Managed WordPress Hosting vs Traditional Hosting | EP 616

Managed WordPress Hosting vs Traditional Hosting

1. Differences of Hosting 01:44
2. Managed or Traditional  05:51
3. Pricing of Hosting  10:13

Read the full episode transcript below:

00:27 David Blackmon: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast brought to you by WP Gears I’m David Blackmon

00:35 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler

00:39 David Blackmon: Almost said “bod cast”.  Hey we might we might have started something here Tim a “bod cast” podcast you don’t want trust me you don’t want me giving a podcast maybe Tim but

00:50 Tim Strifler: I am, my wife’s pregnant so you know by default I will be sporting the dad bod very shortly so I don’t know if you want me on the podcast either.

01:01 David Blackmon: All right today we’re gonna talk about managed hosting versus traditional hosting. Hosting has kind of been the theme for the last few episodes because you know when we started back we decided to cover. You know topics that are very much discussed a lot in the WordPress community obviously with website building and website managing and even just websites in general hosting is a great topic to cover so we wanted to touch on today you know manage hosting versus traditional hosting and kind of gives some pros and cons to kind of maybe help you decide or determine which might be best for you. So before we get this episode kicked off I think Tim’s gonna let us know the difference between the two.

01:44 Tim Strifler: Yeah absolutely. So traditional hosting as we covered yesterday on episode 615 is shared hosting VPS dedicated and so forth managed WordPress hosting came out I don’t know five years ago or so I don’t remember the exact timeframe but essentially managed WordPress hosting is premium hosting for WordPress.  It’s typically,  has additional tools built in so WP engine they’re the ones that kind of pioneered the manage WordPress concept and basically it comes with automated backups. And then you can do manual one-click backups it has one-click staging it has extra security built in at the server level extra caching built in at the server level, and so it eliminates the need for a lot of extra things such as backup security caching plugins stuff like that and they have kind of their own proprietary control panel and the back end and all that so and then additionally it’s called manage because they monitor stuff and so they’re constantly looking at the server and running scans and different things like that from. I had an example where I was on a I was on WP engine which their default plan is technically shared and I’m gonna to talk about why it’s different than traditional shared in a second but it’s technically shared and I started to get more and more traffic my e-commerce business was growing my traffic was growing and so WP engine was monitoring that and then they saw that hey I was taking up more resources and I should have been my website flagged some automated code in their system. And so they moved me off onto my own server and then basically you know talked to me about and I ended up upgrading to a dedicated and so they managed those things to catch those things early on.  And if they’re seeing that a sites getting a brute-force attack you know they’ll step in and intervene and different things like that and so they’re they’re constantly monitoring those things and that’s what makes it manage in addition to the tools and so the reason why I said WP engine specifically it’s technically shared. It’s not traditional shared where traditional shared is completely shared resources and stuff like that WP engine has some technology built in to their shared environments where you’re not able to use up resources unless the other websites aren’t using them and so the other web sites aren’t using their resources.  Their system will allow you to use some of other the unused resources on the on the shared website but if the web sites are using it and they’re not going to let you use that and they’re gonna tell you that you need to you know move to a higher plan or they’ll move you to a different server altogether maybe one that isn’t that does have some unused resources and so again it’s it’s technically shared but it’s managed so it’s a quite a bit different more powerful and just a better experience overall and then Flywheel another very popular managed WordPress solution is they don’t do shared everything is a VPS. You have your own VPS when you create an account and so that’s how Flywheel is is different but it still falls into that category of managed hosting.

05:04 David Blackmon: Hold Tim I didn’t hear a thing you said um..

05:06 Tim Strifler: um I start over?

05:10 David Blackmon: No no no don’t start okay. I am I was replying to some some people that were watching the live stream so that they you know are audio cut out so we’re recording locally.  So even if our audio cuts out on our live stream you know we’re still have the audio on here. So yeah managed hosting versus traditional hosting. It’s you know I guess what must where I want to start. Tim is you know in your opinion what’s the best for someone to do. I’m a new guy I got a website and I’m thinking about hosting and stuff and man should I go managed should I go traditional

05:51 Tim Strifler: So I think it would depend on what your goals are and what your website is being used for. As David famously says if you’re serious about your business you need be serious about your hosting and so if you know this is a business website and you plan on growing your traffic and stuff like that I’d say skip traditional hosting and go straight to a managed. WordPress host such as WP engine Flywheel the soon-to-be dues-based hosting by Divi space. Yeah don’t where I was gonna get there and you know go right to the managed because you’re going to get a lot more for your money in terms of not just getting more reliable. More secure hosting but also the additional tools built in like automatic backups one-click staging it’s WordPress specific security built in server level caching those types of thing things and, so I would recommend one of those three WP engine Flywheel or hosting by Divi space.

