Do you want to use managed WordPress hosting?
Let’s admit it: WordPress can be a resource heavy platform if left unoptimized. It can impact your site’s performance, ultimately slowing down your site. Managed WordPress hosting makes it easy for you to effectively run a WordPress site, so you only have to focus on what’s important for your business. Your hosting company will take care of all the technical aspects of optimizing your WordPress site.
With all the different managed WordPress hosting providers out there, choosing the right hosting service can be intimidating. In our managed WordPress hosting reviews, we’ll investigate some of the best managed WordPress hosting services and help you decide which one is the right solution for your needs.
Top 8 Best Managed WordPress Hosting Companies
Let’s take a look at the top 8 best managed WordPress hosting companies.
1. WP Engine
- Load time: 582 ms
- Uptime: 99.99%
- Support: 9/10
- Website: WPEngine.com
WP Engine is one of the first companies to offer WordPress-centric managed hosting solutions. They boast an impressive customer list including Yelp, Asana, National Geographic, PBS, etc.
To ensure you get the highest availability, speed, and security around the clock regardless of where your visitors are located, they’ve partnered with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud platform.
Who’s it for? Although they’re a managed WordPress hosting company, WP Engine also offers shared hosting plans. If you’re after an affordable managed hosting service, then WP Engine could be your best choice.
Don’t miss our comparisons between,
- WP Engine vs DreamHost
- WP Engine vs InMotion Hosting
- WP Engine vs Liquid Web
- WP Engine vs iPage
- WP Engine vs A2 Hosting
- WP Engine vs GreenGeeks
Pricing: $24.50 per month (Usually 35 / mo.)
2. SiteGround
- Load time: 649 ms
- Uptime: 99.98%
- Support: 10/10
- Website: SiteGround.com
SiteGround is an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider by WordPress.org. SiteGround’s managed WordPress hosting comes with automated WordPress installation so you can get started with your new WordPress site quickly and easily.
With their free SiteGround Migrator plugin, you can move your WordPress site in just a few clicks. With GrowBig and GoGeek plans, you can avail free professional transfer service. Check out this comparison between SiteGround vs HostGator.
Who’s it for? Looking for the cheapest-yet-reliable managed WordPress hosting service? Then, SiteGround is the best choice.
Pricing: $3.95 per month (Usually $11.95 / mo.)
3. Bluehost Managed
- Load time: 689 ms
- Uptime: 99.99%
- Support: 9/10
- Website: Bluehost.com
Bluehost is another officially recommended WordPress hosting provider by WordPress.org. Bluehost offers 2 different WordPress hosting services: shared WordPress hosting and managed WordPress hosting. They also have an eCommerce hosting solution specifically made for the online businesses.
With Bluehost managed WordPress hosting, you’ll get an all-in-one marketing center dashboard. It also comes pre-installed with recommended marketing plugins and is optimized for blazing fast speed.
Who’s it for? If you want a managed WordPress hosting solution that lets you host unlimited sites and comes with a staging environment, then look no further than Bluehost.
Also, we want you to check out our side by side comparisons between
- Bluehost vs HostGator
- Bluehost vs WP Engine
- Bluehost vs Dreamhost
- Bluehost vs iPage
- Bluehost vs InMotion hosting
- Bluehost vs GreenGeeks
- Bluehost vs A2 Hosting
- Bluehost vs Liquid Web
Pricing: $19.95 per month (Usually $29.99 / mo.)
4. LiquidWeb
- Load time: 901 ms
- Uptime: 99.99%
- Support: 10/10
- Website: LiquidWeb.com
Liquid Web is one of the leading managed WordPress hosting providers on the market. It’s also a PCI compliant web hosting.
Here’s what makes Liquid Web stand out from the rest:
- 100% managed hosting company.
- Both managed WordPress hosting and managed WooCommerce hosting (for eCommerce sites) are available.
- They’ve partnered with iThemes to provide you with iThemes Sync Pro, so you can monitor the health of all your sites from a single platform.
- Unlike traditional WordPress hosting providers, they only offer managed hosting services for VPS and dedicated servers.
Who’s it for? Liquid Web is a good choice for users who want fully managed WordPress VPS or dedicated server clusters.
Pricing: $21.39 per month (Usually $69 / mo.)
5. DreamPress
- Load time: 445 ms
- Uptime: 99.90%
- Support: 7/10
- Website: Dreamhost.com
DreamPress is a managed WordPress hosting service by DreamHost. DreamPress comes with several built-in tools that are optimized for WordPress.
With DreamPress, your site will be hosted on Nginx with HTTP2 enabled for improved site performance. Since it comes with server-level caching, you won’t have to install any caching plugins.
