Flywheel WordPress hosting alternative

Why pay more to go in circles?

Liquid Web is the Flywheel WordPress hosting alternative that delivers a premium experience at a lower cost.

Better support, resources, and flexibility

Liquid Web buys out Flywheel contracts

Get up to $1,000 in hosting credits

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Compare Flywheel

The facts of Flywheel hosting

Support is there, sometimes

Rigid resource limits

Costly client care

Low partner payouts

Expensive ecommerce

Compare Flywheel WordPress vs the best alternative

You’ll pay at least 19 times more at Flywheel versus what Liquid Web includes free.

Flywheel

Liquid Web

Starting at

$30/mo

$24/mo

Chat and ticket support

Unlimited monthly visits

Free ecommerce themes

Limited

A variety of block options

Free email boxes

Visual regression testing

Performance monitoring with insights

$25/mo for one site

Premium managed migrations

Plugin security alerts

10 data centers

Agency hosting solutions

Number of partner tiers

Two tiers

Four tiers

Chat with sales

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Support is on their schedule

You’ll get chat and ticket access at Flywheel — but only during weekdays. Even worse, support is only available during business hours.

No help on weekends. No real-time answers overnight. If your site crashes on a Friday night, you might be stuck waiting until Monday.

Liquid Web doesn’t keep you waiting. Enjoy 24/7/365 expert WordPress support. Free with all plans.

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You pay more for fewer resources

Flywheel starts you off with 5GB of storage. But with their bandwidth and visitor limits, it’s a tight fit for a growing website.

When traffic multiplies, you can pay overage fees or upgrade your plan at double the price. Either way, it isn’t the price you agreed to.

Liquid Web offers nearly twice the storage and 100 times the bandwidth with no traffic limits. Costs stay low, plus room to grow.

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Have clients? You’ll pay a premium

If you manage client sites, Flywheel has a $135/mo plan that includes agency tools. But, that’s about it.

You won’t get any extra bandwidth or storage — it’s the same 5GB routine. Once-a-month performance reporting is $25/mo.

At Nexcess, client care is less costly. We include plentiful resources, free daily performance reports, and Solid Central on all multiple-site plans.

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Isn’t Flywheel just WP Engine?

Yes, but WP Engine has unique drawbacks. Fortunately, Liquid Web buys out both WP Engine and Flywheel hosting contracts.

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They shortchange their partners

Flywheel’s referral program isn’t much of a partnership. It’s a one-time payout: 300% of the purchase with a $500 cap.

Let’s say you refer a freelancer with 15 sites. They buy Flywheel’s annual plan for $2,900. 300% of that is $8,700. You only get $500.

Liquid Web pays you up to $298/mo for that referral. Plus, priority support, no caps, and a solution for every project.

Join our agency partner program

Expect a high ecommerce overhead

Flywheel’s WooCommerce hosting starts at $75/mo. They provide eight free themes and templates for ecommerce.

That’s where the features stop. No WooCommerce server optimizations, no ecommerce tools. Just storage and bandwidth.

Liquid Web bundles premium hosting uniquely optimized for WooCommerce, 19+ store themes, plugins, and useful tools for only $24/mo.

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Flywheel reviews

Why customers jet away from Flywheel

I don't understand why they charge extra for this

Their services Performance Insights is too expensive and should be offered on all plans. I don't understand why they charge extra for this. They also don't give up much information about the server setup. This normally isn't very necessary, but makes it difficult to run anything that requires any heavy resources, such as busy membership or ecommerce websites."

- Keith E. on G2

Flywheel WordPress hosting alternative FAQ

Flywheel is a managed hosting company that provides services for WordPress developers, designers, and agencies.

Flywheel pricing ranges from $15 to $330 monthly for standard WordPress hosting plans. Customers may choose add-ons that cost an extra $33 monthly per site hosted. Flywheel also applies overage fees for traffic, storage, and bandwidth, which may increase monthly pricing.

The Flywheel Growth Suite is a hosting platform that allows an agency to manage a client’s maintenance needs, performance reports, revenue growth, and billing. Solid Central is a WordPress plugin that offers similar functionality, with benefits like automatic plugin updates, performance monitoring, uptime monitoring, theme and plugin management, user roles, and customizable dashboards. On its own, Solid Central does not include hosting. That’s why Liquid Web hosting includes Solid Central on all multisite plans for free.

WP Engine acquired Flywheel in June 2019. Currently, they operate as separate solutions, but some services overlap. Flywheel’s WooCommerce hosting, for example, is the same as WP Engine’s WooCommerce hosting.

Flywheel hosting uses Google Cloud infrastructure to connect customer websites to the internet. They leverage Google Cloud servers in several locations around the world, including the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Europe, and Australia.

Flywheel now offers a 60-day money-back guarantee, but it requires a 30-day notice before cancellation. If you are dissatisfied after 30 days of your service, you may not receive your money back. Liquid Web offers a 30-day money-back guarantee automatically—no cancellation notice required.

Flywheel hosting includes standard WordPress security features like automatic core updates, password protection, a web application firewall, IP blocking, and a type of malware scanning. Flywheel does not, however, automatically update vulnerable plugins—that costs extra. At Liquid Web, we have security covered on every level — at no extra charge. Automatic updates, daily malware scans, and industry-leading Solid Security are included for free. If a plugin has a high enough security risk, we will make every effort to update affected plugin versions for you. And with automatic plugin updates and visual compare built-in, you can stay on top of any security risks.