Akamai Cloud Computing vs. Pantheon vs. WP Engine

Akamai Connected Cloud Linode would be a good service to host a content delivery network (CDN) because of its edge network but I'd prefer not to use Akamai Connected Cloud Linode for tasks that need GPU power such as Machine Learning or Artificial Intelligence (AI) because Akamai Connected Cloud Linode lacks deep GPU compute compared to AWS or Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure

Pantheon is excellent for medium-large websites that require high availability and a managed workflow. It would be inappropriate for small websites because of the cost or for situations where more control of the environment is appropriate. We find it useful because we rarely do anything outside of the Drupal application.

Incentivized

I am an enterprise user of WordPress and host over 7000 sites with WPEngine. Areas that I think they are well suited for include customers that need enterprise-level support and uptime and have more complex needs than a simple blog. They also manage scale well with a variety of isolated install options that you can scale up or down depending on your contract needs. They also provide premier support for enterprises and have highly knowledgable Technical Account Managers that provide a significant value add. If I were to look at where it isn't as appropriate for usage I would focus on the low-end needs and say while they do support small sites, there are options out there for cheaper hosting that lack the support a WPEngine gives you.

Incentivized

• It's super easy-to-use - set up a complete virtual environment in a few minutes.
• Linode is the ONLY service I know that will let you DOWNSIZE a VM - super useful.
• The price is right - spin up any size server and add additional block storage if needed.
• Object memory is cheap and integrates very well with S3 CLIs and applications.
• I've been very happy with the knowledgeable and friendly customer service.
• The more recent additions of a firewall and Kubernetes is a welcome plus.
• The load balancer ("Load Balancer") service is easy to spin up and configure.

Incentivized

• Effective use of our codebase deployment and implementation.
• The dashboard functionality and general stability and security are excellent.
• The server is quite consistent, and if you need assistance from the support team, they are very quick to respond.
• Automatic updates let me ensure that my customers have safe websites without increasing my own expense.
• The team offers excellent assistance and help for chat.

Incentivized

• I love the database backups and how quickly & easy it is to restore from an old backup point. This gives me & my clients confidence that any change can be rolled back.
• The built in caching & CDN mean that I have to spend less time worrying about the speed of the server & site. The caching has some side-effects that take getting used to (on-page dynamic PHP code sometimes needs to be moved to API endpoints), but this is true for most caching systems.
• They have really good support for multiple environments. It's very easy to have separate production & staging environments. It's also very simple to deploy from staging to production, making product launches and large scale website copy changes much easier to coordinate.

Incentivized

• Some of the documentation requires some hand-holding to get started. It does explain how to do things, but sometimes finding the answer takes work.
• Some of the settings are not obvious, or in locations that are not completely clear without experience.

Incentivized

• Pricing structure has too large of a jump between Basic and Performance plans
• Have run into issues with prescribed WP updates not working through dashboard and having to do manually.
• Pantheon site dashboard occasionally is unavailable (the site is never affected though)

Incentivized

• I'd like to see WP Engine offer their own monitoring solution. When I say monitoring, I mean specific use cases that may end up being something you could script. This would keep customers from having to pay for additional services like Pingdom, New Relic, etc.
• I would like to see some proactive analysis done by WP Engine on their customer sites - at least on their home pages, and offer up suggestions. This kind of goes along with the other example.
• Finally, it would be nice to see a "lighter" offering, perhaps a plan that costs $49 for those who want to host only a few sites, or even 1 site.

Incentivized

I've been with them a long time. They provide me with the capabilities I need coupled with knowledgeable support that's not pay-for-extra. However, if I move to a non-Linux OS, the level of support by necessity will drop off. I can still ask questions about the infrastructure but I my ability to ask about OS features will decrease.

Incentivized

The environment is stable and we have not had any issues/downtime. The annual cost is reasonable.

Incentivized

I was in a situation where I had to bolt Wordpress on to an existing infrastructure that could not support it. If I ever end up in that situation again, please kill me. Other than that reasonably common use case, I don't think it offers a lot of value over robust shared hosting, virtual private server (VPS) or dedicated servers.

Simple and clear, no BS interface. From a design perspective it's no Apple or Stripe, but it does what it needs without making me want to stick a fork in my eyes, like when being forced to use Azure, AWS or GCP.

Incentivized

Pantheon is an easy system, especially to the users with previous experience with other similar platform and the interface is clear enough to easily understand how things operates. On the Cloud deployment everything also works effectively and the technical team from Pantheon community are very helpful on providing the necessary assistant to their customers.

