The WP Engine logo against a dark blue background.
7.8/ 10
SCORE
WP Engine
Pros
Excellent server performance
Great tools for developers
Robust security tools
Cons
Interface isn’t always intuitive
Price is high for the service provided
WP Engine is a premium managed WordPress hosting company, currently powering over half a million websites. There’s a good chance you’ve visited some of these sites: Yelp, Instacart and other major companies use WP Engine. On a more personal level, I’ve seen it recommended by many of my developer friends. But popularity with developers and big companies doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for the average person.
I built a WP Engine website, tracked its uptime and tested its site speed over the course of a week. I also contacted customer service to test response times and analyzed WP Engine’s security and features to determine its value. My experience was largely positive, but its systems weren’t particularly beginner-friendly, and its built-in WordPress management is less advanced than competitors’. Combined with WP Engine’s advanced features for developers, this makes it more suitable for experienced web developers than for the average person.
WP Engine plans and pricing: WordPress, WordPress and more WordPress
All of WP Engine’s plans are built around WordPress, a popular content management system (CMS) for creating, organizing and managing website content like blog posts without code. WordPress balances ease of use and flexibility so well that a whopping 43.5% of all websites use it.
You can get three types of WordPress-optimized hosting from WP Engine: WordPress hosting, WooCommerce hosting and Headless hosting. The WordPress and WooCommerce hosting plans have similar features to comparable plans from other high-ranking web hosts, including Hostinger and A2 Hosting, albeit at a higher cost. The Headless hosting plans, however, are something I’ve only seen available through WP Engine.
WordPress hosting
WP Engine’s core offering is managed WordPress hosting, meaning that WP Engine will perform automated updates to the core WordPress software and, on some plans, plugins and themes. This frees you up to focus on the creative side of maintaining your website -- but it’s a service you can get for more affordable prices through companies like Hostinger.
Plans include preinstalled WordPress, 10 premium themes, the Genesis Blocks plugin to simplify site creation and automated updates to the core WordPress software. Sites on these plans use a content delivery network, or CDN, and proprietary Evercache systems to ensure fast loading times. These tools are far better than other hosting companies’ speed tools, providing the best site speed of any traditional web host I’ve tested.
Keeping your site secure is crucial, and WP Engine provides several safeguards. You’ll get firewall protection to prevent malware from infecting your site and anti-DDoS (distributed denial of service) protection to prevent your site from floods of malicious traffic. Security patching and plugin risk assessments are performed regularly to ensure your site’s safety. WP Engine’s security aligns with what you can expect from other top hosting companies like Hostinger.
For most people, the features listed above are all you need to concern yourself with. However, developers and agencies will be pleased to know that WordPress hosting plans from WP Engine also include one-click staging to help you quickly create test sites and site transfer tools, so you can easily give control of a site to the client you’re building it for. These features make it easy to establish a collaborative site creation process where you work with your clients instead of just working for them.
If you’re running a small website or online business, you’ll probably want to choose one of the Essential plans, as they provide a good balance of features and affordability. These plans use a shared hosting model, meaning your site will share a physical server with numerous other websites. Your site will get a dedicated amount of that server’s resources, such as storage and bandwidth.
Shared hosting can limit your site growth, but typically costs less than more advanced hosting types. WP Engine’s shared hosting plans are more expensive than many competitors’, but they're still more affordable than many advanced hosting options.
There are four Essential WordPress hosting plans, with some key differences outlined in the table below:
Plan name Number of sites Storage Bandwidth Best for
Startup 1 10GB (enough for at least 100 pages) 75GB (25,000 monthly visitors) Small businesses expecting moderately high traffic
Professional 3 15GB (enough for at least 150 pages) 150GB (enough for 75,000 monthly visitors) Designers working on 1-2 client sites at a time
Growth 10 20GB (enough for at least 200 pages) 240GB (enough for 100,000 monthly visitors) Small agencies
Scale 30 50GB (enough for at least 500 pages) 550GB (enough for 400,000 monthly visitors) Medium-sized agencies
While WP Engine doesn’t offer a steep introductory discount like other web hosting companies, you can get a 20% discount during checkout if you're using it for the first time.
