Managed WordPress Hosting isn’t something that everybody is aware of and especially if you are new to online marketing or blogging, you may still be figuring out things about WordPress Hosting.
When I shared my experience with WP Engine and my reasons for moving out to start my own fully Managed WordPress Hosting service, many people asked me about this concept and how is it different from normal WordPress Hosting that most hosting companies offer.
Barbara Charles, an awesome blogger and a friend, gave me the idea of publishing this post just a few days ago and so, I am going to discuss all about Managed WordPress Hosting here.
What Is Unmanaged WordPress Hosting?
The most popular WordPress hosting environment is a Shared Hosting environment and most people host their WordPress websites (and most likely you have hosted your websites on a shared hosting server as well).
Shared Hosting is an Unmanaged WordPress Hosting environment. This means it is a generic hosting server with generic support, where the hosting company takes care of every aspect of your server management. But, you will not get technical support on WordPress issues. Most hosting companies do not support third party tools (which WordPress is for them).
For the record, I have shared many times my Shared Hosting experience with GoDaddy and InMotion Hosting and you know I started out just like anybody else as well. I learned a lot about WordPress because their lack of support on WordPress forced me to find a solution to my WordPress problems on my own.
Pros Of Unmanaged WordPress Hosting
There are obvious reasons why Shared Hosting services (are popular in general and let’s discuss some of the awesome features of this environment:
- The cheapest possible hosting service. You can get a deal to pay as low as $1.99 per month to have your WordPress blog hosted.
- There are so many options out there, if you don’t like one, you can move to another. I did and that’s how I know.
- You will have a 24/7 hosting support line (that because companies like GoDaddy/BlueHost/Hostgator have this service anyway from ages) and sometimes, it’s peace of mind knowing that I can talk to a human if I have an issue.
Cons Of Unmanaged WordPress Hosting
- Although most Shared Hosting companies do take a daily backup of your hosting account, they also highly encourage you to take your own backup. They take no responsibility of a corrupted backup or loss of data.
Imagine your database gets corrupted or your website is hacked and now you need a backup. Who will you turn to in case you don’t have your own backup in your possession?
- Your hosting company isn’t going to take any action towards cleaning up your WordPress if you got some malware injected. Now, you need to hire an expert to do the job from outside.
- Keeping up with WordPress updates, plugin updates etc. are your responsibility. If something breaks in the process (which usually happens), it is your responsibility.
These are the things with which most small business owners deal with on a daily basis. The tasks of managing WordPress such as optimizing MySQL tables, making sure that XML Sitemap was generated correctly last night, W3TotalCache minification not working correctly, identifying plugin conflicts etc. take so much time out of your day that you are left with very little time to focus on your real business.
These are huge problems especially when you are a small business owner.
Why?
Because, this is the time you need to focus your attention on the things that are important for your real business and your website management consumes all your productive time.
Managed WordPress Hosting – The Perfect Solution
Managed WordPress Hosting, a relatively new concept is the solution to the problems of Shared Hosting environments (Unmanaged WordPress Hosting environments). This concept is designed to give you the peace of mind as an entrepreneur with respect to your website so you can focus on your real business.
As the name suggests, Managed WordPress Hosting providers manage everything about your WordPress because they have experts onboard who can take all the website management tasks off of your hands and do them for you.
Pros Of Managed WordPress Hosting
- Because Managed WordPress Hosting Servers are configured for WordPress and optimized, performance is much better out of the box. Usually these servers have NGIX architecture (an open source reverse proxy server) which is designed to give much scalability and better performance.
- When you are on Managed WordPress Hosting service, you have a rock solid security defense against malwares, DDoS (distributed denial of service) and brute force attacks. These services usually provide 24/7 server side scanning and your website monitoring with a world class infrastructure.
- You get automatic daily backups guaranteed. Managed WordPress Hosting service providers do restores for you in case of crisis for free. Knowing that this aspect is taken care of, is a huge relief for an entrepreneur.
- WordPress core updates, plugin updates etc. are automatically done by the support. You don’t need to worry about those tasks.
- The best part of the WordPress technical support you get when you are on a Managed Hosting service provider. Your WordPress issues are now their issues and when you break something in WordPress, they help you fix it (and fix it for you in most cases). However, it doesn’t mean they will do coding for you. You will still be responsible if you change your theme code or CSS files.
- You get support in setting up services like CloudFlare, CDN or third party applications.
- If your site ever gets infected or hacked, they help you fix it for free. Usually, in unmanaged environments, it can cost you a lot of heartache.
