Final verdict

Looking over Flywheel vs. Contabo, both cater to different needs, with Flywheel excelling in managed WordPress hosting and Contabo offering powerful VPS and dedicated server solutions.

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  Flywheel (Overall grade: 8.4)
  
  
  is highly recommended for WordPress users, especially those managing multiple client websites. Its managed hosting environment includes features like free migrations, SSL certificates, nightly backups, and an intuitive admin panel. Flywheel’s superior uptime, response times, and 24/7 support make it a reliable choice. Principally designed for WordPress, it lacks VPS and dedicated hosting options, which may limit its flexibility for more advanced users. Nonetheless, its streamlined user experience, advanced security features, and compliance with multiple regulations make it a robust solution for small businesses and agencies.
  
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  Contabo (Overall grade: 7.6)
  
  
  offers an array of VPS and dedicated hosting plans, focusing on performance and affordability. With AMD EPYC processors, SSD storage, and broad scalability options, Contabo suits users looking for powerful server capabilities at competitive prices. It also provides email hosting and various security measures, including DDoS protection. However, its customer support is limited to phone and email, potentially leading to slower response times. The user interface, while effective, can feel more complex than Flywheel’s streamlined dashboard. Despite these downsides, Contabo is an excellent choice for users who need robust VPS hosting solutions and can manage a more hands-on server environment.
  

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

Comparative Analysis of Uptime and Availability of Hosting Providers

Winner Flywheel: Flywheel offers impeccable performance with a strong uptime guarantee backed by excellent customer support.

Flywheel stands out due to its promise of higher than 99.9% uptime, backed by an SLA. During a monitored test over two weeks, Flywheel achieved 100% uptime with zero outages, surpassing industry standards. Its response time averages at 371ms, faster than the market average of 600ms, ensuring quicker site loads. For customers spending at least $250 per month, Flywheel provides 24/7/365 support via chat, email tickets, and phone.

On the other hand, Contabo delivers a 99.996% uptime guarantee, supported by reliable AMD EPYC processors and fast storage options. Their data centers, monitored 24/7, offer robust security features including DDoS protection and two-factor authentication. With support available mainly via phone and email during specific hours, Contabo ensures efficient management of customer issues.

Ultimately, while Contabo offers strong performance and security features, Flywheel edges ahead with its perfect uptime performance in tests, faster response times, and superior customer support. These differences make Flywheel the more reliable option for hosting based on uptime and availability metrics.

🏆 Winner Flywheel: A strong contender for managed WordPress hosting, suited for high-traffic websites.

Flywheel boasts superior hosting speed thanks to its Flywheel Cloud Platform, which is designed for WordPress sites. Its servers use compute-optimized dedicated resources, ensuring top-notch performance. Built-in managed caching eliminates the need for additional plugins. On the other hand, Contabo utilizes fast AMD EPYC 16-core processors, pairing them with SSD and PCIe NVMe SSD storage options. It offers an impressive 99.996% uptime and DDoS protection. While Flywheel includes a CDN powered by Fastly, Contabo’s CDN quality isn’t mentioned. Flywheel provides numerous global data centers including the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Singapore, offering extensive coverage.

Website Speed

Flywheel’s performance features make it a go-to for speedy website load times. Its managed caching, super-fast servers, and CDN powered by Fastly speed up page loads for visitors. Auto-healing technology keeps websites stable even during service failures. Contabo emphasizes server performance with its high-speed processors and advanced SSD options. It also boasts significant uptime and security measures, ensuring consistent speed and availability. Both hosts focus on speed but cater to slightly different needs – Flywheel for WordPress optimization and Contabo for raw server performance.

Scalability

Flywheel offers custom plans and compute-optimized dedicated servers, making it versatile for scaling up. Their approach typically involves upgrading plans to accommodate higher traffic. The costs for scaling largely depend on your specific requirements. Contabo provides an easier path to scale VPS plans, allowing upgrades without sacrificing uptime and availability. However, how the scaling process is managed – whether elastic or manual – isn’t clarified. Both providers have dedicated servers aimed at handling high traffic and resource-intensive applications.

🏆 Winner Flywheel: Flywheel provides advanced security features and robust compliance, making it a leading hosting provider.

