10 Reasons Why I Love WP Engine – Review

1. Peace of mind that SO MUCH is handled by one service

Over 1.2 Million websites are powered by WP Engine

– WP Engine

Operating a modern professional website requires numerous technical puzzle pieces that all fit together for a fast loading, optimized, secure website. WP Engine handles most of it for you all in one place.

As a professional website developer of over 10 years, WP Engine has saved me countless hours dealing with multiple services to achieve the same end result. Let’s take a look at some of these time-saving features.

2. Super Easy Site Migrations

When switching a website to a new hosting platform, there is a lot of technical requirements for a smooth transition. Even an experienced web developer like me can miss something or make a mistake.

WP Engine offer a free website migration plugin you can use to move your website onto their servers as fast and easily as possible.

This is great for those without the technical experience in moving to a new web server, and is a huge time-saver for professionals like myself.

3. Free StudioPress Premium Themes

All WP Engine plans come with Premium StudioPress Themes created for a variety of different website styles from business websites, to portfolios, to magazine style sites.

Each theme is Block Editor ready, optimized for search engines, and secure. You can trust your website with StudioPress Themes.

My personal favorite theme is the one that a new install on WP Engine comes with already activated, the Genesis Block Theme.

4. Free Content Delivery Network (CDN)

People around the world will see your website, and the physical location of your website files actually have an impact on your page load speed and user experience.

A content delivery network, often called a CDN, distributes your website files to servers across the world, enabling faster delivery of digital files and a better user experience.

5. Free SSL certificates that auto-renews

Every website should be running on a secure connection to protect your visitors’ privacy, especially if you are saving and storing any user information or running an Ecommerce store.

A SSL Certificate is what changes your website URL from using http:// to https://, thereby providing your users with a secure connection indicated by the little lock icon in your browser’s address bar.

WP Engine offers a free SSL Certificate from Let’s Encrypt and it auto-renews so you can simply set it once and forget it. Once enabled, there is nothing else you have to do for your website – it now runs on a secure connection.

6. Multiple types of built-in caching

Caching your website means storing commonly used files that rarely change in temporary storage that can be accessed by a web browser as quickly as possible. WP Engine offers multiple types of caching to help your website load as fast as possible.

WP Engine has caching built right into their servers, and does not even allow third-part caching plugins like WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache, because they are not even needed.

Here is a screenshot of the caching settings within the WP Engine dashboard.

7. Daily automatic backups created and stored with one-click restore

One of the most valuable features of WP Engine is the daily automatic backups and one-click restore. This feature will give you peace-of-mind knowing that if any web emergencies occur with your website, you can quickly and easily resolve it.

I can’t stress how important this is.

Backups don’t seem that important for many website owners, until something goes wrong.

Then having a recent backup becomes the most important thing in the world at that moment – but if you didn’t create one, it’s already too late.

WP Engine has you covered. Automatically and you can create a new backup any time you want.

8. Excellent support at any time of the day or night

Servers, DNS changes, domains, themes, plugins, bugs, mistakes … let’s face it when it comes to the complexity of the entire website ecosystem, bad stuff happens and your website goes down.

Having access to knowledgeable support at any time of the day or night is essential.

WP Engine’s support team is top-notch. They are knowledgeable and experienced. They don’t just read from customer service scripts, they help you.

As a professional web developer who has built too many websites to count on WP Engine, I have had to deal with their support for many different issues from common problems to rare custom problems.

They have gone above and beyond every time. I give WP Engine Support a 10/10 rating.

9. Excellent server & website security

WP Engine takes your website security very seriously. This part gets a bit technical, but here are a few of the ways WP Engine protects your website:

• Disc Write Protections
• Disc Write Limitations
• Disallowed Plugins
• Proprietary Firewall
• User Enumeration
• Separated Dedicated Servers

Here’s a link to read about each of the security measures WP Engine takes to protect your website and your data.

10. Advanced Developer Tools

As a professional web developer, the development tools are one of the biggest reasons I love WP Engine. WP Engine provides you with three separate environments: Production, Staging, and Development.

WP Engine also gives access to the server access & error logs which I often need while troubleshooting issues with sites, offers secure SFTP file transfers, and even integrates with Bitbucket and GIT using pipelines.

All of these make WP Engine a great choice for developing websites on. Combined with all of the other features I discussed above, WP Engine has the most to offer at a reasonable price, although it is more expensive than other shared hosting options.

Just remember, you get what you pay for when it comes to website hosting. Many hosting companies seem fine until something goes wrong and they leave you hanging.

WP Engine never leaves you hanging.

WP Engine Pricing & Plans

WP Engine costs more than some of the cheaper shared hosting options, but you get what you pay for with WP Engine and more. You are paying for quality and features, not just a name.