- They help you migrate your websites (usually for free, I know we provide it for free for our Krishna World Wide customers).
- They provide server side caching which helps speedup your website and also scalability. That means, if you suddenly get a spike in your web traffic, your website will not die.
- You get a test environment with a test URL where you can test your coding changes or new plugins etc. while your live website remains untouched. The support for your test environment is also managed.
Cons Of Managed WordPress Hosting
- Most Managed WordPress Hosting companies do not provide free email service. However, it’s for good reasons. Imagine your server goes down for some reason (hypothetically speaking) and your email is also hosted at the same server as your website. Now, your customers/readers have not only lost touch with your website, they can’t even get to you via email.
- Many Managed WordPress Hosting service providers do not usually provide telephone support for their smaller accounts. Instead, they provide a prompt email support and they do a great job. To me, it’s not a big deal as long as my problem is resolved in a timely fashion.
- It costs a bit more than the unmanaged environments for obvious reasons.
Managed WordPress Hosting By Krishna World Wide
Having gone through the struggles of going from one shared hosting service provider to another and then after having my own set of challenges with some of the leading Managed WordPress Hosting solution providers due to my peculiar requirements, I decided to get my own hosting server.
I think that was the best decision I ever made because this gave me an exposure to a whole new world of possibilities.
Down the line, I decided to extend my services to a few of my friends who were facing similar challenges. That served me as a test case for several months to check my abilities to support other customers. It was a great experience.
Then, it was a time for my team to put together a plan and launch a Fully Managed WordPress Hosting service for fellow entrepreneurs and bloggers who are sick and tired of managing their WordPress and dealing with mundane daily issues.
I am very excited to announce that we have launched our new website for this hosting service and I invite you to check out our Managed WordPress Hosting Service website today.
My team has done a tremendous job of providing information about our service offering in a great deal on the website. However, if you have any questions about our service, please feel free to send me an email or ping me on Facebook/Twitter. I will be very happy to answer your questions about our services.
Questions/Suggestions/Testimonials? Share It Now!
If you have any additional questions about Managed WordPress Hosting, or, if you want to suggest a few other benefits, or, if you have been using such a service and you want to share your testimonial, please use the comments section to share your thoughts.
Please know that I love to learn from you and your comments add value to this community! Thank you kindly!
We’ve been on WP Engine for a while now and are very happy that we made the switch from a shared host to a WP host . For us it was a site speed issue – we could never get the site to load quickly – but since we made the switch it’s been very speedy.
The no email is a bit of a pain initially – having to set it up somewhere else (we used the Google App) but disconnecting your email from your site means that if you decide to move your site in the future – you’re not without your email for that 24-48 hour period. Plus we’d had email problems when we were on a shared box that don’t seem to happen now that we’re on gmail.
For our site, it’s been a real positive being on a wordpress host – and I do recommend it to clients that are having problems with their shared hosting.
Hi Marty,
Glad to to know you are with one of the top companies in this space and I can imagine how much peace of mind you have when you don’t have to worry about speed or technical challenges (whenever they arise) when you are with a managed hosting service company.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I used to be with WP Engine prior to starting my own hosting company and to me, things didn’t seem to get better while I was there simply because my theme and CloudFlare combination didn’t work very well in their atmosphere.
But then, it is definitely a great decision you made to come out of that shared atmosphere and to join the premium league where you know that you are protected and taken care of by world class professionals!
Have a successful week!
Regards,
Kumar
Hello Kumar,
As you know, I began using a shared hosting service. I began having technical problems as their server was under attack and slowing my site and others on that server down to a crawl, and being offline more than it was on. The service technician who could have transitioned my site immediately to another server told me that company policy requires me sending a letter, in writing, to them explaining the issues and requesting transfer to another server.
I am grateful that you provided the solution. I am glad that my website is up 24/7, that it is backed up automatically, that you have placed extra security measures in place, and that I can call upon you to rectify any issues.
Everyone deserves service like this! 🙂
Bill
I remember those days, Bill. I am glad you moved and even excited to know that you have had some peaceful time after the move. Glad to be able to help 🙂
Thank you for the recommendation and the testimonial.
Regards,
Kumar
I must admit I’ve had mixed experiences with shared hosting. I’m about to launch a new blog and – at least for now – I’m sticking with a shared hosting provider for now, though I have upgraded services substantially. Going with a managed hosting provider is definitely something on the wish list for the future so your overview is very well timed. Thanks for the informative read!
