Fed-up with your current Wordpress website hosting provider? (If you’re using something like GoDaddy or Bluehost, I’m going to assume the answer is yes!) There’s an inexpensive, high-quality alternative – Flywheel hosting! It’s unbeatable in speed and reliability. Plus, you won’t have to worry about website performance. Discover why Flywheel hosting is the perfect web hosting solution below.
Introduction
Flywheel hosting: Where websites spin faster than a hamster on Red Bull (or something like that)! It’s the clear Wordpress hosting platform winner over GoDaddy and Bluehost. It has many advanced features and a very user-friendly interface, giving you quick loading speeds and a seamless experience for both you and your website visitors.
Flywheel was started in 2012, but was acquired by WP Engine in 2019.
The Basics of Flywheel Hosting
Flywheel hosting is the leader in managed WordPress hosting! It has cloud infrastructure and specializes in WordPress sites – perfect for businesses and individuals.
Features like easy cloning, daily backups, and caching make sure your Wordpress website runs smoothly. The intuitive dashboard allows you to manage multiple sites with just a few clicks. Plus, staging environments let you test updates before they go live.
Flywheel’s infrastructure ensures faster load times and optimal performance. Its CDN integration speeds up content delivery worldwide. You get improved user experience, no matter where they are. Try it now – Flywheel is faster than a cheetah on caffeine! GoDaddy and Bluehost can’t compete.
What is Managed Wordpress Hosting?
Managed WordPress hosting is a service where all the technical aspects of running a Wordpress website are handled by the hosting provider (in this case, Flywheel). Think of it as a concierge service for your WordPress site. This includes things like ensuring your site is always up and running, securing it from hackers, making regular backups, and updating the software for you.
In contrast, with regular hosting (like shared, VPS, or dedicated hosting), you’re mostly on your own. You get space on a server and some basic support, but you’re responsible for setting up, securing, and maintaining your website. It’s more hands-on and requires more technical knowledge.
Performance and Speed
Flywheel hosting offers great performance and loading speed, thanks to their Cloud Platform. Tests show an average load time of only 2 seconds, and Time To First Byte (TTFB) of 200 milliseconds, with an average page size was 500 KB.
Furthermore, Flywheel uses server-side caching and CDNs to increase performance and speed. This helps websites hosted on Flywheel run faster and provide better user experiences.
One of my clients saw their website load in under 3 seconds after switching from Bluehost to Flywheel. This resulted in increased traffic and engagement.
Server-side caching
Flywheel‘s strategic placement of data centers around the globe is no accident. Imagine a chef in a restaurant who prepares a popular dish (like chicken parmesan) and keeps it ready to serve immediately to any customer who orders it, instead of making it from scratch each time. Server-side caching works similarly for websites. It stores a version of the web pages so that they can be quickly served to visitors without the server having to build the page from scratch every time it’s requested.
By ensuring a widespread presence, they’ve optimized for both site speed and global reach. Whether your visitors are accessing your site from North America, Europe, Asia, or any other region, the chances are high that they’re getting served from a server that’s geographically closer to them. This reduces latency and ensures that your website loads quickly, regardless of where your audience is located.
CDN Integration
One of Flywheel’s standout features is its integrated Content Delivery Network (CDN). In layman’s terms, a CDN takes your website’s static content and distributes it across a global network of servers. A CDN is like having several mini-stores in different locations, each storing copies of your goods (in this case, your website’s content). When a customer (website visitor) comes in, they are served from the nearest mini-store, ensuring they get what they want quickly.
This reduces the time it takes for the content to travel from the main store (your main server) to the customer, speeding up the loading time of your website for users. With Flywheel’s CDN integration, you don’t have to set up or manage anything separately; it’s all seamlessly integrated.
Security and Backups
Flywheel hosting stands out from rivals like GoDaddy and Bluehost when it comes to website security and data protection. It provides reliable security and backup solutions.
Flywheel ensures site security through various measures:
- WordPress Core Files Lockdown: Flywheel prevents anyone from overwriting WordPress core files, securing them against unauthorized changes while allowing updates and modifications through their team if needed.
- Automatic WordPress Updates: The platform automatically updates WordPress to the latest version, including security patches, and allows users to stay on older major releases with minor security updates.
- Strong Password Enforcement: Flywheel ensures customers use strong passwords, a critical step in preventing unauthorized access.
- Intelligent IP Blocking: The service detects and blocks intruders quickly by monitoring common entry points for hackers, like failed login attempts, and blocking malicious IP addresses.
- Malware Prevention: Flywheel uses preventative security measures, including Plugin Security Alerts, to inform users about potential vulnerabilities, and their team actively assists in cleaning up infections.
- Free Malware Removal: If a site gets infected with malware, Flywheel offers malware scanning and cleaning services, although this may require changes to the website.
- Fastly Web Application Firewall (WAF): This firewall detects and blocks malicious request traffic, protecting against various application-layer attacks, and ensuring such traffic doesn’t reach Flywheel’s platform.
And Flywheel’s backup system is pretty great, too!
- Daily Automatic Backups: Flywheel performs nightly backups of your site, ensuring that recent changes are saved and allowing for recovery in case of errors or other issues.
- Backup Storage and Access: Backups are stored for 30 days on separate servers from your live site and can be accessed via the Backups tab in the Flywheel app.
- Backup Content: The backups include everything in the WordPress folder, such as all uploaded files and the site’s database.
- Manual Backup Creation: Users have the option to manually create backups at any time, especially useful before making significant changes to the site.
