WP Engine hosting review: best high-end WordPress host?

WP Engine is a WordPress-focused hosting provider that prides itself on delivering exceptional WordPress hosting. It aims to transform your vision into standout digital experiences. Trusted by industry giants, such as Ticketmaster, Yelp, and Petco, WP Engine has earned a reputation for attracting high-profile clients.

To see what’s the hype all about, I decided to dive in and evaluate whether WP Engine truly lives up to its status as a high-end premier WordPress hosting provider. In this review, I cover everything you need to know about this popular host – from pricing and plans to performance, features, customer support, and more.

⭐ Rating:	4.2 ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
💵 Price:	From $13.00/month
📑 Uptime guarantee:	99.99%
⚙️ Hosting types:	Managed WordPress, eCommerce, and reseller
🌎 Server locations:	The US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Taiwan, Singapore, and Australia
👨‍💻 24/7 live support:	Yes
🔥 Coupons:	WP Engine coupon 20% OFF

WP Engine’s strengths and weaknesses

WP Engine pricing

WP Engine has various plans and types of hosting, catering to both business and personal website hosting needs. Let’s explore what each hosting type is perfect for.

Hosting type	Best for
Managed Hosting	Starting and growing a website. Get up to 20% OFF WP Engine +4 months free
Managed Hosting Plus	An additional ease of use. Adds automatic plugin updates with AI testing.
Secure Hosting	Enhanced security. Additional DDoS protection and web application firewall with automatic plugin updates.
eCommerce Hosting	eCommerce-optimized hosting. Free WooCommerce store theme and templates.

Check WP Engine pricing now

WP Engine offers a variety of managed WordPress hosting plans.

Regarding WordPress hosting, WP Engine has 5 plans that all include free SSL certificates, daily backups, free automated migrations, and 3-level staging environments. Additionally, 10 premium themes, caching, and global CDN (content delivery network) are at your disposal.

Plan	Features	Price
Lite	1 site, 5GB storage, 20GB bandwidth, and up to 5000 visits per month	From $13.00/month
Startup	1 site, 10GB storage, 50GB bandwidth, and up to 25,000 visits per month	From at $20.00/month
Professional	3 sites, 15GB storage, 200GB bandwidth, and up to 75,000 visits per month	From at $39.00/month
Growth	10 sites, 20GB storage, 200GB bandwidth, and up to 100,000 visits per month	From at $77.00/month
Scale	30 sites, 50GB storage, 500GB bandwidth, and up to 400,000 visits per month	From at $194.00/month

Server resources might not seem like a lot, but keep in mind that an average WordPress site will not take more than 5GB of storage. If you need more storage for larger projects, WP Engine has excellent scalability options.

Here are the key insights looking at WP Engine pricing:

• The Startup plan is a great option for a small yet important business website. It’s quite affordable considering the features and support you get.
• If you’re building or designing websites for clients as an agency or freelancer, the Scale plan provides the best value. If you take advantage of the 30-site allowance, that can help you save money in the long run.

It’s worth noting that your individual needs may be very different and not require a premium hosting provider. Thus, it’s best to evaluate your project requirements and pick the best small business web hosting provider accordingly.

WP Engine does not have increased renewal rates. However, the introductory discount is only available for first-time purchases. After the renewal, you'll be charged the full standard price – $300.00/year. While the price tag is hefty, it makes sense. Especially, knowing that WP Engine's shared hosting is hosted on a faster cloud infrastructure.

Lastly, WP Engine has a 60-day money-back guarantee to get a full refund. However, if you wish to cancel your services later, a prorated refund is possible. You’ll be refunded for all unused service time.

In the end, WP Engine’s prices are undoubtedly high. However, the provider does offer excellent value for money with its cutting-edge infrastructure and features. Plus, there are no pricing increases.

Hosting management – is it easy to use?

WP Engine is more advanced than regular shared hosting options. For this reason, some tasks are not done automatically, but explanations are placed everywhere you go. Despite being more complex, WP Engine still delivers in terms of ease of use. Plus, the control panel is easy to navigate.

The first thing you see is the main dashboard.

The main WP Engine dashboard is pretty clean and organized. To your left, you can find the tools and features for site management. You can also see the statistics of your website performance, as well as resource allowance.

I also find it rather a letdown that WP Engine doesn’t include emails in its plans. This is both odd and disappointing – especially since even the cheapest providers typically allow access to at least a basic email client. So, that’s definitely not ideal or convenient.

Speaking of convenience, let’s see if WP Engine fares better in this regard when it comes to setting up a site.