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

Technical security measures:

Flywheel and Contabo both prioritize few vital technical security features. Flywheel offers free SSL certificates, auto-healing technology, and plugin security alerts. Contabo provides SSL certificates, always-on DDoS protection, and Imunify AV for malware scanning. Flywheel surpasses Contabo with PHP 8.1 readiness, ensuring compatibility with the latest PHP updates. Additionally, Flywheel’s intelligent IP blocking and free malware removal services provide an extra layer of security not explicitly mentioned for Contabo.

Operational security measures:

Operationally, Flywheel offers nightly backups and free site migrations, enhancing data safety and user convenience. Contabo has a robust data center security with 24/7 surveillance, access controls, and mandatory Two-Factor Authentication. Both use role-based access controls, but Flywheel further augments this with a federated identity service to simplify user authentication. Flywheel’s support includes 24/7/365 assistance from WordPress experts, which we don’t see highlighted in Contabo’s offering.

Compliance and certifications:

Flywheel excels in compliance, meeting HIPAA, GDPR, 21 CFR Part 11, GCP, and SOC 2 standards, providing a versatile solution for various regulated environments. Conversely, Contabo focuses on GDPR compliance and implies support for PCI compliance though not explicitly detailed. They both underscore their commitment to maintaining high security standards through rigorous compliance.

🏆 Winner Flywheel: A managed WordPress hosting provider with extensive features.

Flywheel and Contabo both offer robust hosting solutions, but they cater to different types of users. Flywheel excels at providing managed WordPress hosting, which makes it a great choice for users who need a streamlined experience without worrying about the technical details. It includes features like free migrations, managed security, managed software updates, and 24/7/365 support. Flywheel’s additional perks, such as FlyCache for optimized performance and auto-healing technology, make it ideal for those running WordPress sites who require dependable service and reliability. On the other hand, Contabo offers powerful hosting options with their AMD EPYC processors, substantial traffic allowance, and a flexible environment suitable for advanced users and developers. Their geographical spread with multiple data centers worldwide ensures high availability, and features like DDoS protection and 99.996% uptime guarantee highlight their commitment to performance and security.

The availability of a website builder is a key differentiator between these two providers. Flywheel offers the Genesis Framework and 10 premium StudioPress themes which help users design and customize their sites with ease, making it user-friendly for those less technically inclined. Additionally, Flywheel provides a 14-day demo site feature and staging environments allowing users to test new ideas before going live. Contabo, while not explicitly offering a website builder, provides comprehensive control over server management and customization, making it better suited for users comfortable with VPS-level hosting. Contabo’s self-managed server support, private networking, multiple OS options, and custom snapshots appeal to those looking for a highly customizable hosting environment. Both hosts have unique selling points: Flywheel’s managed service ease and Contabo’s performance and flexibility.

Email services:

Flywheel does not provide email hosting, leaving users to seek third-party services like Google Workspace for their email needs. Contabo offers a more comprehensive email hosting service, including the ability to create and manage email accounts directly from their control panel. This makes Contabo a better choice for users who need integrated email solutions for their websites.

🏆 Winner Contabo: An excellent balance of price and performance for diverse 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 Contabo, notable differences emerge in the pricing structure and feature offerings. Flywheel’s Tiny Plan starts at $13/month and provides basic hosting for a single WordPress site, while Contabo’s VPS offerings begin at $3.99/month, significantly undercutting Flywheel’s starting price. Flywheel positions itself for WordPress-centric hosting with added features like FlyCache, CDN, and SSL certificates, whereas Contabo focuses on offering scalable VPS solutions with high RAM and storage options. Both offer free migrations and strong support options, but Contabo stands out with more diverse VPS and dedicated server plans that cater to various performance needs.

Enterprise plans

Flywheel’s custom and agency hosting plans provide scalable features aimed at enterprises needing WordPress-specific solutions, with options like dedicated account management and SLA-backed support. Contabo’s Virtual Dedicated Servers (VDS) and high-end managed VPS plans offer robust physical hardware, extensive RAM, and significant storage options, making them suitable for a wider range of business applications including database hosting and eCommerce sites. Both providers cater to enterprise needs, but Contabo offers more flexibility in server hardware and pricing scalability.

🏆 Winner Flywheel: Flywheel makes website setup and migration simple with several user-friendly features and robust support.

