Is the managed WordPress hosting industry coming to an end? I mean, is WordPress easy-to-grasp enough so that we no longer need any companies helping us out setting up our web servers, and then taking care of those servers on a regular basis? A lot of Cheap Web Hosting Provider can provide you managed WordPress Hosting.
What is the benefits of managed WordPress hosting ?
Superior Support – Typically managed WordPress hosting providers only deal with the WordPress platform. This means they don’t mess with Drupal, Magento, or any other type of platform or software.
Optimized for High-Performance – the environments are typically fine-tuned to work with WordPress. lots of managed WordPress hosts including us here at Kinsta implement server-level caching and or full page caching. What that means is that caching is handled by us. There’s no need to hassle with figuring out what the fastest caching plugin is because you won’t need one.
100% Uptime – A high-performance managed WordPress host should also provide you with the latest and greatest architecture and technology. This includes utilizing the latest versions of PHP 7, MariaDB, HTTP/2 and NGINX, which have all been proven to be one of the fastest combinations for WordPress. If your WordPress host is taking ages to release the latest versions of PHP, they are holding you back! That doesn’t fly with us. In fact, Kinsta released PHP 7.2 and 7.3 within weeks of their final and tested release. This allows clients to start testing earlier and take advantage of free and instant performance gains. How important is the version of PHP you’re running? From our PHP benchmark report, PHP 7.3 is on average 9% faster than PHP 7.2. Who doesn’t want a free 9% speed boost?
Automatic Backups (Never Lose Your Data) – We include automatic backups of all WordPress sites for free, no additional setup is required. 14 backups are accessible at any given time from right within the MyKinsta dashboard for an easy one-click restore. You can also always take manual backups with a click of a button. This is very handy if perhaps you are installing something new and want to ensure you don’t break anything.
One-Click Staging Environments – A lot of managed WordPress hosting providers include one-click staging environments specifically to make testing a breeze. One-click staging or dev environments are designed to let you clone your website with a single press of a button. Your dev site is then accessible via a test URL and you can also access via all the typical methods such as FTP, SSH, phpMyAdmin, etc. You can then easily push your changes to production from within the dashboard.
Developer-Friendly (SSH, Git, WP-CLI) – Another advantage that managed WordPress hosting providers is that you usually have access to additional developer-friendly features that you might not get with a shared host. This includes features such as SSH access, Composer, HeidiSQL, Sequel Pro, and Git.
Security Is Taken Seriously – A lot of managed WordPress hosting providers include support if your site is hacked and they have systems in place to protect you from malware.
Built with Scalability in Mind – A very cool and unique feature we have is the ability to automatically scale your site due to the fact that we use Google Compute Engine servers. For example, other WordPress hosting providers are typically constrained to 2-6 CPUs per machine. We actually can let the site’s container scale to as many CPUs as needed when there’s a traffic surge.
Premium DNS (Reliable and Faster Lookup Times) – Typically the free DNS provided by domain registrars like GoDaddy and Namecheap is very slow. It also might not be consistent and lookup times can vary. Google domains is probably one exception to this rule simply because they have such a large infrastructure. The best DNS providers out there are companies like Amazon, Cloudflare, Dyn, and DNS Made Easy which all have very large infrastructures specifically designed for DNS.
One common issue though is that DNS providers typically set high TTLs, which to put it simply means that if one of those companies had added a 2nd DNS provider on that day, it wouldn’t have mattered much because the TTL was set to expire in days not minutes. This can be resolved by simply setting up multiple DNS providers ahead of time in preparation.
Well, if you’re a developer working with WordPress every day, then you might want to believe that it’s indeed the case. For people like that, setting up efficient servers with Linode or DigitalOcean is a breeze. But as Chris Lema very accurately pointed out, WordPress is far from simple, especially for your parents, your neighbors, or whoever else simply wants a website without getting their hands dirty.
For the end user – who might not be that familiar with the technical stuff – WordPress is just a black box that allows them to have their work/posts/articles/products published on the web. And it should stay that way too.
