Summary of the Best Managed WordPress Hosting Service
I've been a paying customer of WPX Hosting since October 2015. Nearly four years now!
I joined at the recommendation of Thrive Themes, a membership site for WordPress themes and plugins, and have not been disappointed.
My managed WordPress hosting service from WPX Hosting has always been fast and reliable. It continues to get better!
Quality
Excellent. Customer Service Support team incident response times are fast! Automatic staging environment for your site.
Speed
Excellent. High-Performance SSD Storage. Believe it or not, they keep getting faster!
Cost
Excellent. Very reasonable for a managed WordPress hosting environment. Three different pricing plans.
Overall rating : 5 / 5
Pros
Cons
Experience the Speed!
Who Is Terry Kyle?
It's rare these days to find a company that massively over-delivers in the product or service features it offers. Terry Kyle is one such individual.
His management of WPX Hosting can be summed up in one quote:
“To Succeed in any niche, ask yourself what you are prepared to bring to that niche apart from your desire to make money.”
Terry Kyle
CEO, WPX Hosting
Before becoming the CEO of a managed WordPress hosting company, Terry had been a digital marketer where he used many different hosting services.
However, he became frustrated with the many pitfalls of traditional hosting companies.
Hosting companies play pricing games with services offered and hyped performance claims. You don't get these "games" with Terry Kyle and WPX Hosting. What you get instead is rock-solid website hosting.
Why Use WPX Hosting for WordPress Hosting?
I've tried different website hosting providers over the years, many of which did not provide WordPress support. I had tried dedicated and virtual servers to get that extra performance. However, eventually, what happens with this approach is that you get too involved with operating WordPress's technical details. You run out of time to manage and grow your website, the whole purpose of using WordPress.
So I started the complicated process of looking for a managed WordPress hosting provider. Right away, they cost more money. Understandably this is because they understand WordPress and know how to support it and get it to perform better. Combined with this, believe it or not, not all reviews on the Internet are entirely truthful!
At that same time, I was looking for a new WordPress theme. I've been a long-time follower of Shane Melaugh, who was also a digital marketer. He had recently started the Thrive Themes membership, with which I am also a member.
He recommended only WPX Hosting as the most reliable, which was at that time called Traffic Planet Hosting. I was a little apprehensive as the price was reasonable. I've never looked back since that time.
The WPX Hosting feature which caught my eyes first was their free SSD's. I already knew that WordPress as a server application could be database intensive, which means a lot of disk IO. Heavy disk IO typically means a slower running application. Solid State Disks were becoming more popular at that time, and I knew it would improve performance.
WordPress Site Hosting Management
WPX's hosting management interface is not your standard CPanel interface. It took me a little time to get used to it, but it is simple. User friendly. Idiot-proof. About the only thing you can do wrong is clicking the delete button after being warned.
WPX Hosting only offers WordPress hosting at the current time. Entry into the management interface is simple.
I have there very affordable Business plan since I only manage a few sites. This Business Plan is another major feature of WPX Hosting. In my opinion, all of their plans include the same features. There is no need to increase to a more costly plan if you have only a few websites or need extra bandwidth.
WPX Hosting calls its management interface or control panel the client area. To login in, you can select the Login option from the main top menu or click the Login to Client Area hyperlink at the bottom of the page.
Click the "Manage all sites in this account" button to proceed:
Presented to you is a list of tasks available to perform. By default, the first option, Service Details, is opened automatically.
Service Details
The service details option displays necessary information about your hosting account.
Billing Details
FTP/MySQL Login Details
Server Details
Usage
Managed WordPress Websites/SSL
These are the necessary options to use with managing your WordPress website. The custom interface simplifies the task options by clicking the correct button. There are no complicated settings to maintain.
Your Websites Overview
SSL Options
Configuration of the SSL settings for each website happens here. Initially, you have the option to enable the free SSL certificate WPX Hosting provides for you. WPX Hosting never forces you to do anything. With this menu, you can then manually force a new CSR.
By default, the WPX Hosting platform regenerates one automatically periodically. You also have the option to install a commercially purchased certificate rather than use the free ones offered by WPX Hosting.
