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By: Laura Bernheim
Editor: Lillian Castro
Reviewer: Cristian Lopez
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★★★★★
A fast-growing web hosting provider laser-focused on performant WordPress hosting, Flywheel serves experienced designers, developers, and agencies a beautifully designed hosting experience with the muscle to back up the good looks. More than a pretty face, Flywheel appeals to a more experienced customer base that understands the importance of a technology stack specifically tailored to hosting the world's most popular content management system. Instead of trying to be all things to all hosting customers, Flywheel employees put all their effort into managed WordPress services — there is no email hosting, no domain services, no website builder, and no built-in ecommerce tools. Those limitations might frustrate mainstream hosting consumers, but the more tech-savvy Flywheel customers should have no problem arranging the services they need. As avid WordPress users ourselves, we appreciate Flywheel's dedication to optimizing WordPress hosting. Flywheel deploys each customer on its revamped cloud platform, meaning each user receives ample computing resources, stability, and security. With instant, automatic scalability, the company's infrastructure is never overcrowded or overtaxed. In business since 2012, the host based in Omaha, Nebraska, doubled its staff in 2016. In addition to software developers and designers, Flywheel employs numerous Happiness Engineers and Customer Success Specialists to ensure happy hosting experiences. We appreciate that Flywheel prioritizes customer support so much that it developed its own proprietary systems. Instant chats and email tickets are never more than a click or two away, but phone support is only available to customers that spend $250 or more per month. Even better, however, the company recently expanded its support availability beyond regular business hours. Plus, we trust someone to promptly respond to our inquiries at all times of day, unlike other mainstream hosts that tout 24/7 support but make you wait an hour.
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★★★★★
You've heard all the buzzwords: VPS, the cloud, clustered architecture — it all started here! If site performance and reliability matter to you, look no further than Media Temple's Grid hosting service. Considered the first public cloud host, Media Temple is the benchmark by which all other hosts are measured. Interested in what makes Media Temple's Grid so exceptional? How about its exclusive cluster of redundant, blazing-fast SSDs. That means your database will never slow down your site, regardless of the amount of traffic you take in. Other features that make your site scream are pre-installed PHP with FastCGI and the TrueSpeed CDN by SiteLock. For the novice users, please don't let the jargon scare you. The best part about all those features is they are there automatically, allowing you to focus on the other details that make your website great. Automatic data backups and security mean that your data is always safe. All of that is wrapped up nicely in an extremely easy-to-use interface built by the experts at Media Temple. The company provides award-winning 24/7/365 live support via phone, chat, email tickets, and Twitter. If you are ready to take your website to the next level, there is no better host to consider than Media Temple.
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★★★★★
If site performance and reliability matter to you, look no further than Media Temple's unique Grid hosting service. Ranked lower on our list of cheap hosts because of the high price tag, the performance value of Media Temple’s service is hard to fully appreciate when compared with the crowd of bargain-basement hosting providers. The company's forward-thinking shared hosting platform is built with cloud-grade scalability and redundancy — this is not an average shared hosting plan. Media Temple clusters servers with blazing-fast SSDs to provide top-notch reliability and room to grow. Despite the complicated, high-priced services, Media Temple excels at providing a positive, streamlined user experience. The custom-built control panel seamlessly directs you to the adjustable resources and tools you need to succeed, all while the company's team of support agents is constantly on standby to help. Media Temple's award-winning service is available 24/7/365 via phone, chat, email tickets, and even Twitter. If you are ready to take your website to the next level, no matter the cost, there is no better host to consider than Media Temple.
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★★★★★
Are limitless server resources and a clean neighborhood invaluable to your business? If you answered "yes," look no further than Media Temple’s dedicated hosting. While not for everyone because of the higher-than-average pricing, there is no arguing the impressiveness of this enterprise-level server. Offering self-, semi-, or fully-managed options, Media Temple’s dedicated servers have boundless flexibility to go with their power. First, start with your choice of Linux operating systems pre-installed for you. Then, if you are on the self-managed plan, the sky is the limit with full root access (the stuff geeks dream about). If you opt for the semi- or fully-managed solutions, you get to choose between the always-familiar cPanel or Plesk control panels, or even receive the assistance of one of the company's system administrators. Those customers enjoy performance monitoring, daily backups, operating system and application updates, constant security, and regular malware scanning. All of that comes with a pretty hefty price tag, but the next-level services and computing power goes a long way toward justifying the investment. If you already use the company's VPS options and are in need of something more, you’ll be pleased to hear that it is a seamless, zero-downtime transition to a dedicated server. Finally, Media Temple offers a 99.99% service uptime guarantee on the company's dedicated products. If the company falls short, you get 20% of your monthly hosting fee back for each 20 minutes of downtime that month.
