Affichage des articles dont le libellé est Engine. Afficher tous les articles
Affichage des articles dont le libellé est Engine. Afficher tous les articles

samedi 12 novembre 2016

Interview With WP Engine Co-Founder, Jason Cohen



alt="Interview With WP Engine Co-Founder, Jason Cohen" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/wpengine-500x227_c.jpg" />

Back in 2009 I had some problem with WHSR loading speed and spent tremendously long hours in looking for the right fix. Eventually the issue was solved by switching my host (Hostmonster was throttling my CPU power) and installing WP Super Cache (part of the problem is caused by WHSR’s heavy traffic loads). Then in mid 2010, I suspected WHSR is targeted by hackers at that time and (again) spent multiple sleepless nights drilling down forum threads and blogposts on WordPress security.

I would have saved my time for all these problems and worries and readings and works if WP Engine (href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/wpengine.php">http://wpengine.com/) existed earlier.

Updates March 2012: In fact I got hook and WHSR is now hosted on WP Engine – click here to read my href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-review/wp-engine/">latest review on WP Engine Hosting.

A little intro on WP Engine Hosting

href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/wpengine.php">class="border" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2011/0427-2.jpg" alt="WP Engine" width="750" />

Founded by Aaron Brazell and Jason Cohen, WP Engine offers premium href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/wordpress-blog/best-wordpress-hosting/" target="_blank">WordPress hosting with tons of valuable WordPress optimization (security, load speed, updates, as well as plugin recommendations).

In case you are unaware, Aaron Brazell has been an (very) active member in the WordPress developer community. He is one of the frequent speaker in WordCamps United States and is the author of href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470568135?ie=UTF8&tag=emmensetechno-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0470568135">WordPress Bible (published early 2010). Jason Cohen, on the other hand, is a serial-entrepreneur who has founded quite a few successful startups including Smart Bear Software and IT Watch Dogs. Jason is also the author of href="http://smartbear.com/best-kept-secrets-of-peer-code-review/">Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Review as well as this href="http://blog.asmartbear.com/" target="_blank">awesome blog about startups/marketing.

In this interview, we are going to learn about WP Engine firsthand from the co-founder Jason Cohen. This great Q&A session is a must-read for those who are looking for a reliable WordPress web hosting. So, here goes.

Q&A With Jason Cohen, WP Engine Co-Founder

Hello Jason, it’s an honor to have you here with us today. For start, let’s talk about yourself and your company WP Engine. How would you describe your role as a leader at WP Engine; and, what can we know more about WP Engine?

id="right">class="alignright" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2011/0427-1.jpg" alt="" width="180" height="121" />

“I must leave, for there go my followers and I am their leader.”

To me, a leader leads by example, meaning actually doing work and playing backstop for everyone else, like the pitcher in baseball. Also I’m a terrible manager, which means I’m forced to hire talented, self-directed people whom I implicitly trust and who don’t need “management.” A better title for me might be “tie-breaker,” or perhaps “flogger-slash-visionary” if you’re feeling generous.

They say the culture of a company comes from the top. So if you want to know what WP Engine is like, follow the above philosophy to its logical conclusion. WP Engine is a culture of people who are thoughtful, respectful, and good at their jobs. And hopefully nice.

Wow that’s some great insights. Now, I’m a WordPress fan and I LOVE the idea of having a web host specially built for WordPress. But this (limiting your service to just one specified niche) is not what we see often in the hosting industry. How has the strategy of solely focusing on WordPress users affected the business?

style="text-decoration: underline;"> Focusing only on WordPress means we can do a fantastic job. For example we hire WordPress experts only, so everyone at the company is helpful and knowledgeable when you call into tech support.

Lots of hosting companies answer the phone on the first ring and call that “good service.” Of course if the person on the other end can’t debug the WordPress problem, at the end of the day it’s not helpful.

We know what we’re good at — and what we’re NOT good at! — and we do only the former.

That’s how it affects you — the customer. How it affects the back-end business is that we can be more profitable because we don’t have to diversify technology or talent. American Airlines can’t make money because they service 20 kinds of planes; Southwest and JetBlue are profitable and run only a few models. We’re like the latter; most hosting companies are the former.

WordPress security is one of WP Engine’s main selling points. Can you elaborate in detail what kind of protections are available with WP Engine?

class="border" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2011/0427-4.jpg" alt="" width="750" />

First, we have security appliances in front of our servers — DoS-protection and IDS (Intrusion Detection System). This alone prevents thousands of a attacks per day.

Next, we have a forward caching-and-load-balancing layer which further protects the sensitive stuff (like the database and filesystem), while also serving content really fast.

Next, on the back-end systems there’s a slew of stuff you have to do for security from file owners, file permissions, chroot-ing (“jail” for the filesystem), separate database credentials, and so on.

Finally, we keep you up-to-date on the latest WordPress security patches as well as black-listing plugins known to be insecure.

Security isn’t a game you can win, it’s an arms race that you need to constantly and incrementally improve.

That sounds superb. What’s more? On top of site security, what other unique features does WP Engine offer?

