Managed WordPress hosting is a common term in the WordPress community. Yet, many users find it difficult to differentiate between shared hosting, dedicated hosting, and managed WordPress hosting.
But why is it important to know the difference between these hosting types?
Because you should know why you’re paying extra bucks for managed WordPress hosting instead of just going for a cheaper alternative in shared hosting.
Managed WordPress hosting is a solution that manages all the technicalities of running a WordPress website that includes updating WordPress versions, launching a new WordPress application, updating WordPress plugins, installing SSL certificates and more. In short, it simplifies managing a WordPress website by taking care of all the tedious tasks that might come in your way of running a business.
Managed Hosting vs Shared/Dedicated/Unmanaged Hosting
Shared & Dedicated Hosting
Shared hosting is most popular among users who are tight on budget and are running low traffic websites.
Some shared hosting providers include HostGator, Bluehost, GoDaddy, and Namecheap. Their plans can range from $2/month to $25/month. In this price, you are allocated a share of the resources of a server that’s also being shared by other users as well.
On the other spectrum of shared hosting is dedicated hosting. Dedicated hosting is expensive, though, because you get a dedicated server that you’re not sharing with anyone else. That is also what makes it more secure than shared hosting.
Keep in mind, though, that many providers like Bluehost and Namecheap offer both shared & dedicated hosting servers.
Also Read: Best Namecheap Alternatives
Both these hosting solutions are usually operated on cPanel, a web hosting control panel that lets you manage a web hosting server.
Unmanaged or DIY Hosting
The third type of hosting is unmanaged or DIY hosting. If you’re really tech-savvy and have developer instincts, then you can purchase a server directly from hosting providers like Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Platform.
As stated above, though, you really need to know what you’re doing with DIY hosting. On top of that, it requires a lot of time and effort to maintain hosting purchased from services like AWS or GCP.
Most companies, big or small, either don’t have the expertise to deal with unmanaged hosting or don’t want to invest in maintaining such a service.
What do they do then? They opt for Managed WordPress hosting.
Which, as we like to say, is the best WordPress hosting solution for everyone!
Managed WordPress Hosting
Managed WordPress hosting basically takes away all the hosting burdens from your shoulders so that you can focus on running your business. This is just one of the many differentiating factors (which we will discuss later) that makes it ideal for businesses.
Reasons to Choose Managed WordPress Hosting
So we’ve established that shared hosting doesn’t give you the best bang for your bucks and dedicated hosting requires a lot of expertise or resources to manage.
A managed WordPress hosting obliviates all these hassles and lets you focus directly on your business by providing these following features:
- Security
- Hassle-Free Hosting
- Technical Expertise (support)
- Scalability
- Flexibility
- User-Experience
Let’s get into a detailed discussion of these features to understand them better:
1. Security
Whether a business is online or offline, keeping its assets secure is a business owner’s biggest concern. And an online store or site’s website usually holds plenty of sensitive information that needs the best security possible. Shared and Dedicated hosting promise security, but aren’t able to fully deliver on it.
Managed WordPress hosting, on the other hand, delivers rock-solid security through a built-in caching system to speed up your website , firewalls, CDNs, and 24/7 support.
2. Hassle-Free Hosting
Regardless of what is said in business books, time is the most valuable resource for any business. Hence, no owner has ever wanted to spend more time fixing their website’s hosting than on more pressing business issues that generate more revenue.
And what Managed WordPress hosting essentially does is get rid of all the responsibilities of managing your server and your website and lets you focus on your business operations instead.
Also Read: 28 Ways to Speed Up Your WordPress Site
3. Technical Expertise
If you have good business acumen, there’s a possibility that you might not have the right kind of technical expertise to manage hosting servers. Launching a server on a website is not something anyone can do. It requires a deep understanding of all the server-side technicalities.
When you opt for managed WordPress hosting, you leave all the technical hassles on the hosting provider. Most Managed Hosting providers also have 24/7 support available to get you through tight spots.
4. Scalability
When your business starts to scale, you need to scale your hosting server as well to keep up with the growth. Ecommerce businesses especially need quick server scaling during the holiday season to speed up online stores and when they experience more traffic than usual.
Managed WordPress hosting provides easy scaling and even auto-scaling (in some cases) so that you can prepare your website for a traffic spike.
5. Flexibility
You can grow your business in various ways. If you are running an ecommerce store, you can start blogging to increase traffic and managed WordPress hosting lets you expand your business easily. For example, on Cloudways managed cloud hosting, you can launch unlimited applications on a server ranging from WordPress to Magento to PHP.
6. User-Experience
As a business owner, you want to give your customers the best experience while they are using your product or service. This is true for both online and offline businesses.
Speed and Uptime are two crucial factors that can either enhance user experience or ruin it. For example, a slow and unavailable website results in a serious loss of customers and ultimately, revenue.
Managed WordPress hosting makes sure that your user experience is top-notch by ensuring all the above features and benefits that save your energy, cost, and most importantly, time.
If you have already made up your mind about shifting to a managed WordPress hosting for your business, then let’s take a look at some of the top managed WordPress hosting providers.
How to Decide Which Managed WordPress Hosting is Best?
Since there are plenty of Managed hosting service providers out there, it can be confusing to decide which is the best for you.
Here are some factors that can help you decide which managed WordPress is best suited for your business:
1. Budget
Managed WordPress hosting is not cheap, especially if you compare it to shared hosting. However, one of the affordable managed hosting solutions is Cloudways which starts from $10/month. So if you are tight on a budget, the extra dollars for managed WordPress hosting will sting which is why it is better to cut costs early on and go for cheaper solutions.
Once you start growing, you can switch to managed WordPress hosting with one-click migration offered by a few providers.
