If you consider your WordPress site as a valuable property, you may want to ensure that it is safe, runs efficiently, and gets the updates that it is due. A managed hosting can do all these and more. But what exactly is a managed WordPress hosting? When do you need to have one and how much the additional cost will be?
What is Managed WordPress Hosting?
Before exploring on the topic further, let us get to know some WordPress hosting basics first. To simply put it, web hosting, or simply hosting, is a kind of service where you can store all the data on your site to make it accessible to end users. You buy hosting services from a company and most of them are in different packages. While there are hosting providers who only offer basic hosting, there are packages that include other perks such as WordPress virus removal, hosting security, and specific WordPress security.
Aside from the essential hosting security features, general site management are also offered. This is now what you refer to as managed hosting. If the hosting plans or packages are tailored or optimized to take care of the technical aspects of site management in WordPress, then it is referred as managed WordPress hosting.
Benefits of Managed WordPress Hosting
In general, the main benefit of a managed WordPress hosting is that it helps the site owner to run the site seamlessly. Unlike having general hosts, WordPress hosting is exclusively about WordPress sites. This means that the servers are optimized for the operating system and file system that is used for WordPress.
Another key benefit of letting a hosting provider manage a WordPress site is the available WordPress virus removal and WordPress security features. Hosts understand the weak points of WordPress and they can readily find a solution to prevent any malicious attempts to your site. Unless you are well-versed in making a secure system, then you definitely need the assistance of a reliable website host manager.
With a managed WordPress hosting, you are not only taking a huge load of essential tasks from your shoulders. It also helps you get a faster website since the host is aware of the system’s strengths and weaknesses and use this knowledge to your advantage. The result is that you will have a significantly faster site that is more secure and uses a stable hosting architecture. In simpler terms, your site will not crash or go wrong in any unforeseen manner.
With all the benefits of a managed WordPress hosting, it is difficult to imagine how it can have any flaws. If you are too particular with your budget, then it is the only thing that will be considered as a downside of any premium web hosting. Excellent hosting does not come cheap. You cannot buy good hosting for only a few dollars.
To give you an idea about the true cost of hosting, consider knowing more about the different resources, like memory and disk space, that are required to run a website. Hosting plans are typically priced according to the amount of bandwidth that a site will have every month.
Are you ready to choose a hosting provider? Let us check out some of the best managed WordPress hosting providers that have great track records in the industry.
5 Best Managed WordPress Hosting Providers
1. Airflour
In today’s generation where the internet is widely used, hackers are trying their best to gain access in order to execute their evil ways. Airflour is a company who prioritize security over anything else. They do this by keeping all servers up to date and regular monitoring of all network-wide events. Broken links and plugins are also minimized because they update all codes every week. State of the art technology is also used to ensure fast-loading pages and that downtimes are completely eradicated.
When it comes to pricing, the starter package of Airflour is at only $30 per month. This already includes free SSL and CDN, 5 GB storage, daily backups, full WordPress updates, and can accommodate up to 20,000 visitors. The Business package increases the site visits to 40,000 and storage at 10GB for only $50. The Enterprise package at $100 gives you unlimited visits and storage. These are really great deals since you also get to have 24/7 technical support.
Aside from a superb managed WordPress hosting, Airflour also offers WordPress cleaning service that starts at only $200. This is useful if you want to deter hackers and any malicious content from destroying your site.
2. WP Engine
WP Engine eases the guesswork from maintaining a website by offering a series of managed WordPress services like monitoring and providing security. It also upgrades and troubleshoots so that your time and energy is spent on providing content instead of solving site management-related problems.
The company offers three hosting plans and allows customization for large businesses. The Startup plan is at $35, Growth plan at $115, and Scale plan at $290. These prices are good for a month of hosting and vary according to the number of site visits and storage. For the Startup, it is limited to 25,000 visits, 100,000 visits for the Growth, and 400,000 visits for the Scale. The bandwidth allowance is at 50GB, 200GB, and 400GB respectively.
They also added a few extras like StudioPress themes, free migrations, and some tools that are useful in viewing the general status of the website.
3. InMotion Hosting
InMotion Hosting has an extensive WordPress optimization experience. This allows their team to implement the best solutions that are applicable to your site. They use automation of time consuming tasks in order to free up more time for important matters. With their years of experience as a hosting services provider, InMotion Hosting knows how essential it is to give fast and accurate responses. They have a direct line for clients, and may also be reached through email.
As a low cost investment for managed WordPress hosting solutions, InMotion Hosting offers six tiers of monthly hosting plans. Their manage hosting plan starts at VPS-1000HA-S – $27.99/month. The most affordable plan is the WP-1000S at $5.99 is great for small blogs with about 20,000 monthly visitors and has 40GB storage. The most premium plan is the WP-Dedicated and it is suitable for large sites that have heavy traffic. At $105.69, you will have WordPress Optimized Configuration, and free dedicated IP’s, cPanel, WHM, and server management. Other plans are the WP-2000S, WP-3000S, WP-4000S, and WP-VPS. They vary according to the number of monthly visitors, available storage, and extra services available.
4. Liquid Web
Liquid Web engineered their WordPress hosting platform in a way that the hosting infrastructure becomes simpler and uncomplicated. They want you to focus on making your site grow by providing the best solutions for your site. On their end, they will monitor the servers, mitigate risks, optimize performance, and provide support if you need any. It is also great that they research about new SEO strategies so they can help your site grow.
There are four kinds of managed WordPress hosting plans available with a choice between monthly and annual subscription. The basic plan is called Personal that is good for one website. It has 20GB storage, 5TB bandwidth, a staging environment, and 30-day backups. Hosting fee starts at $29 per month or at $290 for one full year. The Business package is priced at $149 per month or $1,490 per year. It has up to 150GB of storage, 5TB bandwidth, staging environments and also 30-days backups.
5. Kinsta
Kinsta offers a powerful administration using a highly secured network. They also have expert developers who provide excellent support with any WordPress issue that you may encounter.
If you are looking for a wide variety of plans, Kinsta offers ten kinds of managed WordPress hosting plans. Prices start at $30 per month with 20,000 site visits, 5 GB storage, 50GB CDN, free premium migrations, and a Google Cloud platform among many other features. The most expensive plan is the Enterprise 4 at $1,500 per month. It comes with 150 WordPress installs, 3,000,000 site visits, 200GB SSD storage, 1000 CDN, multisite support, and tons of other premium stuff. This is very suitable for websites with a global following.
Conclusion:
Do not be stressed in trying to figure out how to run a website on your own. It is worth all the money you spend on a dedicated hosting provider because it does not only make the site run smoothly. You get to enjoy all the perks of having an efficient host, including a complete peace of mind knowing that your site is in good hands.
After carefully looking through these top managed WordPress hosting providers, you can see how Airflour stands out from among its competitors. It meets the criteria that most site owners look for in a host. It provides better security features to make your site safe and secure at all times. It also has a dedicated technical support that can provide assistance when you need it the most. On top of these, Airflour also ensures that your site is optimized for WordPress so that it runs faster.
Related Resources:
What is Managed WordPress Hosting and When is it Worth the Extra Cost?