We’re super fast.  This is not only important for your end users (many hit the “back” button if your site takes more than 2 seconds to load), but also for your Google ranking now that they’re takinghref="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3zmP0W26M0&feature=player_embedded" target="_blank"> page-load-speed into account for search rankings.

We also protect you against traffic surges. We already serve 50 million hits per day, so even if you get on TechCrunch we’ve got you covered.

We’re also the only host to offer a CDN (Content Delivery Network) included in the base price.  That means your static content (images, CSS, Javascript) gets delivered from servers all around the world, served closest to the requestor, reducing latency in the browser (faster) and spreading out the effort of delivery (scalable).

We also added some features to WordPress itself. For example, we have a push-button staging area where you have a full copy of your blog to mess around with. Test a new plugin, play with CSS, etc., all without touching your main, live blog.

Jason, WP Engine is a pretty new host. How can customers trust you guys with their blogs? Please tell us more about the company cancellation policy.

The first thing is: It’s easy to leave us. That’s important for two reasons: So it’s easy to try, and so we have to earn your business every month. What does “easy” mean?

You get full filesystem and database exports, on demand. (Besides our nightly backups of the same.) Our contract is month-to-month, so you can just cancel any time. (Besides the 15-day free trial.) Finally, there’s tools on the market like href="http://23press.com" target="_blank">http://23press.com which make it even easier to move a blog — either to us or away from us!

Then of course there’s the fact that we have hundreds of happy customers and we’re growing fast. We got profitable after just seven months of operation so we also have a sensible business model (unlike a lot of hosting companies who “suddenly” close up shop after losing money for dozens of quarters). All this adds up to: We have a sustainable business, so we’re not going anywhere.
Finally, though, in the end trust is earned over time, not bestowed immediately, and that means that yes, it will take time for us to earn trust. Nothing wrong with that.

“I wish to switch to WP Engine out but it seems too complicated/it’s too much hassles/ I am no good in tech/ etc etc”. What would you tell these non-geek but potential customers?

First, we offer migration services for 0, completely hands-free. Second, see http://23press.com for a system where you can move it yourself.

It’s not complicated — you just sign up with a credit card and a new WordPress site is available in 60 seconds.  You can migrate in another 15 minutes if you use a tool.  And if you don’t like it, switch away just as easily!

We also have a partnership with another consulting shop specifically designed for newbies who don’t know anything but want a white-glove experience. Let us know how much help you want!

Web hosting, without doubt, is a competitive industry. What are your long term plans for WP Engine to win the market? Where do you see the company in next 3 years?

WordPress is a massive market — I don’t feel the need to “win” it or “defeat” everyone else.

Rather, we’ve created an awesome option for WordPress hosting, and our goal is to thrill all our customers and continuously improve the service. There’s room for other awesome hosting companies too! But if your host isn’t “awesome,” then maybe we’re a good option.

Thanks again for your time. Do you have anything to add for this interview?

Thanks for having me!

Site Note

Well, that’s all for our interview. For your reference, here are the hosting packages offered by WP Engine at this time of writing. You can visit href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/wpengine.php">http://wpengine.com/ to learn more; alternatively, you can check out the href="http://wpengine.com/faq/">helpful FAQ here, check it out.

class="border" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2011/0427-3.jpg" alt="" width="750" />

class="meteor-icon" style="font-size:130% !important;">
class="icon-file-text-alt" style="color:inherit !important;">
 href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/wpengine" target="_blank">Click here to visit and order WP Engine now!


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My Recent WP Engine Review



alt="My Recent WP Engine Review" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/wpengine1-500x286_c.jpg" />

style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/wpengine.php">class="border" alt="WP Engine Homepage" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2011/0613-1.jpg" width="750" />

class="att">*Important Note
In case you are unaware, WHSR is now hosted on WP Engine and I have written a new, lengthy review on WP Engine hosting. For my latest WP Engine usage experience, server track record, discount, and updated details; check out this href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/wpengine-review/">updated WP Engine Review.

Founded by Aaron Brazell and Jason Cohen, WP Engine offers premium WordPress hosting with tons of valuable WordPress optimization (security, load speed, updates, as well as plugin recommendations).

In case you are unaware, I did an href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/featured-articles/interview-with-wp-engine-co-founder-jason-cohen/">interview with WP Engine Co-Founder, Jason Cohen, recently. This is my review of WP Engine. I am not a WP Engine customer BUT, I have spent hours of reading and researching before I publish this post – I’m sure some of you guys will find this piece useful.

WP Engine: Premier Built-for-WordPress Hosting

As much as the fact that WordPress is world #1 blogging platform, it’s hard to find web host that focuses solely on WordPress. It’s even href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/wordpress-blog/best-wordpress-hosting/">harder to get good WordPress hosting company that is “serious” with their business.

This makes WP Engine a special gem in the market.

WP Engine is one of the very, very few companies that focus only on WordPress hosting; and what’s more, the folks at WP Engine are dead serious about their business.
You can visit WP Engine online here: href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/wpengine">http://www.wpengine.com. The company has recently renovate the website and it has a total new outlook now.

