Liquid Web vs. WP Engine

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Liquid Web
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Liquid Web is a fully managed hosting service, boasting VPS hosting on the Storm Platform, and cloud dedicated hosting on the Storm Platform. Liquid Web supports managed WordPress, managed WooCommerce, VMware Private Cloud, as well as HIPAA and PCI compliant hosting, high availability database hosting, and dedicated or server clusters available for a variety of purposes, as well as websites.
$19
per month
WP Engine
Score 9.2 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
Liquid WebWP Engine
Editions & Modules
Managed WordPress
$19
per month
Managed WooCommerce
$19
per month
VPS
$35
per month
Magenta Cloud
$49
per month
Cloud Dedicated
$149
per month
Private VPS Parent
$149
per month
Dedicated
$169
per month
Cloud Servers
$265
per month
HIPPA
$343
per month
Server Clusters
$743
per month
High Performance
1,127
per month
High Availability
1,448
per month
Database Hosting
1,498
per month
VMware Private Cloud
1,599
per month
Startup
$25.00
*Per Month
Growth
$95.00
*Per Month
Scale
$241.00
*Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Liquid WebWP 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
Liquid WebWP Engine
Considered Both Products
Liquid Web

No answer on this topic

WP Engine
Chose WP Engine
I selected Kinsta to replace WP Engine because their performance statistics, security configuration, and technical support prowess reminded me of WP Engine circa 2012 - top-notch.
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 …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Liquid WebWP Engine
Small Businesses
Cloudways
Cloudways
Score 9.5 out of 10
Cloudways
Cloudways
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
WP Engine
WP Engine
Score 9.2 out of 10
Pantheon
Pantheon
Score 8.4 out of 10
Enterprises
Pantheon
Pantheon
Score 8.4 out of 10
Pantheon
Pantheon
Score 8.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Liquid WebWP Engine
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(6 ratings)
9.2
(29 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
7.7
(6 ratings)
User Testimonials
Liquid WebWP Engine
Likelihood to Recommend
Liquid Web Inc.
Liquid Web is suitable for serious users who have high end web applications or critical business oriented websites. cPanel and WHM comes out of the box with almost every server you buy. And if you don't have time to manage your own server, Liquid Web will suit you well. Their support is awesome. They help beyond the scope of the support. I had to migrate almost 25 big sites to another Liquid Web server, the support guys made it so easy for me.
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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
Liquid Web Inc.
  • Customer Service — Amazing support, if needed.
  • Site Speed — Our website sped up by 50% just by moving our hosting to Liquid-Web.
  • Knowledge — We've learned a lot as an organization by following the Liquid Web blog.
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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.
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Cons
Liquid Web Inc.
  • The tutorial area is excellent, but perhaps they could add video tutorial.
  • Chat conversations should be added automatically to the client portal.
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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
Liquid Web Inc.
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.
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Usability
Liquid Web Inc.
No answers on this topic
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.
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Support Rating
Liquid Web Inc.
No answers on this topic
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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Alternatives Considered
Liquid Web Inc.
We evaluated Kinsta and WPEngine. Both offer great platforms but the lack of solid phone support and the substantial difference in server resource allocation made Liquid Web a clear winner.
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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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Return on Investment
Liquid Web Inc.
  • Liquid-Web has made it easier for me to take my focus away from handling constant server issues to being able to focus on my actual job in managing our websites. While there may not be a concrete number for this scenario, being able to perform my tasks more efficiently definitely helps company growth in the long run.
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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.
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ScreenShots