Hi Marquita,
Glad to hear from you! Yes, unmanaged hosting seems to take lot of our time into mundane maintenance tasks taking us away from our main business. So, after a while of trial and error, pretty much everybody needs this service. Please let me know if we can help when you decide to take the step to move into the world of managed hosting!
Have a great week!
Regards,
Kumar
I am really glad to see your post on Managed WordPress Hosting- the topic we need to discuss and clarify because most of the companies never tell us the exact technical difference and advantages of it. A Big Thanks for sharing us all the pros Of Managed WordPress Hosting because I am pretty sure that It will help many people to set-up and start their own blogging dream 🙂 Ohh Yes, just visited kwwwhost.com, nice & cost effective packages you’re providing!! Cheers!
Thank you for your awesome recommendation for our hosting service! Glad to be working with your guys because it helps a lot. Have a great week my friend!
Regards,
Kumar
Hey Kumar
Congrats my friend!
Seems like we are both launching services at the same time!
Although mine is a little smaller scale, with just me :>
If I ever decide to take on a hosted server, I know where to come. I am certainly considering my options at the moment, but so far am ok
have a great week
ashley
That’s right Ashley! That is what entrepreneurs on the move do! We are busy serving people in more ways. Congratulations on your launch as well!
And thank you for the consideration. I will be glad to see you host your sites on our managed hosting environments. I look forward to that day 🙂
Regards,
Kumar
Hi Kumar,
Thanks for coming up with these details
I’m currently on shared hosting. I’m currently able to tweak the WP PHP files and get anything I want. However, in the nearest future, I’ll be switching to a managed environment for its benefits.
thanks for creating the awareness
You are very welcome Enstine. I am glad you found the post informative. Shared hosting is where we all start and as we outgrow their capacity and as our needs increase, we move out 🙂
I know your time is coming soon when you will need to get to a service like this and if you need a managed service, we hope that you will choose us!
Happy new week to you!
Regards,
Kumar
At the moment, I’m not even considering managed WordPress hosting as I do dedicated hosting myself and like the control over my server. It’s different from what others prefer and I do get a faster response because I pay a lot more.
It’s great that you’ve explained both of these.
Hello Nile,
You don’t need a managed hosting when you are managing your own server 🙂 Obviously that was the reason I couldn’t stay for long with the top managed hosting company in the world at the time. Having your own server gives you much better control when you know what you are doing and you seem to have that.
So, I wouldn’t recommend that to you either.
Thanks for dropping by and sharing what you are doing with your hosting. Have a great week!
Regards,
Kumar
Hi Kumar,
As you well know my story, I want to share it with your readers. I created my product and had so much trouble putting it on JVZoo. The person that created my membership site had his techies on the job. No one knew the answer. Weeks went by, and while that was happening, I had emails from some of my readers telling me that they couldn’t see my blog on their phones. On and on it went. We tried just about everything.
Then I remembered that You were talking about a hosting site. I told my husband..quick call Kumar! Well the end of the story is a happy ending. I now use Managed WordPress Hosting By Krishna World Wide! I am so grateful to you!
And another thing…when we were having a problem or two changing things up, YOU were right there! Service is so important to me and that’s what you provide – Excellent customer service!
Thanks so much from your friend and loyal customer,
-Donna Merrill
Hi Donna,
I am so glad to have you on board with us! Plus, it gives immense pleasure to know that your problems were resolved as soon as we moved your membership site onto our server. It’s good to have happy customers and I am happy to know I have one more happy customer and a friend I can count on! Thank you for your testimonial.
Regards,
Kumar
Hey Kumar, Since you know about the hosting issues I've had I will say that I was with Bluehost for four years and 11 months before I moved and every time I called and had an issue with my WordPress blog they helped me. Even though several of them told me that they don't really support them, they helped me anyway. More serious problems though I did reach out to Ashvini and he did the majority of stuff but Bluehost was on top of it and for the longest time was really there for me.
Now when my resources started spiking they "tried" to work with me and moved me to a higher account but that didn't solve the problem so I had to move. Of course I later learned that they were bought out that same month which is why I think their service started tanking in my opinion.
So for about four years I did fine on shared hosting so for people who don't need a lot upfront I think that's an inexpensive way to go. Just hope they don't have any major issues with their blog or they're going to have to definitely reach out to some friends they've made along with way.
I'm really surprised with all the issues I've had recently that you didn't tell me about your own company. I would have discussed my needs with you had you just told me but I guess it's too late now cause I'm not moving again. LOL!!!