Why WordPress-Only Hosting?

“Why do we need a web host that focuses solely on WordPress? Other hosting companies can do the same job and host my WP blogs!”, you may ask. Jason, co-founder of WP Engine, gave the perfect answer in our recent interview session.

When asked “How has the strategy of solely focusing on WordPress users affected the business?”

Jason answered: “Focusing only on WordPress means we can do a fantastic job. For example we hire WordPress experts only, so everyone at the company is helpful and knowledgeable when you call into tech support.
Lots of hosting companies answer the phone on the first ring and call that “good service.” Of course if the person on the other end can’t debug the WordPress problem, at the end of the day it’s not helpful. We know what we’re good at — and what we’re NOT good at! — and we do only the former.”

“That’s how it affects you — the customer. How it affects the back-end business is that we can be more profitable because we don’t have to diversify technology or talent. American Airlines can’t make money because they service 20 kinds of planes; Southwest and JetBlue are profitable and run only a few models. We’re like the latter; most hosting companies are the former.”

What I like about WP Engine Hosting

id="right">alt="WP Engine Features" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2011/0613-2.jpg" />

As a big-time WordPress fans, there are plenty to like about WP Engine. But here are some of the important advantages with the WordPress host.

Backed by WordPress expert

The best reason to like WP Engine is because of its people. WP Engine is founded and run by WordPress experts. I mean, *REAL* WordPress experts.

Co-founder Jason Cohen is the maker of href="http://smartbear.com/products/development-tools/code-review/features/" target="_blank">Code Collaborator; Aaron Brazel, co-founder, has been an active WordPress developer since 2004 and he wrote href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470568135?ie=UTF8&tag=emmensetechno-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0470568135">WordPress Bible (Wiley); and we have Advisor, href="http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/" target="_blank">Ben Metcalfe, who is involve with WordPress development since the very early days.

WordPress Security

WordPress sites hosted on WP Engine is protected in several levels. WP Engine utilizes hardware-base intrusion detection appliances from DDos attack and rogue scanning. On the inside, hosting accounts are isolated with limited user access.

Server Scalabilty

The standard Touring Package allows 250,000 pageviews per month. But that doesn’t mean you have to limit your traffics at that level. According to statistics, WP Engine moves 50 million hits per day through their system. In other words, this means WP Engine is highly scalable.

As claimed by WP Engine, their customers have hit huge media sites like Huffington Post, TechCrunch from time to time and “never skipped a beat”.

Fully Managed Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Heard about CDN? Long story short, CDN is an effective way to stores and delivers your content frpm different servers and this allows your site to load faster. WP Engine is the ONLY WordPress host that includes a fully managed CDN service where your site’s static content (images, videos, static pdf files, etc) are served from servers all around the world. Furthermore, WP Engine also employs proxy servers, data bases, disk caching, file minification, as well as image compression to speed up customer sites load time.

Things you might don’t like about WP Engine

No 24×7 Customer Support

I know, most shared hosting companies offer 24×7 customer supports via live chat and telephone. But that’s not the case for WP Engine. The company’s customer support team does seem very dedicated (they call it ‘Customer Happiness Department’) but newbies who need hand-to-hand spoonfeed support might want to think twice.

Expensive Web Host

WP Engine offers 3 different stand plans; namely Sport (/mo), Touring (/mo), and Luxury Package (custom pricing). I know, WP Engine’s high price tag is a big turn-off. But hey, be realistic, how much do you expect them to charge? .99/mo for a premium hosting service?

Short Trial Period – 15 Days Only

WP Engine offers only 15 days of free trial period. But hey that’s not a big deal since WP Engine is charging its customer on per-month basis. This means it’s easy to leave WP Engine. ;)

WP Engine Customer Reviews

They are pros! “It’s nice to pay someone to handle all the hosting BS that we’re no good at. They’re WordPress Pros.” – Ash Maurya, Author of href="http://www.runningleanhq.com/">Running Lean.

WP Engine has been running well! “All in all WP Engine has been running well for a week.  Now that I’m using their services I’ll probably stay with them for the foreseeable future.  As I always try to remind you guys, when you are determining what you are willing to pay for a solution always include the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).  per month for a site may seem expensive, but I don’t have to worry about maintenance, backups, server hacking and such. I do believe that their overall system needs to be streamlined and made to be more user friendly, but if you have a decent knowledge of Web Server Administration WP Engine may be a good option for you.” – Eli of href="http://www.everymanit.com/" target="_blank">EverymanIT.com, href="http://www.everymanit.com/2011/01/24/first-thoughts-on-the-migration-to-wp-engine/" target="_blank">full WP Engine review here.

WP Engine Hosting Plans At A Glance

Here’s a quick screen cap on WP Engine price and plan details. For more details, visit: href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/wpengine" target="_blank">http://www.wpengine.com

href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/wpengine.php">class="border" alt="WP Engine Homepage" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2011/0613-3.jpg" width="750" />

WP Engine Hosting Review:Should you go with WP Engine?

