Kinsta is a managed WordPress hosting provider that offers various features like free CDN, automatic daily backups, integrated caching, malware removal, premium site migration, hack & malware removal, and more.
But Kinsta is not the only one in business. There are many people who are look for Kinsta alternatives because of reasons like inflated costs, limited bandwidth, limited CDN bandwidth, and so on.
If you are one among them, and you are contemplating a switch from Kinsta to some other brand that offers state-of-the-art managed WordPress hosting solution, you are at the right place.
I am going to share with you the 10 best Kinsta alternatives you can find today. Of course, the list will contain the pros and cons of each provider so that you can make an informed decision.
Cannot wait to read? Huh!
Fine! Let us proceed without wasting any time.
If you do not have enough time to go through the details, here are the top 8 names you will find on this list:
- Liquid Web (Nexcess)
- Flywheel
- WPX
- Rocket
- Templ
- WP Engine
- Pressable
- MediaTemple
Okay, now that you know what is on the list, you can continue reading if you have enough time in hand.
Note: The list above is in order of preference, and it does not contain any cheap shared hosting provider.
Let us begin.
Liquid Web Managed Hosting
Liquid Web is an enterprise-grade web hosting solution offering a fully managed WordPress hosting solution as well.
Though Liquid Web is known for providing enterprise-grade hosting, their managed WordPress hosting targets everyone from small blogs to large enterprises managing up to 250 websites powered by WordPress.
Signing up with Liquid Web will take you directly to Nexcess hosting, which is a Liquid Web brand. So, when you see Nexcess branding do not panic.
Liquid Web stands out in many areas and with their state-of-the-art infrastructure, they are undeniably one of the finest managed WordPress hosting solutions in the world.
Their world-class support system is available 24×7, and they are ready to assist you in every step.
Some of the core features of Liquid Web include:
No Limit on Traffic and Pageviews
Unlike Kinsta that puts a cap on the traffic and pageviews depending on the package you select; Liquid Web removes that limitation completely irrespective of the hosting plan you choose.
Integrated CDN
Managed WordPress hosting with Liquid Web comes with integrated CDN. You do not have to pay separately for it. Once you point your domain to Liquid Web servers, you can enable their CDN directly from inside the dashboard.
Yes, there is a limit on the CDN bandwidth, but its more than enough for medium-sized websites. They offer up to 250 GB of CDN bandwidth without additional costs.
WAF or Web Application Firewall
You can happily shred off your concerns about hacks, malware infections, SQL injections, etc. All their servers are protected using WAF.
Automatic Backups
Automatic backups for your websites will be enabled by default at no extra cost.
Free SSL (Automatic)
Just like most of the web hosting solutions, Liquid Web also offers free SSL through “Let’s Encrypt”. What is interesting is that unlike other hosting providers, you do not have to implement the SSL by yourself. In fact, the process is completely automated. When DNS resolving completes, SSL will be automatically applied to both WWW and non-WWW versions of your website.
Free Email
They offer free email with every hosting package. So, you do not have to spend extra on email services. You can enable email from the dashboard and create as many email accounts as you want.
Full Server Access
Unlike other managed WordPress hosting companies that do not offer full access to the server, Liquid Web turns the table by offering full access. This is particularly good for volume users who usually have the necessary technical knowledge to handle servers, or they have the resources to hire server administrators.
Environments
With Liquid Web you get staging site environment, development environment and live environment.
Stencils
This is a feature that allows you to quickly replicate a site’s design and setup and reply the whole thing on a new site. You will never need to rebuild the same design from scratch in case you want to reuse the design you already created.
Free Site Migrations
They offer free site migrations. You can request migration directly from their dashboard. The request process is well-organized, and they get the job done within a couple of days. They did it in 1 day for all my sites. And there were no errors at all!
Pros of Liquid Web
- The interface is very user-friendly.
- They have an auto-scaling feature enabled by default that increases the concurrent users if there is an increase in traffic. First 24 hours of scaling is free.
- They throw in Beaver Builder Lite just in case you want a page builder plugin.
- They also offer iThemes Security Pro and iThemes Sync as a part of their package. And guess what? They will be providing a full licensed version of the plugin.
- They offer server-side caching using Varnish and Redis.
- They also offer 99.999% uptime guarantee.
Cons of Liquid Web
- They are expensive.
- They do not offer any moneyback guarantee.
As far as speed is concerned, Liquid Web gives impressive speeds in PageSpeed Insights test results.
Flywheel Managed Hosting
Flywheel is another fabulous managed WordPress hosting provider that can give Kinsta a run for its money. With some excellent features under its hood, Flywheel is a go-to service provider for many WordPress site owners.
