WP Engine vs Nexcess (March 2025) – “WordPress Winner …”

WP Engine and Nexcess are perhaps the two best managed WordPress hosting providers in the industry. In this comparison of WP Engine vs Nexcess, we’ll take a look at the benefits each has to offer and which of these WordPress hosts is the better fit for you.

Nexcess is now a part of Liquid Web. In our previous comparison of WP Engine vs Liquid Web, it was an extremely close call between two of the best managed web hosting providers—with WP Engine coming out on top. Now that Liquid Web has transitioned their WordPress hosting over to the Nexcess platform, let’s see if there is a difference.

WP Engine vs Nexcess: Differences

Reasons for Choosing WP Engine over Nexcess:

Faster Website Speeds with Google Cloud Platform
More Responsive Customer Support
Includes Free StudioPress Themes
Includes Page Performance Tools
60 Day Money Back Guarantee

Reasons for Choosing Nexcess over WP Engine:

Includes iThemes Sync
No Restrictions on Themes and Plugins
Automatic Plugin Testing and Updates
No Pageview or Traffic Limits
Less Expensive to Host Multiple Websites

WP Engine vs Nexcess Details

Category	WP Engine	Nexcess	Comments
Setup
Control Panel
Data Centers			WP Engine has data centers in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Sydney.
Website Speed			See Below
Security Features			WP Engine provides Free SSL, Real Time Threat Detection
Data Backup and Restore			Tie. Both provide Automated Daily Backups Stored 30 Days, plus Snapshot Capability.
Automatic Updates			With Nexcess you get Automatic Plugin Updates in addition to WordPress Core.
Servers
Network
WordPress Development			Nexcess includes iThemes Sync for managing multiple sites.
SSL			Tie. Both provide Free Let’s Encrypt SSL.
Resources
Staging			WP Engine offers streamlined website staging. See Below.
Customer Support			See Below
Money Back Guarantee			WP Engine offers a Full 60 Day Money Back Guarantee.
Price/Value

WP Engine vs Nexcess: Website Speed and Performance

For managed WordPress hosting, WP Engine and Nexcess are two of the very best choices. While they both provide outstanding website speed and performance, in our head to head comparison, Nexcess is slightly faster. Nexcess includes their excellent features like optimized servers, advanced caching, built in CDN, and premium image compression that allows them to post faster results.

So, while WP Engine provides an equally impressive number of performance features, in this comparison, Nexcess gets a slight edge. See some of our sample speed test results below.

Website Staging

While both WP Engine and Nexcess provide full website staging for WordPress sites, we prefer WP Engine. I like the way that both hosts easily allow you to make a copy of your live site and place it in the staging area. However, with WP Engine, you can just as easily copy the changes in your staging copy back into your production live website. In this category, WP Engine is the winner.

Data Backup and Restore

With Nexcess and WP Engine, you get top quality data backup and restore capabilities. Both of these managed WordPress hosts provide daily automatic backup, along with the ability to manually create a backup whenever you need to. Restoring your data is also easy to do. We’ll have to call it a draw here.

Customer Support

WP Engine and Nexcess both have quality customer support teams. With both hosts specializing in WordPress hosting, you get true expert support. So which one is the winner in this category? I’ll have to go with WP Engine here. While both provide excellent response times, WP Engine has more consistently provided helpful, friendly assistance. It’s kind of a close call here, but WP Engine gets the edge when it comes to customer support.

WP Engine
Plans:

Startup ($20 mo.)
1 Website/10GB Storage
Professional ($40 mo.)
3 Websites/15GB Storage
Growth ($77 mo.)
10 Websites/20GB Storage
Scale ($194 mo.)
30 Websites/50GB Storage

Data Centers: U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia
Free Domain?: No
Money Back Guarantee: 60 Days
BBB Rating: B+

Advantages of WP Engine

WordPress Hosting Specialist
Faster Performance with Google Cloud Platform Virtual Machines.
Proprietary EverCache Technology
True Staging Environment
Automated and Snapshot Data Backups
Free StudioPress themes are included with your hosting plan.
Transferable Installs and Billing Transfer
Page Performance Diagnostics
Enterprise Solutions Available
Expert WordPress Customer Support

Choose WP Engine if:

You need better website staging.
You want to use StudioPress themes.
You want a longer money back guarantee.

> Choose WP Engine

Nexcess

Plans:

Spark ($14 mo.)
1 Website/15GB Storage
Maker ($58 mo.)
5 Websites/40GB Storage
Designer ($80 mo.)
10 Websites/60GB Storage
Builder ($109 mo.)
25 Websites/100GB Storage

Data Centers: Lansing, Michigan; Phoenix, AZ; Amsterdam, EUR
Free Domain?:: No
Money Back Guarantee: Pro-Rated
BBB Rating: A+

Advantages of Choosing Nexcess:

Specialize in Upscale Managed Hosting
Automatic Plugin Updates
100% Uptime Guarantee
Auto Image Compression
Manage Multiple Sites with iThemes Sync
iThemes Security Pro
No Pageview Limits
Automatic Daily Backups Stored Offsite for 30 Days
Full Server Access

Choose Nexcess if:

You want a faster performing website.
You need WooCommerce Hosting.
You need better premium WordPress features.

> Choose Nexcess

Recommendation

When it comes to managed WordPress hosting, WP Engine and Nexcess are definitely two of the best hosting providers I’ve used. Both are equally capable of providing excellent hosting features, website performance, and support.

For WordPress websites, including small business sites up to enterprise level applications, they are both outstanding. However, because of their superior managed WooCommerce hosting, in this ultra-close head-to-head comparison, Nexcess is the winner.

See our Nexcess Review Ratings below:

Winner

9.8