In this article, I will review the 5 best WP Engine alternatives that are as good (and better) as WP Engine in terms of hosting performance, security features, customer support, and most importantly much affordable than WP Engine.
When it comes to high-performance WordPress hosting, WP Engine takes the lead as its infrastructure is specially optimized for WordPress sites. Thus it makes WordPress sites much faster than regular hosts.
WP Engine servers are highly secure. Even if your site becomes infected with malware, their support team will take the responsibility to scan and clean your site.
The customer support at WP Engine is very quick and available 24x7 via live chat, phone call, and ticket system. No matter what type of hosting issues you face, they fix them immediately.
Another reason I like about WP Engine is each of the plans gives access to 35+ premium StudioPress themes worth $2000.
Overall, WP Engine is a great managed WordPress host for small-large WordPress sites.
However, there are few drawbacks of WP Engine that are driving away many of their customers - and they are looking for an alternative to WP Engine.
Here are the reasons:
- WP Engine hosting plans are way expensive
- Monthly page visits limit - There will be additional charges if you exceed the set number of visitors
- Several plugins are banned on WP Engine
- Doesn't provide email service
What are the best WP Engine alternatives?
Cloudways, A2 Hosting, Liquid Web, WPX Hosting, Kinsta are the best alternatives to WP Engine.
These hosts are much cheaper than WP Engine, don't have strict visit limits, offer many hosting features, and above all great for support and performance.
Here's a quick comparison between these hosts:
If you want an affordable yet high-performing WP Engine alternative, Cloudways would be the best option.
Recently, Cloudways has grown so much in popularity (more than any other hosts) due to its high-performing servers, features, and considerably lower price.
Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting platform that gives you access to top-performing cloud servers - Digital Ocean, Linode, Vultr, Amazon AWS, and Google Cloud.
All these servers are excellent for performance, security, and high-availability. You can see a significant performance improvement after migrating to Cloudways.
Cloudways plan starts at just $10 per month with no annual contract, that's 3X times cheaper than WP Engine plans .
If compared both hosting's' basic plans, Cloudways is suitable for up to 50,000 monthly page views, where WP Engine only allows 25,000 monthly visits.
One of the reasons I like Cloudways is the basic plan allows you to host an unlimited number of websites, whereas, at WP Engine, you are allowed to host only one website.
Here's a quick comparison between Cloudways and WP Engine basic plans:- Excellent performance - Cloudways servers are blazing fast (even faster than WP Engine).
- Pay as you go billing system - Unlike any other hosts, Cloudways offers a pay as you go billing system with no annual contract. That means you only pay for the resources you consume.
- Free website migration - Cloudways offers a free website migration. This makes it easier to move your website from WP Engine.
- Great customer support - The customer support at Cloudways is very quick and helpful.
A2 Hosting is another excellent WP Engine alternative.
A2 Hosting offers almost all types of hosting solutions such as shared , VPS , Cloud , managed WordPress hosting , etc.
The price of managed WordPress hosting starts at only $9.99 per month, which is much lower than WP Engine.
Each of the plans includes superfast Turbo Servers which is up to 20X faster and can handle up to 9X more traffic than regular web hosts.
Plus, you will get access to Jetpack's personal license, which you can use for taking daily backups , lazy loading images , brute force protection , automated spam filtering, and much more.
For managing your sites, A2 Hosting provides a Plesk control panel - which is a plus for beginners as it's simple to utilize.
Other key features include:What I like about A2 Hosting is that it doesn't have any monthly page visits limit as WP Engine does.
Here's a quick comparison between A2 Hosting and WP Engine basic plans:- Jetpack personal license included
- Anytime money-back guarantee
If you have a medium or large size WordPress site that receives millions of traffic monthly, you need a stable, high-performing, as well as a secure hosting platform, and this is where Liquid Web managed WordPress hosting comes.
Liquid Web is powered by high-performance Cloud platforms that deliver exceptional speed, scale, and security.
The best thing about Liquid Web is there is no monthly page views limitation. All the plans are auto-scalable so if you have more traffic at some point, your plan would auto-scale to needed resources. There wouldn't be any downtime or traffic spikes.
Plus, you will get access to iThemes Security Pro and iThemes Sync plugins that are the most popular WordPress security and maintenance plugins.