Any WordPress user who are serious about their blog should consider using WP Engine.

The reason why I am not switching to WP Engine is because I am very happy with Hostgator and I had recently bought/installed PressVault. If price is not a problem, then why suffer another sleepless night worrying about your site cracked due to hackers or heavy traffic loads? Just go with WP Engine!

To visit (opens in new window): href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/wpengine" target="_blank">http://www.wpengine.com


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Quick Update On WP Engine Hosting, 2 Months Later



alt="Quick Update On WP Engine Hosting, 2 Months Later" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/wpengine-500x227_c.jpg" />

WHSR has been running on WP Engine Hosting for href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/site-updates/bye-bye-hostgator-hello-wp-engine/">slightly more than two months now. Everything is looking great and the site recorded 100% server uptime according to Pingdom (see image below).

Pingdom Uptime Check On WebHostingSecretRevealed.com

class="border" alt="WHSR April Uptime Record on WPEngine" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2012/0504-1.jpg" width="750" />

So… yeah, I am happy with my new host. :)

How Pingdom check WHSR uptime? Pingdom sent a HTTP request to WHSR every 5 minute 24/7. A HTTP check loads a web page without any linked objects included; a ‘down time’ will be recorded if WHSR server fails to respond to the request. Pingdom will then send monthly report to your register email (as well as SMS alert) to keep you notified. For instance, the image shown here is extracted from a standard monthly Pingdom report. For more details: title="Pingdom Site Tracker" href="http://pingdom.com/" target="_blank">http://pingdom.com/.

About WP Engine If you have never heard about WP Engine before, it’s a hosting company focuses on premium WordPress hosting. You can read my title="WP Engine Review" href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-review/wp-engine/" target="_blank">WP Engine review here (based on my true experience) or you can visit the official website at title="http://www.wpengine.com" href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/wpengine" target="_blank">http://www.wpengine.com/.


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Bye Bye Hostgator, Hello WP Engine



alt="Bye Bye Hostgator, Hello WP Engine" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/hostgator-wpengine-500x270_c.jpg" />

style="line-height: 1.5em;">WHSR is leaving Hostgator and will be hosted on style="line-height: 1.5em;" title="Visit WP Engine Online" href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/wpengine" target="_blank">WP Enginestyle="line-height: 1.5em;"> starting this week. Site migration is done and we should be just hours away for the DNS propagation to complete.

*Update: You can now read my href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-review/wp-engine/">WPEngine Hosting Review here.

What cause the move, Jerry?

I was given the chance to try out WP Engine hosting for free. Well, not completely free, I need to write them a review in return; but I have 100% freedom on what I want to write – good or bad. Seeing that WHSR growing steadily for the past 2 years (the blog actually went down twice due to heavy traffic surge), I believe it’s the right time to go for something ‘premium’ like what WP Engine has to offer.

Are you saying that you are unhappy with Hostgator?

No, not a bit. In fact, I am very happy with Hostgator service and am still keeping my Hostgator account (BabyHosting Plan) for my other websites.

Hostgator and WP Engine are two very different type of hosting services – You don’t compare apple with an orange.

WP Engine who?

WP Engine is somewhat new in hosting industry but they are very good. By focusing solely on WordPress hosting, the company delivers topnotch performance and won several huge client names in a very short time, including HTC, FourSquare, America’s Test Kitchen, as well as SoundCloud.

Last year April I interviewed WP Engine co-founder Jason Cohen (it’s a good piece, href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/featured-articles/interview-with-wp-engine-co-founder-jason-cohen/">go read it) and I have published a new WP Engine review based on my usage experience, check it out: href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-review/wp-engine/" target="_blank">WP Engine Review.

I will be watching WP Engine closely for the next few months – do come back for more updates and in-depth reviews. For the time being, to learn more about WP Engine, visit: title="http://www.wpengine.com" href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/wpengine" target="_blank">http://www.wpengine.com.


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Website Security: Why Go WP Engine For WordPress Hosting



alt="Website Security: Why Go WP Engine For WordPress Hosting" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/default-image-500x308_c.jpg" />

Back in year 2009, I had href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/featured-articles/bluehost-hostmonster-user-alert-cpu-throttling/">some problems with WHSR server speed and spent tremendously long hours looking for (and working on) the right fix; then in mid 2010, being paranoid of hackers, I spent sleepless nights learning how to safe guard my WordPress site – I ended up subscribing to VaultPress, costing me extra /mo (ouch).

If WPEngine (href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/wpengine.php" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.wpengine.com) existed earlier, I would have saved my time for other stuffs – drink more beer, go more gym, travel more to other countries, make more money; or simply, play more StarCraft2 and get a better league ranking ;).

What I Like About WP Engine Security Features

src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2012/0320-1.jpg" class="border" alt="WP Engine Security Features" />

In this post, I am going to share with you a few security (and stability) factors that made me decide on the switch.