Who’s it for? If you’re looking for an officially recommended managed WordPress hosting service that provides automatic updates and daily backups, then DreamPress is a nice choice.
Pricing: $14.95 per month (Usually $19.95 / mo.)
6. Pagely
- Load time: –
- Uptime: –
- Support: 9/10
- Website: Pagely.com
Pagely is the original managed WordPress hosting provider and comes with cutting edge WordPress-centric technologies to improve your site’s performance.
A few benefits of using Pagely are:
- Powered by Amazon S3, your entire site will be backed up on a daily basis.
- Includes all developer-friendly tools like SSH, GIT, staging, and WP-CLI.
- Users are able to deploy fully customized WordPress themes, plugins, and functionality.
Who’s it for? Pagely is focused primarily on the B2B, enterprise, and public sector markets.
Pricing: $299 per month
7. HostGator WordPress Cloud
- Load time: 691 ms
- Uptime: 99.96%
- Support: 10/10
- Website: HostGator.com
If you’re looking to upgrade your WordPress shared hosting, but don’t have the budget for an expensive managed WordPress hosting plan, then you might consider HostGator WordPress Cloud hosting.
With HostGator WordPress Cloud hosting, you can experience 2x faster load time and 4x more scalable servers. You’d also like to check out this comparison between
- HostGator vs DreamHost
- HostGator vs. GreenGeeks
- HostGator vs InMotion Hosting
- HostGator vs WP Engine
- HostGator vs iPage
- HostGator vs Liquid Web
- HostGator vs A2 Hosting
Who’s it for? If you’re tired of shared hosting but don’t prefer having a VPS server and are looking for an in-between hosting solution, then HostGator WordPress Cloud is the best bet for you.
Pricing: $5.95 per month (40% off)
8. GoDaddy
- Load time: –
- Uptime: –
- Support: 8/10
- Website: GoDaddy.com
GoDaddy WordPress hosting is targeted at beginner-level users who are under a limited budget. They offer 99.99% uptime guarantee and provide you with automatic account setup, core updates, and daily backups.
Their hosting platform is optimized for WordPress sites with high-performance load-balanced servers and SSD drives. You’ll get a staging environment to test your site before you push it to a production environment. Also, check out these GoDaddy hosting alternatives.
Who’s it for? If your domain is registered on GoDaddy and you’d prefer to manage your domain and web hosting account from a single site, then GoDaddy managed WordPress hosting is for you.
Pricing: $2.49 per month (70% off)
How to Choose the Best Managed WordPress Hosting
Now that you’ve explored 8 different managed WordPress hosting services, you might be wondering what factors you should be looking for when choosing a hosting service?
Before you choose one, you’ll need to have a clear understanding of why you want managed WordPress hosting for your site. You’ll also want to ensure that the hosting service you choose meets your budget and requirements.
Before we dive in, let’s take a look at what managed WordPress hosting actually is.
What’s Managed WordPress Hosting?
Managed WordPress hosting services are built for hosting blazing fast, highly secure, and scalable WordPress sites. With a managed hosting setup, you operate your site on a server that’s uniquely optimized for the security configuration of WordPress. You can also count on qualified support professionals who know the ins and outs of your WordPress site and server.
Running your site on a managed WordPress hosting service gives you peace of mind because you don’t have to know the technicalities of optimizing WordPress for improved performance.
Your hosting provider handles all the system administration tasks so you only need to focus on what’s important for your business.
Pros:
- Ease of management: You don’t need to handle any system administration issues. Instead, you can focus on what you’re really good at: publishing great content and managing your business.
- Security: Most reputed managed WordPress hosting services come with WordPress caching, automatic WordPress vulnerability fixes, etc., which give you an extra layer of protection for your site. That way, your site gets bulletproof security without having to configure complex WordPress security plugins.
- Speed: Most managed hosting providers offer content caching at the server level. In fact, some hosting providers don’t even allow you to install a caching plugin to speed up your site.
- Expert support: In case you need help regarding your WordPress site’s performance, you’ll get expert WordPress assistance.
- Auto updates: Most managed WordPress hosting companies offer automatic WordPress core updates. Some even offer automatic WordPress theme and plugin updates. This ensures you’re using the latest versions so that it protects your site from any known vulnerability threats.
Cons:
- Expensive: Compared to shared hosting, managed WordPress hosting is quite expensive. If you’re just starting out, managed WordPress hosting isn’t a good solution for you.
- Limitations: Some managed WordPress hosting providers like WPEngine don’t allow you to use certain plugins that might clash with their hosting services.
- Only WordPress sites: Obviously, you can’t build a non-WordPress website on your managed WordPress hosting account.
