wpengine.com - any experiences?

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greenleaves

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Jan 25, 2008
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Hi Guys,

So after digging deep to speed up a wordpress site and you guys telling me about going with nginx instead of apache I stumbled upon wpengine.com - Aparently they use nginx and apply a buch of nifty stuff to make wordpress sites FAST.

It seems to apply many of the changes I want to implement, without me having to do them. This I like. This isn't easy to delegate. So if they take care of it, I REALLY like it.

And they stay on top of it to make sure everything keeps working (every implementation involves adding variables upon updates, which is a fucking headeach). Plus they offer easy staging to test shit out before launching.

I tested the wordpress sites on their server using pingdom and they are BLAZING fast. I'm talking 1-2 second load time from within the US, for a site that does 80+ connections and downloads 1.x megabytes per load. Fuck me. One site that I tested that is on their servers, a site that comes in at 600k, clocked 0.x seconds. I got an erection from that.

They seem to offer a really interesting business model where they are much more 'supportive' of wordpress site owners. I'm tempted to go with them. Any experiences from you gay webmasters?
 


Haven't used them, but they are customer service oriented. It's their entire business model.

Also, they help with WP-related problems.

There are a couple other companies like this. Not sure why anyone would host WP anywhere else unless +$20/mth is a lot of money to their bottom line.
 
I looked into them before but the maximum visits thing is a real turn off. Who cares how many visits I get? Just charge me based on some real metric like bandwidth used/storage.

That said if you're in a high value per user niche I'd definitely be using them.
 
I have previously had clients who've had me work with the likes of WPEngine, Zippykid, page.ly, Websynthesis, WPwebhost, Kahuna - you name it.

The only thing you need here is an apt developer who knows what he does with wordpress and a host that has a reputation for not being an asshole. I don't see anything that I cannot achieve with a standard VPS that is available with the names I mentioned above.

Also, as tencentpiece stated above. WTF is up with the visitor preset? I mean 25k Uniques a month is practically nothing for most good blogs. And god forbid, if your story gets covered by a major website - you can practically prepare to give your first born to these companies.

Also, I have wonderful sob stories from all of these hosts about cocky support, unacceptable plugins lists, weird customization to your site, limited access to the user etc.

Now, I am all for Managed Wordpress Hosting by people who know what they're doing when it comes to wordpress offering an extended leverage over other Webhosts and an added layer of security for the webmaster. But come on? $25+ per month for a single wordpress blog? $20+ for CDN? Fuck No!

/rant
 
I've looked into them but was getting faster speeds on my site with my current host. (granted I'm not doing huge bandwidth traffic).

IMO, a host that uses LiteSpeed servers + a well optimized WP theme is all you need. I consistently over the past year have been getting under 1 sec load time. And I only pay $30/year.

edit: like to add, a solid host + optimized theme > CDN. (for speed)
 
tencentpiece said:
I looked into them before but the maximum visits thing is a real turn off. Who cares how many visits I get? Just charge me based on some real metric like bandwidth used/storage.

That said if you're in a high value per user niche I'd definitely be using them.
Click to expand...

Yeah, when this site does over 100,000 'visits', it should be grossing 6 digits in sales/month. So... not too concerned about their charge metric.

BlogHue said:
I have previously had clients who've had me work with the likes of WPEngine, Zippykid, page.ly, Websynthesis, WPwebhost, Kahuna - you name it.

The only thing you need here is an apt developer who knows what he does with wordpress and a host that has a reputation for not being an asshole. I don't see anything that I cannot achieve with a standard VPS that is available with the names I mentioned above.

Also, as tencentpiece stated above. WTF is up with the visitor preset? I mean 25k Uniques a month is practically nothing for most good blogs. And god forbid, if your story gets covered by a major website - you can practically prepare to give your first born to these companies.

Also, I have wonderful sob stories from all of these hosts about cocky support, unacceptable plugins lists, weird customization to your site, limited access to the user etc.

Now, I am all for Managed Wordpress Hosting by people who know what they're doing when it comes to wordpress offering an extended leverage over other Webhosts and an added layer of security for the webmaster. But come on? $25+ per month for a single wordpress blog? $20+ for CDN? Fuck No!

/rant
Click to expand...

Good developer. Good luck with that and paying < $8k month. I can do shit myself, but I value my time. And a few hundred for hosting just ain't bad.

HOWEVER, the thing you mentioned about unacceptable plugs, etc... I'll look into that, thanks. I like the idea of saving time, but not at the cost of flexibility.

vipervin said:
I've looked into them but was getting faster speeds on my site with my current host. (granted I'm not doing huge bandwidth traffic).