1. No Overselling Host

Unlike most other hosting companies, WPEngine does not oversell. Excessive RAM is allocated to keep all non-media file system cache in RAM (this makes your site load faster) plus the load balancer assures your server average CPU load never exceed 0.2 per CPU at all time.

And, in case for some reasons your site needs more CPU power than usual, an extra cluster server will be served (which is my next point).

2. Extra Cluster Server When Necessary

Worry about digg or slashdot impact? Stay on the safe side with WP Engine. In case your server is down or overloaded, WPEngine will reroute your site traffics to another server. Generall,y this means your site gets 100% uptime with WPEngine.

3. Content Deliver Network Feature

WPEngine is the only WordPress hosting that comes along with CDN feature. The bundled service is an advantage as one, it’s much cheaper; and two, best of all, the technical staffs will configure everything for you.

4. Instantaneous WordPress Auto Upgrade

WordPress upgrades are vital – it protects your WordPress websites against known threats and bugs. With WP Engine, All WordPress installations at WPEngine are upgraded the same hour as a security path is released.

5. Hacker Cleanup Guarantee (HCG)

WPEngine’s HCG is another wonderful feature that puts me sleep well at night. What’s included in this guarantee is that, if your site ever get hacked (which is quite unlikely), WPEngine will have clearly-written procedure on how to handle the situation and the management guarantees to clean up everything for you.

Jerry, Why Are You Blowing WP Engine’s Trumpet?

id='floatright'>href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/wpengine.php" target="_blank">src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2012/0320-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Visit WP Engine" />

In case this blogpost looks like a salesletter to you, my answer to you is "No, it is not!".

Please do not take this in the wrong way.

I am not here to sell you anything. I am simply explaning why I made the decision to switch my host to WP Engine and why these factors matter. Furthermore, I am not saying that WP Engine is the right host for everyone. In fact, I have listed a few drawbacks of the web host in my recent href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/wpengine-review/">WPEngine Review, so make sure you read them thoroughly in case you are a potential buyer. Also, you can visit the host online at href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/wpengine.php" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.wpengine.com.


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WP Engine "Hostober-Fest" Discount



alt="WP Engine "Hostober-Fest" Discount" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/wpengine-500x227_c.jpg" />

Hey hey hey, WP Engine is announcing some great news – the WordPress hosting company is launching a time-limited promotion to all first time customers. Simply use the promo code “style="text-decoration: underline;">Hostober” when you order WP Engine and you’ll get style="text-decoration: underline;">3 free months of service on all annual plans.

The notification email just came in last night and the first thing I did was to test the promo code on WP Engine site – it works brilliantly. ;)

WP Engine Promo Coupon: Hostober

class="border" alt="WP Engine October Promotion - Hostober" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2012/1004-11.jpg" width="750" />

So if you are previously considering about WP Engine, right now is the good time to make your decision. For readers who have been following me for some time, you don’t need me to tell you how great is href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/hosting-updates-news/quick-update-on-wp-engine-hosting-2-months-later/">my WP Engine experience, right? To learn more about about the company, visit online href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/wpengine" target="_blank">http://www.wpengine.com (and also you can check out my href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-review/wp-engine/">updated review here).


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WP Engine Review



alt="WP Engine Review" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/wpengine-350-500x257_c.jpg" />

How I found out about WP Engine first?

I first learned about WP Engine long time ago.

Back when the company first started in 2010, I did an online interview with its cofounder Jason Cohen (href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/interviews/interview-with-wp-engine-co-founder-jason-cohen/">you can read it here). Not many have heard about the name “WP Engine” (what a weird name, by the way) back then, but the company was growing exponentially. Many well known bloggers and businesses (including HTC, FourSquare, Balsamiq, Sound Cloud) were switching over.

A year after the interview, I got a free basic account and moved WHSR over. The migration process was very smooth and my site load time was halved instantly. Needless to say – I was very happy and stayed for more than 2 years.

Shortly after Google Penguin (which WHSR took a big hit), I decided to change and started rebuilding everything from ground zero. The idea was to grow WHSR into a web service provider, build a community around ourselves, and rely less on Google traffic. That was the time when WHSR Uptime Monitor was made and we switched back to conventional VPS hosting environment.

The year was 2013.

Today’s WP Engine

Over time, WP Engine has grown into an extremely popular web host. Many things have changed since WHSR shifted out. Various new features were added as technology advances, the company is funded by a large group of investors including Automattic (the folks behind WordPress.com), and many bloggers and WP experts regard them as one of the best managed WordPress hosting (there were also some who go against them, more about that later).

To give you better accuracy on WP Engine, I did a new round of study in October/November 2015 and brought you this brand new review.

But first – special discount.