Factors to Consider When Choosing Managed WordPress Hosting
Before you choose a random managed WordPress hosting provider, below are a few things you need to consider:
- Understand your purpose
- Security mechanisms
- Agile development environments
- Backups
- Autoupdate
- Technical support
Understand Your Purpose
As a result of the growing popularity of WordPress, a lot of web hosting companies now offer WordPress hosting that comes preinstalled with WordPress at low prices. The best thing is that the WordPress hosting service emphasizes the easiness of building a WordPress site. Even a user who doesn’t have any previous experience with WordPress can quickly set up a WordPress site with ease.
Aside from convenience, a typical WordPress hosting service may not have much to offer in terms of performance boost.
That means, before you dive in and choose WordPress hosting, it’s vital for you to understand why you actually need it. For instance, if you’re just after convenience, you can choose a WordPress hosting plan from Bluehost that makes it easy to build a WordPress site without having to manually setup WordPress yourself. Their plans are best suited for beginner-level consumers.
If you’re opting for a managed WordPress hosting service in order to boost your WordPress performance, you might choose a company that specializes in WordPress hosting like WPEngine.
WPEngine emphasizes your site’s performance and they charge you based on the traffic you attract and the bandwidth you consume. That way, you can offer enterprise class performance to your visitors without having to handle the tedious system administration tasks.
In the rest of this article, we’ll be talking about managed WordPress hosting services built for boosting your site’s performance.
Security Mechanisms
Out of the box, managed WordPress hosting providers often offer automatic vulnerability fixes and many other security measures to protect your website from security threats.
Below are a few security measures you can find from reputed managed WordPress hosting services:
- Malware scanning: Inspect your WordPress files to detect vulnerabilities and fix them automatically.
- Brute force mitigation: Brute force attacks are still one of the popular cracking methods. Aside from password cracking, it’s also used to discover hidden pages and vulnerable files.
- A web application firewall (WAF): WAF is employed out of the box in managed WordPress hosting setups to ensure attack vendors are blocked.
- DDoS mitigation: It prevents any attempts to exhaust the resources in a network.
Agile Development Environments
Managed WordPress hosting often comes with an agile development environment that allows you to quickly create a staging and production site with 1-click tools. Staging helps you build your sites before pushing them to production. That way you can ensure your site is perfect before deploying.
Backups
Daily backups are another important feature you can expect from a managed WordPress hosting plan. Some users prefer having their own backup system set up on their site in addition to the backup offered by a managed hosting service.
Be sure to check if your web host allows you to install your favorite backup plugin on your site.
Auto update
Regularly updating your WordPress is highly recommended because it protects your site from newly discovered vulnerabilities. Some managed WordPress hosting companies offer automatic WordPress themes and plugins updates as well.
However, keep in mind that enabling auto updates for your themes and plugins can sometimes break your site, so you’ll need to be cautious when doing so.
Technical Support
One of the main benefits of choosing a managed WordPress hosting is that you get technical assistance from experts who know WordPress inside and out. Your support team can also walk you through many best practices on how you can boost your WordPress performance and troubleshoot WordPress-specific errors.
Recap: Best Managed WordPress Hosting Companies
After our managed WordPress hosting review, we’ve found that WPEngine is the best hosting service you could ever ask for. Whether you’re running a startup or any other kind of WordPress sites that anticipate growth, you’ll find a custom-tailored plan for your needs. By choosing WPEngine, you can provide enterprise-level performance to your users without handling any tedious server administration tasks.
WPEngine also lets you easily manage your workflows and accelerate deployment cycles with 1-click tools.
If you’re looking for a managed WordPress host that offers robust performance, enterprise-grade security, and a complete features set at a fair price, then WPEngine is for you!
| WordPress Hosting | Cost | Money Back | Load Time | Uptime | Support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. WPEngine | $20.42/mo. | Nil | 582 ms | 99.99% | 9/10 |
| 2. SiteGround | $3.95/mo. | 30 days | 649 ms | 99.98% | 10/10 |
| 3. Bluehost WP Pro | $19.95/mo. | 30 days | 689 ms | 99.99% | 10/10 |
| 4. Liquid Web | $21.39/mo. | 30 days | 901ms | 99.99% | 10/10 |
| 5. DreamPress | $14.95/mo. | 97 days | 445 ms | 99.90% | 7/10 |
| 6. Pagely | $299/mo. | 30 days | - | - | 9/10 |
| 7. HostGator Cloud | $5.95/mo. | 45 days | 691 ms | 99.96% | 10/10 |
| 8. Godaddy | $3.92/mo. | 30 days | - | - | 8/10 |
FAQs – Choosing the Best Managed WordPress Hosting Service
Having helped thousands of users to set up their WordPress sites, we’ve found that people ask the same sort of questions again and again. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of frequently asked questions so you can get started with the best hosting service for your WordPress site.