WP Engine’s unique way of measuring bandwidth and monthly visitors
One interesting thing about WP Engine is that it lists bandwidth, a measurement for determining how much data your site can send each month, separately from the number of monthly visitors. For example, the Startup plan says it can accommodate up to 25,000 monthly visitors, but it has 75GB of bandwidth. In contrast, most estimates would say you could have 75,000 monthly visitors instead of 25,000.
While I wasn’t able to determine how WP Engine calculates its ratio of visitors to bandwidth, I did learn that WP Engine charges overage fees if you exceed the visitor limit of your plan. The fees are charged per 1,000 visitors over your limit, so you won’t pay extra if you have 25,001 monthly visitors on the Startup plan, but you will if you have 26,000 monthly visitors. You can refer to WP Engine’s overage pricing page for full details.
Add-ons for improved functionality
WP Engine offers several add-ons, allowing people on its Essential WordPress plans to add more sites, automate plugin updates, boost site speeds or increase security. These are all great things for your site, but it’s frustrating that they’re add-ons rather than features incorporated into WP Engine plans. I’m especially disappointed that automated plugin updates are an add-on; this isn’t a common feature on base-level plans, but I had hoped to see it included in a plan priced at $20 a month.
Additional Site(s): You can add as many sites as you want for $13 paer year per site.
E-Commerce Package: One-click store creation, specialized checkout hosted by Stripe Connect and protocols for optimizing WooCommerce speed and performance, priced at $4 a year. These tools can help you set up your WooCommerce site quickly and ensure smooth, fast performance for all of your visitors. Alternatively, you can get these tools bundled into a WooCommerce hosting package.
Automated Plugin Updates: For $3 a year, WP Engine will automatically update your plugins to keep your site secure and reduce the time you spend on website maintenance.
Extra Layer of Security: Enterprise-level security protocols, including a managed firewall with 24/7 monitoring and advanced threat detection. This package costs an additional $21 a month.
Page Speed Boost: For $13 a year, WP Engine will apply 30-plus site optimizations to improve your website’s speed. These include things like code compression, which reduces the amount of time it takes for browsers to access your site’s code.
These add-ons are listed differently during checkout, with different names and price tags. You’ll pay these prices if you select the add-ons on the pricing page; you may pay more, or have other add-on possibilities, if you choose your add-ons during checkout.
Additional plan types
WP Engine also offers Core and Custom plans for large companies that need to handle higher monthly web traffic than is possible on the Essential WordPress plans. Core or Customplans are beneficial to agencies that are consistently building multiple client websites at once.
These plans typically use VPS (virtual private server) hosting, giving your site an individualized environment with more resources, like RAM and storage, than shared hosting. You can also choose cloud hosting, a decentralized hosting type that uses multiple servers to provide better uptime and scalability. Both hosting types can accommodate higher traffic levels than shared hosting, with VPS offering more server customization options and cloud hosting offering higher scalability. This makes VPS ideal if you have specialized tech needs, while cloud hosting is better if you expect rapid growth.
You’ll work directly with a WP Engine representative to choose this and other aspects of your plan. Core starts at $400 a month; there’s no base price listed for Custom plans, meaning you’ll likely pay more than $400 a month.
WooCommerce hosting
WooCommerce is a popular e-commerce plugin that makes it easy to turn your website into an online store. WP Engine offers several plans with one-click WooCommerce setup, the Smart Plugin Manager to ensure smooth site function and Stripe Connect integration to simplify receiving payments.
WooCommerce hosting from WP Engine starts at $24 a month for the Startup plan. This includes one site with enough bandwidth for up to 25,000 monthly visitors, 10GB of storage and 75GB of bandwidth. Like the Essential WordPress plans, the Woo-Commerce Startupplan uses shared hosting (as do all other Essential Woo-Commerce plans).
Larger companies can invest in Core*,* an advanced hosting package that uses VPS hosting and includes WP Engine’s proprietary Smart Search AI, custom onboarding and more extensive DDoS protection. These plans start at $800 a month and require you to contact WP Engine for full details. You can also contact WP Engine to create a fully customized plan if you’re running an enterprise-level business.
