With the recent massive WP Engine outage, due to issues with their provider – Amazon Web Services, I have received several inquiries about what I consider a good alternative for Managed WordPress hosting. Moreover, WP Engine is an expensive option for some users, while their limited features might prove an inconvenience to others. That prompts customers to look for WP Engine alternatives which will provide them with more features at a lower price.

So here are several cheaper, and (according to my experience) better WP Engine alternatives.

WebHostFace – Starts from $19.95/mo

As I have announced in our news section, WebHostFace recently released a brand-new Managed WordPress Hosting service, which they offered for a limited-time testing period. Being the WordPress buff that I am, I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to try out this new product, especially considering the hype around it. I have to say, I was more than impressed. They use NGINX, hhtp2, and Google Pagespeed, which increased the speed of my relatively medium WordPress website twice and I was able to feel it not only when I browse my site, but also in my Google scores.
What is more, I was given a complete freedom to install any plugin I wanted – a luxury, which is not available on WP Engine (as well as on many other Managed WordPress services, for that matter).
I am also very used with cPanel, which I cannot use on WP Engine, but I get on WebHostFace. CPanel also gives me additional features, allows me to manage my files and databases.

Another thing I cannot miss having is emails. Unfortunately,  WP Engine do not offer emails included in the package, so I have to pay for an additional email host, which, given the not-so-cheap fee of the WP Engine hosting comes to a pretty hefty monthly expense. WebHostFace, on the other hand, allow unlimited number of emails and plenty of storage for your mailboxes, which saves you money and the trouble to configure external email host for a different email provider.

DreamHost – $16.95/mo

DreamPress by DreamHost is a great solution if you wish to host WordPress. Although it is not technically a Fully Managed WordPress hosting package, as it does not provide specialized support, the servers provide more freedom and have bigger limits than their shared hosting packages, as this plan is  hosted on VPS solutions. Although they do not provide root access on the Managed WordPress VPS, they provide autoscale of the RAM dedicated to your account. You cannot change it yourself (that would have been a dream), but you still get more RAM when your account needs it, without being charged extra. The package also includes Varnish, which accelerates and protects your account. Best thing about their technology is that it can handle spikes of traffic if your site has high traffic only on certain periods, but not all the time.

Those are the best and cheapest WP Engine alternatives. Many people might ask “How about GoDaddy, or HostGator, or BlueHost?”. Although their packages are called WordPress Hosting, they are not actually Managed WordPress Hosting plans. To read more about the difference, see my blog post about it. I have also written an extensive review on GoDaddy’s WordPress Hosting, which claims to “managed”, you can read it here. The truth is that if you wish to host a WordPress website on any of the popular or less popular hosting providers , a regular shared account will probably work for you just fine. But when I talk about Managed WordPress, I refer to hosting which will actually contribute to your website’s success, speed, SEO, and will protect you against vulnerabilities far better than the standard plan.

There are several other Managed WordPress providers, that offer advanced and highly-optimized services, however, they are significantly more expensive. I am preparing a post about those high-end providers, so if you want to read it, follow me on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates.

Do you agree or disagree with these picks? Have you used any other provider you would like to include? Leave me a comment below or contact me via email.