Exclusive Discount  – Save 20% on First 3 Months

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[Update Nov 2015] Coupon Code: WPE20 / 20% Discount on First 3 Months

Latest discount – use promo code WPE20 when you order WP Engine and you’ll get 20% off for your first 3 months. Personal plan starts at .20/mo after discount; .20/mo and 9.2/mo for Professional and Business respectively.

class="bw" style="text-align: center;">title="Click here, visit WP Engine online" href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/wpengine" target="_blank">class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-16816" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/visit-wp-engine.jpg" alt="visit wp engine" width="193" height="48" />

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 My Experience With WP Engine (2012 – 2015)

2012 – 2013 Period

class="border alignright wp-image-5210" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/wpengine-response-time.jpg" alt="wpengine response time" width="320" height="362" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/wpengine-response-time.jpg 750w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/wpengine-response-time-265x300.jpg 265w" sizes="(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px" />

My experience with WP Engine during the early days was nothing but WOW.

In brief –

  • Hassle-free site migration The migration process from Hostgator (WHSR’s old host) was ultra smooth. All I did was provide some login details and Jeremy (WP Engine tech person) sorted everything out for me.
  • Hosting speed Site load time halved instantly (see image) and scored 100% uptime in most period. As you can see from the chart – WHSR’s response time improved almost 100% (as measured by Pingdom) right after the site migration (no other fine-tuning was made when measured).
  • Save money As daily backup and malware scan were provided, I canceled my Vault Press subscription on the second month. Seeing that VaultPress charged /mo back then, switching to WP Engine actually saved me money even if it wasn’t a free account.

2013 – 2015 Period

Ever since I moved out, I work with a friend who’s hosting his site on WP Engine. The following are some of the uptime scores we recorded.

id="attachment_16089" style="width: 760px" class="wp-caption aligncenter">class="wp-image-16089 size-full" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/wpengine-sept-uptime-site-has-not-down-for-1757-hours.jpg" alt="wpengine sept uptime - site has not down for 1757 hours" width="750" height="285" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/wpengine-sept-uptime-site-has-not-down-for-1757-hours.jpg 750w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/wpengine-sept-uptime-site-has-not-down-for-1757-hours-300x114.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />class="wp-caption-text">WP Engine hosting uptime score for the past 30 days (Sept 2015). Note that site has not down for 1757 hours.

id="attachment_11109" style="width: 760px" class="wp-caption aligncenter">class="wp-image-11109 size-full" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/wpengine-hosting.jpg" alt="wpengine hosting" width="750" height="283" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/wpengine-hosting.jpg 750w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/wpengine-hosting-300x113.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />class="wp-caption-text">WP Engine hosting uptime score for the past 30 days (September 2014).

id="attachment_10616" style="width: 760px" class="wp-caption aligncenter">class="wp-image-10616 size-full" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/WP-Engine-Past-30-Days-Uptime-August-2014.jpg" alt="WP Engine Past 30 Days Uptime (August 2014)" width="750" height="271" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/WP-Engine-Past-30-Days-Uptime-August-2014.jpg 750w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/WP-Engine-Past-30-Days-Uptime-August-2014-300x108.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />class="wp-caption-text">WP Engine hosting uptime score for the past 30 days (August 2014)

Must Know: My Recent Study in 2015/2016 – Why WP Engine is back as my 5-star Host?

Looking at the charts and all the positive reviews – I believe there’s no doubt that WP Engine has one of the most reliable and fastest WordPress host in town. So instead of beating the dead horse again, I dug into the two issues that some bloggers complained about – visit counts and customer support.

WP Engine Hosting Uptime (Feb 2016) – 99.97%

id="attachment_17703" style="width: 760px" class="wp-caption aligncenter">class="wp-image-17703 size-full" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/wpengine-feb-2016-uptime.jpg" alt="wpengine feb 2016 uptime" width="750" height="287" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/wpengine-feb-2016-uptime.jpg 750w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/wpengine-feb-2016-uptime-300x115.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />class="wp-caption-text">WP Engine Hosting uptime scores (Feb 2016), test site went down for a brief minute on Feb 17th, 2016.

WP Engine Hosting Uptime (Nov 2015) – 100%

id="attachment_16823" style="width: 760px" class="wp-caption aligncenter">class="size-full wp-image-16823" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/WP-Engine-uptime-scores-nov-2015.jpg" alt="WP Engine Hosting uptime scores (Nov 2015)" width="750" height="283" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/WP-Engine-uptime-scores-nov-2015.jpg 750w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/WP-Engine-uptime-scores-nov-2015-300x113.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />class="wp-caption-text">WP Engine Hosting uptime scores (Nov 2015)

1. Visit Counts (Issue Solved)

One of the biggest complaints on WP Engine is how they charge their customers – as a user, you will be charged based on visit. WP Engine entry plan, for example, allows up to 25,000 visits per month. If you blog attracts more than 25,000 visits in a month, you’ll need to pay more.

So, more visits = more CPU resources usage = higher host fees. Fair? No, not fair. According to Harsh from href="http://www.shoutmeloud.com/wpengine-cons-picing.html">this Shout Me Loud post (last updated April 2015) – Because WP Engine is also charging on bots visits and has not implemented any measures to block bad bots (unlike conventional hosting, users can’t setup their robots.txt to block bad bots at WP Engine). Users were forced to pay overages due to bots visits.