How to add a WordPress website

I find it extremely easy to install WordPress with WP Engine. By utilizing WP Engine’s 1-click installer, you can install the CMS in no time.

To install WordPress, you need to find Sites on your dashboard. While in there, click Add site to begin the process of setting up your website.

A form to enter details such as your new site’s name and naming the environment appears. You can also select which environment you want to create. Production is the live version, while the Staging and Development environments can be used as sandboxes.

It takes a couple of minutes, but once the site is created, you can see a new area. This is where you can manage each environment separately.

How to add a domain name with WP Engine

One area that needs improvement in the WP Engine control panel is the addition of new domains. While the procedure is quite standard, you'll need to set up everything yourself. In this part of the WP Engine review, I went through the process myself, which involved several steps.

To add a domain name to the site, you need to go to the Domains section in the management area. Then, click Add a Domain Name and provide the requested details.

Once you add a domain name, there are 2 different options on how to make it active on your WP Engine website:

• Point CNAME records to WP Engine
• Point A name records to WP Engine

Both your CNAME and IP address (for A records) are provided in the same Domains page at the very bottom.

As I ordered Global Edge Security, I was provided with its standard records. Your DNS details might look different.

In any case, pick an option you want to use (A records or CNAME) and make the changes in your domain registrar. Also, click the 3 dots by your domain name and choose Set as the primary domain.

The last step is to update the URL for WordPress, and the easiest way to do it is in the database. Click to open the phpMyAdmin in your control panel.

In the database, head to wp_yoursitename and then wp_options. Change the siteurl and home fields to your actual domain.

Also, WP Engine has tutorials to help you out. If you have any issues, you can also contact customer support for thorough assistance.

How to install SSL with WP Engine

WP Engine provides free SSL certificates. To activate one, you simply need to select the free option for your domain and activate it.

To do that, you should use the SSL option in the website management tab.

The rest is easy – choose Let’s Encrypt by clicking Get free certificates and confirm your choice in the next window.

With this out of the way, your fully functional and secure WordPress website is now live.

Development, staging, and production environments

The development, staging, and production environments are some of the most helpful features offered by WP Engine.

The 3 environments are great for workflow:

• Development – a sandbox for website building
• Staging – mostly used as a copy of your live website where you can test out and introduce changes
• Production – the live version of your site, where you push the changes if you’re happy with them

You can design your own workflow using all or just a couple of environments. Considering that hosting providers don’t usually offer such environments, this is the main selling point for me.

The best part of this is that you can set up and manage these environments effortlessly yourself – this feature that only developers used to use is now available to us, simple users.

You can quickly create an environment by clicking Add Staging or Add Development. As with the new website setup, you can create a new environment, create from a template, copy from an existing one, or move an existing one.

Starting with an existing environment allows you to use the backup from the production environment. Simply put, this creates a clone of your live website.

When you’re done editing or playing around in the Staging copy, you can push your changes live to the production environment with just a couple of clicks. Overall, WP Engine’s development, staging, and production environments are definitely great additions to its plans. Straightforward, functional, and practical, they also add a layer of security and privacy to your website.

As a whole, I’d say that WP Engine did an excellent job with ease of use. Moreover, the possibility to create staging and development environments can really help with the flow.

Performance – is WP Engine fast?

For this WP Engine hosting review, I put the provider through 3 tests – reliability, speed, and stability.

Reliability

To determine WP Engine’s reliability, I tested the provider’s server uptime and latency over a 2-week period.

The hosting provider demonstrated impressive reliability, maintaining a perfect 100% uptime. Essentially, this means the provider can be trusted to ensure your websites remain accessible. However, while 100% uptime is impressive, occasional minor downtime can occur over extended periods, which is normal for any web host.

Beyond uptime, WP Engine also delivered outstanding latency. Overall, the average response time was just 4.53ms.

It’s worth noting that I tested the WP Engine's latency in various locations. For instance, the latency time in New York averaged 4.73ms. Also, to my surprise, performance was remarkably stable across all remote locations, with London averaging 3.83ms and Tokyo at 4.89ms.

To sum up, my findings indicate that WP Engine is reliable and highly optimized for global reach, ensuring rapid load times for users worldwide.

Speed

WP Engine provides robust hosting options with a focus on performance. To evaluate its speed, I used data from a performance test measuring key page load metrics.

The Time to First Byte (TTFB) was 0.62 seconds. The Start Render occurred at 1.00 seconds, and the First Contentful Paint (FCP) was measured at 1.01 seconds, both demonstrating efficient initial loading performance. The Speed Index was 1.18 seconds, indicating rapid visual content loading.

The Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), representing the time to load the largest visible element, was 2.58 seconds. Although slightly above the ideal threshold of 2.5 seconds, this score remains strong for user experience.

Stress handling

To assess WP Engine’s ability to handle traffic surges, I conducted a stress test with 40 virtual users (VUs) over a set duration.

During the test, WP Engine processed a total of over 4900 requests, with a peak rate of 32.67 requests per second.

The response time was measured at 248ms, indicating that 95% of all requests were processed in under a quarter of a second. This shows WP Engine’s consistent performance under load. I would also like to point out that there were 0 HTTP failures.

Security – is WP Engine secure?

As far as security is concerned, WP Engine is very serious. Each plan is equipped with essentials. Also, advanced security measures are available for different needs. It’s important to note that WP Engine also blocks all plugins that are known to cause trouble.

Free SSL certificates

WP Engine’s plans all come with free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates. This is a great option for the majority of websites. But if you have multiple subdomains and need more advanced security, other options are there too.

Additionally, users have the option to purchase and install third-party SSL certificates, depending on their preference.

Server monitoring – threat detection and prevention

For starters, the provider monitors server performance and traffic, which helps spot and prevent threats before they reach you.

A proprietary firewall is in place. This firewall is designed to automatically block malicious traffic. It works on the least-privilege basis – only approved apps and protocols can go through. However, the provider declines to provide further information about the firewall as this can compromise its secure integrity or lead to abuse.

Additionally, the security team is in-house for auditing and troubleshooting on the spot.

Daily automatic backups

The provider includes daily automated and manual backups. This is a crucial layer of security, as it can restore your website if needed. It’s especially useful in cases when there’s been a security issue, causing your website to go down.

You can create and access up to 40 backup points via the user portal. If you need older data, you can access up to 60 most recent backup points by getting in touch with the support team.

Global Edge Security

Global Edge Security (GES) is a paid add-on that will set you back a whopping $300.00/year. A partnership between WP Engine and Cloudflare, GES offers a managed web application firewall (WAF), DDoS mitigation, protection from OWASP top-10 vulnerabilities, and more.

Simply put, WP Engine takes security seriously by integrating cutting-edge features and tools. That said, they come at an additional cost.

The good news is that GES is included with Secure Managed Hosting packages. While plans themselves are more expensive, it’s still cheaper than adding GES separately.

Plugin management

WP Engine has a list of disallowed plugins that either conflict with their own systems or are known to cause security issues. Although that may seem like a huge disadvantage, I would argue that the pros outweigh the cons in this context.

WP Engine takes care of backups and caching, so it’s only natural that these kinds of plugins might interfere and cause trouble. As for others, WP Engine carefully vets them, and if they prove to cause security or performance troubles, they are out.

In this sense, WP Engine saves users a lot of time by allowing them to choose from secure and tested plugins.

Reinforced account security

From multi-factor authentication to activity logs, WP Engine keeps not only the server but also your account secure:

• Multi-factor authentication. This feature ensures that passwords on new devices aren’t the only way to log in. Additional steps, such as getting a code for your phone, are added.
• Account permissions. If you’re working with a big team, you can assign each member a different role with a set of permissions. This way, all users can access only those parts and settings that they need to.
• Activity logs. All actions on the account are logged and can be tracked. This helps you to know where possible permission (and security) issues might be.

All in all, even free WP Engine’s security measures cover all that most websites might need. Also, there are advanced options available for those websites that need the highest level of security.

Will WP Engine customer support help me?

WP Engine provides various support channels to assist its users, including 24/7 live chat and email options, ensuring comprehensive customer service.

Here’s a breakdown of the available support options.

Support options	Availability
24/7 live chat	✅ Yes
Email	✅ Yes
Phone support	✅ Yes
Knowledge base	✅ Yes

It is important to note that phone support is only accessible to customers who are subscribed to the Professional plan or higher.

In addition to direct support, WP Engine boasts a well-stocked resource center filled with helpful tutorials and guides that cover various aspects of web hosting and website management. The knowledge base is particularly notable for offering extensive information on topics such as getting started with the Genesis Framework, configuring Cloudflare settings, and troubleshooting common hosting issues.

In my interaction with WP Engine’s sales team regarding the 60-day risk-free trial, the conversation was prompt and straightforward. The representative confirmed the trial’s availability and provided the necessary details without engaging in any upselling tactics. From my perspective, this is a refreshing experience, considering most web hosts employ aggressive upselling strategies.