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★★★★★
Flywheel takes an interesting approach to web hosting by giving each customer a fine-tuned cloud environment perfectly optimized for WordPress. The company rebuilt its infrastructure from the ground up, partnering with Google Cloud Platform to provide the high-availability hosting and dedicated resources needed to power high-traffic sites. Flywheel offers single-site or bulk hosting plans, referring to the number of WordPress installations allowed. The $13-per-month price tag for the most affordable single-site plan will seem a little steep for novice customers who are used to seeing shared hosting, unlimited websites, and costs less than $5 per month. The added infrastructure, resources, and managed support, however, make Flywheel an excellent deal for developers and designers with more discerning tastes. Flywheel starts single-site hosting plans with 5GB of storage and 250GB of bandwidth, along with a free site migration and SSL certificate. Traffic is limited to 25,000 monthly visits with the most basic plan, but Flywheel won't shut off your site if you go over. With the infrastructure optimized for speed, Flywheel engineers also devote ample time to security. Servers are configured with WordPress security best practices, and server-level blocking and scanning services prevent brute force attacks and protect core files. If a site does become infected, Flywheel will remove the malware for free. Flywheel's partnership with Sucuri means customers get world-class malware scanning, and the company's intelligent IP blocking detects attackers within seconds and prevents them from attacking the network.
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★★★★★
Although Media Temple is more expensive than most hosts, the company's managed VPS hosting is second to none from a performance perspective. With an incredible amount of hardware for the price and fully-managed virtualized servers, Media Temple offers serious VPS hosting for serious people. In today’s online world, speed matters. Whether it’s website conversions or search engine exposure, how fast your site loads dictates a lot. That is where Media Temple’s VPS shines. The company's all-SSD servers, guaranteed resources, and instant scalability mean you are ready for anything. Beyond straight speed, what you are truly paying for with Media Temple is reliability. The company boasts a ridiculous SLA that guarantees a 99.99% uptime, or less than an hour of downtime for the entire year. We love ourselves some awesome modern hardware, but our favorite part about Media Temple has always been the team's support and luxurious managed services. At a fraction of a dedicated IT team, offering assistance by phone, chat, email, or Twitter, the company's award-winning support staff is standing by no matter the issue.
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★★★★★
It seems rather obvious (and repetitive) to say that a web host that solely hosts WordPress sites excels at hosting WordPress — but it's true. In addition to revamped infrastructure optimized for the world-famous content management system, Flywheel offers several proprietary, one-of-a-kind services that extend WordPress hosting beyond traditional norms. We're suckers for hosts that provide WordPress staging environments, and Flywheel has one of the best — no need for an additional server or plugins. Users can push and pull changes between production and staging environments with just one click of the mouse, in addition to selectively merging the database or just themes and plugins. Staging environments are the perfect way to test how new plugins or updated versions of WordPress will affect your website. Flywheel further streamlined the design and development process when it acquired popular local WordPress development platform Pressmatic, eventually relaunching it as Local by Flywheel. Local™ removes the technical headaches of configuration and debugging local environments and allows for one-click WordPress installations, flexible infrastructure, simple root access, and shareable URLs. We also appreciate that Flywheel enables designers, developers, and agencies to package together commonly used themes and plugins for rapid, automated configuration of new sites and projects. Blueprints can be saved and deployed with speed and simplicity, empowering you to focus on a client's specific needs and customizations. In addition to free site migrations and fine-tuned cloud architecture, Flywheel further expands WordPress hosting with performant server-side FlyCache solutions and full-featured, free demo sites. Everything is controlled from a gorgeous, easy-to-use interface. All your sites are hosted and accessible through the admin portal, meaning you don't have to remember all the different logins for sites you manage. Traditional hosting customers might miss the standard cPanel installation, but Flywheel's platform was clearly designed for people passionate about well-crafted user experiences.
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★★★★★
Media Temple has long been one of our favorite web hosts for luxury managed hosting, and the company's WordPress offerings are no exception. If you value cutting-edge technology, do not overlook Media Temple. Having helped pioneer cloud technology, the company has taken its knowledge and applied it to an exceptional WordPress-focused plan. Web developers will love Media Temple's fully integrated tools, such as one-click staging, site cloning, and standard Git integration. SSH, SFTP, and phpMyAdmin access are also appreciated additions. Everyone can appreciate the company's modern load-balanced, all-SSD hardware. Media Temple’s interface is incredibly approachable and easy to use, and the company's support is truly second to none. A quick setup wizard gets you going and automated daily backups, core updates, and 24/7 uptime monitoring remove the stress of any maintenance. Starting at $20.00 per month for two sites, Media Temple is a moderately priced managed WordPress host. With features comparable to other WordPress-specific packages elsewhere, the company's modern hardware and exception support make Media Temple a strong consideration for anyone serious about their website’s performance.
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