $2.75/month | From $15.00/month | From $2.59/month | From $20.00/month | From $13.00/month |
How to choose the best managed WordPress hosting?
Picking a managed WordPress hosting provider is not too hard when you know what to look for. Some of the main features to consider are the type of hosting you should choose, what WordPress-enhancing features should the host provide, and don’t forget good performance. Here are a few steps to follow:
Step 1: Determine the hosting type you need
First things first, take a moment to consider the size of your site and whether it’ll need a lot of server power and resources. If you are planning a relatively small site, shared managed WordPress hosting will be efficient enough. However, if you think that shared hosting might be lacking, consider opting for either a managed WordPress cloud or VPS hosting.
Step 2: Check the WordPress management features
When you pick managed WordPress hosting, that in itself means that you will have fewer things to worry about. But to really make sure that the host promises and your expectations match, check if the provider:
- Offers the latest hardware and software technologies
- Takes care of any necessary updates
- Optimizes WordPress performance (LiteSpeed Web Server, latest PHP, caching, CDN, etc.)
- Offers excellent customer support team
Step 3: Don’t forget a good performance
No matter what type of website you’ll be running, you want it to perform well. Therefore, before you make your final pick, see if the provider is reliable and speedy. For best results, seek a provider with uptime as close to 100% as possible and a site loading speed of under 3 seconds.
Advantages of managed WordPress hosting
An extremely popular hosting option, managed WordPress hosting, remains in demand because of its many advantages. For starters, you won't need to worry about technicalities or take care of security. Speed is also usually the priority of the provider. Let’s take a closer look at other advantages that managed WordPress hosting offers:
- Advanced software. Good managed WordPress hosting providers take care of a powerful software and hardware stack that works to benefit WordPress specifically. Unlike other types of hosting, managed WordPress hosts are expected to take care of the optimal software stack.
- Enhanced security measures. Automatic backups, server-level, and Web-application firewalls, malware monitoring and removal, vulnerability assessment, and DDoS protection are just some of the security measures that are essential for big WordPress projects. Because managed hosting is a more premium service, it's only natural to hope that you don't need to pay extra for anything.
- Speed and optimization. A well managed WordPress provider will offer you a modern pre-configured caching option, a premium plugin or control panel tool for cutting the size of the WordPress site, content delivery network integration, and more. These are the cornerstones of a fast WordPress website. When you are choosing a managed service, they should come as a no-brainer.
- Expert support. Managed WordPress hosting providers are expected to help you with website questions too. This means you low-key have a team of WordPress developers by your side.
Disadvantages of managed WordPress hosting
With its overwhelming advantages, it can be easy to forget that managed WordPress hosting is not free from flaws and drawbacks, either. This includes high costs, considerably less control, plugin restriction, and, of course, you can only host WordPress on it. Let’s take a closer look:
- More expensive than regular hosting. Managed WordPress hosting could be significantly more expensive than shared hosting. You can expect to pay up to hundreds of dollars a month for the more premium plans. That said, you do get quite a few premium features in exchange for this cost.
- WordPress-only with plugin limitations. As is obvious from its name, managed WordPress hosting is exclusively only for WordPress. So, if you’re looking to make the switch to Joomla or Drupal, your managed WordPress plan will pretty much be useless.
- Less control. The strength of managed WordPress hosting may also be its weakness to some people. Since someone else will be handling all the technical aspects, you really don’t have all that much say in it. This means you may even lose access to some cornerstone files, such as wp-config. If you’re someone that prefers to have complete control of your site, this may prove to be an issue.
Best managed WordPress hosting: final recommendations
To put everything together, managed WordPress hosting is the best solution to both simplify and enhance the WordPress experience. However, it certainly is no easy feat to find the best of the bunch with so many providers around. The top provider that stood out in our list in terms of functionality, speed, performance, security, and other measures was Hostinger.
Hostinger is the ideal choice for managed WordPress hosting – it excels in all categories – ease of use, performance, speeds, value for money, and support. It’s suitable for small projects, more advanced, and pro users. Alternatively, we recommend choosing other managed WordPress hosting providers from our top list that are more suitable to your needs.
Managed WordPress hosting FAQs
What is fully managed WordPress hosting?
Managed WordPress hosting usually refers to a hosting service that is focused on WordPress sites exclusively. You can expect all technical aspects, such as security, performance, and updates managed for you with expert customer support.
What’s the difference between WordPress hosting and managed WordPress hosting?
The difference between WordPress hosting and managed WordPress hosting is that managed WordPress services should be hosted on WordPress-only servers with a custom software stack and additional features. Meanwhile, WordPress hosting is often a marketing term, with some providers offering a couple of helpful features.
How much does managed WordPress hosting cost?
Managed WordPress hosting cost can be anywhere from as low as a few dollars to hundreds of dollars a month. The prices vary wildly according to what you need in terms of resources, tools, and features. For most users, you can get a suitable and great plan for under $20.00/month.
Is managed WordPress hosting worth it?
Managed WordPress hosting is worth it if you only run WordPress site(s) and want a WordPress expert to handle all aspects of your WordPress site for you. Besides that, managed WordPress usually delivers better performance, security, and support, too. So, if this is what you’re looking for, managed WordPress is absolutely worth it.
Do I need managed WordPress hosting?
If you are not very experienced in running a WordPress website, managed WordPress hosting could seriously help you out. However, if you prefer having more freedom and having a more hands-on approach to your site's hosting, unmanaged services will give you more freedom in that sense.
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