Flywheel primarily attracts agencies with some brilliant workflow tools that make management of client sites easy.
Some of the core features of Flywheel include:
Free 14-day Trial
This feature requires a special mention. The company will allow you to create a demo site. Do not take the word demo in its literal sense. They will allow you to create a fully functional website and use it on their servers for 14 days.
If you want to stick around, just pay for a plan and voila! You have your site sitting there. If you do not like their services, just delete the site!
Free Migration
They offer free site migration with all their plans. They will move your site for you without any errors.
Free SSL
You will get a free SSL certificate for your domain. It is provided by “Let’s Encrypt.” However, unlike Liquid Web where the SSL application happens automatically, with Flywheel, you must install it by yourself.
Free Server-Side Caching
They offer full server-side caching to speed up your site. While it may sound brilliant, it is highly recommended that you add another plugin for caching. I strongly recommend WP Rocket.
Hacking and Malware Prevention
They have server-side security measures for preventing hacking and malware injection.
Free CDN
Flywheel offers free CDN powered by Fastly.
Nightly Backups
Flywheel will take backups of your website every night. Every backup will be stored for 30 days.
Pros of Flywheel
- The hosting provider offers an easy and intuitive dashboard.
- Offers site cloning and staging site features.
- Offers instant scaling at times of unprecedented traffic surges. However, you will be charged for the duration when extra resources were used.
- There are several workflow tools perfectly suitable for agencies. Some workflow tools include collaboration options, blueprints (like stencils in Liquid Web), billing transfer, all-in-one SFTP, local development environment, etc.
- They have a moneyback guarantee and they promise to migrate the site to another host if you are unhappy with their services.
- Their customer service is very responsive and friendly.
Cons of Flywheel
- They charge abnormally high just for plugin updates. I feel this should have been a free and default feature.
- The so-called premium StudioPress themes offered with their subscription are all redundant in today’s world.
One thing that I did not like about Flywheel was the site speed with Google PageSpeed Insights. You can read my full review here. However, one of the primary reasons for somewhat slow site speed was lack of optimization, and of course, the use of outdated Genesis Framework and StudioPress theme. Do not use them, please! You can use a better theme – GeneratePress.
WPX Managed Hosting
WPX hosting claims to give the fastest managed WordPress hosting solution. Well, they are not one hundred percent right, but yes, they are among one of the fastest.
I need to be honest, speed to some extent is dependent on how you optimize your website. I can proudly say that even after having ads on my website, social sharing options on my website, and various other features known for dragging down website speed, I clock a speed score of 100 for both mobile and desktop in Google PageSpeed Insights.
That is the type of optimization I carried out over days and weeks and months.
You can achieve it too! My site was hosted on DigitalOcean through Cloudways, but now it is on Liquid Web. None of them claim to offer the fastest hosting solution.
But do not put WPX in wrong books. It is indeed one of the fastest hosting solutions you will get and there are reasons for that.
Let us find out the reasons for their speed and at the same time, let us learn about their features.
Some of the core features of WPX include:
LiteSpeed Server
They offer LiteSpeed server, which is known to be the fastest webserver to exist today. This server alone is capable of boosting site speed. However, if you combine it with LiteSpeed Cache, you can achieve incredible speeds. WPX is the only known managed hosting solution (known to me) that offers LiteSpeed server.
Free Custom CDN
They built their CDN from scratch. Yes, their CDN has global presence, and this CDN helps to boost site speed not only because it can serve static files from CDN servers, but also because they load the DNS through their CDN.
Free Email
Very rarely do managed hosting providers offer free email. Liquid Web is one of those providers and WPX is another. You do not have to pay for emails separately. It is included in their package, and there is no limit to the number of emails you can create.
DDoS Protection
Just like every other managed WordPress hosting provider, WPX also offers free DDoS protection. If you are wondering about Liquid Web and Flywheel, yes, even they offer that feature.
Manual and Automated Backups
WPX also offers both manual and automated backups. You do not have to pay anything extra for that. It is included in their plan pricing.
Free Manual Migrations
They offer free manual migrations from your existing hosting provider. What is incredible is that they offer unlimited free migrations.
Malware Scans and Removals
They have malware protection installed at server level. They scan all websites for malware infections daily. In case they find any malware infection, they clean it up without additional charges.
File Manager
This is something new. You can hardly find a managed WordPress hosting provider that will give you a file manager to access your server files. WPX gives you one. That was a pleasant surprise. For rookies and non-techy guy, it is a lifesaver, because they do not have to use an FTP client to access server files.
