WordPress vs. WP Engine

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
WordPress
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Wordpress is an open-source publishing platform popular with bloggers, and a content management system, known for its simplicity and modifiability. Websites may host their own blogging communities, controlling and moderating content from a single dashboard.
$3
per month 6 GB storage
WP Engine
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
WP 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.
$29
per month
Pricing
WordPressWP Engine
Editions & Modules
Personal
$4
per month 6 GB storage
Premium
$8
per month 13 GB storage
Business
$25
per month 50 GB storage
Commerce
$45
per month 50 GB storage
Enterprise
Contact for pricing
Startup
$25.00
*Per Month
Growth
$95.00
*Per Month
Scale
$241.00
*Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
WordPressWP Engine
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details*Pricing for annual contract.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
WordPressWP Engine
Considered Both Products
WordPress
Chose WordPress
I've just been using WordPress forever so it is my go to recommendation for non technical people
Chose WordPress
I have only used Shopify as an alternative website/e-commerce builder. Whilst Shopify has better functionality, particularly for an online store, WordPress has more capability to build a comprehensive website with large volumes of content and integrations with other platforms.
WP Engine
Chose WP Engine
WP Engine blows all these hosting companies out of the water when it comes to WordPress hosting. I ultimately moved to WP Engine when my to WordPress sites continued to go down, performed slowly, or got to the point where they were impossible to manage. Now, if I see someone …
Chose WP Engine
WP Engine provides premium WordPress hosting. I haven't dealt with other dedicated WordPress hosts, except for WordPress.com by Automattic, which is good, but WP Engine is professional-grade, dedicated WP hosting. I have found that generally, non-dedicated WordPress hosting …
Chose WP Engine
WP Engine and Go Daddy both had great support offerings and were both very competent when it comes to hosting websites. We chose WP Engine because their platform was just much easier to use and our marketing personnel could perform the majority of the essential daily tasks that …
Chose WP Engine
We were originally on GoDaddy until we got a malware attack on their shared server. Cleaning up an infected server is almost impossible, so we decided to jump ship and set up our sites on Site Ground. We needed faster hosting anyway. Site Ground was decent, but their customer …
Chose WP Engine
I have used WP Engine for several years and love the service. Their technology, security, speed & support are unparralleled. I've had to file several support tickets & the experience was really good every time. Being a consultant & tech integrator, I often have to deal with B2B …
Chose WP Engine
I have worked with other top web hosting companies and none offer the simplicity of WP Engine. WP Engine is more expensive, however we deem the cost justifiable for the features that are included.

Other web hosts are simple boxes that give you more control, however do not offer …
Chose WP Engine
We tried to run this site on Wordpress-optimized versions of hosting offered at MediaTemple and GoDaddy... neither sufficed.
Chose WP Engine
WP Engine blows these guys out of the water in regards to reliability, security and customer support
Chose WP Engine
Prior to WP Engine, we had an off-site consultant hosting our site. It was terribly inconvenient and counterproductive. We selected WP Engine because the platform is intuitive and the price is very reasonable. I've never used another hosting service, so I can't speak to how …
Chose WP Engine
WP Engine was cheaper than the alternatives, and our site was already present on their servers. It wasn't so much a choice of WP Engine over another hosting company as it was a choice to stay with WP Engine rather than invest the time required to switch to another provider. All …
Chose WP Engine
There's no comparision in terms of reliability, uptime, convenience, flexibility, pricing, and especially, tech support. WPEngine support is just simply superb. GoDaddy support cannot come close, nor can the others. inMotion Hosting has been very unreliable of late. So was A2 …
Chose WP Engine
WP engine is good if you don't want to do all of the IT work such as back up, website scaling, website performance, etc. Of course you will have complete control over customization.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
WordPressWP Engine
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
WordPress
8.2
157 Ratings
2% above category average
WP Engine
-
Ratings
Role-based user permissions8.2157 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
WordPress
7.8
132 Ratings
2% above category average
WP Engine
-
Ratings
API7.9122 Ratings00 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language7.8101 Ratings00 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
WordPress
8.1
164 Ratings
5% above category average
WP Engine
-
Ratings
WYSIWYG editor7.9149 Ratings00 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness7.3150 Ratings00 Ratings
Admin section8.4162 Ratings00 Ratings
Page templates8.8158 Ratings00 Ratings
Library of website themes8.6160 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design8.6159 Ratings00 Ratings
Publishing workflow8.2152 Ratings00 Ratings
Form generator7.3130 Ratings00 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
WordPress
8.2
162 Ratings
11% above category average
WP Engine
-
Ratings
Content taxonomy8.2141 Ratings00 Ratings
SEO support8.0147 Ratings00 Ratings
Bulk management7.5125 Ratings00 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions9.1150 Ratings00 Ratings
Community / comment management8.3150 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
WordPressWP Engine
Small Businesses
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Flywheel
Flywheel
Score 9.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
Pantheon
Pantheon
Score 8.5 out of 10
Enterprises
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
Pantheon
Pantheon
Score 8.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
WordPressWP Engine
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(201 ratings)
9.8
(29 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
6.0
(38 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.1
(48 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
9.5
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(11 ratings)
7.7
(6 ratings)
In-Person Training
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(10 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
WordPressWP Engine
Likelihood to Recommend
Automattic
Wordpress is a great solution for a website of nearly any type. It may not be as suitable if a fully custom solution or app is needed, and it does have some limitations when it comes to connecting it to external products (especially if the product doesn't have any support from a native system), and it does require a lot of testing. Multiple plugins in one install are common but also increase the risk of conflicts, and when those do occur, it can be exceptionally time-consuming and tedious to identify what is causing the issue. As third parties create many plugins, you're also at risk with each potential security breach, which needs to be kept in mind. I would be cautious to use WordPress to store any sort of sensitive PPI. That said, it's a wonderful, easily customizable solution for many, many different types of websites and can allow even inexperienced client users with low-tech knowledge to update basics.
