You have probably stumbled upon these two names while searching for a managed WordPress hosting service provider, Flywheel Hosting and WP Engine Hosting. These two are the most popular managed WordPress hosting service providers.
Flywheel provides many important features and this hosting service is made with developers in mind because they offer many features that are only useful for website designers or website developers. On the other hand, WP Engine is a very trusted service provider and has a reputation for being reliable, efficient, and effective. So in this article, I am going to discuss a few things about both these hosting services and then I will compare FlyWheel vs WP Engine side by side.
About FlyWheel
Flywheel is a relatively new company in the hosting business. The company was first established in 2012 and their headquarter is based in Omaha, Nebraska. They offer some pretty useful features to their customers at a lower price range. They provide free CDN and SSL with all their plans for free. Adding a free CDN feature is a great addition because it will make your website feel faster.
About WP Engine
WP Engine is a WordPress-only web hosting service that provides managed WordPress hosting services to its users. They provide a reliable and consistent service to their customers. They have all kinds of plans whether you own a small business or a big corporation, WP Engine will not disappoint you when it comes to service and performance.
Their plans aren’t very cheap when compared to other hosting services, but I can assure you that it provides absolute value for what you are spending.
Feature Comparison
| Features | FlyWheel | WP Engine |
| Performance | Between 0.59 to 1.36 seconds. | 582 ms. |
| Uptime | 100% | 99.99% |
| Staging Area | They provide a free Staging Area with all their plans. | They provide a free Staging Area with all their plans. |
| Backups | Automatic Daily Backups | Automatic Daily Backups |
| CDN | Provides free CDN with their premium plans. | Provides CDN with all their basic plans. |
| Customer Support | They also provide 24/7 customer care support but because this company is totally based in the USA that’s why the availability time is 9 am-5 pm pacific standard time. | 24/7/365 Via Live Chat, Email, Ticketing, and articles. |
| Data Centers | Flywheel has five data centers around the world which are located in Iowa (USA), Montreal (Canada), London (UK), Belgium (Europe), Sydney (Australia). | WP Engine has more than seven data centers Around the World which include London, Frankfurt, the USA, Sydney, Singapore, Canada, and Belgium. |
| Unlimited Data Transfers | No | Yes |
| Unlimited Emails | No | No |
| Money-back guarantee | 30-day money-back on their annual plans. | 60-day money-back guarantee on their annual plans. |
| Multiple Domain | No | Yes |
| Control Panel | Custom Made Control Panel | Custom Made Control Panel |
| Bandwidth | 20 GB to 500 GB more bandwidth is available with their custom plans. | 50 GB to 1000 GB of bandwidth. |
| Free SSL | Flywheel provides free SSL with their all plans. | WP Engine provides Free SSL with all their plans. |
| Free Domain | No | No |
| Website Migration | Yes | Yes |
Final Words
Both Flywheel and WP Engine come with similar features. The provides free CDN, uptime guarantee, website backup, free SSL certificate, and multiple server locations all over the world. Flywheel hosting service is optimized for developers and designers only.
Both of them provide great value for money for freelancers and small businesses. Where on the other hand WP Engine is more reliable, and WP Engine is trusted by many big corporations and the extra price that you will be paying is going to be totally worth it. If you have a low budget, then you can go with the Flywheel hosting service. Otherwise, if you can spend a few extra bucks, then you should definitely go with WP Engine-managed WordPress hosting.