Headless hosting
If you’re a developer, or even if you just have a highly developed understanding of how websites work on the back end, you can maximize your site optimization with headless hosting. This hosting technique separates the frontend layer (the framework used to design what site visitors see) from the CMS (the content management system, like WordPress, for organizing blog posts and other content) to maximize speed and improve the user experience. However, setting up a headless website can be complicated, especially if you’re new to website building.
WP Engine’s headless hosting plans feature a suite of tools that integrate headless tech with WordPress to simplify creating this type of website. You’ll also get access to curated resources, including podcasts, how-to articles and a Discord server where you can connect with other headless site builders, plus a dedicated support agent. This helps you adjust to headless hosting, but you’ll still need to be comfortable learning new tech to make it work.
Headless hosting from WP Engine uses cloud hosting, storing your information in a network of servers spread across the globe. Combined with the optimization processes of headless hosting, this can lead to ultrafast performance for international subscribers.
If you want to use Headless hosting, you’ll need to contact WP Engine to create a custom plan with unique pricing.
WP Engine ease of use: Aimed at developers, but still navigable to newbies
Checkout is more complicated than necessary
WP Engine targets developers and other advanced users. In turn, its checkout process is more involved than other web hosts, like Hostinger.
WP Engine plans and pricing page showing its Essential, Core, and Enterprise plans
Screenshot/CNET
My main issue with buying a plan from WP Engine occurs on the pricing page: The site automatically selects the Professional plan instead of the more affordable Startup plan. There’s no way to change your plan during the checkout process, so this might lead to people who aren’t paying close attention spending more than they need to. This feels slightly predatory to me, and it’s something I haven’t encountered when reviewing other web hosts -- they might highlight a midtier plan, but they don’t select it for you.
The other issue I have with WP Engine checkout is the emphasis on upsells or add-ons. However, this is a common issue with popular web hosts -- I’ve encountered it when reviewing sites like HostGator and GoDaddy -- and WP Engine doesn’t select the add-ons, so this issue is minor.
The WP Engine checkout page with a plan added to it showing various upsells
Screenshot/CNET
One thing I like about the WP Engine purchase process is how the introductory discount is applied through an automatically enabled coupon. This makes it easy to see the renewal cost, something other web hosts often obscure. I’d like to see this sort of transparency from more web hosts.
I also love the display of the 60-day money-back guarantee. This guarantee is twice as long as the 30-day money-back guarantee offered by most web hosts, and its prominent placement during checkout ensures everyone is aware of it. In contrast, most web hosting companies hide this information at the bottom of a pricing page or in the small print of the purchase.
Account management is mostly straightforward
Despite opening with an upsell, WP Engine’s account management systems are simple enough to accommodate beginners and make processes fast for WordPress experts.
The first thing I encountered when logging into WP Engine after signing up was a full-page upsell. This reminded me of the HostGator login, which required me to bypass an upsell every time I logged in. Unlike the HostGator login, this upsell isn’t a separate page, so I could quickly navigate to other areas of my account using the sidebar.
WP Engine's smart plugin manager automatically updates WordPress plugins
Screenshot/CNET
The sidebar is clearly laid out, with quick access to various aspects of site management, like your site list and analytics dashboard. You’ll also find Users, where you can give account access to collaborators or employees, and Billing. I particularly appreciated the inclusion of billing settings, as popular hosts like GoDaddy hide these settings in a dropdown menu.
Website and server management is more complex than the competition
WP Engine has a slightly more involved website creation process than other web hosts I’ve tested. You’ll have to answer some questions about the type of website you’re creating, including the industry you’re working in and whether or not you’ll be the permanent site owner. You’ll also have to create an environment, with three options:
Development environment: This is an isolated environment where you (or your developer) do the initial work of building a website. Typically, everyone other than the developer is locked out of this environment.
Staging environment: An isolated environment for testing functionality. Many developers maintain a staging environment after the initial site build to test updates before they go live. Developers, testing professionals and other team members will have access to the staging environment, but it won’t be publicly visible.
Production environment: This is the environment your website will live on once it’s published online.
These options are great for developers, but they’re overkill for the average person. A staging environment can be helpful for testing WordPress updates before you implement them on your live site, but you won’t need a development environment if you’re only doing mild website customization, like moving and replacing images. The staging environment isn’t necessary for getting started either; you can build your site directly in the production environment. Most web hosting companies only offer a production environment for this reason.
