I’ve been aware of WP Engine’s WordPress hosting offerings for quite a while now, but I only recently had a chance to dive deeply into the features and benefits they offer to WordPress developers, and I was really impressed.
(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with WP Engine and am not being compensated by them in any way for this review. But this post contains some referral links where I may receive a small percentage of any sales that result from readers clicking through, and where readers may receive a discount on their purchase.)
Some of the things about WP Engine that stood out to me as really helpful and awesome for WordPress developers:
- Super-fast, comprehensive site backup snapshots and cloning. The ability to quickly make a copy of an entire production site (with a large DB and tons of media) to a staging version of that site, or just to a backup snapshot, is a huge benefit. Being able to do it at a click of a button without messing around with export/import tools, find-replace operations or similar command line intervention is just awesome, and enables all sorts of other development best practices when it comes to testing changes and having a safety net for production updates. It’s SO fast, usually completing within a minute or two, so you can make backups/clones all day long without delay. It’s better than any other site backup or environment cloning tool I’ve used in the WordPress hosting space.
- Deep integration with git repo management. Although the instructions and interface for setting it up needs a little expanding and polishing, the WP Engine makes it really easy to set up a git repo for a given hosting environment, where changes pushed to its main branch are quickly deployed to the associated environment. They’ve thought through the complexities of exclusions and co-existing with WordPress-initiated core/plugin/theme updates. Add in the GitHub Action to deploy to a WP Engine environment and you’ve got a really sweet development and deployment pipeline setup, all using industry best practices.
- Fast and powerful SSH command line access, optimized for security and WP CLI operations. WP Engine seems to understand that command line operations are an essential tool in a WordPress developer or site manager’s toolkit, and they make it really straightforward to use.
- Robust system status monitoring and reporting. Whereas some hosts update their system status page well after an impacting event, WP Engine seems to have theirs wired up to show a closer-to-realtime status, and that makes all the difference in not wasting time when troubleshooting or reacting to problems. I also really appreciate that they offer email, Slack and webhook-based notifications for status events, offering endless possibilities with integrating platform events into your development tools and workflows.
- Thoughtful tools for keeping WordPress current and secure. WP Engine clearly understands the importance of keeping WordPress core up to date and making sure no insecure plugins or themes are in place any longer than is absolutely necessary. While I think responsibility for these things generally falls to a developer and not the host, I appreciate that they’ve invested in infrastructure here, and I’m sure it benefits them and their support operations in the long run too.
- Great support, great communication. Whenever I’ve used the WP Engine support chat they’ve been fast, knowledgeable and straight to the point without being curt. If a question or issue needs input from another internal team, they seem to be able to do that quickly and without any resistance. Their documentation is generally well-written and organized.
In the project I was working on where I finally got to see these features directly in action, I had evaluated a variety of hosts including SiteGround, Pressable, WordPress.com Business, and WP Engine. I picked WP Engine for the above reasons and others, including their focus on WordPress-specific performance optimization.
To be clear, I’m not saying WP Engine is the best WordPress host for every use case, or even most use cases out there. Whether you’re a non-technical WordPress site owner looking for something simple and low-cost, or an enterprise-level site needing something that scales for Superbowl-level traffic with commensurate high-touch support, there are lots of great options out there that might be a better fit. (Having been a part of Automattic/WordPress.com/WordPress.com VIP and seeing the incredible investment in scalable infrastructure there, I know the details really matter at those different ends of the spectrum; I still frequently recommend their offerings too.)
But for a WordPress developer or small development team deploying custom theme and plugin code to a high-traffic site and wanting great WordPress-specific tools, systems and people to support them in that, WP Engine really stands out as worth a look.