Free SSL Certificate
This is a standard offering by any web hosting company. WPX offers SSL through “Let’s Encrypt.” You do not have to pay for the SSL, but yes, you must keep renewing it every 90 days. That should not be a major concern because installation and activation of the free SSL is only a few clicks away. There is no rocket science involved.
Pros of WPX Hosting
- Their interface is incredibly unique and quite intuitive.
- Their customer support is very responsive.
- The offer LiteSpeed server, which opens the possibility of using LiteSpeed cache, which is one of the most powerful caching plugins in the world. And LiteSpeed cache is free.
- They load DNS through their CDN, which is quite unique.
Cons of WPX Hosting
- They will count your staging site as an active site. That is very unusual, and WPX is the only known hosting company to do that. This method of counting is quite indigestible.
- The number of server choices you get is extremely limited. Servers are present only in Australia, the USA, and the UK.
Talking of performance, they indeed perform well in terms of speed. In my review I found that a site scored 97 on mobile and 98 on desktop in Google PageSpeed Insights. You can improve this score with proper optimization.
Rocket Managed Hosting
Rocket managed hosting is new in market. They offer fully managed WordPress hosting and come with some incredible feature. What I would like to share at the very beginning is that when I reviewed Rocket hosting, it was in its early days. Things might have changed now.
In fact, when I tested the hosting solution, they had no mention of using Cloudflare’s enterprise grade CDN and protection. The speed test results were not impressive at that time.
Now when I look back into their website, it has a completely fresh look and feel, and they proudly boast Cloudflare on their site. Perhaps, they have improved their services.
That is the only reason why I have put Rocket on this list. From my past experiences, I can say that Rocket’s interface is matured and intuitive.
Some of the core features of Rocket include:
Cloudflare Enterprise CDN
Those who know what this is, they will say only one thing – “Say No More!”
They have partnered with Cloudflare to offer the “very best” of what Cloudflare has to offer. There is 200+ CDN pops – all edge of the cloud. Your website will be copied page-by-page and stored in 200+ global locations to provide the fastest delivery.
Cloudflare WAF
Cloudflare’s WAF is a powerful feature that protects websites against myriads of online threats including SQL injection (SQLi), cross site scripting (XSS), directory traversal, local file inclusion, comments spam, malicious file upload, etc.
The web application firewall of Cloudflare protects your website from every type of threat that can come your way.
Cloudflare Always-On
Cloudflare has a feature called Always-On. It makes sure that your website remains available even when your origin server becomes inaccessible.
Cloudflare Enterprise is a product that small and medium websites cannot really think of using. They need to settle for the free tier or the Pro plan. With Rocket hosting, you get to enjoy the security and stability of the world’s largest CDN provider.
Imunify360 Malware Scanning
Apart from Cloudflare security, Rocket is also offering Imunify360 – a program designed for real-time malware scanning and patching.
Automatic Updates
On Rocket’s platform, you no longer need to worry about WordPress core or plugin updates. They all happen automatically.
Image Optimization
They are using Cloudflare Enterprise. You can expect image optimization that will deliver all your website images in WebP format. All images will be auto scaled depending on the screen size of the users.
Brotli Compression
It is better than Gzip compression. Rocket supports Brotli compression (I guess because they have Cloudflare which offers Brotli).
Free SSL
Just like any other managed WordPress hosting provider, Rocket also provides free SSL certificate through “Let’s Encrypt.” Installing SSL is easy!
Supports HTTP/2 and HTTP/3
That was expected because Cloudflare provides support for both. These are protocols that allow simultaneous download of file. So, you can effectively eliminate the need for combining JS and CSS files.
Pros of Rocket
- Uses state-of-the-art Cloudflare infrastructure, and that too, enterprise grade.
- They offer free migrations and one-click staging and cloning features.
- They offer servers across 20 distinct locations.
- There support is very responsive.
- Their control panel or the dashboard is intuitive and clean.
- Does not require users to fiddle with complex Cloudflare configurations. Everything is preconfigured to work for WordPress installations.
- They offer moneyback guarantee.
Cons of Rocket
- They are slightly expensive than competing providers.
Templ Manage Hosting
Just the way Rocket is powered by Cloudflare Enterprise, Templ is powered by Google Cloud Platform. The company benefits from the speed and global presence of Google’s state-of-the-art cloud platform.
Well, you can expect it to be expensive, and indeed, it is expensive. You cannot find a hosting provider that uses Google’s platform to provide cheap solutions.
However, those who are using Templ are happy about the performance. So, what does this hosting company offer? Let us find out.
