WP EngineLearn More |
FlywheelLearn More |
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| $ Pricing | 40/mo | 13/mo |
| Best for |
Businesses, enterprises, and high-traffic websites needing premium performance and security. |
Freelancers, agencies, and small businesses looking for affordable and user-friendly hosting. |
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| Ease of Use | |
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Designed for professionals, with a clean interface and advanced tools, but may have a slight learning curve for beginners. |
Very beginner-friendly with an intuitive dashboard, making it easy to manage sites and collaborate. |
WP Engine and Flywheel are both top-rated managed WordPress hosting providers. While WP Engine is more widely known, Flywheel matches its quality and performance, offering excellent services at competitive prices.
Choosing between the two can be challenging without understanding each other’s strengths and weaknesses. In this comparison of Flywheel vs. WP Engine, we’ll break down their pros and cons to help you pick the best fit for your needs.
It’s a tight competition, as both hosts deliver impressive results. So, which one comes out on top?
Let’s jump into the details!
WP Engine vs Flywheel: Overview
About WP Engine
WP Engine is a hosting service, but we can’t recommend it to anyone for one big reason: it’s designed solely for WordPress users. If you’re a fan of WordPress, then read on! If not, then you will want to try one of our other recommendations.
If you care enough about your WordPress site — its stability, scalability, loading time, and uptime — to spend upwards of $20 a month on it, then WP Engine is the perfect option. Making a convincing argument claiming otherwise would be difficult.
About Flywheel
Flywheel takes an interesting approach to web hosting by giving each client a perfectly WordPress-optimized, fine-tuned cloud environment.
The company revamped its infrastructure from the ground up, working in collaboration with Google Cloud Platform to provide the high-availability storage and dedicated resources required to support high-traffic locations.
Flywheel offers single-site or bulk hosting plans, referring to the number of installations WordPress has allowed.
For new consumers who are used to seeing shared hosting, unlimited websites, and costs less than $5 a month, the $23-per-month price tag for the most accessible single-site plan would seem a little steep.
However, the added infrastructure, resources, and managed support make Flywheel an excellent deal for more discerning, tasteful developers and designers.
Highlighting Features WP Engine vs. flywheel
When it comes to choosing a controlled WordPress host, you’ll need to look for a lot of apps. Daily Backups is one aspect of that. All of these web hosts provide regular free backups of your websites.
Google prefers to view stable websites with HTTPS. And if you’ve ever tried to mount an SSL certificate on your website, you’d know it can be a pain in the butt. Both WP Engine and Flywheel offer a free Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificate, which can be enabled with only one click.
WP ENGINE
WP Engine provides stellar support and service, making it one of the industry’s leading web hosts. For customer service, it has won three Stevie awards. WP Engine offers a premium caching service called Evercache designed to increase the performance of your WordPress website.
To beginners, installing a WordPress theme and getting a site up and running could not be easier. To more seasoned people, like myself, the advanced features of WP Engine, like single-click staging areas for development, Git integration, multiple server locations, CDN compatibility, and a lot of other niceties, cannot be beat. Such features make the monthly price worth it compared to what the economically more competitive hosts are selling.
- Enterprise-level WordPress hosting
- Built-in caching and staging
- Unlimited data transfer
- Daily backups and 1-click restore
FLYWHEEL
Much like WP Engine, Flywheel provides a caching feature for all your WordPress pages that will cut loading time in half. They also offer blueprints that you can use with just one click to launch a template-based website.
One thing I really like about Flywheel is they never overcharge you because they’re going over disk space or bandwidth. With 5 GB of storage and 250 GB of bandwidth, Flywheel starts single-site hosting plans together with a free site migration and SSL certificate. Traffic is limited to the simplest package, with 25,000 monthly visits.
- WordPress-optimized infrastructure on Google Cloud
- All plans come with auto-healing and instant-scaling technologies
- All plans include FREE CDN and staging environments
- Secure logins and easy billing transfers for resellers
- Streamline account management through a custom dashboard
WordPress hosting
If you are searching for reliable hosts that provide WordPress staging environments, then both WP Engine and Flywheel have some of the best services. There is no need for an external server or plug-ins for all the services. With only one click of the mouse, users can push and pull adjustments between development and staging environments, selectively combining the database or just themes and plugins. Staging environments are the ideal way to check how new WordPress plugins or modified versions impact your website.
Flywheel
Everything is controlled from a beautiful, easy-to-use interface. Your sites are hosted and accessible via the admin portal, which means you don’t have to remember all of the different logins for the sites you manage.
Traditional hosting customers may miss the regular installation of cPanel, but Flywheel’s platform was specifically built for enthusiastic users who value well-crafted user experiences.