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Solution

id="attachment_16820" style="width: 760px" class="wp-caption aligncenter">class="size-full wp-image-16820" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/wp-engine.jpg" alt=""No more bots", - says WP Engine." width="750" height="312" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/wp-engine.jpg 750w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/wp-engine-300x125.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />class="wp-caption-text">“No more bots”, – says WP Engine.

WP Engine href="https://wpengine.com/blog/bot-traffic-removed-from-overages/" target="_blank">removed bot visits from their billable visits calculations starting October 13, 2015.

Problem solved.

2. Customer Support

WP Engine supports was top class during my first stay (2012 – 2013). Every support single staff that I spoke to was a WordPress wizard. And they were so passionate with their job – that you can tell from how quick they reply your emails – their ticketing support system was like a live chat where I got almost instant responses every time.

However if you search around and you’ll noticed that here were quite some complaints on WP Engine customer support in 2014, including this href="http://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/reviews/webhost-trusted-wp-engine-hijacked-business-avoid-them/">lengthy review by Matthew Woodward. The complains, generally speaking, focus on two things –

  • Uninformed / inexperienced support staffs,
  • Slow responses (some even said their requests were ignored), and

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Solution

Mounting criticism of the company has prompted the response by WP Engine founder Jason Cohen in this blog post in May 2014 – href="https://wpengine.com/blog/growth-hard/">Growth is Hard. To address the issue, seven immediate actions were taken, including hiring new support staffs (they have increased the support team by 50% since then) and allow customers to reach out the company’s engineer directly (read quotes below).

  1. Hiring. We closed our Series C financing in January and immediately put it to work in hiring in the Support Team. We’ve increase the team by 50% since then. It’s very hard to hire quickly and yet maintain our standards of both attitude (culture) and aptitude (ability). We’ve even hired additional internal recruiters to help us accelerate this process.
  2. Direct-to-Engineer. Some of our customers are highly technical, so whenever they contact us, it’s with difficult, interesting problems—not ones that can be solved with a knowledge base article or a simple, obvious response. Therefore, we started creating pathways for those customers to get to engineers faster—people who can work on the mind-bending stuff. Of course we don’t have that 24/7 yet, like we do with regular support. Fortunately, those problems are usually OK to be solved during normal business hours, so overall this approach has been effective.

By looking at these response from the company top person, I think this explains why there were a lot less complaints and outrages customers in 2015. I do not consider this as a solved case; but I am convinced that WP Engine users are much better supported today compare to 2014.

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The Pros: What I like about WP Engine

Here are the main things I like about WP Engine –

  • Premium managed WordPress hosting – Extremely reliable and fast hosting; user satisfaction in server performance guaranteed since 2011. And, not to mention that WP Engine’s uptime is backed by SLA – you get refunds if the host is not serving you enough uptime.
  • Worry-free – Daily backup and malware scan. Plus, they will fix everything if your site is hacked.
  • Cost efficient / cheap – Yes, WP Engine is in fact cheap if you factor in the features that were built directly into the hosting. For examples – VaultPress costs /mo, Blog Vault Plus costs /mo, Sucuri (for Malware scanning) charges .66/mo for one site, MaxCDN costs /mo (free MaxCDN if you go with WP Engine Professional Plan and above) – you can forget about all these add-on costs if you go with WP Engine.
  • Staging Sites – A staging site is like a playground for your blog. The feature allows you to test stuffs, find bugs, and redesign your site without jeopardizing your current site operation.
  • LargeFS – A feature where you can sync all your files with a nominated Amazon S3 bucket so theoretically you have unlimited storage for your site.
  • Evercache – WP Engine’s in-house caching technology for massive scalability and speed.
  • 1 –click Restore – Forget about cron. WP Engine supports instant backup plus 1-click restore with easy Snapshot Backups.

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Important: Three Things You Need to Know about WP Engine

Before you get hooked, there are a few issues with WP Engine that you should know. We don’t live in a perfect world, so there are always pros and cons.

1. WordPress Sites Only

Keep in mind that WP Engine is a WordPress-only hosting. This means if your site is not WordPress base, then you can’t host your site at WP Engine.

You may ask, “Isn’t dumb to limit your market and focus only on WordPress users?”.

Truth is – I was equally surprised when I first found out about this (WordPress is not as big as today back in 2011) and I asked Jason about this during our interview session:

When asked “How has the strategy of solely focusing on WordPress users affected the business?”

Jason answered: “Focusing only on WordPress means we can do a fantastic job. For example we hire WordPress experts only, so everyone at the company is helpful and knowledgeable when you call into tech support.

Lots of hosting companies answer the phone on the first ring and call that “good service.” Of course if the person on the other end can’t debug the WordPress problem, at the end of the day it’s not helpful. We know what we’re good at — and what we’re NOT good at! — and we do only the former.”

“That’s how it affects you — the customer. How it affects the back-end business is that we can be more profitable because we don’t have to diversify technology or talent. American Airlines can’t make money because they service 20 kinds of planes; Southwest and JetBlue are profitable and run only a few models. We’re like the latter; most hosting companies are the former.”

