WP Engine Review – Pros & Cons [2023]

Top Features of WP Engine

As a managed WordPress hosting platform, WP Engine has many robust features. We’re covering the top features below.

Unlimited Site Deployment

As long as you are working with WordPress websites, you can host unlimited websites on WP Engine. Though it is dependent on the pricing plan you choose, the ability to deploy numerous sites can be beneficial for large businesses. And the performance of the sites won’t deteriorate depending on the number of deployments.

Faster Storage and Bigger Bandwidth

The quality of the storage impacts the loading time and performance of your WordPress websites. So, you need fast storage and bigger bandwidths for your websites to perform smoothly. On this platform, you get enough storage to upload large websites, and they will run without any issues.

Premium WordPress Themes

Getting a suitable theme to match your brand voice is quite tricky. But WP Engine offers multiple premium themes, so you can choose from these ready-to-use themes to make your websites look more professional and attractive. And these themes are suitable for a wide array of websites. One thing we missed here is the customizability. But if you don’t have much technical knowledge about customizing WordPress themes, the readymade themes are more than decent to work with. And the process of using these themes is pretty straightforward. So, anyone with little to no technical knowledge can use these premium themes for their websites.

Free Automated Migration Plugin

If you have your WordPress websites hosted on other platforms, transferring them to WP Engine is just a few minutes away. You don’t need any technical knowledge to do this. The migration plugin tool on WP Engine lets you enter your site’s credentials and handles the rest to migrate your sites to the new hosting platform. And the whole process is done in a few minutes, so you don’t have to wait for hours.

Advanced Staging Features

As you might already know, staging means creating a temporary and protected environment to test various changes to your websites. WP Engine offers one-click staging where you can easily create a clone of your website and test new features before publishing them. It doesn’t affect the live website, so everything will run smoothly even when you are checking for bugs or implementing new features. This is an excellent tool for developers out there.

One more feature seemed highly beneficial to us, which is copying the whole website. If you need to replicate any of your websites, you can do that on WP Engine without any fuss. The tool lets you duplicate a site or make templates for future use. All features of existing websites will be duplicated easily, so you can build multiple websites without repeating the process.

Free SSL Certificates

SSL certificates are a must-have, when you are concerned about the security of your websites. WP Engine offers free SSL certificates with every domain you purchase on the platform. So you can be sure about the safety of your websites. It also provides SSH for developers.

Site Content in the Cloud

With this platform’s integrated content distribution network, your sites’ content will be safe on the cloud. As a result, accessing the core files for any changes is extremely easy. And it reduces the risk of losing your core files that can impact websites.

Daily and On-Demand Backups

One of the most significant benefits of this platform is the automated daily backup. With this feature, your sites will be backed up automatically every day. So, you will never run into the risk of losing your files, even if something catastrophic happens. If you want more, WP Engine also offers on-demand backups. So, you can manually create a backup of your sites anytime.

These backups are stored in the cloud, so you can restore your websites to any specific point in the past should the necessity come.

Faster Site Speed with Website Caching

This managed WordPress hosting platform offers website caching, which increases the loading speed of your websites by up to 40%. That should be a significant improvement regardless of which platform you migrate from. As a result, site visitors will enjoy a faster loading speed. And it will also satisfy Google to improve site ranking, hence boosting traffic.

Website Transfer

If you are a freelance website developer or have an agency related to the business, you need to hand over the final build of websites to your clients. WP Engine offers website transfer, so you can easily build websites for your clients on the platform and transfer them to your client. The process is quite simple and fast, so it reduces hassle on both sides.

Activity Log and User Permissions

WP Engine offers flexible user permissions to take site security to the next level. So, you can assign permissions to the right user to maintain the safety of your sites. And the activity log records every change on the sites so that you can identify the reasons behind any problem. The security is enhanced with multi-factor authentication, so your sites will be safe from unwanted attacks.

Page Performance Monitoring

Checking whether you get the expected performance from your websites is crucial. WP Engine lets you monitor page performance in real-time, so you always know what’s going on. And if the performance of your sites isn’t satisfactory, you can get help from the platform to improve performance. This is especially helpful for beginners.

99.99% Server Uptime

Having good uptime is absolutely important when you use managed WordPress hosting. Though most hosting providers claim to offer a 99.99% uptime, they often fail to keep the promise. But this was not the case with WP Engine. We experienced a very good uptime on this platform. So, all your content will be available to visitors at almost all times.

Smart Plugin Manager

If you don’t have enough experience in managing plugins, WP Engine offers this add-on to manage plugins in the most convenient way. But one drawback of this feature is you need to pay additional fees for this add-on. There are some more paid add-ons here, so you should check the feature before purchasing it.

GeoTarget

Using the GeoIP feature, you can track the location of visitors to serve them the content they prefer. It increases the popularity of your websites globally and helps you rank higher on search results.

Pros & Cons of WP Engine

Though WP Engine is packed with useful features, it has some drawbacks too. Let’s point out its pros and cons for your convenience.

WP Engine Plans & Pricing

While WP Engine has an impressive list of features, they have different plans depending on your needs.

• Startup – starting at $20/mo
  • 1 site
  • 25,000 visitors per month
  • 10 GB storage
  • 50 GB bandwidth per month
• Professional – starting at $39/mo
  • 3 sites
  • 75,000 visitors per month
  • 15 GB storage
  • 125 GB bandwidth per month
• Growth – starting at $77/mo
  • 10 sites
  • 100,000 visitors per month
  • 20 GB storage
  • 200 GB bandwidth per month
• Scale – starting at $193/mo
  • 30+ sites
  • 400,000 visitors per month
  • 50 GB storage
  • 500 GB bandwidth per month

Our Take on WP Engine

Before we wrap up our WP Engine review, let’s recap everything. WP Engine is a managed WordPress hosting platform where you can host multiple WordPress websites knowing you have the best features and security. Their automated migration plugin is very helpful for transferring hosting if you are already running websites hosted at another company. And when you create websites from scratch, premium themes on the platform allow you to build some of the most beautiful websites. Staging websites are beneficial when you are working on the backend of the site. You can also duplicate websites for future use. The loading speed of websites is outstanding on the platform. And the uptime is satisfactory enough to host websites here. Though the Startup plan costs $20 per month, prices can quickly escalate depending on how many sites you are going to host.

Click here to see WP Engine’s plans and pricing.