IMO, a host that uses LiteSpeed servers + a well optimized WP theme is all you need. I consistently over the past year have been getting under 1 sec load time. And I only pay $30/year.

edit: like to add, a solid host + optimized theme > CDN. (for speed)
Click to expand...

Fuck, what hosting provider are you on? What is the download size of the page that clocks below 1 second load time? And how many connections is it making?
 
greenleaves said:
Yeah, when this site does over 100,000 'visits', it should be grossing 6 digits in sales/month. So... not too concerned about their charge metric.

Good developer. Good luck with that and paying < $8k month. I can do shit myself, but I value my time. And a few hundred for hosting just ain't bad.

HOWEVER, the thing you mentioned about unacceptable plugs, etc... I'll look into that, thanks. I like the idea of saving time, but not at the cost of flexibility.

Fuck, what hosting provider are you on? What is the download size of the page that clocks below 1 second load time? And how many connections is it making?
Click to expand...

If you're going for a commercial setup that big, I don't think getting a wordpress host is the optimum resolution for your hosting needs.

Also, $8k+ a month for a good developer? Where did that even come from?

From your reply to tencentpiece, I reckon you're opting for a secure wordpress ecommerce platform and hence are inclined towards a managed service. By all means, go for it, test it out and when you're done testing, go ahead and test some more.

Also, pageload times are dependent on a multitude of metrics - your image optimization levels, usage of sprites, your script compression levels, your external tracking clutter and also the quality of your user's broadband connection. It is not just about the server's speed and DBMS capabilities.

However, as a guy who practically survives on wordpress and everything around it. I'd still never send my clients or anyone I know towards a managed service that is in that price range. Just IMHO.

Affordability is not an issue. I can easily afford to pay that price. But it doesn't make sense to me.
 
BlogHue said:
If you're going for a commercial setup that big, I don't think getting a wordpress host is the optimum resolution for your hosting needs.

Also, $8k+ a month for a good developer? Where did that even come from?

From your reply to tencentpiece, I reckon you're opting for a secure wordpress ecommerce platform and hence are inclined towards a managed service. By all means, go for it, test it out and when you're done testing, go ahead and test some more.

Also, pageload times are dependent on a multitude of metrics - your image optimization levels, usage of sprites, your script compression levels, your external tracking clutter and also the quality of your user's broadband connection. It is not just about the server's speed and DBMS capabilities.

However, as a guy who practically survives on wordpress and everything around it. I'd still never send my clients or anyone I know towards a managed service that is in that price range. Just IMHO.

Affordability is not an issue. I can easily afford to pay that price. But it doesn't make sense to me.
Click to expand...

What does? I mean, specifically? Very interested...
 
greenleaves said:
Fuck, what hosting provider are you on? What is the download size of the page that clocks below 1 second load time? And how many connections is it making?
Click to expand...
Host: Hawk Host - LiteSpeed
For larger sites: Hawk Host - Semi-Dedicated Hosting

Download size of the home page is 353 kB. Another page on the site that is 1.1 MB came in a bit over 1 second.

I do however attribute a big portion of the quick speeds to this plugin: WordPress › Quick Cache ( Speed Without Compromise ) « WordPress Plugins
 
A few weeks back there was a shit storm thread about one user's problems with wpengine. One of the cofounders replied several times for both clarification and damage control. It looked like the complainant's issue wasn't a very exotic setup so you may want to give the comments a read to see if anything jumps out as a deal breaker.

My experience with WPEngine | Hacker News
 
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Just use Storm on demand. I pay like $120 a month and I have 60+ WP installs, and they are relatively fast. If you spend a little more for more resources, I'm sure your sites will be blazing.

And in terms of customer service, they have this thing where they pretty much guarantee to have someone on the phone with you in under a minute. It's cray cray.
 
setting up a well cached, optimized wordpress site on your own server is an extremely well documented process that you can handle for 1/10 of the cost of wpengine. I don't really get the point of wpengine for anyone who can hold their own with servers/coding/command line
 
greenleaves said:
What does? I mean, specifically? Very interested...
Click to expand...

I like building scalable servers using technology that works. I purchase managed VPSes from companies that know what they're doing. Also, optimizing a server is not as hard as most web host hype it to be.

Furthermore, I love my wordpress sites - I spend most of my time optimizing them, worshipping them, taking care of them. And this, only when they attain a certain level of establishment.

I like fast websites. I need my websites served in a jiffy to any browser that requests it in any part of the world. I analyse packet loss, I analyse wordpress load times, I analyse my demographics. However, I DONOT lose sleep over it. I have sites with 5k+ pages, peaking at 10K+ uniques a day working perfectly on regular VPSes with Knownhost and Liquidweb.

