Flywheel (aka FW) is another popular “WordPress performance-host” often compared with WP Engine. What makes them awesome and how does JohnnyVPS (aka JVPS) compare to them?
*benchmark image coming soon*
FW/JVPS similarities:
- Both are “high-performance” WordPress hosts – using server stack optimized specifically for WordPress.
- Both set pricing by number of visitors, websites, storage, bandwidth – as opposed to unrealistic “unlimited everything” hosting plans.
- Both offer the standard stuff – free migrations, SSL certificates, server security. Basically all the usual stuff you would expect from any credible webhost.
FW advantages:
- FW has strong marketing – large company, professional branding, aggressive affiliate program that pays out per sign-up. Quite the incentive, isn’t it? Being a large company appeals to other large companies. And being recommended by developers (affiliates) everywhere appeals to small businesses and website-owners.
- FW offers support – a good portion of their budgets goes to quality support operators who speak decent English and are responsive for your every needs. You should definitely use their service if you need lots of tech support, break your site often or ask basic questions regularly. They’re also a great fit for clients if you’re a busy developer who doesn’t want to handhold clients. With that in mind, many people still complain that their support is hit-or-miss.
- FW has 1-click backup and staging – this is a really nice feature and especially convenient. In just one click, you can back up your site and/or also create a staging environment where you can test themes, plugins, and updates without breaking your live site. Creating backups and staging on JVPS is also possible but takes a few more clicks.
- FW has multi-user environment – you can share access with many other users to specific sites. It’s a really convenient option when you want to give access to only certain parts. JVPS only allows giving out separate FTP accounts. If you want to share access to your control panel, you have to give them your main panel login. So JVPS is better if your account is only meant to be accessed by you and maybe 1-2 other people close to you.
- FW has mostly happy customers – most people on FW are very happy with their performance. Some will claim WP Engine is better. Others say FW is better. If there are any complaints, it’s either that FW is kinda expensive and support is not always so great. Generally, people are happy to stay but will switch if they find something better/cheaper. Kinsta is a common switch from Flywheel in terms of performance.
JVPS advantages:
- JVPS is higher-performance – JVPS server stack is far more aggressive; FW was built for efficiency. We allow far more processing resources per user than FW does. However, anybody can throw numbers and specs but what matters is real-world performance. We’ve easily out-performed them time and time again in any benchmark. You’re welcome to request a test today and see the difference for yourself.
- JVPS is far more cost-effective – compare JVPS plans to FW plans, and you’ll find we offer more sites and more visitors at much lower costs. JVPS will cost you only $25/month for 5 sites (100k visits), FW is either $14/month for 1 site and 5k visits, or $70/month for 1 site and 100k visits, or $92/month for 10 sites and 150k visits. Likewise, we also have a MONSTER plan at $50/month for 15 sites and 300k visits.
- JVPS has a familiar environment – we are Apache-compatible and offer cPanel. Why is this so helpful for users? Being Apache-compatible means you can use htaccess *hooray!* to manage rewrites and other custom configurations instead of having to convert all these things into FW’s proprietary control panel. Having cPanel is helpful because most of you are already familiar with it. cPanel is industry standard (most popular), very easy to use and find things; it’s also got tons of 3rd-party documentation online.
- JVPS offers email-hosting – this may be a huge difference for many people. Our email hosting is not the best and far from the main focus of our operations but we allow it! *HOORAY!* This can be especially convenient if you need to have some email accounts and don’t want to pay extra like for G-Suite ($5/month per email address).
- JVPS has little marketing – we do virtually zero marketing. Our company has grown organically through personal referrals from respected developers and happy clients. We don’t have any affiliate program and also no stock investor expectations to meet. Lastly, we are not trying to take over the world. We simply like serving our small family, and keeping it small!
- JVPS offers little support – why is this a good thing? It’s to keep away all the newbies and irresponsible customers that break their sites everyday. We feel high-experience/low-maintenance clients should not have to pay for newbie support costs. Why not put that money towards the server instead of tech support staff? Now that’s how you get true performance! 😉
Reasons to pick Flywheel or JohnnyVPS:
Pick Flywheel (over JohnnyVPS) if:
- You need support.
- You absolutely need to have backups and staging within 1-click (and not 10-clicks), and you plan to configure/reconfigure those options often.
- You want to share access with many other users.
Pick JohnnyVPS (over Flywheel) if:
- You want faster performance and/or better stability.
- You want better pricing.
- You like the convenience of htaccess.
- You don’t need much support.
- You prefer cPanel over Flywheel’s custom panel.
- You want to have emails but don’t want to pay extra for G-Suite ($5/month per email address).
Ready to try JohnnyVPS? Sign up now!