2. Site Traffic
Managed WordPress hosting allows you to scale your business if there’s a sudden spike in your site traffic. If you are on a shared server and your website experiences occasional spikes in traffic then you will suffer from downtime because your shared server isn’t designed to handle more traffic than it is supposed to. In short, shared or dedicated servers cannot upscale their resources to deal with a spike in traffic.
So if you run campaigns to drive more than usual traffic to your website, you should consider moving to managed WordPress hosting because it will give you an option to upscale your server’s resources and then downscale them when things go back to normal.
3. Site Traffic Number Of Websites
If you are running an agency where you are responsible for multiple websites the managed WordPress hosting is your partner in business.
The Top Managed WordPress Hosting Providers
1. Cloudways
Cloudways is a solid WordPress managed hosting provider. It has developed a reputation as one of the most reliable and trustworthy managed hosting providers in the industry. And that too in a very short span of time. It provides a number of infrastructures that fits the needs of a variety of customers. Starting from only $7/month, you can get 512 MB RAM, one core processor, free SSL certificates, unlimited WordPress installs, 24/7 support and much more.
Here are some distinctive features offered by Cloudways:
- Server & Application cloning: Users can clone servers and applications with just the click of a button.
- Unlimited staging URLs: Users can get unlimited staging URLs for their testing purposes.
- Team Collaboration: Users can assign tasks to team members through Cloudways’ Team Collaboration
- ThunderStack: ThunderStack comes with powerful database solutions like MySQL and MariaDB
- Vertical Scaling: Cloudways allows users to scale their servers vertically and horizontally as well.
Also Read: Cloudways vs WP Engine: Which is The Best?
2. Kinsta
Kinsta is the fastest growing managed WordPress hosting provider globally.. Launched in 2013, it was the first host to use Google Cloud Platform to power its client’s WordPress sites. The support team includes some of the best WordPress developers who are available 24/7. You can read our Kinsta review to know more about the famous managed WordPress hosting platform.
Kinsta offers some amazing features including:
- Speed obsessive architecture: The architecture comes with the latest technology that includes PHP 7 and LXD containers.
- High-security network: DDoS detection and uptime monitoring make sure your website is always available.
- Google Cloud platform: Kinsta offers to host on the Google Cloud platform that ensures optimum performance.
- Free site migrations: Users can easily migrate their website with the help of Kinsta’s expert migrating team at no cost.
3. WP Engine
WP Engine brands itself as a fast and secure managed hosting provider and it’s exactly that. With its fast speed, incredible backup, and almost zero downtime, WP Engine is one of the top hosting solutions available. Starting at $29/month, WP Engine is not the cheapest, but for WordPress users, it’s definitely worth the money since it is designed specifically for WordPress.
WP Engine offers a great set of features:
- WP Engine Automated Migration: The powerful migration tool allows users to migrate their sites safely and quickly.
- Staging Sites: WP Engine’s staging sites feature allows users to conduct experiments efficiently
- Copy Site: Users can create clones of their existing sites for their clients rather than making one from scratch.
- Support from Real WordPress experts: WP Engine makes sure that users’ technical problems are solved through the hands of experts who were once part of the core WordPress development team.
4. Get Flywheel
GetFlyWheel is a popular managed WordPress hosting provider. It offers free migration on all plans and provides free demo sites so that you can create multiple test sites easily. Further, the built-in caching and automatic backups make it a hosting solution with a lot of utility. In just $11/month, you can get 5GB disk space, 250GB bandwidth, and free SSL certificates.
Get Flywheel comes with a bundle of awesome features such as:
- Site cloning: Users can clone their websites with just a few clicks.
- Demo sites: Flywheel offers demo sites for users to test changes and show progress to their clients through a demo server.
- Export and view logs: Users can view their logs and export them for later use
- Add collaborators: Adding collaborators with Flywheel is at your fingertips.
- Cache flushing: Users can completely clear their cache with Cache flushing.
How To Choose The Right Managed WordPress Hosting?
The managed WordPress hosting providers mentioned above cater to all the pain points of a business owner. However, the decision to choose a hosting provider is up to you. But, while you are making this very important decision, you must take into account the following factors:
1. Feature set
Make sure the hosting provider you are selecting for your business has all the features that you need. Having a bundle of features doesn’t mean that you can automatically opt for that hosting provider.
Select the one with the features that you need. As you don’t want to be paying for features that are irrelevant.
2. Price
Different managed hosting providers have different payment plans. Cloudways, for instance, charges on an hourly basis and Kinsta and Flywheel charge on a monthly basis.
Before choosing a hosting provider, make sure you do a cost and benefit analysis so to get the best out of what you pay.
3. Uptime
Good hosting providers offer trial periods for you to check if they are worth your money. Test your website’s uptime, speed, and other performance aspects during this period.
Make sure to read user reviews of a particular hosting provider. This way you will have a clearer picture of how it will perform.
4. Storage
Your website might be huge and would require a large server with sufficient storage. The storage capacity is usually mentioned in the pricing plans of the hosting providers. Make sure you select the provider that offers optimal storage space for your needs, and not the one that offers the most storage because prices increase with disk space.
5. Scalability
If your business experiences a seasonal spike in traffic you would need a hosting provider that offers scalability. This will allow you to increase server size in the time of high traffic and then decrease it during regular seasons.
Final word
I hope you are now well informed and can easily decide if a Managed WordPress hosting is the right choice for your business or not.
Have we missed a point? Let us know in the comments below.
Keep reading the article at WPblog. The article was originally written by Moeez on 2020-03-10 20:00:37.
The article was hand-picked and curated for you by the Editorial Team of WP Archives.