Are you looking for the best managed WordPress hosting service?
If you have a large website that sees a lot of traffic, a managed hosting provider is an excellent option for your site.
However, trying to find the right managed WordPress hosting company for your site can feel like an exhausting and daunting task.
Let us help!
This article will discuss managed hosting, discuss the pros and cons, and show you what to look for in a host. Plus, we’ll compare the best managed WordPress hosting options.
What is Managed WordPress Hosting
WordPress has become a very popular content management and website building system. In fact, WordPress powered 39.6% of the internet in 2021.
Because of this popularity, several web hosting providers now specialize in WordPress. This specialization and dedication of services are known as managed WordPress hosting.
Consider managed WordPress hosts your concierge to all things technical when it comes to WordPress. That’s because the host manages those areas instead of you or your staff. This includes security, speed, WordPress updates, daily backups, website uptime, and more.
Managed WordPress hosting packages offer a hassle-free experience, freeing up your time and energy to run your business.
Just remember, this kind of hosting is more geared to those with high-traffic sites. If you run a blog or have minimal traffic, you are probably better off with a non-managed host.
Pros and Cons of Managed WordPress Hosting
Now, managed WordPress hosting isn’t for everyone. Just like there are dozens of cereals in the grocery aisles to suit different tastes and needs, there are different types of hosts.
So, let’s take a look at some of the advantages of managed WordPress hosting to see if it is the service for you.
Pros of Managed WordPress Hosting
- Lightning Fast with No Downtime: Specialized and dedicated servers and data centers can handle a ton of traffic without facing any downtime.
- Security and Backups: These hosting providers have robust security and daily backups in place to protect your site.
- Expert Support: Providers will be able to help you solve problems faster because they’re WordPress experts.
- Automatic Updates: Your site is automatically updated to the latest version of WordPress, as well as your theme and plugins.
- Daily Backups: Update and work on your site with the confidence that you’ll have recent restore points if anything goes wrong.
- Premium Support: Support from WordPress experts with extensive knowledge of the platform.
All of those advantages sound pretty nice, right? But what are the downsides?
Cons of Managed WordPress Hosting
- Cost: Managed WordPress hosting is one of the pricier ways to host a website. With all of the extras that come with it, some businesses are willing to pay that price.
- Less Control: The managed WordPress host will handle all of your site’s technical aspects. So, what you can change will be limited.
- App and Builder Limits: As the name suggests, you can only host WordPress sites on a managed WordPress host. So, that limits what builders and apps you can load on your site.
Now that we’ve gone through the pros and cons let’s look at what you should look for when comparing managed WordPress hosts.
What to Look For In a Managed WordPress Host
When you’re looking for the best managed WordPress hosting, there are a few things you’ll want to consider:
- Is the hosting provider offering speed, reliability, and security?
- Will they do daily backups of your site?
- Are you getting a free SSL and CDN (Content Delivery Network)?
- Does the provider have an outstanding customer support team?
Now that you know what to look for, let’s jump into our list of the best managed WordPress hosting options.
Best Managed WordPress Hosting Providers
In this section, we’re going to tell you all about the best managed WordPress hosting we’ve found so you can make an informed decision before choosing one for your site. In addition, we will include a speed test, a list of features, and pricing information for each host.
Note- renewal pricing is often higher than the published prices. It’s just something you’ll want to consider when comparing these hosts.
1. Bluehost
Bluehost is one of the world’s most popular hosting platforms and is officially recommended by WordPress. They offer various services, including shared, managed, and dedicated hosting for your site. We will be looking exclusively at their managed WordPress hosting service for this spotlight.
Already have a WordPress site? Bluehost offers free site migration so you can transfer to their platform.
Bluehost includes free SSL encryption, 20 GB of web storage, daily scheduled backups, and malware detection and removal services.
Speed Test:
We used a testing site hosted on Bluehost’s WordPress managed servers for our speed test. As you can see, we are looking at response times from different geographical locations across the world.
BlueHost responded exceptionally well in the United States and Canada in our speed test, powered by Bitcatcha. While it was the slowest in Asia, the test site loaded in under a second in all locations.
Features:
- Manage everything from enhanced cPanel
- Free domain name and SSL certificate with hosting plan
- 100+ free WordPress themes
- Marketing Center so you can view traffic/blog traffic and social media from the dashboard
- Jetpack site analytics
- Malware detection and removal
- Page caching
- One-click WordPress site launch
- SEO tooling
Pricing: Hosting plans start at $9.95/month. This will include hosting for 1 WordPress website and 10 GB storage, which is best for up to 50,000 visitors each month.
2. SiteGround
SiteGround is another popular and highly-rated hosting cloud platform for small businesses.
They offer both shared and managed WordPress hosting and are one of the hosting environments recommended by WordPress.org.
With SiteGround, you get access to the latest technologies to ensure that your WordPress site is fast and secure. They also offer 1-click staging, version control, automatic WordPress updates, SSL certificates, free Cloudflare CDN, and more.
Speed Test:
Our test site hosted on SiteGround’s WordPress managed servers performed the best in Canada, followed by the United States.
Like BlueHost, SiteGround was the slowest in Asia. However, SiteGround did load a bit faster for this region. In fact, for all areas except Australia, SiteGround was slightly quicker than BlueHost to respond.
Features:
- Free site migration
- Developer toolkit with WP-CLI, SSH, PHP version control, and Git integration
- Collaboration tools
- Unlimited email accounts
- Managed cloud hosting
- Let’s Encrypt certificates
Pricing: Plans start at $3.99/month for a 1 site with 10GB space and up to 10,000 visits per month. They also offer a 14-day money-back guarantee. This gives you peace of mind testing out their products and services.