This company I'm with offers backup of my sites which I'm thankful for where my other hosting services didn't unless I wanted to pay extra but I've been doing it myself for so long that I prefer to have my own backups. It's called the better safe then sorry course of action.
Good luck with your hosting company and you're very brave to take on that headache. No way would I ever go that route but I'd have to hire people who can handle those issues because I sure couldn't help them.
Have a great week Kumar!
~Adrienne
Hi Adrienne,
There are really two things happen that didn’t allow me to talk to you about my service:
1. Your problems (and the move) and my hosting infrastructure setup were happening in parallel 🙂
I didn’t want to invite you before I was sure I was absolutely ready for a site of your magnitude.
2. I didn’t have a clue that you will be willing to spend money on a service that costs 10 times more than shared hosting taking clue from your strong rejection to the idea when I suggested to you that you should consider VPS hosting for yourself about a month ago 🙂 You see, you got me scared 🙂
But then, I am glad that you decided to take the plunge and invest into VPS and I hope that they can keep you happy with their service.
Anyways, now you know I have officially launched my hosting service and if anything happens in future where you need support, I will definitely talk to you!
Thank you for sharing your experience Adrienne. Glad to have you back in action!
Regards,
Kumar
Hey Kumar,
Okay, I see but I wish you would have told me you were even doing this because you never know. I could have waited and I did as long as I could.
I wasn’t rejecting VPS service, I was rejecting the costs of some that I had seen. I spoke to one company and they wanted me to pay $300 a month for the same service I’m getting right now for less than $50. Some of the others were $100 to $197 a month and I just couldn’t see paying that. I knew I had to go to a higher service, I had no choice. I just wasn’t going to spend three times more for the same service I can get at another reputable company.
I think that if a company can handle my account then beside the normal things that can happen like server issues I should be okay with this one. They have like five more plans above the one I’m on so I can just keep moving up as I need it and then if I have to eventually move to a dedicated one they offer that as well. That’s kind of what I wanted, to get with a company where I could just bump up to the next level without moving my sites again.
Thanks for explaining that to me, I was wondering why you never said anything to me knowing the issues I was having. I’m happy for you and I wish you the best as well.
~Adrienne
Hi Adrienne,
I understand now where you were coming from. However, my understanding at that time was that you thought that 30-50 dollar a month was the cost you were saying to be too much. Of course you need to have that much need and budget to go for $197 and beyond. But under 50 dollars is a reasonable cost for a VPS based hosting and I am glad you found something that seems promising.
Now that you have a server of your own, I will encourage you to figure out a way to speed up your server’s response time using technologies such as NGINX, Varnish, APC like caching technologies and server side protection also because if you have your own server, why not to leverage it’s full potential.
Good luck to you and I hope this works out very well for you going forward. It’s okay if I am not hosting you but if you ever need any help, please feel free to ping me 🙂
Regards,
Kumar
Hello Mr. Kumar
Like Ms. Donna, I am so thrilled that I have moved over to Krishna Worldwide.
You are such a professional and I am so thankful that Mr. Bill Butler recommended me to you.
Thank you for providing such an excellent service.
Gladys recently posted…My Story and Personal Development
Thank you Ms Gladys! Glad to have customers like you and Donna who make serving so much fun.
Bill is a great friend and just as his motto, he always wants the best for everybody.
Thank you for your testimonial and encouraging words.
Regards,
Kumar
Hi Kumar,
Congratulations indeed 🙂
I knew you were working on this one when you’d mentioned about it in one of your earlier post, so its a pleasure to know all the details as well. I agree with all that you wrote, and while there are pros with each side, there are cons too. I guess the cost factor might be really something to think about, unless you do have a lot of trouble that is unmanageable.
I think every blogger starts on with shared hosting, but once your blog increases or you outgrow the capacity and your needs, you prefer moving out to better pastures, just like yours. And this mostly happens when people have issues with their blogs or your traffic reaches to huge numbers. It happens with mine sometimes, but the customer service is quick to resolve issues presently. However, I’d surely bookmark and keep yours in mind, when my time comes. 🙂
Thanks for sharing. Have a nice week ahead 🙂
Absolutely Harleena! We all start at the same place and keep moving to a bigger house as our needs outgrow 🙂
I wanted to launch this service knowing that there are people (I’ve a few in my own friend circle) who will give up on blogging if they have to deal with things like add/remove/upgrade plugins and struggle to figure out how to secure their own blog or setup and manage their SEO settings.