Incentivized

From the onboarding and in the days afterward, it was very easy to get into the platform and begin creating important websites and configuring user options. The interface is easy to navigate, and the platform pages load quickly. Since the platform is built for Word plus press, it has features including backup, staging, maintenance mode, and direct WP-Admin login to make configuration and site management faster. We have never had any issues on the billing side of the account.

Incentivized

There is very little planned downtime. Whenever planned downtime is necessary I'm always given lots of advanced notice and an explanation that I can pass along to my users that they'll understand. I really appreciate that Linode appreciates my commitment to reliable service to my users. It shows that they believe they've been successful when I'm successful.

Incentivized

Servers are well dimensioned and price performant. Of course one always wants more, so if they were to upgrade their hardware for the same price I'd consider moving more workloads. Networking - never had an issue. Hardware speeds - disks are fast and can grow to great size.

Incentivized

Support was excellent and fast. The documentation is extensive and helpful. I learned many things from their online documentation. I did not contact them by phone, but email took a day or less. Complex problems would probably need a service contract. I liked the friendly and polite tone of the support.

Incentivized

Even tier 1 Pantheon chat and ticket support are knowledgeable, competent, and useful. They routinely understand and promptly resolve urgent, complex, and/or unusual issues that other hosts need to escalate to tier 2 or tier 3 support personnel. I honestly can't think of a truly negative or disappointing support experience in the years I've used Pantheon hosting for client websites.

Incentivized

Support is generally great. Enterprise support is fantastic, with little to no wait times. I find that chat support can almost always take care of the problem without escalating to a ticket for a higher level of troubleshooting. The chat support for many other hosting providers can only handle basic issues. This is a big bonus for us to get quick and helpful answers.

Incentivized

We got kick started with an initial walkthrough along with some free credits. The initial walkthrough helped us to understand Linode's ecosystem and start our hands on with Linode. We tried out some apps from Marketplace initially with the free credits, which not only helped us understand Linode better, but also those apps. We had implemented many such apps to our customers with Linode

Incentivized

We're a small organization. The implementation of our Linode solution was trivial. Once I justified a cloud server to my bosses over a co-location -- the co-lo wasn't as fast as our linode server in load tests -- it was a matter of moving one Linux implementation to another. Trivial.

Incentivized

Once the environments were up and running, the implementation was easy to synchronize with latest data prior to switchover.

Incentivized

We switched to Linode from Namecheap due to poor uptime, and never had any issues with stability ever again after switching. We also cut our costs in half by switching. We compared Linode to DigitalOcean and Vultr, with the primary factor that caused us to go with Linode initially being their documentation. After using Linode for 3 years, their amazing support is another reason why we wouldn't consider anyone else at this point.

Incentivized

Although it may seem a good fit for a company that needs extra control over the deployment process and development process, for a firm that is mainly concentrating on SEO, it would be an overkill. Pantheon provides that sweet automation that allows us to shed some weight on development and focus on our business activities.

Incentivized

While we still use GoDaddy for some services, WP Engine definitely has been a major upgrade for our WordPress hosting. In addition to faster load speeds, WP Engine has been more adept at allowing us to manage a high number of websites without straining the system. We have never used Network Solutions for our own hosting needs, but when we do interact with them on behalf of our clients, their systems always seem to be clunky and hard to use, and they often overcharge customers by selling them products they do not need.

Incentivized

Although I use only a fraction of their product offerings, the total set makes scalability an easy goal to shoot for. As I said, I have a few customers that use the services my Linode provides...and I like it that way. However, should I need to scale up, I can...without incurring any more cost than I need to.

Incentivized

• With the partnership of Linode, Configr is today the best performance hosting solution in Brazil.
• With Linode, Configr can provide a PaaS solution without the cost of taking care of all the infrastructure issues such as IaaS.
• Linode allowed Configr to be one of the biggest hosting companies in Brazil.

Incentivized

• Pantheon allows ordinary sites to excel esp if there is consistent development going on behind the scenes.
• Website management is super easy and the hosting fee gets paid off as you save on developer hours.
• Expensive for those who are not consistently developing on the platform, there are other options out there at better price points.

Incentivized

• WP Engine reduces our time investment and upkeep costs which increases our margins.
• WP Engine simplifies site management with a built-in development server, which saves us headaches.
• WP Engine itself is positioned as a premium service, which allows us to use their branding as a tool to close sales.

Incentivized