- High touch-controlled WordPress automated hosting
- Free speed-boosting through integrated CDN and custom FlyCache technology
- Staging environment with one-click sandbox
- Expertise and assistance available in-house 24/7
- Free security scans and the detection of malware
WP Engine
With prices far higher than many WordPress users are used to seeing, we understand that there may not be any WP Engine for everyone. But for the developers, the designers, the agencies, and the growing companies.
- FREE Genesis Framework and StudioPress themes
- Fast, scalable, and secure WordPress
- FREE SSL certificate and CDN ready
- Upgrade options for geotargeting and edge security
PERFORMANCE WP Engine Vs Flywheel – Uptime & Speed
Increasing a half-second delay in the pace of your website will lead to significant drops not only in your conversion rates but also in your search engine rankings. Search engines like Google tend to view websites that provide a positive experience for users.
Uptime
WP ENGINE
When it comes to controlled WordPress hosting, WP Engine has a stellar reputation. To keep the credibility intact, WP Engine is doing its best to keep its servers up at least 99.9 percent of the time. They offer as a credit 5 percent of your plan fee if they fail to keep your site up for 99.95 percent of the time.
FLYWHEEL
Unlike WP Engine, Flywheel doesn’t offer an SLA (Service Level Agreement) so if your site goes down you won’t get any free credit. Just like WP Engine, Flywheel has a reputation to uphold and they manage to achieve an uptime of 99.9 percent.
Loading Speed and CDN
That was my first surprise with Flywheel. I didn’t think there would be any difference in loading speeds, particularly because both hosting companies use MaxCDN for caching worldwide. I used Pingdom to do some experiments, and the result was very clear: Instantly, Flywheel almost doubled our website’s load time.
When I tried similar testing methods, the findings were not quite as obvious, but WP Engine still emerged as a consistent winner.
About Their Team
WP Engine
FlyWheel
Support & WP Engine Vs Flywheel
Support for WP Engine is very fast and usually very helpful, too. You can expect an answer in hours, really. Or simply call them or chat with them.
On the other hand, the flywheel does not provide assistance 24/7, which is a concern if you are as far away as we are from the Texan time zone. But even though we expected to have an answer in our inbox the next morning, we were often disappointed. In a few instances, turnaround times were 24 hours or more. It’s best to get in touch with them via live chat!
Winner: WP Engine
Pricing Plan & WP EngineVs Flywheel
WP Engine Pricing
WP Engine offers plans that cater to businesses looking for robust, managed WordPress hosting with advanced features:
- Essential: $40/month (billed annually at $472), ideal for managing websites with simplicity and reliability. Plus, 4 months free saves $236!
- Core: Starting at $400/month, this plan supports scalability and growth with enhanced performance and expert services.
- Enterprise: Starting at $2,000/month, it’s designed for mission-critical sites with premium performance and security.
If you’re after high performance and enterprise-level features, WP Engine delivers but at a premium price point.
Flywheel Pricing
Flywheel focuses on affordability and flexibility for designers, freelancers, and agencies:
- Tiny: $13/month (billed at $150/year), perfect for small, simple WordPress sites.
- Starter: $25/month (billed at $300/year), their most popular single-site plan.
- Freelance: $96/month (billed at $1,150/year), supports up to 10 sites, ideal for growing client lists.
- Agency: $242/month (billed at $2,900/year), perfect for agencies managing up to 30 sites.
Flywheel is a fantastic choice for users who want professional features at a lower price, particularly for small to mid-sized projects.
Which to Choose?
If your focus is enterprise-grade performance and you’re willing to invest, WP Engine is a top pick. But if you’re a freelancer, agency, or small business on a budget, Flywheel offers excellent value without sacrificing quality. The decision ultimately depends on your budget and the scale of your WordPress needs.
Customer Testimonials?
WP Engine Reviews
FlyWheel Reviews
Quick Links:
- WP Engine vs BlueHost: In-Depth Comparison (TRUTH Revealed)
- WP Engine vs SiteGround | Which One Is The Best & WHY?
- Cloudways Vs WPEngine : Which Managed Hosting Provider Is The Best?
- Cloudways vs Liquid Web Comparison: Which One Is Better? (TRUTH)
Conclusion: WP Engine Vs Flywheel 2024
When it comes to comparing WP Engine and Flywheel, WP Engine clearly comes out on top with its stellar reputation and superior offerings. While Flywheel is a solid hosting provider with much to offer, it simply can’t match WP Engine’s level of performance and reliability.
With an impressive user rating of 9.9 out of 10, WP Engine has earned high praise not only from customers but also from our web hosting experts, who frequently recommend it.
In this comparison, WP Engine emerges as the winner, thanks to its powerful features, unmatched reliability, and overall excellence.
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