Introduction
Hosting is an important part of the website since it has a server where all the files and data of a website are saved. When starting a website, hosting is required and there are several types of hosting. In 2009, Managed WordPress Hosting (MWH) came as a better hosting solution for WordPress sites.
Managed WordPress Hosting
Managed WordPress hosting is a professional service that controls and maintains the technical elements of a WordPress website. Managed WordPress hosts are a more sophisticated option for businesses and institutions in all industries. Managed WordPress hosting offers invaluable advantages, such as cutting-edge security, superior customer support, optimal site speed, improved performance, and a variety of other benefits. In short, managed WordPress hosting is a blessing and can help improve website performance for non-techies as the hosting company does everything and you can focus all your effort on what you know best; growing your business!
Let’s Discuss It’s Pros and Cons
Pros of Managed WordPress Hosting:
1. High Speed and Performance
Regular shared hosting is designed for general website needs. It provides an environment that fits everything and these servers have lots of unnecessary modules and software installed that will lead to increased loading time. Increased loading time results in slow websites. So, if you are using shared hosting, it is recommended to conduct a website speed test.
On the other hand, in a managed WordPress server, only those modules and software that are needed to run WordPress and some special plugins are installed. This will significantly improve website speed and other pagespeed insights that enable your website to perform much better than on a regular hosting server.
2. Site Security
You are practically hacker-proof when you go with a managed WordPress hosting provider; they always do website analysis for you and resolve any threats to the security of your website. They also have in place a very tight security layer that actively scans for malware and blocks all hacking attempts.
3. Regular Backup
It is advisable to have regular backups for your existing site(s) just as it is to do website analysis to ensure you improve website performance. Suppose something unfortunate happens and all your data is altered and lost, what will you do?
This is where managed website hosting comes in handy, they do the backups for you as they deem fit. So, in case you lose information accidentally, you don’t have to worry, you can always revert to the backup copy of your website files and other resources.
4. Uptime Monitoring
The speed and performance of your WordPress site have a direct impact on your search engine rankings and your user experience. So when your website experiences slow speed, downtime, or other performance issues, it’s important to identify and remedy these issues promptly.
Most managed WordPress hosts offer 24/7 website monitoring. They have resources and expertise and a website checker to do website analysis for your website. Using a managed website hosting plan, therefore, ensures business owners don’t have to worry about checking their site’s uptime performance at every waking moment.
5. Automatic Updates
The latest WordPress version has been designed to update itself automatically. However, on some hosting servers, this feature(automatic updates) is disabled. Automatic updates are disabled as they may cause pitfalls in server performance if all the websites hosted on the same servers are updated at the same time. Since managed WordPress hosting aims to improve website performance, the updates are performed automatically and the team at your website host ensures that all of your plugins are also up to date.
6. Customer Support
The greatest benefit of a managed WordPress hosting plan is having amazing customer support. With a managed WordPress hosting, one should get an immediate response to your inquiries. In addition, one should also get help for other regular hosting related issues. A big plus is a dedicated, trained, and experienced team who know WordPress inside-out and can help you with issues related to the software and pagespeed insights.
7. Availability of Staging Environment
Should you as a user decide to change a theme or technology on your website(s) it is not advisable to do it directly on a live site. One would need to first establish if the theme is compatible with other features on your website. There are cases where trying out a new plugin(s) directly on a running site or theme has caused a site to break. The speed loading time and other pagespeed insights can adversely be affected.
To test any new technology or theme and avoid breaking your site it is advisable to use a staging environment. Managed WordPress hosting automatically comes with a one-click staging environment that is seamless for testing your themes and plugins before using them on the live site.
Cons of Managed WordPress Hosting:
1. Price
Managed WordPress hosting is expensive when compared for instance to shared hosting. Its services costs from $30 to $100 per month. Everyone can not afford the high price tag because you have to pay them a good amount to avail their services. Managed WordPress hosting is for big businesses such as large eCommerce sites and not for common use. It all depends on your management needs. In case your post goes viral then you have to pay them more for more traffic.