Build a new site dashboard in WP Engine with site details information
Screenshot/CNET
Since I wasn’t building anything complicated, I jumped right into a production environment. WP Engine set it up in around 3 minutes. This is a little bit longer than it usually takes to gain access to a WordPress site after the initial setup, but the extra minute or so isn’t going to make or break your day. I then went to the Sites area of WP Engine and clicked through to my WordPress dashboard.
This is where I found my biggest disappointment: WP Engine doesn’t have any equivalent to the site assistant plugins offered by companies like Hostinger and A2 Hosting. You’re just thrown into the WordPress dashboard with no assistance whatsoever. Experienced WordPress users or folks who like to learn new tech should be fine, but it can be overwhelming if you’re not technically inclined.
Returning to my WP Engine account, I checked out the Dashboard next. The dashboard looks promising, with information about required updates and resource usage. However, the most helpful information -- site outages, recent attacks and auto-updates -- isn’t accessible unless you buy the relevant add-ons. Similarly, you’ll see basic analytics for the past 30 days when you scroll further down, but the "Top searches" area is blurred out unless you pay for WP Engine Smart Search.
WP Engine dashboard with plan overview information
Screenshot/CNET
This area is easy to navigate, but the emphasis on upsells is disappointing, especially when compared to dashboards for companies like Hostinger and A2 Hosting.
What isn’t so easy is finding WP Engine’s server management tools. There’s no cPanel (the server management tool most web hosts use) or obvious equivalent. Instead, you’ll need to click the three dots beside your site in the Sites area. This opens a menu where you can access PHPMyAdmin, domain or DNS settings, SSL and caching. I've used cPanel for some times and I was initially thrown off by this change, but the settings proved easy to navigate once I found them -- albeit not as easy as using tools like Hostinger’s hPanel.
This system works as long as you stick with WP Engine, but it can cause issues if you want to switch web hosts down the line. Most hosting companies’ free site migration services work by moving your cPanel; if you don’t have one, they may not be able to help you. Moreover, most guides on transferring to a new host are based on cPanel. As a result, you may need to hire a developer to move your site to a new host.
Overall: WP Engine is relatively simple to use, with advanced features for developers
Overall, WP Engine gets an 8/10 ease-of-use ranking. WP Engine works if you’re familiar with WordPress, but I’d recommend Hostinger or A2 Hosting if you’re a WordPress newbie. The purchase process and the dashboard both emphasize upsells more than I’d like, but it’s still fairly simple to navigate. Site setup is also easy, and developers or designers will appreciate how quickly you can set up a development or staging environment. However, there’s no site assistant to help people who are new to WordPress, and the server management tools are challenging to find.
Performance: Excellent uptime, above-average speed
WP Engine offers fast, reliable service, with continuous uptime during my week of testing and one of the best average site speeds I’ve encountered.
Your web host should provide high-quality servers and tools to ensure fast, reliable site performance for your visitors. I used two key metrics to evaluate WP Engine’s performance:
Uptime: The percentage of time a website spends online. Uptime matters because people who find your site down will likely go elsewhere, potentially leading to lost traffic and audience trust. Significant periods of downtime (when your site isn’t accessible) may also result in a major loss of revenue if you’re running a business site.
Site speed: The number of seconds your site takes to load. People expect sites to load near-instantaneously, to the extent that bounce rate (the percentage of people who leave your site after viewing only one page) increases by 32% when load times go from 1 to 3 seconds.
Performance tools: How WP Engine ensures good site speed
All WP Engine sites come with multiple layers of caching: object caching, page caching and network caching. Object caching can improve loading times for popular pages by saving data associated with common requests (like browsers requesting access to your homepage so visitors can see it) in a specialized “cache” connected to your server’s CPU. The CPU is faster than the RAM traditionally used for storing website data, so this technique may improve site loading.
Page caching uses specialized caches to store dynamically generated pages (pages constructed on request rather than statically stored) so those pages can be generated more quickly.
Network caching allows visitors’ devices to pull information from the server closest to their location, which can be faster than pulling data from a server on the other side of the world. WP Engine performs network caching through a content delivery network or CDN, a system of interconnected servers around the globe. Network caching is particularly helpful for international users.