IMO, a MANAGED WORDPRESS HOSTING - should have more to do with the script in itself. A team that hosts your website on a well optimized server, helps you optimize wordpress, takes backups for you, helps you scale your wordpress and work with you in getting past the technical mumbo jumbo that most bloggers have no clue about. A team that works with you in reducing the clutter on your site, optimizes your database for you, provides you with suggestions and advise for your website, is ready to provide wordpress support or atleast guide you to the correct support podium (in case of themes/plugins) when needed.

However, the below quote from one of the comment on the link that justo_tx posted pretty much sums up what you get -

"We like car analogies at WP Engine - if I sell you a racing car and you're only a moderately good driver then you're going to crash when you approach the corner at 200mph. There's little I can do about that other than teach you to drive, and I'm in the business of building the cars. There are plenty of folks who can help you improve your race-craft out there."​

justo_tx said:
A few weeks back there was a shit storm thread about one user's problems with wpengine. One of the cofounders replied several times for both clarification and damage control. It looked like the complainant's issue wasn't a very exotic setup so you may want to give the comments a read to see if anything jumps out as a deal breaker.

My experience with WPEngine | Hacker News
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I am talking about. And I have worked with enough people to know for sure that the above user isn't the only one.

dchuk said:
setting up a well cached, optimized wordpress site on your own server is an extremely well documented process that you can handle for 1/10 of the cost of wpengine. I don't really get the point of wpengine for anyone who can hold their own with servers/coding/command line
Click to expand...

Exactly my thoughts.
 
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greenleaves said:
Yeah, when this site does over 100,000 'visits', it should be grossing 6 digits in sales/month. So... not too concerned about their charge metric.
Click to expand...

Maybe if you're running an ecommerce store or selling anything direct - in which case why are you even using wordpress in the first place? Visits aren't a metric they have to pay for - so why do they charge me for it?

To be honest, if I was you I'd just talk to bloghue - sounds like he know's what he is talking about. He's doing some minisites for me at the moment and if they turn out as well as the samples then I'll definitely be trying to hire him to speed up some of my own sites.
 
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BlogHue said:
I like building scalable servers using technology that works. I purchase managed VPSes from companies that know what they're doing. Also, optimizing a server is not as hard as most web host hype it to be.

Furthermore, I love my wordpress sites - I spend most of my time optimizing them, worshipping them, taking care of them. And this, only when they attain a certain level of establishment.

I like fast websites. I need my websites served in a jiffy to any browser that requests it in any part of the world. I analyse packet loss, I analyse wordpress load times, I analyse my demographics. However, I DONOT lose sleep over it. I have sites with 5k+ pages, peaking at 10K+ uniques a day working perfectly on regular VPSes with Knownhost and Liquidweb.

IMO, a MANAGED WORDPRESS HOSTING - should have more to do with the script in itself. A team that hosts your website on a well optimized server, helps you optimize wordpress, takes backups for you, helps you scale your wordpress and work with you in getting past the technical mumbo jumbo that most bloggers have no clue about. A team that works with you in reducing the clutter on your site, optimizes your database for you, provides you with suggestions and advise for your website, is ready to provide wordpress support or atleast guide you to the correct support podium (in case of themes/plugins) when needed.

However, the below quote from one of the comment on the link that justo_tx posted pretty much sums up what you get -
"We like car analogies at WP Engine - if I sell you a racing car and you're only a moderately good driver then you're going to crash when you approach the corner at 200mph. There's little I can do about that other than teach you to drive, and I'm in the business of building the cars. There are plenty of folks who can help you improve your race-craft out there."​

This is exactly what I am talking about. And I have worked with enough people to know for sure that the above user isn't the only one.



Exactly my thoughts.
Click to expand...

You people listen to whatever this fuckin guy says- he flat out knows his shit, and just fixed 5 MAJOR issues with one of my servers in 20 minutes FLAT.

I'm in love with Bloghue. :love-smiley-083:
 
Alright, I'll hit up bloghue tomorrow, I have some urgent stuff to deal with.

@ tencent piece,
I know it. I found a way to set it up to get what I wanted. I think if I was trying something else, I'd have a hard time getting a site that is so dynamic and feature rich without investing a lot of hours of my time learning something or paying someone else to do it. I'm already having enough of a learning curb with what I'm doing...
 
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I had a few initial blips but for high traffic, server-intensive sites I have found them excellent & they've removed a lot of stress for me.

Previously I'd a 16GB dedicated server (managed) for ONE site + a good reseller shared account for some smaller sites - this was costing me about £400 per month & the 16GB beast was falling over during spikes....loads of stress & £££.

My wpengine costs $249 and is stress-free with loads of extras (such as backups, restore points & staging areas).

Highly recommended for anyone in my situation; half the price & 1% of the stress so far (about 6mths).
 
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