2. WordPress Exclusive
Because the server architecture is specialized for WordPress, often you are limited to run only WordPress-based sites. If you intend to run other technologies in the future other than WordPress, then it would be wise to consider other appropriate types of WordPress website hosting.
3. Often Inflexible to Installing Other Plugins
You also cannot run all WordPress plugins except the ones the web host approves. Managed WordPress hosting providers block plugins that could slow down your site in a bid to improve your website performance. Plugins are also blocked because they can be a potential security risk. So this is not entirely a disadvantage, but it can be an issue for larger companies.
4. The Owner has Limited Control
If your managed WordPress hosting provider decides to install a new plugin instead of your old favorite, and you happen not to like it, woe unto you…you may have no say. On the other hand, if you discover some theme or piece of technology that can improve website performance and ask your managed WordPress hosting provider to install it, don’t be surprised if you are turned down.
The reasons for rejecting your plugin may vary, but the most common one is ‘we have some plugins that we do not allow.’ But remember you can not blame the managed WordPress hosting company for rejecting your plugin. Choosing the Managed WordPress Hosting provider means you give them the green light to handle the technological server aspects of your website(s) as experts.
Shared Vs Managed Hosting
There are several hosting companies around the world and they offer many different packages, making it difficult to choose or select a web host and hosting package. This post would be incomplete without talking about the difference between managed hosting Vs shared hosting. Here are the key differences between shared hosting and managed hosting:
- With shared hosting, there are other sites that are hosted on the server along with your website. With managed hosting, you will get all hosting benefits because you are all alone on a server.
- With shared hosting, the amount of disk space and bandwidth you are allotted is limited because there are others sharing the server. With managed hosting, you get a computer/ server all on your own, so you can customize it extensively. You will be able to choose the amount and type of memory, the Operating System to install, and other hardware elements that make up a computer server.
- With shared hosting, the hosting company installs firewalls and server security applications and programs. However, with managed hosting, the downside is that you actually need to know quite a bit about computers and server technology. You could get a completely unmanaged service where you need to install the Operating System yourself, let alone all the tools needed to run a web server, security scanning, malware removal, and so on. Therefore the expertise, knowledge, and experience of the managed WordPress Hosting provider come in for those who are not technologically savvy!
What to Consider in Choosing Best Managed WordPress Hosting
Switching or choosing managed WordPress hosting depends on your requirements. In our experience and after seeing many managed WordPress hosting plans, we have found mainly two factors that are being considered while purchasing Managed WordPress Hosting. These two factors are:
1. Price
As we know Managed WordPress Hosting is more costly than other hosting types due to its special features. However, the prices vary. Some managed WordPress hosting providers have affordable prices with great website speed performance.
2. Visitors
When one checks for managed WordPress hosting from different hosting providers, one will see that each price plan comes with a limit in monthly visitors. So if you anticipate large traffic to your website, it may be wise to put that into consideration before deciding to choose a managed WordPress hosting. If you want to manage more visitors or your website gets a surge in the number of monthly visitors, then you will end up paying more.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we have described hosting and specifically Managed WordPress Hosting(MWH). In addition, we have looked at the pros and cons of managed WordPress hosting. The pros of managed WordPress Hosting include high speed and performance, site security, regular backup, uptime monitoring, automatic updates, customer support, and availability of staging environment.
The cons of managed WordPress Hosting that we have covered include; The price tag may be on the higher side for beginner bloggers or one needs income-generating business. As such great for established revenue-generating enterprises or institutions. The other disadvantages of managed WordPress Hosting are that only WordPress Websites can be installed, the owner of the hosted website has limited control, inflexibility to installing some plugins.
Finally, we have made a comparison between shared and managed hosting. Besides, we have looked at price and number of visitors as two key factors to consider when choosing not just a managed WordPress hosting provider but the hosting package plan itself, from the myriad web hosting companies in the market.
When choosing a managed WordPress hosting company from the many providers in the market for your website boils down to individual requirements. There you have the most important information in the article, the choice is yours!
Comments are closed.