Some of the core features of Templ include
Free CDN
Just like every other option you have read so far, Templ also offers a free CDN to speed up your website.
Free SSL
They also offer a free SSL certificate to every website. The setup is not complex, and it takes only a few clicks to activate the free SSL.
Free Speed Audit and Speed Optimization
This is something new. When you migrate your website to Templ platform, you will be entitled to get a free speed audit for your website. Not just audit, their experts will perform speed optimization that includes things like:
- Database optimization
- Image optimization
- Plugin audit
- WordPress configuration
- Caching activation and optimization
In fact, they will even provide a before and after report.
Free Migration
You do not have to pay them to have your site migrated to their platform. They will do it for free.
Free Debugging
When you migrate, they will debug your website for free upon request. So, if your website is facing any problem, they will find it and fix it.
Automatic Backups
They perform automatic backups everyday and store them for 30 days.
Pros of Templ
- Because Templ uses Google Cloud Platform, you get the same reliability and scalability as Google’s own servers.
- They offer free speed audit and speed optimization.
- They have hacked site guarantee under which they will cleanup hacked sites free of cost.
Cons of Templ
They have 5 different plans and none of the plan allows more than one WordPress installation. The highest plan called Large costs $149 a month. So, if you have 5 high traffic websites that require their Large plan, the total monthly cost will be $745 USD! That is outrageous!
Talking of site speed, you can rest assured that your websites will load incredibly fast because of Google’s Cloud Platform.
WP Engine
WP Engine is one of the veterans in managed WordPress hosting. Just because it is a veteran, it does not mean that it is the best in business. In fact, almost every new entry in the field does better than WP Engine.
Having said that, I am never saying that WP Engine is low on features. It has quite some interesting features. However, when it comes to the moment of truth, WP Engine underperforms. Its reputation does not match its actions.
You can read my entire WP Engine review and understand what I mean. It does not perform well in PageSpeed Insights tests. In fact, it is nowhere even close to the likes of Liquid Web and Flywheel.
That does not mean that you cannot achieve incredible speeds. The optimizations you carry out from your end will decide a lot.
So, if you are interested in quickly learning about WP Engine instead of going through my thorough review, here you go…
Some of the core features of WP Engine include:
Free Genesis Framework and StudioPress Themes
Once you signup for WP Engine, you will get access to the Genesis framework and 35+ StudioPress themes for free. They are all premium, but you will get them for free.
However, you need to understand that what you get are not state-of-the-art. They are quite outdated, and they are useless when it comes to building complex websites.
Production, Staging, and Development Environments
With WP Engine you will get to work with three different environments. The development environment allows you to create your website from scratch. The staging environment will allow you to create a replica of your live website and make changes to it. Once you have made changes to your staging site, you can push them to the live or production site.
Server-side Caching
They have server-side caching enabled. Technically, you do not need to use any additional caching plugins, but I will highly recommend using one to fine-tune your caching needs the way you want it.
CDN
Just like other managed WordPress hosting providers, WP Engine also offers a CDN that can help you to improve the speed of your website.
LargeFS
This is a proprietary technology developed by WP Engine that allows you to use S3 object storage to increase your hosting account’s storage to practically unlimited. However, you need to sign up for Amazon S3.
Add-on Features
The company offers various add-on features that you can use by paying extra. For instance, you can use Global Edge Security from Cloudflare by paying $30 a month. I will never recommend it because you can get a Pro account from Cloudflare by paying $20 directly, and you will get what WP Engine offers against $30. In fact, you will get even more by directly signing up with Cloudflare.
You can use their smart plugin manager that will automatically update all your plugins. However, you must pay for using this plugin manager.
Also, you can geo-target your readers and show different content to people from different geographic locations. This, too, is a paid feature.
Pros of WP Engine
- WordPress installation is free.
- You will get free SSL.
- You will get free CDN.
- They have integrated server-side caching.
- They offer development and staging environments.
- They are PHP 7.4 compatible.
Cons of WP Engine
- The interface is clean enough, but not as intuitive as the options like Liquid Web, Flywheel, Rocket, etc.
- The backend is quite slow.
- They charge for stupid things like plugin updates.
- They charge more for Cloudflare’s specific features.
- The free themes and WordPress theme framework are not good.
- Site loading speeds are not great!
The site speed with active CDN and active caching was not at all great during the testing phase. Google hates slow websites, and hence, you should be incredibly careful. You need to perform a lot of optimizations to makes sure that your website passes core web vitals.
Pressable Managed WordPress Hosting
Another great managed WordPress hosting provider is Pressable. All its services and features are specifically geared towards the needs of WordPress sites.
