Why We Love WP Engine
Let’s say you need a hotel for your company’s important annual conference. All your customers, investors, staff and the media will be attending. Sure you could roll the dice on an AirBnB, save a couple bucks, but considering that your choice will have an unforgettable impact on your organization’s brand and reputation, are the short term cost savings worth the risk?
In this respect, why should the hosting and security of your website be any different?!
We’ve launched hundreds of websites across multiple platforms, but whenever Wordpress is the best fit for a client, we strongly recommend WPEngine. As far as taglines go, WPEngine’s (WPE) mantra of “Wordpress hosting, Perfected.” is illustrative as to why businesses small and large should consider WPEngine (Disclaimer: GSS is a WPE affiliate, and earns a commission from new sales, and we’re going to drink their beer at SXSW). Yes, we know your uncle Billy Bob / GoDaddy is cheaper, but once you factor in their spammy till-death-do-us-part automatic renewals, well, then you feel the true meaning of “cheap.”
But, really, why WPEngine?
SECURITY. BACKUPS. RELIABILITY. SPEED.
- Automatic vulnerability detection with zero-day security patches and Wordpress Core updates. Easy HTTPS configuration.
- While your Wordpress Plugins must still be updated and tested manually, thankfully GSS offers enhanced WPE hosting for custom built sites!
- Daily automatic backups for 30 days (or more with GSS enhanced hosting), as well as a password protected staging site to review potential changes before migrating live, with one-click.
- WPE’s Content Delivery Network and Caching system helps larger sites load quickly. Ain’t nobody got time for your website to load!
While it is true that WPE has recently been a target of DDoS attacks, it is hard to criticize their response to the situation as anything short of excellent. While uptime is of course very important, it is somewhat better to be part of a larger group of affected sites then the only site down.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
We’ve worked with multiple hosting providers over the years. Some of our choosing. Others, not so much. As technology evolves, we pride ourselves in staying up-to-date and WPE has always provided timely, helpful support.
COST EFFECTIVE
While perhaps not the best for very, very large scale e-commerce websites or those requiring direct server / root access for advanced web applications, the ability to host 10 independent websites for $1,000 a year is small price to pay for the simplicity and peace of mind.
Moreover with WPE, Gray Street Solutions clients have the freedom to allow other consultants to access their unique WPE installs via the WPE platform and utilize GIT for version control.
With one chance to make a good first impression online, your website needs to be available and responsive.