WP Engine also lets you choose the primary data center your site will be stored on. Picking a location near where your target audience lives may help their devices access your website more quickly.
Uptime: On par with our top-ranking web hosts
Most web hosting companies offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee, promising that your site won’t go down for more than 10 minutes a week due to server issues. WP Engine provides the same guarantee to most subscribers, with a full 99.99% uptime guarantee -- meaning server issues won’t take your site down for more than 2 minutes per week -- for those on the Core plan.
I used the Essential Startup plan for my WP Engine site, which meant I got the 99.9% uptime guarantee. I monitored my site’s uptime for one week with BetterStack to see how WP Engine lived up to this promise. My site experienced no downtime during this week, suggesting that WP Engine makes good on its uptime guarantee and may even exceed it. This is similar to the uptime I experienced with other top web hosts like Hostinger and A2 Hosting.
Site speed: Ultrafast performance
I clocked a best-in-class 2.17-second overall site speed, well under the recommended 3 seconds. WP Engine outstrips most other traditional web hosts and even many website builders.
I spent five days testing my site with WebPageTest to determine how fast it was and, specifically, whether it landed within the recommended loading time of three seconds. I ran tests in several locations and at different times of day to understand how a broad range of people will experience sites hosted on WP Engine.
Here are the location-based average speeds from my speed tests (remember, lower numbers are better):
US UK Germany India Dubai Australia
Mobile 2.08 2.29 2.33 2.85 3.76
Desktop 1.06 1.21 1.21 1.92 2.66
Adding these numbers together, we get the following averages for WP Engine:
Mobile speed of 2.69 seconds
Desktop speed of 1.65 seconds
Overall speed of 2.17 seconds
WP Engine has the fastest overall speed of any traditional web hosting company I’ve tested. In fact, it’s significantly faster than the next-fastest traditional web host, GoDaddy, which had an overall average speed of 2.29 seconds. The only company with a better site speed in my tests was Shopify, an e-commerce website builder with a 1.71-second overall average.
Moreover, these tests were performed on a site using a US-based data center. WP Engine has data centers all over the world, so you can choose to host your site in a different location if you want better site speeds in India, the Middle East or Australia.
Overall: WP Engine’s performance matches -- and sometimes exceeds -- top-ranking web hosts
Performance is one place where WP Engine really excels, with continuous uptime and excellent site speed during my week of testing. This gives WP Engine a 9/10 performance ranking, on par with our top-ranking web host, Hostinger.
WP Engine security: Comprehensive protection for every site
WP Engine offers proactive WordPress security to everyone, including:
Secure socket layer (SSL) certification: A protocol that encrypts data sent to and from your site (like customers’ payment information) into a language only computers can understand. This reduces the risk of your data being intercepted by malicious users. SSL certification is also a safety indicator used by browsers and VPNs. Some won’t open a site without it. Similarly, Google punishes sites without SSL because they’re seen as unsafe.
Firewall protection: Filtration software that scans traffic to and from your site with the goal of identifying and blocking malware. Think of it like the website equivalent of wearing a mask during COVID or flu season: Installing a firewall keeps most of the viruses (and other bad stuff) out, but still lets the good stuff (air or, in this case, regular website traffic) in. It might not catch everything, but it will block the most common threats.
Distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection: Protocols to prevent your site from being overwhelmed by floods of malicious traffic that are designed to overwhelm your server.
Security patching and plugin risk scans: WP Engine’s team of dedicated WordPress experts performs continuous scans to identify threats and vulnerabilities in the WP Engine servers and WordPress systems, including plugins. They create security patches to eliminate those vulnerabilities and protect against vulnerabilities they find. Patches are automatically rolled out to WP Engine servers and users.
Automated daily backups: WP Engine performs automated off-site backups of all environments -- including development and staging environments -- on a daily basis. All backups are fully encrypted to preserve your data. If something goes wrong with your site, you can restore an environment to the most recent backup in a few minutes.
This security suite is similar to what you’ll get from other top web hosts like Ionos and A2 Hosting, earning WP Engine a 10/10 security ranking.
