Flywheel vs WP Engine: guide for 2024

Flywheel vs WP Engine: Final verdict

Looking over Flywheel vs. WP Engine, it’s clear why both hosts are so popular. They have both hosted millions of
websites that run on WordPress for decades, building up a loyal customer base.

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  WP Engine (Overall grade: 8.6)
  
  
  stands out as a high-performing hosting service tailored for mission-critical WordPress sites. The platform excels with EverCache® technology, ensuring swift load times and enhanced site speed. It also caters to businesses needing robust performance and security with features like advanced DDoS mitigation and a global CDN. The pricing, while on the higher side, offers comprehensive security measures and performance guarantees like 99.99% uptime, making it a strong choice for enterprises and large businesses. However, some users may find the learning curve steep and the cost prohibitive for smaller projects.
  
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  Flywheel (Overall grade: 8.4)
  
  
  offers a user-friendly experience tailored for freelancers and agencies with efficient workflow tools and comprehensive support. The platform ensures exceptional uptime and quick response times, making it an outstanding choice for hosting. With features like FlyCache for managed caching, auto-healing technology, and easy site management, Flywheel provides a seamless hosting experience, especially beneficial for those handling multiple client websites. However, it lacks built-in email hosting, which could complicate the setup for users needing complete email services. Despite this minor drawback, Flywheel remains a reliable and efficient solution for professionals managing multiple sites.
  

Hosting types offered

Both platforms provide a variety of hosting types, each designed to meet the different needs of users.

Although both offer a variety of hosting plans tailored to different needs, in
certain cases, one platform may prove to be more suitable.

Detailed comparison

🏆 Winner Flywheel: Exceptional uptime and quick response times make Flywheel an outstanding choice for hosting.

Flywheel boasts a higher than standard 99.9% uptime guarantee, backed by SLA, with actual performance showing 100% uptime in a two-week monitored test. The platform ensures impressive server response times averaging 371ms, well below the market average. Support is available 24/7/365, with phone support for higher-tier customers, adding reliability and trust to its service.

WP Engine also excels with a 99.99% SLA and demonstrated 100% uptime over two months. Server response times average at 489ms, proving WP Engine’s solid performance. WP Engine offers 24/7 uptime monitoring and proactive security, further ensuring site stability and availability. Global data centers enhance performance across regions, making WP Engine a strong contender.

🏆 Winner: WP Engine Known for superior speed and performance, WP Engine offers a comprehensive managed WordPress hosting solution.

Flywheel and WP Engine both excel in delivering high-performance WordPress hosting, but WP Engine stands out. WP Engine boasts EverCache® technology tailored for WordPress, optimizing it to handle heavy traffic efficiently. It also provides a global CDN with over 200 points and runs the latest PHP versions for maximum performance. Flywheel, on the other hand, has its Flywheel Cloud Platform and managed caching system. Flywheel’s CDN is powered by Fastly, ensuring accelerated page loads. Both hosts offer multiple data centers worldwide, but specific numbers and locations are more emphasized in WP Engine’s documentation.

Website Speed

WP Engine excels in website speed with its proprietary EverCache® technology, optimizing caching at a high level to handle massive traffic hits while maintaining swift load times. It also takes advantage of the latest PHP versions, enhancing overall response rates. Flywheel also focuses on speed, providing managed server-level caching, speedy servers, and Compute-Optimized Dedicated Servers for WooCommerce sites, which can enhance speeds by up to 40%. Despite this, WP Engine’s nuanced approach and technologies contribute to more consistent performance gains.

Scalability

WP Engine features a scalable architecture that can accommodate significant traffic spikes without missing a beat. Unfortunately, full details about whether the scaling is automatic or requires plan upgrades were not provided. WP Engine does offer isolated resources for optimum performance and reliability. Flywheel also supports scaling needs with custom-built plans tailored for higher traffic. While Flywheel provides compute-optimized dedicated servers, it is not explicitly clear if the scaling is automatic or requires upgrades.

🏆 Winner Flywheel: Flywheel stands out for its extensive compliance features and operational security measures.

Both Flywheel and WP Engine have notable differences in their approaches to technical and operational
security, as well as in their compliance with regulations.

Technical security measures:

Flywheel offers free SSL certificates and supports third-party options, while WP Engine provides free SSL certificates and comprehensive automated updates. Both hosts ensure data integrity through daily backups and proactive threat detection. Flywheel uses the Fastly WAF for application-layer protection, whereas WP Engine deploys a managed WAF with Global Edge Security. Flywheel’s auto-healing technology for WordPress sites offers an extra safeguard that WP Engine doesn’t highlight directly. Both provide plugin vulnerability notifications and real-time monitoring.

