Best Managed WordPress Hosting
We have created a few additional resources to help you choose the best managed WordPress hosting for your business:
Choosing the wrong hosting can cost you more money and headache. The goal of these resources is to help you pick the best managed WordPress hosting company from the start.
With all this information, it’s quite easy to get overwhelmed. After reading this guide, often users email us asking for personalized recommendations for managed WordPress hosting suitable for their growing websites.
Detailed Managed WordPress Hosting Performance Comparison
Instead of relying on information available on hosting company’s website, we actually sign up for managed WordPress hosting providers to properly test their services.
We use professional benchmarking tools and run thorough tests to measure performance and reliability of each provider.
First, we measure the website speed across multiple managed WordPress hosting companies. We use Pingdom for this test, which is an industry leading website speed testing service.
Next, we test how a managed WordPress hosting company would perform during peak traffic. For this we use Load Impact service to send virtual users (VU) to each website and see how the hosting server would handle increased requests from multiple connections at once.
Last but not least, we use Bitcatcha service to test server response times across numerous geographical locations including United States, London, Singapore, Sao Paulo, India, Sydney, and Japan. This helps us decide which managed WordPress hosting is best for which geographical location.
1. WP Engine
WP Engine is one of the most popular managed WordPress hosting providers. Their hosting plans include powerful in-house performance optimization, managed updates, 1-click staging environment, and more.
Here are the results from our WP Engine performance tests:
First we tested our sample WP Engine website for speed.
As you can in the screenshot, our test site loaded in less than a second. That’s faster than 96% of all tested sites. Considering that we didn’t need to install any performance optimization this result is quite impressive.
Next, we tested the WP Engine server for more accurate response time.
For this test we used Bitcatcha to test server response time more accurately from multiple geographical locations.
As you can see in the results, WP Engine server response time remained under less than half a second on all geographic locations. It was particularly great in the United States.
- PROS: Highly optimized for WordPress performance with fully stable managed hosting
- PROS: 1-click staging environment, free SSL, and integrated support to add CDN service as an addon
- PROS: Powerful yet easy to use custom hosting control panel with excellent customer support.
- CONS: Prices are slightly higher for advanced plans, but totally worth the $.
2. SiteGround
SiteGround is one of the top-rated hosting companies in the WordPress community. They offer unique in-house performance optimization and security which is why they’re one of the officially recommended WordPress hosting providers.
Here are our results for SiteGround performance test:
As you can see in the screenshot, our test site on SiteGround server loaded in less than a second (649 ms to be precise) for a server in Dallas, Texas. That’s faster than 95% of all tested websites, which is amazing.
Next, we ran a more detailed and accurate response time test. For this, we used Bitcatcha to test accurate server response time from different geographical locations.
Our SiteGround test site performed exceptionally well in the United States and all other locations except Japan.
If your target audience is mainly in Asia, then you can ask SiteGround to move you to their Asia-Pacific servers to remedy this.
- PROS: Awesome WordPress support, great uptime, blazing fast speed, and free SSL.
- PROS: They are one of the officially recommended WordPress hosting providers.
- PROS: Free site migration
- CONS: No free domain
3. Bluehost
Bluehost is one of the most popular hosting companies in the world and an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider.
Let’s take a look at our Bluehost performance test results. Note: this isn’t the typical Bluehost shared hosting. This is an optimized WordPress hosting product that’s powered on their VPS infrastructure.
We first tested our test site on Bluehost servers for speed.
As shown in the screenshot, our test site loaded in less than two seconds. That’s faster than 85% of all tested websites. Keeping in mind that the test site wasn’t using any performance optimization plugins, this result is very good.
Next, we used Bitcatcha for more accurate server response time test from different geographic regions.
Response times for our Bluehost test site were exceptionally great in the United States loading under a fraction of a second. Response time in other locations was a bit higher but still under less than a second.
If your target customers are in the United States, then this would be highly beneficial for website.
- PROS: 50% discount on managed WordPress hosting + free domain + free SSL
- PROS: Officially recommended by WordPress
- PROS: Highly optimized WordPress experience
- PROS: Freedom to do more than just WordPress
- CONS: Sometimes support can be slow
4. Priority Web Services
Priority Web Services is another excellent managed WordPress hosting company popular among WordPress community. They offer multiple levels of hosting plans including managed WordPress hosting, VPS, Business hosting, and dedicated hosting.
Here are the results from our Priority Web Services performance tests:
First we tested our test site for speed using Pingdom website speed testing tool.
As you can see in the test result, our Priority Web Services test site loaded in less than a second for a server in San Jose, California. That’s faster than 91% of tested sites.
Next, we tested Priority Web Service’s server response time using the Bitcatcha tool which measures response times from different geographic regions.
As you can see in the results, our Priority Web Services test site responded with in less than a second. The response time was particularly great in the United States.
After thorough analysis, we find Priority Web Services to be an excellent managed WordPress hosting service for all kind of websites.
- PROS: Incredibly fast managed WordPress hosting with powerful features.
- PROS: High performance servers, SSL included, excellent support.
- PROS: Plenty of options to scale and grow your business. Excellent for enterprise.