How does managed WordPress hosting differ from other hosting services?
Managed WordPress hosting services are built for delivering blazing fast, highly secure, and scalable WordPress sites. With a managed hosting setup, you don’t have to know the technicalities of optimizing your WordPress for improved performance.
You can count on qualified support professionals to assist you whenever you detect a performance issue.
Simply put, managed WordPress hosting gives you the peace of mind you deserve by removing your worries about system administration.
Do I need managed WordPress hosting for my site?
Not necessarily.
Managed WordPress hosting is a concierge service where all technical aspects of running WordPress are managed by the host. It’s built specifically for running WordPress websites on, and it’s optimized for speed, security, scalability, etc.
If you’re just starting out, it’s in your best interest to get a shared WordPress hosting service that comes with a full set of hosting features (such as 1-click WordPress install) to get your WordPress website up and running.
Managed WordPress hosting could be the best choice for those websites that attract a lot of traffic and need a tight security layer, so you don’t need to take care of any technical configurations to make your sites blazing fast.
What are the drawbacks of managed WordPress hosting?
Of course, you’re allowed to host only a WordPress site with a managed WordPress hosting setup. Aside from that, some other drawbacks are:
- Expensive: Managed WordPress hosting solutions aren’t for everyone. If your site is small, you won’t find any performance improvements with a managed hosting setup and you won’t find it affordable either.
- Limited customizations: For best performance, some WordPress hosts limit the number of customizations you can do on your WordPress site.
- Plugin restrictions: Some hosting providers restrict certain plugins from installing on your site, which could potentially clash with their system.
How much does it cost to purchase a managed WordPress hosting?
It depends on what kind of managed WordPress hosting services you’ll need for your site. If you want to choose a company that specializes in managed WordPress hosting like WPEngine, the pricing starts at $350 per year. When you choose a specialized managed hosting company, you get a clear idea of the traffic and bandwidth limit offered by each individual plan. This allows you to choose your plan accordingly.
If you’re choosing WordPress hosting for the convenience of building a WordPress website, then you might want to choose a WordPress hosting plan from Bluehost or HostGator. Their WordPress hosting pricing start as low as $120 per year.
Do I need to have a domain and hosting from the same provider?
Not necessarily. You can get a domain and hosting from different providers. Some hosting providers allow you to register a domain name for free when purchasing a hosting account, which makes it easy to set up a blog from the ground up.
Alternatively, you can buy a domain name from a domain registrar. In the long run, buying a domain name from a domain registrar will be profitable for you because the domain renewal cost will be lower.
Do I need to get a hosting addon?
No. Hosting companies used to upsell several hosting addons when you purchased a new hosting account. Those hosting addons are not needed when you’re starting out, so make sure to uncheck those addons. In case you think you need them in future, you can always purchase them without hassle at a later date.
Do managed WordPress hosting companies keep backups of my site?
If your site is hosted on a reputed managed WordPress hosting provider like WPEngine, your data will be backed up on a daily basis. If you feel more secure with an additional backup plugin, you can always do so. However, make sure your hosting company allows installing your favorite backup plugin on your site because some backup plugin have proven to consume more resources which could potentially impact your server’s performance.
Do managed WordPress hosting companies preinstall any WordPress plugins?
It depends on the hosting company you choose. Some WordPress hosting plans (for example, Dreamhost) come preinstalled with premium plugins like Jetpack Pro for no additional cost. Such plans could be a nice option for some. But, if you don’t want to be forced to use a specific premium plugin, it’s in your best interest to contact your hosting provider or choose another hosting company that doesn’t force any unwanted plugins onto your site.
How do I migrate my WordPress site to my new managed WordPress hosting account?
Most managed WordPress hosting companies offer free WordPress site migration to a new managed hosting account. All you have to do is check whether your hosting provider offers a free transfer and request it via their support team.
Can I install any plugins I want?
It depends on your hosting provider. Hosting providers like WPEngine forbid certain plugins that could clash with their hosting solutions.
Below are a certain classes of plugins you’re forbidden to install on WPEngine:
- Caching plugins
- Backup plugins
- Server and MYSQL thrashing plugins
- Related posts plugins
- Broken link checker plugins
- Duplicate behavior plugins
- Email plugins
It’s in your best interest to check with your hosting provider whether they allow your beloved WordPress plugins on your site before you sign up.
Can I change my managed WordPress hosting later?
Absolutely! Just like any other hosting account, you can switch over to other hosting providers if you want to.
Can I send email blasts with my managed hosting account?
Most reputed managed WordPress hosting providers don’t allow you to send blast emails using a WordPress plugin. By sending blast emails, you’re risking your IP address getting blacklisted. Instead, you’re advised to use an email marketing tool like AWeber or MailChimp.