Other key features include:Liquid Web managed WordPress hosting price starts at $19 per month for a single website. Also, you will get 15 GB SSD storage, 2 TB monthly bandwidth, 24x7 premium support, and much more.
One of the best things about Liquid Web is blazing fast support . They have the most experienced support staff, available 24x7.
If you face any kind of hosting issues, you can reach out to their support via phone call, live chat, and ticket support.
Now, let's take a look at the difference between Liquid Web and WP Engine hosting.
If you want the same high-performing, robust managed WordPress hosting like WP Engine at an affordable price, then WPX Hosting could be a great option.
WPX Hosting has been in the WordPress hosting industry for over 7 years and they have gained so much popularity and the highest-rated managed WordPress hosts in the industry.
Their hosting price starts at $20 per month. At that price, you can host a total of 5 WordPress as well as WooCommerce sites. Whereas WP Engine allows only one website.
Each of the WPX plans includes:- Superfast SSD storage
- Unlimited site migrations
- Premium CDN
- Unlimited SSLs
- Free daily malware detection and removal
- Free site fixes
- Staging sites
Recently, WPX Hosting developed their superfast CDN with 26 'endpoints' around the world that makes your site even faster.
WPX Hosting claims they have 30 second average support response time on 24x7 via live chat, but I experienced it only takes 3-5 seconds to connect.
I reached out to their support team via live chat several times, and they fixed most of my site issues very quickly.
Here's a quick comparison between WPX and WP Engine basic plans:
Kinsta - Best for performanceIf hosting performance is your top priority rather than low prices, Kinsta Would be the best WP Engine alternative.
Kinsta is powered by premium tiers of the Google Cloud Platform and uses the latest technology to make sure your website loads in the blink of an eye.
With each plan, you will also get a free CDN from KeyCDN and premium DNS from Amazon Route 53.
Kinsta hosting's dashboard is very beginner-friendly and packed with many advanced features and tools.
From one dashboard, you can track and manage everything such as bandwidth usage, install SSL certificate, deploy staging site, CDN usage, manage sites, and many more.
Each of the plans features 24x7 uptime monitoring, DDoS detection, hardware firewalls, etc.
Other key features include:Kinsta hosting price starts at $30 per month and supports only one website like WP Engine. Plus, you will get 10 GB SSD storage, 25,000 monthly visits, free SSL, and CDN.
As I already mentioned, Kinsta is not for everyone, for example - beginners who are just getting started.
However, if you have a big WordPress or WooCommerce site that receives tons of traffic and a fast loading website is your top priority - Kinsta would be the best option.
- Google data centers
- Customer support is outstanding
- Kinsta hosting plans aren't cheap
Which is the Best WP Engine Alternative? (My Recommendation)
After reading the best WP Engine Alternatives, you might be wondering which host should I choose.
Well... It depends. Because everyone has their own requirements and budget.
For example, you may want to host multiple WordPress or WooCommerce sites, maybe you want more server bandwidth, maybe you want more storage, or maybe your budget is different.
In this article, I have reviewed the 5 best alternatives to WP Engine that offer all types of essential hosting features and prices are different.
A cheap plan doesn't make a better WP Engine alternative. Similarly, not everybody needs expensive WordPress hosting.
All you need to go through the hostings I reviewed above; check the features they offer as well as the prices - then decide.
Here are my recommendations.
- Go for Cloudways, if fast loading website is your top priority. It's the cheapest WP Engine alternative and allows you to host multiple websites on any plan. Suitable for small, medium, and large size websites. - Choose A2 Hosting if you want to have Plesk powered WordPress hosting. It's cheap and offers unlimited bandwidth. Suitable for small and medium websites. - Liquid Web is a great option for high traffic websites. The cloud servers at Liquid Web are blazing fast, secure, offers plenty of features, and 24x7 expert support. - WPX Hosting is great for performance and customer support. It's suitable for small to large websites.Cloudways
A2 Hosting Liquid Web WPX Hosting Kinsta - Kinsta isn't cheaper than WP Engine. But it outperforms other competitors in terms of performance. Choose Kinsta if performance is your top priority rather than low prices. Best-suited for medium and large websites.
Do you have questions about these alternatives to WP Engine? Do let me know in the comment section.