However, it is also worth mentioning that experiences with sales support can differ. For instance, during my inquiry about the refund process, the agent redirected me to the billing team without addressing my initial question and ended the chat swiftly.

I also evaluated WP Engine’s technical support through 2 interactions. In the first session, the agent confirmed that my domain was appropriately set up but advised waiting 24 hours for the changes to take effect. Unfortunately, the domain did not function as expected after the wait.

Upon contacting support again, a different agent promptly identified the issue and confirmed that an old security package was linked to my previous domain name. He then quickly resolved the matter within 2 minutes, providing a clear explanation of the process. As you can see, the level of assistance depends on what agent you get and their dedication to user satisfaction.

To sum up, WP Engine’s technical support demonstrates a commendable level of knowledge and efficiency. That said, from my experience, it depends on which agent you get and how much they are determined to help you resolve the issue. Thus, I highly recommend going back to the support after the initial consultation.

Premium WordPress themes

WP Engine has a partnership with StudioPress. So, all of its users have access to the Genesis Framework and 35 premium themes. These are worth $59.95 and up to $129.00 per theme, respectively. But, they’re free for the host’s users.

Let’s talk about the Genesis Framework first. A theme framework is essentially the foundation/platform on which you build your WordPress site. In this case, the Genesis Framework integrates various SEO, advanced security, and performance features to give your site a boost.

In terms of themes, you can find all of them in the Appearance section under Themes.

The themes are clean and minimalistic. This makes them easy to customize. You can fit each theme to your liking by removing unneeded design elements and adding new ones, adjusting the color palette, headers, and more. Plus, the themes translate to the mobile version easily. The only drawback is that most themes look quite similar, so it requires extra work to make your website appear unique.

In brief, the Genesis Framework and StudioPress themes are undeniably a great extra feature for WP Engine’s plans. My only wish is for StudioPress to extend and update its selection of themes.

WP Engine review – the final verdict

All in all, this WP Engine review showed that the provider has certainly earned its right to boast – far more than many others. WP Engine is an advanced solution offering many high-end tools already included together with great performance. Given its versatility, I recommend employing WP Engine hosting for businesses, agencies, and developers focusing on WordPress. The host also impressed me with its amazing performance, incredible extra features, comprehensive security measures, and excellent customer support.

Here’s a concise breakdown of how WP Engine fared during my review.

Feature	4.2 ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆	WordPress hosting for business
Pricing	★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆	The provider is undoubtedly expensive, with prices starting at $13.00/month. However, the quality justifies the costs, making the price-to-value ratio exceptional.
Ease of use	★ ★ ★ ★ ☆	WP Engine’s control panel and website management are great and modern. Plus, you get 3 environments to work with.
Performance	★ ★ ★ ★ ★	WP Engine nailed the performance testing. The provider showed great resilience under stress, being able to handle larger traffic. It also managed to handle a significant traffic surge.
Security	★ ★ ★ ★ ★	In terms of security, WP Engine has everything covered even in the cheapest plan. That’s SSL, server monitoring, and daily backups among other features.
Support	★ ★ ★ ★ ☆	Customer support is available 24/7. It is fast and helpful. Plus, there’s a big support center with tutorials covering everything you might need to set up and manage a website.

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Alternatives to WP Engine

While WP Engine has swiftly landed itself on my list of top providers, it might not be the best option for you. That’s perfectly fine since there are plenty of WP Engine alternatives in the market. This includes Hostinger, Bluehost, and Cloudways.

Hostinger

Hostinger is the industry-leading hosting provider due to its affordability and focus on optimized performance and security features. Its shared hosting plans start at a very affordable $2.69/month.

It also caters to various needs – with 9 global data center locations to choose from, including the US, Europe, and Asia, you can ensure your site is close to your target audience.

Visit Hostinger

Bluehost

Bluehost is another great alternative to WP Engine and one of the most popular providers. The host offers a variety of hosting solutions but is WordPress focused. It’s a far more affordable option and is great for beginners as well as those on a budget.

Bluehost’s hosting plans start from $1.99/month. It has an excellent management area that includes staging too. It’s an option for beginner users as well as tight budgets.

Visit Bluehost

SiteGround

SiteGround is a solid option if you’re seeking a WP Engine alternative. The provider is renowned for its modern and customizable management area, which is intuitive for beginners but can still handle larger projects if you’re more advanced.

With prices starting at $2.99/month, SiteGround offers excellent performance and tools for WordPress users, including preinstalled and customizable caching, a WP site migration plugin, and staging.

Visit SiteGround

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