WP Engine (aka WPengine or WPE) is probably the most popular “WordPress performance-host” out there. What makes them awesome and how does JohnnyVPS (aka JVPS) compare to them?
*benchmark image coming soon*
WPE/JVPS similarities:
- Both are “high-performance” WordPress hosts – using server stack optimized specifically for WordPress.
- Both use same hardware vendor (Linode) – this means our physical machines are identical. Not all our locations use Linode but we prefer them almost all the time.
- 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.
WPE advantages:
- WPE has great marketing – large company, professional branding, huge affiliate program that pays out $200 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.
- WPE 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.
- WPE 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.
- WPE 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.
- WPE offers free CDN – JVPS doesn’t offer a free CDN but you could also get similar (and possibly better) performance out of a free Cloudflare plan. 😉
- WPE has mostly happy customers – most people on WPE are very happy with their performance. If there are any complaints, it’s either that WPE is really expensive and support is not always so great or that WPE restricts their favorite plugin. Generally, people are happy to stay but will switch if they find something better/cheaper. Kinsta is a common switch from WPengine in terms of performance. Cloudways is a common switch in terms of pricing.
JVPS advantages:
- JVPS is higher-performance – JVPS server stack is far more aggressive; WPE was built for efficiency. We allow far more processing resources per user than WPE 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 more cost-effective – compare JVPS plans to WPE plans, and you’ll find we offer more sites and more visitors at lower costs. JVPS will cost you only $25/month for 5 sites (100k visits), WPE costs $35/month for 1 site (25k visits) and $115/month for 5 sites (100k visits). That’s a huge cost savings. We also don’t penalize with outrageous fees for overages.
- JVPS allows more plugins – WPE restricts or limits many plugins, because of high-resource usage. We don’t like high-resource usage plugins either but will allow you to have them up to a certain point. We’re not as worried since our stack is stronger.
- JVPS allows more caching freedom – WPE has their own internal caching which blocks all other cache plugins. Of course, they claim their internal caching is better but we disagree. Their caching mechanism is built for efficiency (rather than max-speed). With us, you can use almost any cache plugin and achieve faster results…of course, we have our preferred options.
- 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 WPE’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 WP Engine or JohnnyVPS:
Pick WP Engine (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 WP Engine) if:
- You want faster performance and/or better stability.
- You want better pricing.
- You like having more freedom to choose 3rd-party plugins.
- You like the convenience of htaccess.
- You don’t need much support.
- You prefer cPanel over WPengine’s custom panel.
- You have consistent traffic or don’t like heavy penalties for overages.
- 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!