You can get improved security through the Smart Plugin Manager add-on, which automatically updates plugins when new security features are added. The Extra Layer of Security add-on also boosts security through the SOC 2, a framework originally created to control how financial data is secured, and a managed firewall that offers more advanced threat detection than the base firewall.
WP Engine customer support
The internet is 24/7. Your web hosting company’s customer support should be too -- and they should be available through your preferred method of communication, whether that’s live chat, email or phone. The best web hosting companies also have extensive support staff to ensure fast response times and high-quality training for those staff to ensure that they can help you with a variety of issues.
I tested WP Engine’s customer service to see how it meets this standard. I was impressed with its comprehensive knowledge base and responsive live chat, but WP Engine’s handling of support tickets and phone support was underwhelming.
Knowledge base
WP Engine customer support portal
Screenshot/CNET
WP Engine’s self-serve customer service area is called the Support Center. The focus of this page is a prominent search function with links to several common questions. I appreciate how clearly everything is laid out, including the option to open a support ticket through Zendesk. Similarly, I liked the helpful links to WP Engine’s status page, feedback page and educational resources. There’s a great balance here, with less clutter than you’ll find in the knowledge base of companies like InMotion and more information than you’ll find in the Hostinger knowledge base.
The search function uses “conversational search.” which creates answers in a chat box when you ask questions. It’s cool to watch the answer come into existence, but it would be faster to immediately provide links than to generate an answer on the spot. The answers in this chat are also fairly simplistic, with links to articles for more information, implying that a standard search function might be faster. Still, you can access most answers in 1 to 2 minutes.
As for the articles themselves, WP Engine uses plain language and step-by-step instructions to walk you through dealing with various issues. Most articles include images to further assist you, but there weren’t any videos on the articles I checked out, which might be frustrating if you prefer to learn through video.
Direct contact
Next, I opened a live chat with WP Engine. Like most web hosts, WP Engine filters initial queries through an AI chatbot. I asked it a few simple questions and received near-instant answers with clear, step-by-step instructions.
I asked a more complicated question and was put into a queue to speak with a support agent. I started at 23rd in the queue, which gave me misgivings after a similar experience with InMotion Hosting. Unlike InMotion, however, WP Engine kept the queue moving fast. I was 16th in line within minutes.
A person responded after around 10 minutes, longer than the 1 to 2 minutes I’ve waited to speak with service reps from most web hosting companies. However, it’s still less time than I spent waiting for a human with Hostinger or InMotion, and the representative I spoke to answered my questions in a timely manner.
The Support Center also links to a Zendesk page where you can log in to manage your tickets. I assumed this led to an email-based ticket system like the one offered by A2 Hosting, but the only option for contacting support through Zendesk was to “Start a Chat”, which led me back to the Support Center to open a live chat.
I searched the WP Engine site for other contact methods, but I could only find specialized emails for sales and billing, not a general support email (or phone number). There are two reasons for this. First, the chat acts as a triage, sending those with complicated questions to support ticket systems or phone numbers for specific teams. Second, phone support isn’t available on the Startup plan, so I wasn’t able to access it -- and you’ll need to pay for at least the Professional plan if you want phone support.
Overall: Acceptable service, but definitely not the best
WP Engine gets a support ranking of 7/10. The knowledge base is intuitive to navigate and offers beginner-friendly articles, while the live chat offers access to helpful representatives in a reasonable amount of time. However, I dislike the lack of easier access to the support tickets. The limitation on phone support is also frustrating, especially since users at the base plan are paying $20 a month, which is significantly more than equivalent plans from top-ranking web hosts like Ionos, which doesn’t restrict phone service.
WP Engine value: Not ideal for most users
In short, it’s safe to say that WP Engine provides a good service -- but it may not be worth the price. You can get many of the same features from other web hosts, plus extras like a free domain for the first year, without spending nearly as much money. The availability of more affordable options with similar features leads me to give WP Engine a 5/10 value ranking.
However, I want to add one caveat: WP Engine provides more value for web developers and agencies. You can easily create a client site, allow them to test that site and transfer ownership of the completed site on any plan. These features are often restricted to higher-tier plans -- or not available at all -- with other web hosts.