2. WP Engine can be costly for multi-sites owners

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Referring to the image above – WP Engine hosting plans, Personal (/mo), Professional (/mo), and Business (9/mo), support 1/10/25 domains respectively. If you are running a number of low traffic sites then it is much better to host them with the usual shared hosting that normally cost to per month.

But bear in mind that I am not saying WP Engine is costly. They are not.

WP Engine Price Comparison

Here’s a quick comparison on WP Engine pricing with two other similar hosts.

class="default-lines" summary="Employee Pay Sheet">scope="col">Features / WP Hostscope="col" align="center" width="150">WP Enginescope="col" align="center" width="150">Pressidiumscope="col" align="center" width="150">Pressablestyle="font-size: 0.8em;">Plansalign="center">Personal / Professional / Businessalign="center">Personal / Professional / Businessalign="center">A / B / CNumber of Sitesalign="center" width="150">1 / 10 / 25align="center" width="150">3 / 10 / 25align="center" width="150">5 / 10 /20Monthly Visitsalign="center" width="150">25k / 100k / 400kalign="center" width="150">30k / 100k / 500kalign="center" width="150">15k / 50k / 100kStoragealign="center" width="150">10GB / 20GB / 30GBalign="center" width="150">10GB / 20GB / 30GBalign="center" width="150">–CDNalign="center">+.99/mo / Free / Freealign="center">+/mo / +/mo / Freealign="center">Free / Free / FreeTrialalign="center">60 daysalign="center">60 daysalign="center">15 daysExclusive Discountsalign="center">WPE20 – 20% discount on first 3 monthsalign="center">–align="center">–Monthly Pricealign="center" width="150">.55 / .05 / 6.55align="center" width="150">.90 / .90 / 9.90align="center" width="150">.83 / .50 / .00

3. No Email Hosting

WP Engine does not provide email or webmail features. This means if you want an email address ending with your domain name (something like email@mydomain.com), you will need to host your own email accounts.

Yes, I know you can always go with Gmail as Google provides free email hosting services (as recommended by WPEngine); but not all website owners want their data to be hosted with the big G (me included!).

However, stay no fear. I have tried a few different solutions when I switched my host to WP Engine and written this lengthy article on overcome the issue – href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/featured-articles/email-hosting-guide/">What to do when your web host does not provide email hosting services – so… no big deal with that.

WP Engine Special Discounts

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[Update October 2015] Coupon Code: WPE20 / 20% Discount on First 3 Months

Latest discount – use promo code WPE20 when you order WP Engine and you’ll get 20% off for your first 3 months. Personal plan starts at .20/mo after discount; .20/mo and 9.2/mo for Professional and Business respectively.

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For more details, visit WP Engine online (link opens in new window): href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/wpengine">http://www.wpengine.com/

Bottomline: Is WP Engine A Go?

I have no doubt that WP Engine is one of the top WP hosts in market.

But wait, I do not recommend WP Engine to everyone.

For example – if you do not intend to run your site in WordPress, then there’s no point for you to be here.

Or, if you are new and just started, I would suggest you to go with conventional shared hosting services like InMotion or Interserver or eHost. I believe you’ll thank me for the much cheaper option.

Or, if you need to host multiple low traffic sites (which do not need so much server resources), then WP Engine would be too costly for you.

Who should host at WP Engine?

That said – WP Engine is truly a rare gem.

If you read Devesh’s article href="http://www.wpkube.com/best-managed-wordpress-hosting/" target="_blank">Best Options for Managed WordPress Hosting, this is what he wrote on WP Engine –

If you want a bit of everything, go with WPEngine. This option is for you if want to scale without compromising the quality of support and loosing developer friendly tools. And at the same time, not want to spend a fortune. I have been using WPEngine for a long time and never had any problems with them.

Personally, I had very good time with WP Engine in the past and I see lots of the recent changes at WP Engine as positive signs. This is why I have upgraded my rating from 3 stars to 5 stars.

WP Engine is definitely a must-see if you fit one of the following bills –

  • You are running a single WordPress site with medium to high level traffic,
  • There is a possibility of your site go viral and hit Reddit front page,
  • Your WordPress site is your main income source,
  • You are always worrying about hackers and malwares,
  • You don’t like handling the tedious WordPress maintenance job – such as site back up and file cache tuning;

Make the move as I did with WHSR and quit worrying about your site being hacked or down due to traffic surge.

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Order WP Engine Now

For more details or to order WP Engine (Remember to use promo code WPE20 for extra savings) –

class="bw" style="text-align: center;">title="Click here, visit WP Engine online" href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/wpengine" target="_blank">class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-16816" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/visit-wp-engine.jpg" alt="visit wp engine" width="193" height="48" />

class="bw">(P/S: The links pointing to WP Engine in this page are affiliate links. If you purchase via this link, it will credit me as your referrer. This is how I keep this site alive for almost 8 years and able to add more free, helpful hosting reviews. Buying via my link doesn’t cost you more – in fact, you will get extra discount from the given promo code WPE20. Your support is highly appreciated, thank you! )


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