Operational security measures:

WP Engine maintains a high-efficiency security environment by blocking over 26 billion attacks annually and integrating automated threat detection. Flywheel emphasizes fast intruder detection and intelligent IP blocking across its network. WP Engine’s daily backups secure site data, paralleling Flywheel’s nightly backups stored for 30 days. Flywheel also supports role-based permissions and federated identity services, ensuring stricter access control. Both hosts offer robust customer support with 24/7 availability; however, Flywheel adds free site migrations and focused WordPress expertise.

Compliance and certifications:

Flywheel and WP Engine are both SOC 2 compliant, ensuring high standards in security and availability. Flywheel takes it a step further with additional compliance measures: HIPAA, GDPR, 21 CFR Part 11, and GCP. WP Engine holds an ISO 27001-2013 certification for information security management and offers PCI vulnerability scanning, although results may vary. Flywheel’s advanced compliance features cater to a broader range of regulatory requirements, making it highly versatile for different sectors.

🏆 Winner
WP Engine: A premium hosting provider that focuses on mission-critical WordPress sites with high performance and security.

Both Flywheel and WP Engine provide exceptional managed WordPress hosting, each with unique advantages to fit different user needs. Flywheel offers a highly user-friendly experience with free migrations, comprehensive support, and a built-in local development environment. This makes it particularly suitable for freelancers and agencies who need efficient workflows and easy client handoffs. Flywheel uniquely stands out with features such as FlyCache for managed caching and efficient site performance, as well as automatic healing technology to maintain site uptime. However, it doesn’t include email hosting, which may complicate setup for users needing full email services along with their website.

WP Engine, on the other hand, targets businesses looking for robust performance and security. The platform is backed by EverCache technology for enhanced site speed and includes global edge security measures like advanced DDoS mitigation, which is vital for high-traffic sites. WP Engine’s offerings are tailored for more complex setups, supporting various development needs such as Node.js for headless WordPress and GraphQL API for advanced integrations. Although WP Engine’s initial cost is higher, ranging from $20 to $2,000 per month, its comprehensive security feature set and performance guarantees like 99.99% uptime make it a strong contender for enterprises and large businesses.

Both providers support a range of users from beginners to experts with user-friendly website builders and WordPress staging areas. However, in terms of developer tools, both Flywheel and WP Engine offer robust options including SSH access, support for multiple programming languages, and Git for version control, thus appealing to developers looking for advanced capabilities.

Email services:

Flywheel and WP Engine both lack built-in email hosting services. Flywheel recommends third-party services like Google Workspace for email needs, while WP Engine also does not offer email hosting, steering its users toward other providers for comprehensive email solutions. Both allow integration with transactional email services, but users seeking hosting platforms with native email capabilities will need to look elsewhere or utilize recommended third-party solutions.

🏆 Winner WP Engine: High-performing WordPress hosting with diverse, feature-rich plans designed for different needs.

Evaluating the pricing of plans among various hosting providers can be complex due to their differing pricing and renewal strategies. Additionally, certain plans require annual commitments, which adds to the difficulty of making comparisons. The prices listed are based on monthly commitments; plans requiring annual commitments are indicated. Additionally, although some providers offer identical plans for WordPress and shared hosting, we have created separate tables for each to enhance clarity.

When comparing Flywheel and WP Engine, WP Engine offers a more diverse range of managed WordPress hosting plans specifically tailored to various needs, with the lowest plan starting at $20/month. Flywheel’s plans start at $13/month, but feature lower storage and bandwidth compared to WP Engine’s offerings. Both providers offer extensive security features, automated backups, and global CDN access, but WP Engine includes EverCache® and 24/7 customer support in all tiers. Flywheel’s Agency and Custom plans can manage more sites and offer higher data transfers, but are priced higher, making WP Engine a more cost-effective choice for many users.

Enterprise plans

For businesses needing enterprise solutions, Flywheel offers custom plans with options for managing over 30 sites and handling millions of monthly visits, tailored to specific storage and bandwidth needs. WP Engine’s Custom plan starts at $600 per month, including premium onboarding, priority support, advanced security options, and dedicated technical account management, presenting an appealing choice for large-scale enterprises. WP Engine’s inclusion of performance monitoring and a high level of security features makes it a compelling option for enterprise users.

🏆 Winner
Flywheel: Offers a more user-friendly setup and comprehensive support resources.

Flywheel offers a highly intuitive custom admin panel designed to cater to both technical and non-technical users. The admin interface is clean, easy to navigate, and specifically tailored for WordPress hosting, which simplifies common tasks such as site management, backups, and deployments. Features like Blueprints for saving custom configurations and Site Cloning enhance development and deployment workflows. Flywheel’s streamlined approach makes it accessible for novice users while still providing powerful options for developers.