- CONS: Not as well know as other providers.
Get Started with Priority Web Services
5. DreamHost
DreamHost is a reliable name in hosting industry. They offer shared, VPS, dedicatedm, and managed WordPress hosting plan called DreamPress.
Here are the results from our DreamHost performance tests:
First, we ran the speed test on our test site on DreamHost server.
As you can see in the results, our test site loaded in less than half a second. That’s faster than 97% of all tested sites, which is incredible for a site with no performance optimization plugins.
Next, we ran the response time test to accurately measure server response time from different geographic locations.
As you can see in the results, our test site responded with in less than half a second for all geographic locations. Response time was particularly great in the United States.
After our thorough analysis, we find DreamHost to be a good option for managed WordPress hosting services.
- PROS: Super-fast managed WordPress hosting service
- PROS: Each plan includes custom control panel, free SSL, SSD storage.
- PROS: Easy to scale suitable for all budgets.
- CONS: Staging site only available with Advanced plan.
Best Managed WordPress Hosting (Quick Recap)
Now that you have compared performance test results of the top managed WordPress hosting companies, you need to decide which one fits your needs.
To make this easier for you, we have created a table with a side-by-side feature list. Here you can easily compare the best managed WordPress hosting companies.
| Hosting | Cost | Free Domain | Free SSL | Staging |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WP Engine | $35/mo | No | Yes | Yes |
| SiteGround | $11.95/mo | No | Yes | Yes |
| Bluehost | $19.99/mo | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Priority Web | $8.99/mo | No | Yes | Yes |
| DreamHost | 14.95/mo | No | Yes | No |
In our in-depth managed WordPress hosting review, we believe that if you are looking for a reliable managed WordPress host, then WPEngine is your best option. Their plans are reasonably priced, incredible performance, with free SSL, 1-click staging, and all StudioPress premium themes along with Genesis framework bundled at $35 is by far the best value.
If you are concerned about costs, then you should go with either Bluehost or SiteGround because they offer highly optimized managed WordPress hosting which now comes with powerful developer tools like staging and more.
If you’re a large company and looking for truly enterprise level service, then we recommend using Priority Web or WP Engine. Both offer outstanding service, but Liquid Web is famous for their heroic support.
In fact, you can’t go wrong with any of the best managed WordPress hosting companies that we have compared above. They all offer hassle free WordPress hosting, with blazing fast servers, great uptime, friendly support, and prices to match your budget.
Managed WordPress Hosting FAQs
Do I need managed WordPress hosting to start my website?
Managed WordPress hosting offers a premium hosting environment specializing in WordPress. It includes expert WordPress support, automatic updates, and performance optimization for WordPress. This premium experience often costs extra but offers a completely hassle free WordPress hosting.
If you are concerned about price, then you can see our guide on how to build a website on shared hosting like Bluehost which costs $2.75 per month and comes with a free domain. You can always upgrade your site to managed WordPress hosting later if you need it.
Can I install Plugins on Managed WordPress Hosting by myself?
Yes, you can. Managed WordPress hosting makes it easy to update all your plugins automatically from the dashboard. It doesn’t stop you from installing WordPress plugins. However, some managed hosting companies may block some plugins that are not compatible with their hosting environment.
I already purchased a domain. Can I use it with my managed WordPress hosting?
Yes, you can. Once you register a domain name, you are free to use it with any hosting company. You will just need to change domain settings and point its DNS to your managed WordPress hosting company. Each managed WordPress hosting company has step by step instructions on how to do that. See our guide on the difference between domain name and web hosting.
Do I need to buy domain and managed WordPress hosting from same company?
No you don’t. You can buy managed WordPress hosting from one company and domain name from a different company. However, it does help to get them from the same company as you will not have to change DNS settings, and you will be able to manage your domain and hosting under the same dashboard. Some companies will even offer you a free domain with purchase of hosting.
Do managed WordPress hosting companies keep backups of my site?
Yes, many of them do. However, we don’t recommend relying on your hosting company’s backups. You must always create your own backups by using a WordPress backup plugin.
Can I change my managed WordPress hosting later?
Yes, you can totally change your manage WordPress hosting company if you are unhappy with them. Most hosting companies offer migration services that you can utilize with minimum downtime.
Are there other managed WordPress hosting providers that are not listed here?
Yes, there are literally dozens of managed WordPress hosting companies out there, and we simply can’t list them all here because that would create more confusion and cause choice paralysis for readers.
We have tried every major managed WordPress hosting company in the market including many that are not in our list above such as: Flywheel, Kinsta, Cloudways, Pagely, GoDaddy, InMotion Hosting, Pantheon, NameCheap, Pressable, and more.
The top managed WordPress hosting companies that we have chose to include in our list provides the best features for the best price.
What are the best managed WordPress hosting companies in your opinion?
Our top choices for managed WordPress hosting are:
- WP Engine – Best overall in terms of performance, reliability, pricing and features.
- SiteGround – Low cost managed WordPress hosting with friendly support and great performance.
- Bluehost – All the features of premium managed WordPress hosting plus free domain and ultra fast servers.
- Priority Web Services – Truly enterprise WordPress hosting experience with heroic support.