- Restoring Backups: Restoring a backup replaces the current site with the selected backup’s content, and cannot be undone. It’s important to note that any content created after the backup will be lost.
- Downloading Backups: Users can download backups from the Backups tab. The backup file is sent to the email address associated with the Flywheel account and includes the wp-content folder, database, and unique site elements, but not the default WordPress files
Effortless Migration Process
The idea of migrating a website can be daunting for many. It often brings up visions of lost data, downtime, and technical hiccups. Flywheel understands these concerns and has made migrations as pain-free as possible. When you choose to move your site to Flywheel, they offer a free migration service. This means that their team of experts will handle the entire migration process for you. From ensuring that all your data is transferred correctly to making sure that there’s no downtime, they’ve got you covered.
User-Friendly and Clean Dashboard
A visually appealing interface is key for an optimal user experience. Flywheel has a user-centric dashboard with intuitive design and easy navigation. Here’s why it stands out:
- Streamlined Workflow: Menu structure organizes tasks like site creation, updates, backups, and performance optimization.
- Intuitive Site Management: Users can monitor website analytics and performance insights, configure domain settings, and access customer support resources like live chat.
- Interactive Collaboration: Team collaboration tools and client interaction options within the dashboard boosts communication.
- Pleasant Aesthetic Appeal: Clean visual design adds aesthetic appeal and reduces clutter.
Flywheel offers more than these features. Local development environments make creating website prototypes before they go live simple. Phoebe, an aspiring entrepreneur without any technical coding skills or web development background, created her online store quickly. Flywheel’s dashboard allowed her to set up her website layout in minutes. This shows Flywheel’s commitment to an intuitive interface for hassle-free website management. Flywheel is more dependable than a parachute vendor endorsing bungee jumping.
Expert Wordpress Support
Flywheel offers professional guidance and assistance 24/7. Their customer service is outstanding and all queries and concerns get addressed quickly.
Features:
- Availability: 24/7 live chat
- Response Time: Fast
- Problem-solving Skills: Excellent
- Website Maintenance: Effective
Flywheel hosting also provides personalized support tailored to meet specific needs. Their team understands web hosting and will guide you through any challenges.
To make the most of Flywheel’s expert support:
- Utilize their 24/7 support.
- Provide accurate and detailed info about the issue.
- Stay proactive with website maintenance.
Follow these suggestions and you’ll have a smooth and hassle-free experience with your website.
Quick Comparisons: Flywheel vs. Other Hosts
Comparing Flywheel to other hosting companies like GoDaddy, Bluehost, and SiteGround? Check out the differences in the table below!
| Features | Flywheel | GoDaddy | Bluehost | SiteGround |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loading Speed | Exceptionally fast | Moderate | Variable | Above average |
| Scalability | Highly scalable | Limited | Limited | Highly scalable |
| User-Friendly | Intuitive interface | Complex navigation | Easy to use | User-friendly interface |
| Customer Support | Responsive and reliable | Inconsistent | Inconsistent | Reliable support |
Flywheel stands out with its quick loading speed, scalability, user-friendly interface, and reliable customer support. It also has exclusive WordPress-specific features. These include free migrations, staging and demo sites, automatic backups, and team collaboration tools. So, choosing Flywheel for your hosting needs is a sound decision.
Pricing and Value
Flywheel hosting offers a competitively priced hosting plan of $15/month which includes free SSL certificates, CDN (Content Delivery Network), staging sites and daily backups. In contrast, let’s look at other Wordpress hosting providers: GoDaddy’s $10/month plan comes with a free domain and basic SSL certificates, while Bluehost offers an even cheaper plan of $7.99/month with a free domain and SSL certificates.
Flywheel offers unique features that set it apart from GoDaddy and Bluehost, such as staging sites for testing website modifications before going live. On top of this, they prioritize security by providing daily backups.
It’s worth noting that the above pricing and features are current at the time of writing. According to well-known sources such as hostingadvice.com and WhoIsHostingThis.com, Flywheel receives great reviews for its user-friendly interface and top-tier performance in WordPress hosting.
Potential Limitations and Concerns about Flywheel
Plugins: While Flywheel’s managed WordPress hosting environment is optimized for performance and security, it does come with certain restrictions, especially when it comes to plugins. There’s a list of disallowed plugins which, for various reasons including potential performance issues or security conflicts, aren’t permitted. This might be a limitation for those who rely heavily on some specific plugins. However, it’s worth noting that most of these restrictions are in place to ensure the optimal performance and security of your website.
Pricing: For budding entrepreneurs or small website owners, Flywheel’s pricing might seem a tad steep, especially when compared to some shared hosting options. The value becomes evident as your site grows, benefits from Flywheel’s performance, and utilizes their support. But for those just starting out or running very minimalistic sites, the cost factor could be a potential concern.
Advanced Needs: Flywheel is optimized for WordPress, which means it offers an environment tailored for the platform. However, for developers who are looking to have server-level access for advanced customizations or to implement specific server-side technologies, Flywheel might seem restrictive. It’s a managed hosting service, which means they handle the technical side of things – a boon for many, but potentially limiting for those wanting deeper technical access.
Conclusion
To put it bluntly, Flywheel outperforms its rivals. Flywheel is the prime pick for web hosting due to its speed, security, and user-friendly interface.
Flywheel stands out from other web hosting providers with its backups, scalability, and customer support. To make the most of Flywheel, use its caching feature and CDN integration. Also, keep plugins and themes updated for better site security and stability.
Links in this post may be affiliate links, which means I’ll make a small commission if you choose to sign up through my link!
