Hosting with managed WordPress vs Regular Hosting?

Recently, there has been an increase in hosting companies offering managed WordPress packages. This service states that the company would perform all of the following:

• Optimizations
• Maintenance
• Updates

All you have to do is take care of the design and content. They also claim that the hosting service is optimized for WordPress, this making load time a lot faster.

Regular hosting doesn't offer all these. You are in charge of everything, from maintenance to updating. Of course, it's cheaper too.

I'm contemplating whether to try out a managed WP hosting package or just stick to regular hosting. What do you think?

I run half a dozen wordpress websites, however, I have never subscribed wordpress hosting. I am using regular hosting for my wordpress websites. Even though I understand the advantages of wordpress managed hosting, I have never used this kind of hosting because it costs more than regular hosting. I pay $78 for hosting 10 websites, however, if I have to pay for wordpress managed hosting for my 10 websites, I will have to pay more than $500 in a year.

As vinaya said wordpress hosting is much more expesinsive but it is also much less work. I personally use normal web hosting sites because I don't mind setting up everything myself and I have a lot of experience with wordpress. Si it really depends on how much do you spend, how many wordpress websites you want to host and how much work you or someone do for you and see what option fits your needs.

Agree with previous replies. You can host your WordPress websites on the shared ghosting server. I never experienced any issue regarding the site performance on the shared hosting server. Shared hosting services do have option to update the WordPress and maintain them. There is no need to pay the extra charge for special WordPress hosting.

If you feel that your WordPress site is loading slow that time in regular hosting service, you can order the extra block of bandwidth and resources too. So go with regular hosting.

You can host your Wordpress on any hosting service, but i would always suggest may be using a package that has been design dn configured for wordpress. With a lot of the companies they have placed auto installs that consist of useful plugins etc and also the ability to usin staging which is very useful when working on two websites that need to be tested when not in a live environment.

Many people would say that all hosting is the same but i would disagree and say that not all hosting is the same. You get what you pay for and packages are rendered to specific solutions such as wordpress and magento etc

lingfart said:

Recently, there has been an increase in hosting companies offering managed WordPress packages. This service states that the company would perform all of the following:

• Optimizations
• Maintenance
• Updates

All you have to do is take care of the design and content. They also claim that the hosting service is optimized for WordPress, this making load time a lot faster.

Regular hosting doesn't offer all these. You are in charge of everything, from maintenance to updating. Of course, it's cheaper too.

I'm contemplating whether to try out a managed WP hosting package or just stick to regular hosting. What do you think?

Click to expand...

It all depends on your needs, and the hosting company. There's real WordPress hosts, and fake ones. I will explain after.

Now...if your WordPress website is new or has a small amount of traffic...then you can go with a reputable Shared web host.

If your WordPress website has a large amount of traffic or supplies an income...then a Managed WordPress host would be a better option.

Now between WordPress web hosts;

Some are just Shared hosting with renamed packages. Updates and security are still left to the website owner. Really there's nothing different with such accounts. The account will most likely be on cPanel, and will offer everything else like emails, one-click installs, and so forth.

Others that are actually WordPress hosts use an optimized system. They do not use control panels which allows more RAM to be directed to WordPress. The database is optimized, and security is implemented from the server...not a plugin, which some "WordPress host" will suggest to do. Caching is done from the server, and not a plugin, which is also something other hosts will suggest to do.

Overall, the account is faster and more secure...but if it's not something that needed, then regular hosting will do the job.

Wordpress hosting is a marketing term to sell it in a different way with soome addon features

the list you have said doesn't take much time at all to perform and for that why pay extra amount

Bryan McClure said:

I didn't agree a bit on this point because web hosts didn't use a hosting control panel not mean it will be more secured, optimized or even more RAM to Wordpress, more hosting control panels are using caching systems on their system which supported better than no control panel and it also offered more security features than others.

Click to expand...

Good question.

Everything breaks down to resource usage...and when more elements are added or used, those are more elements that need to be secured, and that will use RAM.

