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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    cPanel

    Score8.6 out of 10
    N/AcPanel headquartered in Houston provides website hosting providers with workload and server automation, as well as a management console for creating and launching websites, managing email and web files, and other administrative tasks.

    $15.99

    per month

    WP Engine

    Score7.4 out of 10
    N/AWP Engine is a website hosting service built to host WordPress for companies of any size, with features such as daily backups, firewall,SSL, and proprietary caching technology.

    $35

    per month

    Pricing
    cPanelWP Engine
    Editions & Modules
    cPanel Solo
    $15.99
    per month for 1 account
    Admin
    $24.99
    per month up to 5 accounts
    Pro
    $35.99
    per month up to 30 accounts
    Premier (on cloud)
    $53.99
    per month up to 100 accounts
    Premier (on metal)
    $53.99
    per month up to 100 accounts
    Startup
    $35
    per month
    Core
    $400
    per month (annual contract)
    Enterprise
    Custom
    *Per Month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    cPanelWP Engine
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—Discount available for annual billing on the Startup plan.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    cPanelWP Engine
    Considered Both Products
    cPanel
    Chose cPanel
    cPanel interface is not as appealing and straightforward as other hosting solutions, but it offers more features and is certainly more flexible in that regard.
    Incentivized
    WP Engine
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    91%
    Would buy again
    10 Answers
    89%
    Would buy again
    17 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    91%
    Delivers good value for the price
    10 Answers
    84%
    Delivers good value for the price
    16 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    91%
    Happy with the feature set
    10 Answers
    84%
    Happy with the feature set
    16 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    90%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    9 Answers
    83%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    15 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    8 Answers
    89%
    Implementation went as expected
    17 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    cPanelWP Engine
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    Flywheel
    Score4.8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    VMware vCenter
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Rackspace Managed Hosting
    Score9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    VMware vCenter
    Score8.4 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    cPanelWP Engine
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.2
    (14 ratings)
    8.5
    (31 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    3.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    7.0
    (5 ratings)
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.3
    (9 ratings)
    7.7
    (6 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    cPanelWP Engine
    Likelihood to Recommend
    cPanel
    I personally use it for any website hosting I do for me and others. There are a few others but I have stuck with the old tried and true and it always works for me and I know how to get around it so it has become a breeze for me. For those who are extremely new to websites and hosting or to those with very little technical know how cPanel could be very overwhelming and they might want to do like a managed WordPress hosting where they don't really have to see or deal with cPanel. I also probably wouldn't use it for straight email hosting. If you have thousands of cPanel accounts it may get very expensive and that could be a factor.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    WP Engine
    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
    Read full review
    Pros
    cPanel
    • The dashboard is very intuitive. Even beginners can figure out how to do things without very much help.
    • The online community is very helpful and the online documentation makes administering any tasks a lot easier.
    • User creation and administration for FTP access is also very simple.
    Read full review
    WP Engine
    • 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
    Read full review
    Cons
    cPanel
    • The costs can be a limiting factor for some businesses if you are not using a web hosting company that uses it. I have been experimenting with Cloud hosting, which can be very daunting for the novice. There is an option to install it on the cloud but it is expensive.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    WP Engine
    • 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
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    cPanel
    No answers on this topic
    WP Engine
    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.
    Read full review
    Usability
    cPanel
    Although it can be a little bit bloated with a lot of options and configurations, it's very straightforward to use and maintain. So it's a great option even if you don't have large experience in hosting configuration. The WHM tool is more suited to heavy users since it requires more expertise, so it has a steep learning curve to better understand how to use it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    WP Engine
    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
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    cPanel
    The support comes in the form of an extensive library of how to articles and community input. For most situations this will give you plenty of information and resources to trouble shoot. Live support really then would need to default to the hosting provider who provides the cPanel for your use.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    WP Engine
    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
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    cPanel
    The direct server management tool access provided by cPanel hosting accounts is far superior to any shared or "standard" web site hosting packaged offered by any of the numerous web host providers I have used and or evaluated over the 20+ years of my experience working in the internet industry.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    WP Engine
    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
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    cPanel
    • cPanel makes back end server administration easy. This saves time and overall effort.
    • cPanel is readily available with most hosting packages. It integrates with both Apache and Nginx.
    • cPanel allows you to perform some of the same functions as WHM, but with an easier interface.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    WP Engine
    • 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
    Read full review
    ScreenShots