WPMU DEV has recently launched a fully managed hosting platform, to complement the many tools and plugins that it already provides for its customers. In this WPMU DEV hosting review, we are going to explore in detail this new hosting service and find out what it has to offer.
We will cover its…
- Features
- Performance
- User experience
- Support
- Plans and prices
By the end of our review, you should have a good understanding of whether WPMU DEV hosting is a good option for your website. Let’s get started…
WPMU DEV: An introduction
WPMU DEV is part of the WordPress company Incsub, which also runs hosting companies CampusPress and Edublogs. This positions WPMU DEV perfectly to enter the WordPress hosting sphere.
WPMU DEV provides a wide assortment of premium services, themes, and plugins, helping website owners to optimize, protect, market, and manage their sites.
Created for freelancers, entrepreneurs, agencies, developers, and more, all WPMU DEV packages now include access to the new hosting platform.
WPMU DEV hosting review: Features
WPMU DEV is offering fully managed, VPS WordPress hosting. Every site gets its own containerized memory, as well as dedicated CPU, SSD storage resources, IP address, and more. This means that your site is completely isolated and won’t have to share resources, ensuring consistently top-level performance.
Let’s check out some of the other top features provided…
- Choice of 8 data centers – Select where you want your site hosted. Server locations include the US (east and west coast), the UK, Germany, Singapore, and more.
- Security – WPMU DEV’s Defender and Automate services are built-in, providing file scanning, firewall, and two-factor authentication.
- Speed – WPMU DEV utilizes its many other services and tools to provide super fast hosting. This includes object and page caching, as well as IPv6 and CDN support.
- Backup – Benefit from incremental nightly backups as well as a one-click restore.
- Staging – With WPMU DEV hosting you can access a staging area, and then sync changes to your live site with just one click.
- Migration – Migrate your site to WPMU DEV hosting by using the built-in automated migration tools, or allow a member of the support team to migrate your site for you, all for free.
- Free SSL certificate – All hosted sites are automatically granted an SSL certificate via Let’s Encrypt.
WPMU DEV hosting integrates seamlessly with all WPMU DEV’s services and plugins, ensuring you can access a wide assortment of extra features, including site management, marketing, and analytics tools.
WPMU DEV hosting review: Performance
A website that is slow to load will cost you in both visitors and revenue. So choosing a host that has a positive track record when it comes to performance is crucial.
For this WPMU DEV hosting review, we set up a real-life test situation to check out how WPMU DEV hosting actually performs. To do this, we created a test site, hosted with WPMU DEV, and then tracked its performance using two online monitoring tools – Pingdom and Load Impact.
Loading times
First, we tested our website from five Pingdom servers, positioned across the globe. Here were the speeds recorded for our test site…
- Washington D.C.: 0.677 s
- San Francisco: 1.01 s
- London: 0.241 s
- Sydney: 1.98 s
- Tokyo: 1.64 s
These results are based on using the default Twenty Twenty WordPress theme.
While the load times are all quite speedy, they do vary a good bit depending on the location of the test server.
However, remember, that WPMU DEV does give you the option of choosing the location for your own site’s server, so you can host your site close to your target audience to help improve speed. You can also set up a content delivery network (CDN) if you want more even global page load times.
Overall, WPMU DEV hosting produced some fast test results, but remember, these results are only reflective of this one test.
Load Impact
The second test we ran was a load impact test. This test simulates 25 users accessing your website over 3 minutes, and monitors how the loading speeds are affected. The results were impressive…
As you can see, although the response time rose slightly (blue line), when 24 virtual users were accessing the site (green line), the loading time was still only 348 ms.
Therefore, if you are hosting a small blog or business website with WPMU DEV hosting, you can rest assured that as your traffic numbers grow your speed times won’t be affected.
WPMU DEV hosting review: User experience
One of the standout features of WPMU DEV hosting is user experience. You can manage all WPMU DEV products and services, including its hosting service, from an intuitive dashboard, which is referred to as the Hub.