So, companies offering managed WordPress hosting seem to be a good response to that need. Or are they?
What is managed WordPress hosting?
Managed WordPress hosting means that hosts handle basic hosting administrative tasks, such as installing WordPress, security, speed, WordPress updates, daily backups, website uptime, and scalability.
But hold off on the WordPress hosting companies thing for a moment. Let’s talk 1/4 mile drag racing.
If you wish, you can drag race with your everyday stock Honda Civic.
But if you watched The Fast and the Furious, you know that in order to get some real good 1/4 mile times out of it, you need to get specific work done to that Civic.
… Get a tricked out turbo charger, a tuned chip, better tires, a better tuned gearbox that puts the power to the wheels quicker (or whatever, I’m no expert here).
So at the end of the day, you still have the Civic, but it’s been optimized to perform at its best in a 1/4 mile drag race.
WordPress hosting is somewhat the same.
Under the hood (no pun intended), a web server is a web server, and it’s usually built with the same components. Every car has an engine, some wheels, and all the other usual parts. But it’s how these parts are set up, and what kind of specific parts they are, which makes all the difference. It’s what makes a car purpose-built for one thing or the other.
While all web hosts can handle WordPress, the best managed WordPress hosting has been optimized for WordPress websites specifically.
More than that, it usually features some side-services revolving around things like expert support, automatic updates, backups, and so on. It’s like a concierge WordPress hosting package, where you not only get the hosting, but also everything else that will enrich your experience further.
Essentially, having your website hosted on a managed WordPress hosting platform gives you the freedom of not having to worry about the technical stuff, and simply focus on the true essence of your work online – running your business, publishing content, selling your products and what-evs.
- Automatic site/WordPress updates.
- Automatic daily/weekly backups.
- Built-in speed optimization through caching and CDN networks.
- Built-in security mechanisms optimized for WordPress.
- Built-in database optimization for WordPress.
- Scalability optimizations (servers capable of handling more traffic if need be).
- Server settings optimized specifically for WordPress software.
Shared WordPress Hosting
- You need to do updates manually with most hosts.
- Backups only available through third-party plugins.
- Speed optimization only available through third-party plugins.
- General security mechanisms on the server itself. Added security through third-party plugins.
- No additional database optimization.
- You’re usually limited to a set number of visits. Your website can go offline for a while if you go over it.
- Set to work with a range of different platforms and website scripts.
When do you need managed WordPress hosting?
Use the best managed WordPress hosting companies for:
- Websites that are growing rapidly.
- Websites experiencing spikes in traffic.
- Individuals, bloggers, and businesses without much technical knowledge that just want for their WordPress website to work with no hassle.
- Business websites that can’t afford to be offline.
- Website owners who value great support that responds fast and can solve any issue.
- Businesses looking for growth, and everyone who wants their hosting platform to be able to grow with them.
With all of the above in mind, it’s also important to know some downsides usually related to managed WordPress hosting.
Keep in mind, though, that the things listed below are not deal-breakers by any means. They are just the realities of managed WordPress hosting, and potentially what makes this kind of hosting unique and optimized for the WordPress platform specifically:
- Usually more expensive than shared hosting. As we talked about a while ago, you can get a reliable shared hosting plan for $5 a month. With managed hosting, it’s usually in the $15-$50 range (or more).
- Most of the time, you can only run WordPress sites on this kind of hosting. This is due to the architecture of the server itself and its settings. That being said, for 99% of the users this won’t be an issue, for obvious reasons.
- Some of your favorite plugins might be banned by the host. Due to the optimizations made by a given managed WordPress hosting company, some plugins can be banned from the servers. Most commonly, this is done to prevent those plugins from slowing down the server, straining the database, interfering with caching, making too many HTTP requests, and so on. For instance, WP Engine’s list of disallowed plugins is a good reference here.
- You have less control. If you enjoy taking a look into the WordPress core every once in a while to fix this or that, you might find this difficult to do with some managed WordPress hosts. The environment tends to be more closed down in some areas (although specific modifications are possible … just not all of them).