If you have a self-hosted blog you’re more than likely on one of the larger web hosting providers and they have also most likely served your general needs and you may not have had many problems with them so far.
But if you do you may be looking for a little more dedicated support around WordPress than the more generalized web hosting services – that’s where the rise and growth of WordPress-centric managed hosting may come into play.
These web hosts specialize in WordPress development, architecture, and support and some are exclusive only to WordPress-powered clients, sites, and blogs. In some instances this can be much more of a preferred route, especially if WordPress is your absolute bread-and-butter.
There are many pros and cons to using these specialized solutions and this post isn’t about whether or not you should pursue such a service (and I’ll leave that to the comments) but rather provide the options plainly. That being said, here are the top 10 WordPress-centric managed hosting solutions today. We leave the due-diligence to you in terms of choosing one but we’ve provided one of the more important metrics for you to consider: Price!
If we’ve missed any please let us know so we can include it on this growing list of providers!
1. Page.ly
Pricing starts at $24/month and scales to $149 and even custom at $.17/GB of bandwidth.
2. WordPress VIP, Enterprise
WordPress VIP has their cloud hosting ($3,740/month) as well as their enterprise solution ($500/month). Not for the faint of heart and certainly not for the small startup blog.
3. Zippykid
Zippykid starts at $25/month and you must request more information for the larger plans.
4. WP Engine
Pricing starts at $29/month and scales to $249 for much larger blogs. WP Engine also has the honor of being financially backed by Automattic.
5. WPWebHost
WPWebHost starts as low as $4.95/month and can scale very quickly towards the $200/month range.
6. Synthesis
Synthesis is from the same team that brought you the Genesis Theme and Framework. Pricing starts at $27/month, $97, $147, and $300 for enterprise.
7. Kahuna Host
This provider starts pricing at $20 per month which might be the right size for you. They have partnered with a few Theme providers as well, like Organic Themes, Press75, and Headway Themes.
8. Lightning Base
Their pricing starts at $9.95 and goes to $99.50 per month. Not bad.
9. CloudyPress
They are going through a re-design right now but their pricing started at $19/month. We’ll have to see if it changes when they re-release their update.
10. Host Like Toast
Neat name, right? Obviously they are located in the UK since their pricing is in pounds (£) – they start around $25/month.
The Market is Growing
The market is obviously growing and we’d love to keep this list up-to-date and current. We’d also like to showcase services that make it intuitive and obvious about their pricing, for example, WebsiteHall markets itself as a WordPress hosting provider (among other things) but doesn’t show any obvious pricing or have much of a presence. Too bad, as that doesn’t help anyone who’s trying to make a critical decision.
Got others that we should add to this list? Let us know in the comments. We’d also love your thoughts about WordPress-managed hosting in general!
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