06:56 David Blackmon: I’m gonna go ahead and and just throw that out throw this out there Tim and you can tell me what your thoughts on this are.
I think you should always go with the managed unless there’s one caveat where I feel like you could go you know traditional hosting. But if it were me I’m going dedicated traditional hosting and that’s only if you have the technical prowess to do it yourself. If you understand hosting and servers and you’re an IT guy and you can manage it yourself then absolutely go for it do it yourself. It comes down to time you know time is money do I want to manage it myself or do I want to have someone else manage it for me and stuff. I think your technical experience is going to what play into which one you choose manage versus traditional as well but I’m gonna say at the end of the day, time is our most valued resource and it is money. So if you’re managing the hosting you’re really not growing your business so I think I think I’m going with it. I’m calling it always go with managed hosting because like Tim said what are you getting. My site crashes it goes down with a manage toast you know you know they have a full backup of your site and it can be backup within minutes you know. Could be kind of in a mess if you’re not so I’m calling it managed hosting is the way to go.

08:42 Tim Strifler: Yeah absolutely. I definitely agree with that and I’m kind of  I fall in that category where, yeah. I might have the technical skill to do my own hosting management and all of that but I don’t have the time. And so I have a dedicated server with WP engine and they’re doing all that those stuff for me. They’re doing the monitoring they’re you know I can get on with Account Manager and you know and talk different things if something’s not loading fast and I need to figure out a way to speed things up and stuff. And I have done that multiple times and they’re they’re able to you know they have a specific team that focuses on performance and they’ll you know do an audit of your side and and help you figure out what you need to do to get your website, you know loading faster and they’ll do a scan and show you what percentage of your site is cached. Cashable content versus non cashable and stuff like that and so to me it’s like I spend a fortune on dedicated hosting with WP engine but it’s worth it you know. It’s worth its weight in gold so I definitely highly recommend it. I also do have a in account with traditional hosting with SiteGround that I use for demo sites and dev sites and stuff like that because it’s an unlimited plan and as David mentioned yesterday in episode 615 shared hosting vs VPS and dedicated we talked about how unlimited isn’t really unlimited they do cap you at bandwidth and stuff like that but you can technically have as many sites as you need not unlimited resources.

10:13 David Blackmon: I totally agree one last thing that I want to say on this and  this has to do with with pricing and stuff and cost of managed hosting versus traditional hosting. Typically yes traditional hosting is going to be less expensive unless you’re going dedicated server but let’s talk about it if you’re in business you know. If you can’t afford a managed host which one website on most managed hosts average about $25 a month that’s 300 dollars a year. If you can’t handle you know afford 300 dollars a year for a managed host with everything that you’re gonna get including the peace of mind peace of mind to know that your website is taken care of 100% then you probably need to think of a new business idea because it’s not that expensive. Now if you’re comparing shared hosting and you see some of these things Oh $3 a month or whatever for the first two years you know you got to really think about what you’re getting versus the 25. I mean 25 dollars a month is nothing to have peace of mind you know 300 dollars a year is the most important investment you’re going to make for your you know online business so it’s the foundation. So consider that don’t let price scare you away and stuff you get what you pay for so yeah..

10:40 Tim Strifler: Yeah you get what you pay for and then also if it sounds too good to be true it probably is there’s the reason why it’s only three three dollars a month you get what you pay for and then also if it sounds too good to be true it probably is there’s the reason why it’s probably is there’s the reason why it’s.

11:50 David Blackmon: Absolutely. All right tomorrow we’ve got another great topic for you on WP The Podcast, should you do paid courses to level up your web design game. Tim and I are course creators we have several courses in the marketplace we’re working on our latest course right now and we’ve been asked a lot should I invest in courses to take my web design and development to the next level and come back tomorrow and tune in and you’ll find out what we have to say Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then

12:22 Tim Strifler: Take care bye bye