You need to understand that not only WordPress is a massive beast, but it is also quite vulnerable to external threats. Pressable manages to keep you covered in both areas with various features that you are going to love.
No one can state that Pressable has a completely unique set of features, because it also provides almost everything that other managed WordPress hosting companies on this list provide (give or take some features).
Some of the core features of Pressable include:
Free SSL
This is a standard feature. Not offering this would be a quite stupid move in this competitive industry. They offer free SSL through “Let’s Encrypt.”
Malware Scanning and Threat Prevention
Pressable will regularly scan your website for malware infections and thwart of any other malicious threat that can potentially compromise the safety of your website and their servers.
WordPress Hack Recovery
The company ensures that in the event of a hack they will clean up your site and make sure that necessary precautions are in place so that the event never repeats again.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
Pressable ensures that all websites hosted on Pressable servers are protected using a web application firewall. It protects sites from SQLi (SQL injections), Cross Site Scripting (XSS), directory traversal and other online threats.
Daily Backups
They offer nightly backups of your entire site and database using Jetpack Security Daily. Though Jetpack Security Daily is a premium plugin, you get it for free with Pressable subscription. Not only will you get daily (nightly) backups, but you will also get the options of scheduled backups, easy backup restoration, etc.
Jetpack Security Daily
You get the plugin for free. Apart from backups, it also comes with advanced security and performance boosting features. It also offers an assortment of tools including a CRM.
Automatic Failover
If the server where your website is hosted fails, the system will automatically switch over to another server where an exact copy of your website is located and serve it from the new origin.
Free CDN
You also get access to a free content delivery network that will help you to speed up your site by serving static content of your site from various locations close to the readers.
Pros of Pressable
- Pressable uses NVMe (Non-volatile memory express) server infrastructure that improves server response time significantly.
- They offer 99.999% uptime guarantee.
- They offer 24×7 support.
- They also have free migration.
- They have a 30-day moneyback guarantee.
Cons of Pressable
- Their phone and chat supports are quite limited in terms of availability.
- They do not give email services. You must use a separate email service for your business email needs.
MediaTemple
Last on our list is MediaTemple. It is not just a dedicated managed WordPress hosting provider. It also offers VPS, dedicated, and shared hosting. The company even offers managed services for AWS.
However, I am sure you are not extremely interested in their other hosting solution, and neither am I interested in narrating any of those. So, let us get to the point straightaway.
Some of the core features of MediaTemple include:
Free SSL
They offer free SSL through “Let’s Encrypt.” That is good enough for website and Google has no issues if you are using a free SSL. As a matter of fact, “Let’s Encrypt” is an initiative by Google and Facebook.
Load Balancing
They distribute the site traffic over several high-performance servers, ensuring that your website keeps running smoothly even during high traffic.
Varnish Cache
They employ server-side caching using Varnish cache, thereby improving site speed. I will still recommend that you opt for a separate plugin for caching (preferably WP Rocket), because Varnish will not fulfill all caching and optimization requirements.
Global CDN
With MediaTemple’s managed WordPress hosting you will get a global CDN for free. CDNs help to speed up websites by serving static content like CSS, JS, images etc. from servers distributed globally.
Stating Environment
MediaTemple offers a staging environment where you can test new features without disrupting the experience of the live or production site.
Malware Scans
MediaTemple offers automated malware scans to thwart of a wide range of threats like malware injections, XSS or cross site scripting, etc.
Daily Backups
MediaTemple offers daily backups. Each backup is retained for 30 days. You can always restore backups in cases of unforeseen disasters.
Pros of MediaTemple
- Their customer service is noteworthy. You can access their customer service through phone and chat.
- The company also offers DDoS protection.
- They offer a 30-day moneyback guarantee.
Cons of MediaTemple
- They do not support multisite installation.
- They do not allow certain plugins.
Conclusion
Managed WordPress hosting is much more expensive that shared hosting because of the numerous features that you get. Most importantly, managed WordPress hosting providers ensure that you focus on what matters the most – your website and its content. They will do all the technical heavy lifting starting from server management to malware scans to database optimization, and more.
If you are looking for the best Kinsta alternatives, I will highly recommend Liquid Web, Flywheel, WPX, and Rocket. They have established themselves are industry leaders and their services are not only comparable to Kinsta, but even better.
My vote always goes to Liquid Web and it is coming out of personal experience of hosting multiple websites with them. The sheer number of features they offer and the type of customer support they provide is unmatched.
I am not saying that Flywheel, WPX, and Rocket are bad options. They are great, but Liquid Web is my choice. Your choice may differ!