Here, you can install themes and plugins, activate security and performance-related features, monitor your site’s analytics, manage hosting settings, and much more.
Create a new WordPress website
To set up a new WordPress website, click on the Hosting option in the WPMU DEV hub.
Here you will find a list of the sites you are already hosting, along with the option of managing the settings for each. To create a new site, click on the + icon.
You will now be asked to either create a new website or migrate an existing website. For the purpose of this article, we selected Create New Website.
Next, you will need to create a temporary domain, which will be used to set up your new site.
You will then be asked to create an administrator account so you will need to choose an appropriate username and password.
Now you will need to select where you would like your site to be hosted. It is best to choose a location nearest your target audience to help ensure fast load times.
WPMU DEV will now install and create your new WordPress website, which will take a couple of minutes. Once set up, your new site will be added to the list of sites that you are hosting. Select Manage to access its settings.
Here you will be able to view your site’s hosting information, as well as access a number of tools and services, including emails, backup, and caching features.
Inside your WordPress website dashboard
Once you have signed in to your WordPress dashboard, you will find that WPMU DEV has pre-installed a selection of their most useful plugins for you. These include…
- Hummingbird Pro – A performance plugin that provides caching, uptime monitoring, and more.
- Smush Pro – An image optimization plugin that will automatically optimize and compress the images on your site.
- Defender Pro – This security plugin will enable automatic file scanning and reporting, audit logging, IP lockouts, and much more.
You can also access the WPMU DEV dashboard from within WordPress. Here you can view and install all WPMU DEV plugins and tools, as well as get support, or visit the Hub directly.
Overall, WPMU DEV provides an impressive user experience. By combining the new hosting service with all existing products, as well as the Hub user-interface, WPMU DEV supports customers throughout their whole journey, from web creation and beyond.
WPMU DEV hosting review: Support
Support is another area in which WPMU DEV excels. Let’s have a look at the numerous support options that it offers…
- Knowledgebase – WPMU DEV provides an extensive knowledgebase. This consists of video tutorials, in-depth courses, comprehensive how-to articles, and much more.
- Members forum – The free forum enables you to connect with the WPMU DEV community and ask questions of users and experts alike.
- 24/7 live chat – WPMU DEV has 24/7 live chat support. So whatever the problem and whatever the time, there will be someone there to help you. Whether your site has been hacked, your page load times have slowed, or some other problem has arisen, the WordPress experts on the WPMU DEV support team can help you sort it out.
- Ticketed support – For those who would prefer, ticketed email support is also available.
- Support team login – The WPMU DEV dashboard plugin enables you to give access to the support team. They can then log into your site and fix any problems directly.
WPMU DEV hosting review: Pricing
To access WPMU DEV hosting, you will first need to sign up for membership. WPMU DEV now offers just one membership package…
- $49 a month – This gives you unlimited access to all services and plugins on an unlimited number of sites. Importantly, this also gives you $30 credit towards any hosting plan.
WPMU DEV offers four different hosting plans that all provide slightly different options…
The $30 hosting credit that is included in your membership plan can be used towards any of the hosting plans below. Therefore, you could host three sites for free on the Bronze plan, one site for free on the Silver plan, or one site on the Gold plan with an extra fee of $20 a month, etc.
This flexible pricing and credit system allows you to host as many sites as you wish, on plans that match your sites’ needs. There is also a 30-day free trial, helping you to be absolutely sure WPMU DEV is the right platform for you before you commit financially.
WPMU DEV hosting review: Final thoughts
As you can see, WPMU DEV hosting has much to offer. From top-quality support and user experience to impressive performance results, if you are looking for an all-in-one hosted WordPress platform, then WPMU DEV is well worth the price tag.
Any questions on WPMU DEV hosting? Feel free to ask away in the comments below…
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Keep reading the article at ThemeIsle Blog. The article was originally written by Megan Jones on 2020-01-06 04:19:34.
The article was hand-picked and curated for you by the Editorial Team of WP Archives.