Flywheel offers a streamlined admin panel tailored for WordPress users. It includes a variety of tools such as Blueprints for custom site configurations, local development environments, and site cloning. Its interface is designed to be intuitive, giving both technical and non-technical users an easy time managing their sites. The Flywheel dashboard is clean and provides quick access to various features, making it accessible even to those without extensive technical expertise. On the other hand, Contabo uses a more traditional Control Panel, which provides comprehensive server management options within an organized interface. It allows users to manage multiple aspects of their VPS, including OS reinstalls and server status checks. While functional and thorough, Contabo’s panel may feel a bit more complex for non-technical users compared to Flywheel’s user-friendly approach.

Flywheel excels in migration tools by offering free migrations, which simplifies transferring existing sites to their platform. Their Migration Dashboard helps users submit, prioritize, and monitor the progress of their migrations seamlessly. This is particularly beneficial for users without deep technical knowledge. Contabo, however, does not prominently feature free migration tools and tends to focus more on the detailed server and VPS management through its Control Panel. Though efficient, it may require more manual effort and technical know-how from users to handle site migrations effectively.

Flywheel’s help center is comprehensive, featuring 24/7/365 chat support, phone support during business hours, and extensive help documentation covering a wide range of topics. Users can access additional resources like performance insights, ebooks, and videos, enhancing the overall support experience. Contabo provides support through tickets and phone, with tutorials and FAQ pages available through their website. Though useful, Contabo’s support hours and resources might feel limited in comparison.

The platforms provide extensive knowledge bases filled with guides, how-to articles, and instructional content. Flywheel offers a wide range of resources alongside 24/7 chat and phone support. Contabo also boasts a detailed help center with an intuitive search function and around-the-clock support via live chat, phone, and ticketing, ensuring comprehensive user support.

🏆 Winner Flywheel: A comprehensive hosting provider with extensive user management capabilities.

Flywheel permits collaborators to essentially perform all functions the owner can, except managing billing, deleting sites, and name changes. This provides flexible site management and enhanced collaboration. Contabo, on the other hand, allows users to authorize individuals for certain permissions but doesn’t go as in-depth in role designation. Flywheel stands out due to its ability to let collaborators manage the site’s database, add domains, and change site settings, providing more detailed user roles and higher accessibility.

Flywheel’s interface offers a seamless experience for managing users directly from the Flywheel dashboard, which includes SFTP access and a database manager. Its user management functionality allows for the easy addition or removal of collaborators through an intuitive process. Contabo provides a user-friendly Control Panel, enabling users to handle personal information, authorize permissions, and activate security settings efficiently. However, Flywheel’s streamlined and specific tools for site management give it an edge in handling user roles.

Flywheel excels in its access control measures, ensuring collaborators have full access to site management while restricting billing and site deletion. The platform’s ability to add multiple collaborators and grant them robust access without compromising security makes it ideal for handling an increasing number of users. Contabo requires mandatory Two-Factor Authentication and offers good security measures but falls behind in providing detailed, flexible access for various user roles.

Flywheel user roles table:

Contabo user roles table:

🏆 Winner
Flywheel: Flywheel’s customer support offers extensive options for every user need, from 24/7 chat support to a dedicated account manager.

Flywheel and Contabo both offer a range of customer support options, but Flywheel’s support is more comprehensive and accessible. Flywheel provides 24/7 chat support, which ensures users can get assistance around the clock, in addition to phone support during business hours, and robust email/ticket support with high responsiveness. Flywheel also offers personalized services like a dedicated account manager, making it easier for clients to manage their hosting and receive tailored advice.

Contabo, while offering decent support through phone and email, does not provide live chat support, which limits real-time assistance. The company’s support system relies on emails and support tickets, with a fair response time but sometimes variable in quality. Contabo’s lack of a money-back guarantee and convoluted refund policies make it less appealing to those seeking flexible and reliable customer service. Flywheel clearly excels in offering a wide array of versatile support channels, reflecting its higher user satisfaction.

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.

Contabo offers affordable and powerful VPS plans, which are particularly beneficial for running demanding software and complex tasks. Several users have praised the reliability, stability, and cost-effectiveness of the service, highlighting its great value for money. However, frequent downtime, limited customer support, and a somewhat outdated control panel have been significant points of concern. Some users have experienced slow response times and unresolved service requests, suggesting areas for improvement in customer service and operational transparency.

FAQ