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.
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Pros
Automattic
  • Easy to use User Interface
  • Coding / Plugin Implementation is awesome
  • There's always a solution available for the platform
  • Security is easy to use and robust
  • Implementation with 3rd party platforms, such as Google's variety of tools
  • Can download and host on your own server or use their hosted servers
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.
Read full review
Cons
Automattic
  • WordPress breaks often so you need to have someone who understands how to troubleshoot, which can take time and money.
  • Some plugins are easier to customize than others, for example, some don't require any coding knowledge while others do. This can limit your project if you are not a coder.
  • WordPress can be easily hacked, so you also need someone who can ensure your sites are secure.
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.
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Likelihood to Renew
Automattic
The complications we have and the lack of support. Every plugin has a differente team of support in charge and make one plugin work with the other one always affects the website performance. It's a thousand times better to have only one provider with all functionalities included unless you are an expert web developer or have a team dedicated to it
Read full review
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.
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Usability
Automattic
Extremely easy to use and train users. It took very little time to get everyone trained and onboarded to start using WordPress. Anytime we had any issues, we were able to find an article or video to help out or we were able to contact support. The menu options are well laid out so it is easy to find what you are looking for.
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WP Engine
It took very little time to learn their dashboard for managing WordPress sites. Their built-in tools are really well done, and the addition of security and CDN tools is great.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Automattic
Anyone can visit WordPress.org and download a fully functional copy of WordPress free of charge. Additionally, WordPress is offered to users as open-source software, which means that anyone can customize the code to create new applications and make these available to other WordPress users.
Read full review
WP Engine
No answers on this topic
Performance
Automattic
Mostly, any performance issues have to do with using too many plugins and these can sometimes slow down the overall performance of your site. It is very tempting to start adding lots of plugins to your WordPress site, however, as there are thousands of great plugins to choose from and so many of them help you do amazing things on your site. If you begin to notice performance issues with your WordPress site (e.g. pages being slow to load), there are ways to optimize the performance of your site, but this requires learning the process. WordPress users can learn how to optimize their WordPress sites by downloading the WPTrainMe WordPress training plugin (WPTrainMe.com) and going through the detailed step-by-step WordPress optimization tutorials.
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WP Engine
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Automattic
I give this rating, which I believe to be a great rating for a community based support system that's surrounding it. Most platforms and products have their own, and as WordPress does have their own team that help here and there, a lot of it's handled by community involvement with dedicated users who are experts with the system who love to help people.
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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.
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In-Person Training
Automattic
Varies by the person providing training. High marks as it's incredibly easy to find experienced individuals in your community to provide training on any aspect of WordPress from content marketing, SEO, plugin development, theme design, etc. Less than 10 though as the training is community based and expectations for a session you find may fall short.
Read full review
WP Engine
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Automattic
It is very easy to find online resources to learn how to do just about anything with WordPress.
Read full review
WP Engine
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Automattic
WordPress is not a great solution if you have: 1) A larger site with performance / availability requirements. 2) Multiple types of content you want to share - each with its own underlying data structure. 3) Multiple sites you need to manage. For very small sites where these needs are not paramount, WordPress is a decent solution
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WP Engine
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Automattic
WordPress isn't as pretty or easy to use as certain competitors like Jimdo, Squarespace or HubSpot, but it makes up for it with its affordability, familiarity and the ability to find quality outside help easily. The same can't be said for certain competitors, as you might need to find an expert and it could get costly.
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.
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Scalability
Automattic
WordPress is completely scalable. You can get started immediately with a very simple "out-of-the box" WordPress installation and then add whatever functionality you need as and when you need it, and continue expanding. Often we will create various WordPress sites on the same domain to handle different aspects of our strategy (e.g. one site for the sales pages, product information and/or a marketing blog, another for delivering products securely through a private membership site, and another for running an affiliate program or other application), and then ties all of these sites together using a common theme and links on each of the site's menus. Additionally, WordPress offers a multisite function that allows organizations and institutions to manage networks of sites managed by separate individual site owners, but centrally administered by the parent organization. You can also expand WordPress into a social networking or community site, forums, etc. The same scalability applies to web design. You can start with a simple design and then scale things up to display sites with amazing visual features, including animations and video effects, sliding images and animated product image galleries, elements that appear and fade from visitor browsers, etc. The scaling possibilities of WordPress are truly endless.
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WP Engine
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Automattic
  • Allowed us to being all websites under a single umbrella, saving costs on similar products.
  • It's increased our website turn time and made us faster and more efficient at launching websites.
  • Edits and tweaks happen much faster as we have a customized environment.
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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.
Read full review
ScreenShots