WP Engine, on the other hand, also offers a custom admin panel but focuses more on providing extensive developer tools like Git Push and SSH Gateway. Their admin panel is robust, catering to users who need advanced technical control. Despite being comprehensive, it may present a steeper learning curve for non-technical users compared to Flywheel. WP Engine’s dashboard is feature-rich but could be overwhelming for beginners who aren’t familiar with WordPress technicalities.

Both Flywheel and WP Engine offer robust migration tools, but Flywheel stands out with its free migration service, which can promptly transfer sites to their platform without any hassle. Flywheel also offers 14-day demo sites, which allows users to test their environment before committing. WP Engine provides an Automated Migration Plugin, simplifying the process, but if this plugin is incompatible, users must resort to a detailed Manual Migration Checklist. Despite comprehensive guides for both methods, Flywheel’s seamless, free migration service offers a more effortless experience for most users.

Both platforms offer detailed tutorials, but Flywheel’s additional support materials like ebooks, videos, and case studies provide more in-depth assistance. Flywheel has extensive help center resources, including 24/7/365 chat support, phone support during business hours, and comprehensive help documentation that covers various topics. Resources like managed plugin updates and performance insights offer ongoing site maintenance support. WP Engine also provides a comprehensive support center with articles, guides, and 24/7 technical support via phone and chat.

Winner: WP Engine: Offers extensive user management with detailed role customization and efficient access control.

Flywheel and WP Engine both provide robust user management features, but they differ significantly in their approach. Flywheel offers a straightforward collaborator-based system where collaborators can manage almost every aspect of the site, except for billing and a few critical actions like site deletion and renaming. This makes Flywheel easy to manage but somewhat limited in flexibility. In contrast, WP Engine gives a more granular control with user roles ranging from Owner to Partial users with detailed permissions, allowing for a more customized user management setup. WP Engine’s structured approach provides better adaptability for complex user management needs.

Both platforms provide user interfaces and tools that facilitate user management. Flywheel employs a simple method to add or remove collaborators via a dashboard, which includes SFTP and database management access. WP Engine’s interface is more intricate, allowing users to be added through the User Portal, with steps involved for selecting specific roles and environments. WP Engine’s role management is more detailed, providing a checklist for permissions which enhances specificity in access level assignments. This nuanced approach enables better control over user rights and responsibilities.

Access control measures are pivotal for both hosting providers. Flywheel’s access control is effective but limited, given that collaborators cannot manage billing or delete sites, ensuring basic security. Flywheel’s Happiness Engineers also offer support for database management queries, adding a layer of usability. On the other hand, WP Engine excels with its Account Activity Log, detailing all significant user actions and site modifications. WP Engine’s capacity to handle a growing number of users through role-specific permissions ensures that as the team grows, managing who can do what becomes efficient and transparent.

Flywheel User Roles Table

WP Engine User Roles Table

🏆 Winner
WP Engine: A top-end choice for hosting solutions with comprehensive 24/7 support.

Flywheel provides extensive customer support options, including 24/7 chat support, email/ticket support, and phone support available during business hours. They also offer free site migrations, a dedicated account manager, and specialized support for agencies, freelancers, and high-traffic sites. Flywheel’s 60-day money-back guarantee and comprehensive performance insights further enhance their appeal.

WP Engine also offers 24/7 support through phone and live chat, catering to both standard and premium plan users. Their user portal simplifies account management, while an extensive knowledge base and migration assistance streamline the support experience. WP Engine includes enterprise-grade security features, DDoS protection, and managed web application firewalls, ensuring high levels of customer satisfaction.

Flywheel vs WP Engine: User feedback

Flywheel is highly regarded for its intuitive user interface, efficient WordPress management, and reliable speed and performance. Customers appreciate the ease of site migration, robust support, and included features like SSL and backups. However, some users highlight concerns over recent pricing changes, slower customer service response times, and issues with email limits and staging environments. Despite a few drawbacks, Flywheel is praised for its agency-oriented focus, making it a strong choice for professionals managing multiple client websites.

WP Engine exudes excellence in managed WordPress hosting, boasting top-notch technical support that’s often highlighted as a standout feature. Users appreciate the user-friendly dashboard, seamless migration tools, daily backups, and solid security measures, all of which contribute to high performance and reliability. However, the service does come at a higher price point, which some users find steep, especially for entry-level plans or smaller projects. Despite occasional concerns about costs and some technical nuances, WP Engine’s premium service quality justifies the expense for many, making it a highly recommended solution for businesses and developers alike.

Flywheel vs WP Engine: FAQ