Logs
Much like any other hosting provider, access and error logs are collected at the server level. The Logs option for each website allows you to view these logs without connecting to the site via an Ftp Client and locating the files yourself.
Settings
The remaining settings control the basic configuration of your website.
The actual domain name
PHP Settings
Configure the version of PHP your website needs to run correctly. Most website hosting companies do not even give you this option. You're forced to run at the same version as the rest of the websites on the server which hosts your website.
WPX Hosting does a great job of enabling the new versions quickly, as typically, they contain performance improvements. However, even though they enable the newer version, your site does not use it until you change this particular setting. If it does not run correctly, then revert the setting to the previous version.
Read here for more information on WPX Hosting's support for PHP.
Databases
You might be thinking that with all the one-click website management options, how does one gain access to the raw database table behind your WordPress website?
The Database option lists all of your existing MySQL databases created for each of your websites. You have a couple of icons, one of which lets you see the existing database users. The other creates a new database user.
You can also delete the database. You may need to do this so that you can import a new copy.
There is even a button to bring up the phpMyAdmin screen. There is no need for you to install it yourself. Installing phpMyAdmin can be a real hassle to do this manually.
A custom phpMyAdmin screen pops up when you click the button. Simple and easy to use with all of the functionality that comes with it.
E-mail Boxes
Simple management of your e-mail boxes. E-mail storage does count against your storage limits for the hosting plan you selected. So you do need to stay in control of these accounts.
The settings options allow you to change the real name, specify an alias name, set a "catch-all" feature for this email. Catch-all is a feature that redirects non-created email addresses sent to your domain to this email address. It's not a good idea unless you like lots of SPAM. You can also set a storage quota, specify a "forward to" email address and change the password.
Another handy option is to enter an email address under the "Send Settings To" prompt. After clicking the Submit button, all the relevant settings values needed to configure the users' e-mail box with a different e-mail client are gathered up into an email. The email is a reference for those users who do not have access to this hosting management screen.
FTP Users
You have full control over your FTP users. With this screen, you can create new ones or delete an existing one.
Edit DNS
If you find the need to edit your DNS entries manually, you can do this with this screen unless you're an advanced user with an understanding of these setting your probably best to leave these settings to WPX Hosting's support staff for changes. Making the wrong change here can crash your website.
File Manager
File Manager is similar to the DNS entries in that making the wrong change can break your website. You are given a warning before doing so. WPX Hosting recognizes that you need to access the files directly, so you are given this functionality to allow browsing the site's files and changing them if needed.
Backups
Your options for your website backups are flexible. By default, without you having to do anything, your website is backed up daily. After selecting the domain name to work with, you have the option to choose the day of the automatic daily backup you want to restore.
Another option is to create a personal backup. Maybe you need to change your website's configuration with a plugin, theme change, or new version update. You can manually backup your site before the change. If something goes wrong with the configuration update, then you can restore your manual backup from here.
WPX Cloud
WPX Cloud is their version of a CDN (Content Delivery Network). What this provides is faster access to your WordPress static content. Static content means your image files for the most part.
A CDN makes it quicker for users in different parts of the world to access your images and other static content. The WPX Cloud caches these images on a server closer to that part of the world, making it easier for them to download.
You can read more about the WPX Cloud here. There are a lot of details left out, most of which you do not need to know.
The two management options offered here are to:
- Enable it per each website
- Empty the cache. When configuring a CDN, some settings control how often the source copy of static content should get compared with the cached copy in a different part of the world.
For some reason, if you upload a new version of static content, for example, an existing image, there is a good chance the updated version does not show immediately on the CDN.
By clicking this Empty Cache option, you force the CDN or WPX Cloud to reload from the original static content. An empty CDN may slow down the user's experience the first time, but the content shown is the correct content.
International Managed WordPress Hosting
The WPX Cloud and it's content delivery network has improved the speed of websites hosted in their primary data center in Chicago. WPX has taken this even further and expanded their base hosting site platform. You can now sign up for WordPress hosting in multiple countries.
These countries include the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France, New Zealand, and The Netherlands. WPX has become a global hosting company.
WordPress Multisite
You may have noticed earlier when looking into the website setting an option for multisite. Yes, WPX Hosting supports WordPress multisite, and it is that easy to enable it. Just check the checkbox.
