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How is WPEngine different from other PHP hosting?
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How is WPEngine different from other PHP hosting?

ericlsericls Member, Patron Provider

Hi community,

I just come across this provider called WPEngine and seems very popylar but the price is really high, so I'm wondering why are people willing to pay such a high price for it.

Comments

  • corbpiecorbpie Member
    edited March 2020

    https://wpengine.com/platform/

    Just a hosting sub niche that focuses on managed Wordpress hosting/installing. If you aren't hosting illiterate save your money and go with a reputable, non oversold shared host.

    Thanked by 1ericls
  • ericlsericls Member, Patron Provider

    @corbpie said:
    https://wpengine.com/platform/

    Just a hosting sub niche that focuses on managed Wordpress hosting/installing. If you aren't hosting illiterate save your money and go with a reputable, non oversold shared host.

    Thanks, but also what I'm trying to understand is that the hosting industry seems to be very saturated already, how did it thrive.

    They don't even seem to have any competitor. What's stopping other companies to offer a similar product but at a lower price?

  • jahrincjahrinc Member
    edited March 2020

    ericls said: Thanks, but also what I'm trying to understand is that the hosting industry seems to be very saturated already, how did it thrive.

    They did and still have a competitor. Flywheel back in the day was a competitor but WP Engine bought that company recently. Their main competitor is Kinsta, which IMO is a bit better (stack and support) than WP Engine.

    Thanked by 1ericls
  • @ericls said:

    @corbpie said:
    https://wpengine.com/platform/

    Just a hosting sub niche that focuses on managed Wordpress hosting/installing. If you aren't hosting illiterate save your money and go with a reputable, non oversold shared host.

    Thanks, but also what I'm trying to understand is that the hosting industry seems to be very saturated already, how did it thrive.

    They don't even seem to have any competitor. What's stopping other companies to offer a similar product but at a lower price?

    Reputation and advertising. Businesses who don't have techies and have a lot of budget go here. WPengine do what they advertise but those buying their services don't understand hosting = seeing WPengine as good value.
    What these guys do and setup most here could do it for at least 50% cheaper.

    Thanked by 1ericls
  • jhjh Member
    edited March 2020

    They have developed their own WP caching system that integrates with their own CDN and own geotargeting module. They also have their own really easy backup/restore tools and site duplication to staging and from staging back to prod. It's all in one place and integrates nicely.

    As a site owner you have one supplier for everything, everything is guaranteed to work together and supported.

    They also have really responsive and helpful support over live chat.

    They are still in business and able to charge what they do because their service isn't just rent a server, install cPanel and boom you're done - they've invested in making it a genuinely good platform for WP.

    Thanked by 2Virtual ericls
  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    wordpress.com is also a competitor.

    And Dreampress or whatever Dreamhost calls it. And Pagely. And Pressable.

    ericls said: What's stopping other companies to offer a similar product but at a lower price?

    "Similar product" is the catch here. Similar product is:

    • 99.999% uptime with an SLA, high availability, etc.
    • CDN integration (and you know what you're doing)
    • Deep WP experience and ability to answer questions 24x7 ("why isn't this plugin working", "why is this theme printing this strange character", "please upgrade our site", "what's the best way to do this") etc.
    • soup to nuts - server, network, etc. No copping out and saying "well, I don't know why it's slow in New Jersey, it's the Internet"...it's up to you to figure out why it's slow in New Jersey and make it stop being slow.

    It's white glove service at white glove prices, with PO invoicing to large enterprises who want a single throat to choke when something goes wrong. If the site is slow, you and your best are hopping on their concall to explain why and they want status updates every 10 minutes while you stay on the call, etc.

    As an example, back when Sports Illustrated was doing a joint venture with CNN, cnnsi.com (SI's main site) was WP hosted on wpengine (I think - or one of their close competitors). That was quite literally millions of revenue per day riding on a single domain you'd be hosting...you really think the fact that they're paying $99 versus $89 is the deciding factor for them? And I doubt that "our liability is limited to a refund on one months' service fees" is doing to fly either.

    Sure, not every lawyer's office on the $99/mo plan gets that kind of treatment but some wordpress.com VIP clients (where service starts at $5,000 per month and includes sites like Time, MSNBC, TechCrunch, etc.) certainly do.

    Thanked by 1ericls
  • ericls said: I'm wondering why are people willing to pay such a high price for it.

    they are paying for the hand holding and peace of mind

  • king8654king8654 Member
    edited March 2020

    Client of mine who I've done bunch of wp sites for wanted SLA and the white glove support that they offer. Normally i just toss his sites on virmach vps or monstermegs shared, but for one venture we went wpengine.

    Overpriced? Possibly, but they do offer good instant support, cdn, staging, etc. For their niche its good perceived value and 25-30$ month shouldn't break the bank for any company making money. Slightly annoying that its tough to get actual specs from support, but everything has always loaded fast and haven't had any real downtime in few years.

    Thanked by 1ericls
  • @ericls said:

    @corbpie said:
    https://wpengine.com/platform/

    Just a hosting sub niche that focuses on managed Wordpress hosting/installing. If you aren't hosting illiterate save your money and go with a reputable, non oversold shared host.

    Thanks, but also what I'm trying to understand is that the hosting industry seems to be very saturated already, how did it thrive.

    They don't even seem to have any competitor. What's stopping other companies to offer a similar product but at a lower price?

    Well, what's stopping you?

  • HxxxHxxx Member

    Bigscoot also a competitor. Launched similar WP managed product with custom wp panel.

  • armandorgarmandorg Member, Host Rep

    WPengine might have expensive pricing, but they are worth the money if you want to sleep your mind with your website and let them take care of prettymuch, everything.

  • I have the same question. WPengine Scale plan 290$/month, 400k hits/month is pretty much costly. I have Hetzner cloud 4.9€/month and used to get 800k hits/day for 1 week. Oh my

  • armandorgarmandorg Member, Host Rep

    @popularwidget said:
    I have the same question. WPengine Scale plan 290$/month, 400k hits/month is pretty much costly. I have Hetzner cloud 4.9€/month and used to get 800k hits/day for 1 week. Oh my

    You are only comparing hosting performance.

    WPEngine and all others like it are supposed to make the hosting, problem, issues, questions, manual support with plugins/themes.. etc etc. Completely managed.

    I heard they even edited some plugin for a long-term client they have, within it's price. Not bad? But yea, too expensive.

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