WP Engine alternative
Fire on all cylinders without the extra fees. Learn why Liquid Web is the best WP Engine alternative.
Compare WP Engine to the best alternative
You’ll pay $56/mo at WP Engine for features Liquid Web includes free
$30/mo
$4/mo
$600/mo
Only
free for ecommerce
Free for all plans
$3 - 36/mo
$5/mo
Leave WP Engine for the best alternative
WP Engine support is scripted
WP Engine support is available by chat, but you may reach someone who is following a script. That’s called “tier 1” support, and it’s not helpful.
A script can’t solve complex database issues or chroot a nameserver. Only an expert can do that. To get that level of expertise at WP Engine, you'll either have to upgrade your plan or wait in line.
Liquid Web knows WordPress inside and out. Fast, friendly solutions from experts are an email or chat away. You reach a real human 24/7/365.
You throw a party. Tons of people show up. When the bill comes, you’re charged for every visitor that wasn’t on the guest list…despite having plenty of room.
That’s bogus, right? But that’s how WP Engine’s traffic overages work. Their definition of traffic includes single IPs on separate days, cookieless visits, and dynamic requests. Fees stack up fast.
As a WP Engine alternative, Liquid Web doesn’t cap monthly visitors. You get unlimited traffic and free autoscaling for unexpected traffic surges.
Plugin management gets expensive
Like any critical business asset, plugins need to be updated, maintained, and secured. But WP Engine doesn’t do this—unless you spend more.
Automatic plugin updates with visual regression testing cost $3-$16/mo. Even if you pay for the $600/mo plan, WP Engine considers it “optional.”
At Liquid Web, we know plugin performance is essential. Automatic plugin updates, daily performance insights, and visual compare are built in.
Not a PHP worker in sight
Instead of PHP workers, WP Engine caches more static pages to handle dynamic requests. It’s called EverCache®, and it’s far from ideal for WooCommerce.
Transactional pages are uncacheable—milliseconds matter. When traffic spikes, static caching can’t guarantee cart and checkout speed. PHP workers can.
Liquid Web managed WordPress boosts your revenue potential. With ample base and autoscaled PHP workers, your store stays fast when demand is high.
Security is a premium feature
Effective WordPress security shouldn’t be an add-on. Even so, WP Engine withholds enterprise-class security from paying customers.
WP Engine’s SOC 2 hosting and managed firewall costs up to $100/mo. If you need more than a basic SSL, you have to upgrade your plan and pay for it elsewhere.
At Liquid Web, enterprise-grade security is built in with proactive monitoring, a robust firewall, malware mitigation, and free wildcard SSLs for every site.
Getting worse by the day
"We've been using WPE for years and as time goes more and more things are starting to break. The server error logs are not up to date (or show anything), copying environments from production to stage/dev keeps failing in one way or another, new PHP versions takes forever to be added and so on.
There are good things though like the emails they send on vulnerable/out of date plugins, support is often nice, in built geolocation but as a developer these things don't make up the day to day struggles."
- Thomas Karlsson on Trustpilot