We recommend a minimum of the GrowBig plan at $6.69/month for unlimited sites, 20GB space, and up to 100,000 visits per month. This also unlocks all of their hosting features.
3. WP Engine
WP Engine is fast, reliable, and hassle-free. As a result, it’s one of the most popular managed hosts around, and for a good reason. Your website is hosted on powerful servers and is basically hacker-proof.
Plus, WP Engine offers excellent hosting and WordPress support (including chat support), so it’s perfect for bloggers or marketers who need advanced help on the tech side.
This managed WordPress hosting solution includes daily automated backups, a free SSL certificate, automatic updates, top-of-the-line site security, and more.
With WP Engine, you also get the Genesis Framework and 35+ StudioPress themes for free. That makes it an excellent option for busy business owners running an online store.
Speed Test:
Our WP Engine test site, by far, had the fastest server response time.
With 1 and 2-millisecond server response times in the US, Canada, South America, Germany, and Australia, you know your visitors won’t be stuck waiting for your site to load.
Features:
- Development, staging, and production environments
- Genesis Framework and more than 35 StudioPress themes
- Transferable sites to start a website for free, then switch to a paid plan
- LargeFS for unlimited media storage
- Real-time, page-level reporting, and analytics
- Lots of add-on services to customize your hosting plan
Pricing: Starts at $20/month for 1 site with 10 GB local storage and up to 25,000 visits per month.
You can add additional sites to your plan for $20/month or upgrade to a higher package for additional sites, storage, and visits per month.
4. HostGator
HostGator is a well-known shared hosting provider that now offers managed WordPress hosting.
They have an easy-to-understand dashboard so you can manage your site, as well as cPanel for the management of your email, domains, and more.
You can choose HostGator without worries as they offer a 45-day money-back guarantee.
Speed Test:
In terms of speed, HostGator is a nice middle-of-the-pack option.
All response times were still under a second for all testing locations. However, the response time for India is the longest overall in all of our speed tests.
Features:
- Free migration
- Automated daily database backups with file-level restore
- Automatic malware removal
- Free SSL certificate
- Unlimited email
Pricing: Plans start at $5.95/month for 1 site, 100,000 visits, and unmetered bandwidth.
5. DreamPress
DreamPress is the managed WordPress hosting service from web host giant DreamHost. It’s also recommended by WordPress.org.
With DreamPress, you get 1-click WordPress installation and automatic updates, unlimited space and bandwidth, a custom dashboard, and free SSDs.
Speed Test:
The biggest thing we take away from DreamPress is the time difference between the western and eastern US. It’s the slowest US-based time in our testing for this article.
With that said, all times for DreamPress are still under a second for all locations.
Features:
- Unmetered bandwidth
- WP Website Builder
- SSL certificate pre-installed
- Automated daily backups with 1-click restore
- 1-click staging environments
Pricing: Hosting packages start at $16.95/month for 1 site, 30GB SSD storage, and up to 100,000 visits with unmetered bandwidth.
6. Nexcess
Nexcess (a Liquid Web brand) is a fully-managed web hosting provider famous for fast and high-quality support. Their hosting servers offer speed to ensure the best page load time.
They also take care of WordPress security and even offer managed WooCommerce hosting services.
Their managed WordPress hosting service comes with an image optimization plugin, staging sites, automatic updates, and a dashboard to manage all of your sites in one place.
Speed Test:
Nexcess is another of our middle-ground hosts in terms of speed results.
It wasn’t the best in the US and Canada. Still, the time for London and Germany should give you confidence for any Western European customers you may have.
Features:
- No pageview or traffic limits
- Automatic daily backups
- Full server access
- Developer tools
- SSL certificates
Pricing: Pricing starts at $12.67/month for 1 site, 15 GB of storage, and 2 TB bandwidth.
What Is the Best Managed WordPress Hosting Plan?
After comparing the features of the best managed WordPress hosting plans, we highly recommend BlueHost. It has everything you need for a hassle-free managed WordPress hosting solution.
Managed WordPress Hosting FAQs
Here are the answers to some common questions we’ve seen regarding managed WordPress hosting:
Do I have to have managed WordPress hosting to start my website?
You don’t have to specifically have a managed WordPress hosting plan to start your site. If you are just getting started, check out your host’s options for shared hosting, which is usually cheaper. Then, when you require managed hosting, you can upgrade.
How much money do I need to start a website with managed WordPress hosting?
It’s hard to calculate the exact amount of money you’ll need to start a website with managed WordPress hosting. The total cost will depend on the price of the host, domain name, privacy features, WordPress themes, and more.
However, we have created a detailed guide on how much it costs to start a website and how to control your costs.
But what happens when I already bought a domain but need a managed WordPress host?
Once you register your domain, you can use it with any hosting company. All you have to do is just change your domain settings and point your site’s DNS to your chosen host.
With most managed WordPress hosts, they also offer migration services so you can transfer your site.
Can I change my managed WordPress host?
Yes, you can absolutely change your managed WordPress hosting company. Most hosting companies offer migration services to help you make the switch.
We hope you found this article on managed WordPress hosting helpful. If so, check out these other resources:
- 17 Proven Methods to Get More Email Subscribers Today
- 7 Best Scroll Popup WordPress Plugins to Personalize Offers
- How to Generate More Leads From Your Website: 9 Expert Tips
Now that you have your managed hosting plan all figured out, you’re ready to run a successful website. And if you want to get started on building your email list, sign up for OptinMonster today!
