Hundreds of shared hosting providers can host your site for less than $5 a month, and they are ok if for a beginner. However, when traffic increase, looking for a fast loading site, continuous security, running an eCommerce store, then you need secure and performance-oriented hosting. Most of the medium to big WordPress site owners choose VPS, Cloud VM (virtual machine) as a next step to move from shared hosting because they are told to move to the cloud hosting as it’s fast and can take a load of heavy traffic. But what happens next? They spend too much time configuring and maintaining a cloud server. When you are on shared hosting, you get everything with one click.
WordPress installationEmail creationFile transferDatabase accessEnable SSLBackup & restoreAnd much more…
and if you are planning to migrate your site to the cloud with the same expectation, but I am sorry to say you’ll be disappointed. When you buy a cloud/VPS server such as DigitalOcean, AWS, Vultr, etc. you get a vanilla server with OS. A server where you need to install database, web server, PHP, WordPress, and it’s related software + you got to deal with the configuration & security. You don’t want to waste time managing servers. Do you? Instead, you can go for managed WP hosting. Why Google Cloud? In one line, they are better than many out there, and it’s cost-effective. Google is known for its low-latency network, and GCP (Google Cloud Platform) is where Google’s product, like YouTube, Gmail, etc. are hosted. GCP pricing is less than their competitor (you know what I am talking about). Google Cloud data centers are located in 24 locations worldwide, so you can choose to host near to your user’s location. I moved Geekflare to GCP more than a year ago and since then never looked back to migrate anywhere. Enough praising… Let’s offload all the heavy work to the expert, and you focus on what’s more important to your business.
Kinsta
Kinsta, a premium hosting platform for small to enterprise-level of business, is recommended by Google. You can get it started from as low as $35 a month, and if you pay for yearly, then you get two months FREE. They utilize a next-generation system container manager called LXD and packed with speed-oriented tech stacks like Nginx, MariaDB, PHP 7, server-side caching, etc. Your WordPress is monitored 24×7 for uptime, DDoS, malware, etc. Kinsta provides a beautiful dashboard to enable the feature or change the configuration. For an ex:
Switch PHP to a higher or lower versionEnable CDNPurge the cachingMake your site secure (HTTPS) with FREE SSLBackup or restoreCreating a staging environment
And not to forget about their excellent support and FREE site migration. Give a try to experience the Kinsta.
WP Engine
One of the leading premium managed WordPress hosting has recently partnered with Google Cloud to offer the best experience possible. WP Engine is trusted by more than 100,000 customers worldwide. You can get it started from $22 a month, which includes one WordPress install and suitable for ~25,000 visits. Some of the advanced features are:
Serve dynamic content based on the user’s geographyPerformance insights at the code level by New RelicRobust security protection from brute force, WordPress specific vulnerabilities attacksPage performance metrics to quickly diagnose the slow loading page and improve
With the recent StudioPress acquisition, you also get to enjoy one of the highly praised WordPress framework – Genesis and hundreds of themes.
SiteGround
Officially recommended by WordPress.org, SiteGround stands among the heavyweights. They have an impeccable 24/7 support team that is the best I’ve ever seen. Each member is a qualified expert and can possibly get your issue resolved within mere minutes. Ever since they partnered up with Google Cloud, things have gotten a whole better. You can expect much better speed and overall performance. Keeping their entry-level features aside, their GoGeek plan has some brilliant offerings, like:
Dynamic cachingInstant backupsFree professional site transferPriority and less waiting supportAdd team members and have their own accountsOffer clients white-label access to site toolsUse more server resources than any other plan
SiteGround has a super-easy interface, from which you can seamlessly manage multiple sites. Needless to say, they’re trusted by a ton of industry experts and are known for providing quality services only.
Cloudways
Not just Google Cloud, but Cloudways lets you choose to host your site on Linode, DigitalOcean, Vultr, Kyup, and AWS. You can select the server size and data center location during sign-up. On top of awesome GCP, Cloudways offers some of the following.
You can configure to take an hourly to weekly backup, so when things go wrong, you can restore it quickly.Need more capacity to serve more clients? Scale the server resources like storage, CPU & memory with one click.Built-in staging areaGit is integratedProtected with a managed firewall to keep the bad guys awaySSH and SFTP access to take full control of your server whenever neededSchedule task to be performed on the server using Cron job managerInbuilt monitoring to whats going on
Get 20% OFF for six months when you host with Cloudways.
Closte
A new player in the market leverage Google Cloud infrastructure and Litespeed commercial web servers. You can get it started in FREE, and pricing starts from $12 per month, which is suitable for small sites attracting ~25,000 visitors. Closte uses Litespeed built-in cache, integrates with Google Cloud CDN, and some of the below advantages.
It takes incremental backup automaticallyProvide FREE SSLThe staging area, GITWP-CLI to manage WordPress if neededOptions to choose PHP versions
And a beautiful dashboard to manage your website.
Flywheel
Backed by the Google Cloud platform, Flywheel has a tremendous speed record for websites of all sizes. They have tailored plans for your requirements, irrespective of whether it’s too small or too big. For every plan, you get all these amazing benefits:
Hacker-free securityFree SSL certificateFree CDN & custom cachingSeamless SFTP accessStaging for every websiteEasy collaboration with coworkers and clients
They also have powerful in-built tools for a variety of purposes, like speeding up site creation and team workflow. Overall, Flywheel’s features and ease of use really sets them apart. If you’re a freelancer or an agency, this is probably your best bet.
Conclusion
Building fast loading and secure WordPress site is always challenging. And, if you are not willing to spend time in setup and managing, then it’s better to choose a managed WordPress hosting provider who does heavy work for you so you can focus on your business. However, if you are looking to learn to set up WordPress yourself, then get the cloud VM and check out this online course by Andrew Eaton.