Let's look over a few basic examples of a moderate WordPress website on two hosts;

Host A
- cPanel
- Centos
- Apache (or litespeed and maybe CloudLinux)
- MySQL
- 2 GB VPS
- WordPress
- WooCommerce

With host A, cPanel needs to be secured. cPanel uses 1GB of RAM, leaving the user with 1GB. Then add WooCommerce which requires 512MB...the user is now left with 512MB for MySQL and everything needed to run. With a cpanel account, it's also running DNS, other services not needed for WordPress, and Emails...which if you have SpamAssassin installed, your RAM is cut down some more. Run all of this on Apache, and there will be usage issues, which many run into everyday.

Also, do this on a Shared host, and the ability to customize the account to the users needs is not possible since all the resources are Shared.

Host B
- No control panel
- Ubuntu or Debian
- Nginx
- Percona or MariaDB
- 2 GB VPS
- WordPress
- WooCommerce

With host B, no resources are lost to a control panel, so RAM is still 2GB...and with no panel being installed, the system is not limited to Centos. Ubuntu and Debian have proven in many real world to do a better job than Centos. Now with panels....there are other panels that can be used, and ones that are not limited to Centos...but if it's not needed, then no reason to install it.

WordPress only needs to two things...PHP and MySQL. An account running a panel, emails, DNS and other elements is just wasted resources.

With PHP, one can use Nginx. Does a better job than Apache, and has a built in Cache. MySQL..Maria or Percona are better options.

Without getting into fine details about each element, overall the usage is far less, while the account can handle a great amount of connections without running out of Memory.

Bryan McClure said:

I don't think there is a real Wordpress web hosting unless you tell me all features that it can bring to us than a normal web host.

Click to expand...

praneetha said:

Wordpress hosting is a marketing term to sell it in a different way with soome addon features

the list you have said doesn't take much time at all to perform and for that why pay extra amount

Click to expand...

Now to address "real" WordPress hosting...it breaks down into two types of web hosts; Web Host A and Web Host B (as above).

Web Host A markets WordPress hosting for SEO purposes. The account is a general account that one could but with any reputable web host. Good for a new WordPress website, or with low to medium traffic. Many of such hosts will sell all forms of unlimited hosting with various packages that accommodate everything. Security and caching is left up to the owner of the website.

Web Host B markets WordPress hosting because that is all they supply. Caching and security is done from the server, and not from a plugin. Once those jobs are left to a plugin, it's already a few steps too late. A regular attack stopped by a plugin is processed by PHP and MySQL. An attack stopped from the server never reaches PHP or MySQL, thus less resource usage, less plugin usage, and the account works as it should with no interruptions.

When a user as the needs as the OP or others that have careers where they cannot sit and manage their website 24 hours a day...a Managed Web host will do the job for them. While they focus on either managing content or their careers, the host will take care of updates, security, speed, and everything else that keep WordPress working efficiently. One can do it their self, but many times they run into situations where they need help. With that, they spend hours and days on forums or with support trying to get help or trying to learn something they never knew. Not only does that waste time and money, it leaves their website open to many issues.

The problem...too many web hosts jumped on being a Host A and confused people. Some of the larger hosts were never a Host A...they were just a web host...some reputable, some ???. People would pay for accounts at Host A expecting something different, to find out it was just marketing, and end up leaving. Some find a Host B and stay with them for years and grow with them while others jump from host to host to host looking for better. A classic example, hosts who are owned by EIG. The thousands of users that leave one brand (say HG) and go to another (say BlueHost) not realizing it's the same company, just a different brand...and with each one, they marketed to WordPress users in an attempt to recapture that market. GoDaddy's WP hosting....the countless complaints I have read about it not being any different than their regular hosting, and sadly it's true (from tests done).

Personally, the only worthwhile Managed Wordpress Hosting, is something like LiquidWebs, where they install WP for you, help you optimize all the plugins etc and keep everything up to date and neat.