And they don’t mind paying for a premium service like this as long as it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Initially, those are the people I launched my services for. But then, if I am already serving some people, it did make sense to extend these offerings for everybody so people who want us to manage their stuff because they have outgrown or they have trouble with their hosting company or they want to have their own managed VPS hosting etc. can also come to us and we can serve even more people.
With that said, I thank you for sharing your thoughts and keep me in mind for the day you will need a service like this 🙂
Happy New Week to you too!
Regards,
Kumar
Hi Kumar,
Hosting levels and services can be very confusing for many. I do understand the basis, though, but I certainly still have room for improvement.
My head already hurts just thinking of the day I’ll have to go to a semi-dedicated to a dedicated server. I’m kind of allergic to anything technical that’s above my head 🙂
Thank you for this detailed post.
Hi Sylviane,
Going to a dedicated server simply means your website and traffic has grown to a level where you are making enough money that you can not only afford a server but probably also have an admin who can take care of all these technical configurations and issues for you 🙂 That is supposed to be an exciting moment!
Anyways good luck to you so you can grow your business to that level quickly 🙂
Have a successful week!
Regards,
Kumar
Hi Kumar,
I have to admit that this is one thing I’m totally clueless about so I needed to have this information. Although I am IT, I deal more with computer systems, not hosting websites. I know it wouldn’t take long to learn it so I’m glad you wrote on this to give me additional knowledge. I need to take a deep dive into hosting and servers.
I know recently that Adrienne has run into issues with her servers and her providers (for quite some time) so I’m glad you decided to write on this to help us understand what it is and what we need so we know what might need to do.
Great info. Thanks.
Barbara
I
Glad to know it helped Barbara. Yes, it is very important for bloggers to know what it takes to manage and grow their websites. It is always a good idea to keep learning, keep expanding our horizon so we can make better decisions when time comes 🙂
Have a wonderful rest of the week!
Regards,
Kumar
Hi Kumar, Congratulations on launching your Krishna hosting service! I can definitely see the advantages of using your service for WordPress users. Having custom support and dedicated servers will help many people who need to focus on content and not the delivery system.
I use Bluehost and, like Adrienne, I have received WordPress support from them, even though that’s not in their job description. I like their 24 hour phone support and I’ve never had a problem they can’t solve. I’ve broken my blog repeatedly and they’ve always come through for me. I rely on their phone support and would be reluctant to give that up.
I also would be reluctant to give up my custom email address. That gives credibility to an account.
That being said, your service seems great and I wish you the best success with it.
Hi Carolyn,
Glad to know you are happy with your hosting. I have shared hosting accounts too and in fact that is how I started my online journey. So I completely understand what you are sharing here.
And while you may be happy with customer service, there are other reasons why people switch to managed services or have their own dedicated VPS or larger servers. Those needs are:
1. Security
2. Daily backups
3. Speed of their sites
4. Complex requirements that sometimes are not supported by shared hosts (like Donna had in her case)
Speaking of custom emails, going for a managed host doesn’t cease your ability to have custom email address. It only means that you don’t host your emails on the server where your website is hosted. In fact, you can use a much better free service like ZOHO.com which not only is more reliable than a shared host but also gives you the ability to communicate with your customers when your own website is down for any reason.
And then, imagine when your site gets infected with a malware (by the way, it happens and happens very often). Shared hosting services do not take responsibility for cleaning up the mess. It becomes your responsibility and you may get shut down until you get your site get cleaned up.
These are some of the reasons why managed WordPress hosting became a popular choice and that is why people pay for these services.
Thank you for dropping by and sharing your thoughts with us. Appreciate your feedback. Have a great rest of the week!
Regards,
Kumar
Hello Kumar,
I am new user of your blog, Read your post bout managed wordpress-hosting. Amazing information provide by your articles and I was study about wordpress-hosting and wait Some sites will review services of inferior quality and tell you it’s the best WordPress hosting just to make a quick buck.
Thank you Manoj for the appreciation. Glad to know you liked the information. Thank you for sharing your thoughts today!
Hey Kumar,
Great content, while it’s currently a little out of my planned spending range, I’ll be looking at managed hosting in the very near future! It would be so nice to actually have someone to turn to when things get difficult or confusing, especially on the tech end of things!
Great info,
Zach
Awesome Zach! You will be ready soon when your site grows to a level where you need one 🙂 And I can’t wait to see that kind of growth and then I look forward to hosting you.
Regards,
Kumar