Kinsta and WP Engine are both considered the top-tier WordPress Managed Hosting providers. Most bloggers that use the WordPress platform and looking for scalable hosting solution prefer Managed Hosting plans such as those provided by Kinsta and WP Engine as they provide:
- Faster site speed,
- Access to expert customer support staff,
- Robust security, and
- Additional useful features not usually found in cheaper shared hosting plans.
This article will enable you to decide whether WP Engine or Kinsta is good for you.
Before we dive into the differences, let’s explore some basic info about these two hosting providers:
Table of Contents
Overview of Kinsta and WP Engine
Kinsta is a fairly new company as it was founded in 2013 and is located in the US. Since it runs on the Google Cloud Platform, Kinsta servers are in 20 data centers. If you are wondering if Kinsta is worth it, read further.
On the other hand, WP Engine was founded in 2010, three years before Kinsta and is Headquartered in Austin, Texas, USA. Since it also uses the Google cloud platform, you can choose from any of the 20 data centers to host your WordPress blog or site.
Similarities with WP Engine
- They both use Google Clouds Platform
- They both offer daily backups
WP Engine offers the following in all its plans:
- Automatic WordPress updates
- Advanced security protection including ‘two-factor’ account authentication
- A dashabord to allow you to monitor your site’s speed and performance
- Free access to Genesis Framework and over 35 thems built using it
- Daily offsite backups
- Multiple SSL certificate options
- Development and staging sites
- Free site migration
Kinsta Offers the following in all its plans:
- A dashboard that allows you to review and make any necessary site adjustments
- Easy to use staging options
- Free site migration
- Daily site backups
- Support for developer tools such as WP-CLI, SSH, and Git.
- Various advanced security features including firewall, SSL support, and uptime monitoring
Kinsta and WP Engine Pricing
We found Kinsta to be a bit cheaper as it offers a wide range of plans for sites with 20,000 traffic per month at $30 per month to up to 150 sites with a combined traffic of 3 million for $1500 per month.
On the other hand, WP Engine offers straightforward plans with three tiers. The startup plan is comparable to Kinsta
Content Delivery Network:
Kinsta uses KeyCDN while WP Engine uses MaxCDN
Site Migration
Kinsta offers unlimited migration. Both Kinsta and WP Engine provide free migration support, unlike others that charge up to $30 per additional migration.
WordPress Themes:
WP Engine can access 37 premium StudioPress themes for free as they’ve acquired StudioPress.
KInsta does not have themes included in their hosting plans but you can pick any theme from themeforest.
Customer Support:
Kinsta: 24/7 live chat and tickets on all plans, but no telephone support.
WP Engine support options: 24/7 live chat on all plans, 24/7 phone support on all plans except the entry-level Startup plan, and tickets only available on top-tier custom dedicated plans.
Kinsta and WP Engine Overage fees
WP Engine and Kinsta limits the number of visitors you can get depending on the hosting plan you get. If you exceed your monthly limit here are the charges:
Kinsta: $1 for each 1,000 extra monthly site visits and $0.10 for each additional GB of CDN bandwidth used.
WP Engine: $2 for each 1,000 extra monthly site visits but no bandwidth overages charges.
WordPress Website Backups:
With both hosts, you get automatic website backup but if you want to manually download the backups, here are the differences:
WP Engine: WP Engine let you download any of the existing backups in your dashboard
Kinsta: You have to download a downloadable backup and you can do that once a week.
Performance
In a test to determine which one between Kinsta and WP Engine had the best performing servers, WP Engine appears to do better as shown in the results below. These are the results of average load time over six months:
Uptime
Both Kinsta and WP Engine have decent uptime as you can see from a results conducted in 2018
My name is Nate Reiner and I am the editor here at 10Webtools. I have 8 years of experience using 50+ different web tools ranging from podcast, web hosting, email marketing, and much more. I previously managed a team offering support services to a large conglomerate that utilized tens of software solutions. I now run this blog full-time and when I am not reviewing or testing software, I enjoy riding bikes and supporting my clients achieve internet success. You can reach me directly at [email protected]