Do You Really Need Managed Hosting?

Recently, someone referred me to a web hosting company that specializes in WordPress hosting. More specifically, this company offers managed web hosting. Think of managed hosting as a premium or personalized support plan for your website. In the case of WP Engine (the company I was referred to), your web hosting does include a lot of good stuff. For example, here are some of the highlights:

Their staff is comprised entirely of WordPress experts. So, even if you’re having an issue with a plugin or theme, they should be able to help you out.

WP Engine boasts of lightning speed for their WordPress sites. Using their proprietary EverCache technology and content delivery networks, they can significantly speed up your site load times. This technology can also make your WP site much more scalable and able to handle spikes in visitors.

They’ll do their best to ensure your site doesn’t get hacked. But, if it does, they will fix it at no additional charge.

You get full backup and restore options at no extra charge.

They will also assist you with specific WordPress plugins, themes, and power tools.

Sounds pretty good so far. What’s the downside? For me, it’s the cost. Having just one WP installed site will cost you $29 mo. If you want 10 sites, it’ll cost you $99 mo. 25 sites costs $249 mo. That’s significantly more that you’d pay for shared hosting at one of the top rated web hosting companies.

Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide if you want to pay more for managed hosting. I’ve run a ton of WP sites without managed hosting and haven’t run into any major problems. Speed and scalability have not been an issue. On the other hand, if you anticipate a huge surge of traffic, if you need a lot of technical assistance with your site, and if you have the extra cash, then maybe managed hosting is right for you.