You can read here more information on WPX Hosting's support for WordPress multisite.
DDOS Protection
WPX Hosting provides free Enterprise-level DDoS protection to all WPX Hosting customers with Incapsula, an industry leader in DDoS security. This kind of security issues can be a big deal. I don't understand it all, but I rest easy knowing that they do.
DDOS means Distributed Denial of Server attack. If you're not protected, it can shut down your site.
Security protection like this is a perfect example of Terry Kyle's management style. DDOS protection could cost considerably more on a typical website hosting provider. Many providers would include a service like this only on their "Enterprise" level plans, which would cost considerably more. With WPX Hosting, it's included - FREE.
My Site has been Hacked & has Malware – What Now?
WPX Hosting already scans your website files for any potential malware. It offers enterprise-level protection to DDOS. Even with all this protection, still, your site can become a victim of Malware.
Typical website hosting providers shut down your site if it's found to contain malware. I've personally had that happen before, even though it was not malware. I had to work to get the site re-enabled again.
WPX Hosting now provides free Malware Removal if your site gets hacked.
You can read about WPX's support for Malware Infection removal here.
WordPress Photography Website Hosting
If you're a professional or amateur photographer with a website for all of your clients, or you have a website with many images, then a hosting provider like WPX Hosting is essential. You need both the fast SSD or solid-state drive along with a CDN like the one included in the WPX Cloud.
You can read more information here on WPX Hosting's support for photography websites.
Free WordPress Plugins
While researching this review, I learned that WPX has a couple of WordPress plugins available for Free.
The first is WP BotWatch.
It's only a 1.04 version product at this time. This plugin tracks the flow of Google bots through your website. It shows the bot's flow and the pages it visits more frequently, giving you the information you can use to determine if your pages are well linked. It also tells you the times it gets crawled.
I'm finding this plugin quite interesting. I have the Google Webmaster tool installed on my website, but I sometimes wonder if it is always accurate statistics.
The other free plugin is WP Nav Manager.
This plugin gives you more control over your sidebar navigation menus. It looks useful, but I'm not as interested in this one currently.
Who is Traffic Planet Hosting?
Name Change
Back in 2015, I signed up with Traffic Planet Hosting. Terry Kyle changed the name to WPX Hosting back in October 2016.
Quite honestly, I didn't pay much attention to it back then. The old name-servers stayed intact, so nothing changed with my websites. I experienced zero downtime during the transition.
Traffic Planet was a name associated with Terry's earlier venture, and that the hosting service evolved out of it from what I've read. He wanted to leave that name behind, so he decided on WPX Hosting.
A quick search on Terry Kyle in your favorite engine, and it looks like he was an SEO expert eight to nine years ago, especially in the area of back-linking. A lot of those techniques are no longer viable.
You can read more about the Traffic Planet name change here. You can also read more about Terry Kyle's earlier ventures on his website.
World's Largest Data Center
WPX Hosting's servers are located in the world's largest datacenter. An imposing sight, home to Chicago's financial infrastructure:
Why do I keep seeing dogs on the website?
"WPX is a pet-friendly company and actively works towards providing appropriate food and medical care, as well as improving the living conditions of 350+ homeless dogs. By choosing WPX, you directly support our charitable work."
My Site Is Still Slow After Moving To WPX?
WPX Hosting does not take slow for an answer. They have done as much as they can keep it fast.
However, slowness does happen, and there is a good reason why. WPX takes you through, step by step, how to determine why? They are persistent in this regard. An excellent read on how they do this can be found here.
If for any reason you find yourself in this situation, contact their support. I've never been let down. Also, read about WPX Hosting's 'FIXED FOR YOU' GUARANTEE.
WPX is the Fastest WordPress Host
A comprehensive study done by Matthew Woodward, who is an award-winning tech blogger, that proved this claim to be true.
WPX Hosting has also received top ratings on both G2 Crowd and Trustpilot.
In the almost four years that I've been with them, I've never felt the need to look elsewhere. My sites were always working, and they were fast.
WPX Hosting has multiple managed WordPress hosting plans, depending on the number of sites you need.
If you're a small business or large, looking for a reliable, fast managed WordPress hosting solution, you're not going to find a better value.
Experience the Speed!