Here’s how WP Engine stacks up against our top-performing web hosts:
Host Plan Features Price
Hostinger Premium 25 websites, one free domain for the first year, 25GB of storage (enough for at least 250 pages), 25,000 monthly visitors, WordPress auto-updates, WordPress vulnerabilities scanner, SSL certification, WordPress acceleration, weekly backups Starts at $3 a month, renews at $8 a month, based on a 4-year contract
SiteGround StartUp 1 website, free domain for the first year, 10GB of storage (enough for at least 100 pages), 10,000 monthly visitors, SSL certification, WordPress auto-updates, speed optimizer plugin, security optimizer plugin, daily backups Starts at $3 a month, renews at $18 a month, based on a 1-year contract
Ionos Essential 1 website, free domain for the first year, 10GB storage (enough for at least 100 pages), unlimited bandwidth, 99.99% uptime guarantee, SSL certification, daily backups Starts at $4 a month, renews at $6 a month, based on a 1-year contract
I used this data to draw the following conclusions:
WP Engine is expensive. Even with the 20% discount for the first year, WP Engine costs significantly more than other hosting companies -- both in that first year and after renewal.
WP Engine is the only host of our top-rated choices that doesn’t offer a free domain for one year. This means you’ll need to buy a domain -- typically priced between $10 and $30 a year -- separately, adding to its already high cost. However, I don’t think this is a major issue, as I generally recommend buying your domain separately anyway.
At 10GB, WP Engine’s base storage is similar to other hosts. Of the three considered here, only Hostinger offers more on its base plan. However, if you were to buy a comparatively priced plan (something in the $20 a month range) from Ionos or Hostinger, you’d get significantly more storage.
WP Engine may not offer the best built-in WordPress tools. There’s no WordPress setup assistant and -- depending on your plan -- you may need to pay for WP Engine’s specialized WordPress and plugin management tools.
WP Engine has a good backup policy, providing daily backups and keeping copies for up to 40 days -- but it’s similar to what you’ll get from SiteGround or even the more affordable Ionos. You can even get daily backups from Hostinger if you choose a higher-tier plan.
WP Engine: Is it right for you?
Let’s tally up WP Engine’s performance in our key categories:
Ease of use: 8/10
Performance: 9/10
Customer support: 7/10
Security: 10/10
Value: 5/10
Averaging these numbers out gives WP Engine an overall ranking of 7.8. This places it above popular hosts like GoDaddy, which scored low in my testing, but well below our top-ranking companies, Ionos and Hostinger. This is largely due to its high price tag, as the service itself is great -- but you can easily get a similar level of service for significantly less money.
The main instance when I would recommend WP Engine over a more affordable web host like Hostinger is if you’re running an agency. WP Engine’s simple tools for development, testing and site transfer make it easy to build and sell client sites. There’s also a specialized agency partnership program with advanced support and tools to help you land more clients. Similarly, if you’re running an enterprise business, you may be able to reap the benefits of the Coreor Custom plans.
However, there’s one more thing to consider before you invest in WP Engine: the ongoing legal battle with WordPress.org. This launched in 2024 when WordPress.org accused WP Engine of trademark infringement. While this lawsuit currently doesn’t impact the functionality of WP Engine sites, there is some potential for it to cause problems in the future. Consider reading up on the WP Engine vs. WordPress lawsuit before you sign up.
WP Engine was temporarily banned from WordPress.org support -- including the ability to receive key security updates to the core software and plugins -- in 2024 due to a trademark lawsuit between the two companies. However, an injunction filed in December 2024 required WordPress.org to restore support for WP Engine. As such, WP Engine is no longer banned and can currently access WordPress.org support.
WP Engine is best for web developers and agencies because it offers extensive features for developers, including the ability to easily transfer website ownership. WP Engine can also benefit other small business owners, but its high cost makes it inappropriate for users building a personal or hobby website.
Yes, WP Engine is safe. All WP Engine sites are protected with SSL certification, a firewall, anti-DDoS protocols, and continuous security patching, plus backups so you can quickly restore your site if something does go wrong.
WP Engine’s core benefits include WordPress auto-updates, excellent security protocols and tools like caching to improve site speed. Developers and agencies can also take advantage of WP Engine’s tools for creating test environments and transferring sites to new owners.
All WP Engine plans include a basic firewall. Some also offer managed firewall protection, which includes advanced threat detection.