Choosing the website host for your WordPress website might seem like a tedious, administrative task, but it can have a massive impact on your website’s performance. Three of the top website WordPress hosts on the market today are Pressable, WP Engine, and GoDaddy.
Forge Apollo’s Philadelphia-based website developers have worked with multiple sites hosted on Pressable, WP Engine, and GoDaddy. Here’s our comparison of the three–in terms you don’t have to be a developer to understand.
Pressable vs WP Engine vs GoDaddy
Before we compare, let’s discuss what it is we’re comparing.
Pressable is a WordPress-specific managed hosting provider. Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, owns Pressable. This allows them to provide performance tailored for WordPress sites.
WP Engine is another WordPress-specific managed hosting service. Because it was built for WordPress, it has also tailored its features to meet the platform’s needs. Automattic and WP Engine have been engaged in a recent legal battle that has led to some feature disruptions for the hosting platform.
GoDaddy started as a domain name registrar but has since expanded to include website hosting, among other services. While GoDaddy offers hosting for websites on many platforms, they do offer hosting plans specifically for WordPress sites. That is what we’ll be comparing today.
Plan Types & Pricing
All platforms offer tiered plan options with pricing that increases along with each tier.
Pressable offers tiered plans with price increases for additional sites, visitors, or storage. They also offer optional add-ons for users with high storage, site, traffic, or support needs.
WP Engine offers the majority of features on all of their plans, with higher tiers offering increased storage thresholds, number of sites, etc.
GoDaddy’s lower-tier plans offer limited features, so users need higher-tier plans or add-on subscriptions to achieve some of the basic functionality WP Engine offers.
GoDaddy offers the lowest price of the three. However, WP Engine and Pressable do offer more feature value for their pricing. For our team, Pressable wins pricing. Our recent migration of WP Engine to Pressable saved us 15% in annual costs.
Security
In the age of malware, hacking, and spam, extra attention to website security is critical.
Although GoDaddy does offer some security features, in our experience, WP Engine’s are stronger, and Pressable’s win.
WP Engine includes infrastructure and features that offer your site critical protection. For example, they offer automatic WordPress and PHP updates, threat detection and blocking, and a free SSL certificate on every plan.
Pressable goes the extra mile by also including Jetpack Security (also owned by Automattic) and Akismet Anti-Spam in all of their plans.
Website Speed & Performance
Website speed has a significant impact on your website’s performance. For example, conversions drop over 4% for each additional second a page takes to load.
Pressable, WP Engine, and GoDaddy all have some industry-standard website speed features available. However, WP Engine and Pressable go the extra mile. WP Engine offers features such as EverCache®, and Pressable offers industry-leading PHP resources. Both of these can increase site speeds significantly more than GoDaddy.
Part of this is because WP Engine and Pressable’s servers are dedicated to a smaller set of services, whereas GoDaddy spreads its resources across more than WordPress hosting.
Our development team has had a lot of experience with slow website speeds when hosting on GoDaddy. Despite the development techniques we use for fast loading, the hosting itself on GoDaddy bogs those sites down.
Reliability and Uptime
In addition to loading speed, keeping your site up without crashing is also essential.
When comparing Pressable vs GoDaddy vs WP Engine, all three are reasonably reliable, with guarantees of more than 99.9% uptime, or customers may get a discount. Pressable offers a 100% guarantee because, in their words, “99% isn’t good enough.”
In our experience, WP Engine and Pressable both offer a slight edge over GoDaddy here.
Support Response Time
If you have an issue with your site, you will want it resolved ASAP so it doesn’t affect your business. This is where support comes in.
Both WP Engine and GoDaddy offer 24/7 phone support. WP Engine and Pressable offer 24/7 chat support as well, but GoDaddy’s chat is only available Monday through Friday.
In our experience, GoDaddy takes longer to respond to and resolve issues than WP Engine. Plus, WP Engine’s self-service support center is more extensive than GoDaddy’s knowledge base. However, Pressable takes the cake here in our experience. We typically get a ticket open within five minutes of contact, and it’s resolved faster than with WP Engine.
Verdict: Pressable Wins
Across the hundreds of sites Forge Apollo’s web developers have worked on, those hosted on Pressable have been the best. Pressable’s security, speed, and development features make it the best option for most businesses on WordPress.
WP Engine is a close runner-up, but the reliability that comes from Pressable’s relationship with Automattic made them ultimately edge WP Engine out for us.
Contact Forge Apollo for a High-Performance Website
When looking for a website designer in Philadelphia, look no further than Forge Apollo. With us, you won’t need to worry about website hosting. We handle all of your website hosting needs, and you can trust that we’ll choose the best host in the business for your needs. From small business websites to high-traffic brands, we provide websites that perform and deliver. Contact us today to discuss your website needs.
