HostPapa vs. WP Engine: Choosing the Right WordPress Hosting Solution


Want your business to succeed online? In today’s digital world, your website needs to be powered by a secure, and reliable hosting platform. A supercharged hosting platform designed for speed and performance, backed by great customer support.

With the current issues surrounding Automattic (WordPress) and WP Engine, now may be the time to reevaluate your hosting options. In uncertain economic times, stability and reliability are crucial. As more businesses rely on their online presence to attract customers, disruptions can be costly.

Ensuring your website runs smoothly is vital, making it the perfect moment to explore alternatives like HostPapa. If you want a dependable and robust online presence, planning ahead is key.

What Is Happening Between Automattic (WordPress) & WP Engine?

Simply put, this is an unfortunate conflict between Automattic—the company behind WordPress.org—and WP Engine. The dispute has already led to actions being taken by the two parties. 

These actions include:

  • WP Engine receiving a temporary ban from WordPress.org features. 
  • Users of WP Engine being unable to access certain services.

The most worrying outcome of this dispute could result in consequences for the WordPress ecosystem. However, it’s too early to tell whether the conflict will be resolved amicably or may escalate further. It’s a worrying development for those who make a living with an online business.

HostPapa: A Safe Haven for WordPress Hosting

HostPapa is a formidable player in the web hosting industry, offering tailored solutions for WordPress users. Let’s dive into why HostPapa could be the answer to your hosting needs:

Stellar Features Offered by HostPapa

  • Fully Managed WordPress Hosting: HostPapa provides managed WordPress hosting that includes automated updates of both WP Core install plus themes and plugins, on servers optimized for WordPress websites, ensuring high performance and security.
  • User-friendly control panel: With a simple and intuitive dashboard, HostPapa allows users to manage their websites efficiently, supported by tutorial videos and an extensive knowledge base.
  • Committed to security: HostPapa prioritizes security, with enhanced features like managed Web Application Firewall, Edge CDN, Advanced DDoS Protection and Imunify360 anti-virus system. And let’s not forget the free Lets Encrypt SSL certificates that ensure a safe browsing experience for visitors.

Seamless Migration and Support

  • Free domain transfer: HostPapa makes transferring your existing domain to its powerful servers easy, ensuring a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Free domain transfers are essential in web hosting in terms of cost-efficiency and accessibility. Once your domain has been transferred to your new web hosting provider, you can organize all areas of your online presence: website, domain, and more from a single easy-to-use dashboard. HostPapa offers this service in their plans, inspiring confidence even among beginners.
  • Award-winning support: With an in-house Customer Care team ready to assist, HostPapa offers reliable and timely support, ensuring you never feel stranded in the migration process. We can’t stress enough how important this is when using a web hosting service. 

Let’s elaborate on a few reasons:

  1. Problem-solving: Why struggle with technical issues when a reliable support team can resolve the issue for you? This means your day is productive and not spent worrying about technical problems.
  2. Helpful assistance and time-saving guidance: With any WordPress hosting plan, you need to make sure the provider can offer you help on a wide range of topics, when you need it. Always look for a provider with a proven support track record that can help you with items such as configuring your email, optimizing your website performance, SEO, backups, and more. Ensure the provider you choose offers support via phone, chat, email, and offers detailed FAQs, Knowledge Base articles, videos, and more.
  3. Security: Prevent malicious requests from reaching your WordPress site with Cloudflare Enterprise WAF. HostPapa offers protection against SQL injections, DDoS attacks, and other security threats to keep your website safe.
  4. Time management: It’s nice to know you have friendly and approachable support staff on speed dial. This sense of security lets you concentrate on more important things, such as your customers and sales.

HostPapa vs. WP Engine: Key Differences

  • WP Engine and HostPapa differ in terms of their prices. HostPapa is the clear winner, with options for those with the tightest budgets. HostPapa caters to small businesses looking to get started with an online presence built with WordPress, or those that require performance and speed to run websites that are indispensable to their business. HostPapa has a wide range of options for all business types at competitive prices. In terms of performance, HostPapa is solid and reliable. This quality is backed up by its easy-to-use cPanel and easy-to-address hands-on tools, complete with a dedicated knowledge base.
  • WP Engine, on the other hand, is strictly designed for Enterprise businesses and developers seeking high-performance and feature-dense hosting solutions. While WP Engine’s pricing plans are more expensive, its scalability means it is of good use for those with gigantic websites that will require strong reliability.
  • Ultimately, the best choice between HostPapa and WP Engine depends on your specific needs and budget. If you prioritize affordability, speed, performance, and great support, HostPapa is the best provider. If you’re an enterprise that runs mission-critical websites, a staunch WordPress developer, and don’t mind paying a premium, then WP Engine might be a great provider for your needs. However, HostPapa does not fall behind by much and is purpose-built for large-enterprise organizations.

HostPapa Offers an Onboarding Session: Do You Need One?

One of the biggest differences we found between HostPapa and WP Engine was in the area of onboarding. 

WP Engine doesn’t offer any onboarding with their web hosting plans. HostPapa, on the other hand, provides an entirely free One-on-One 30-minute onboarding session. As we asked, do you really need one? The truth is an onboarding session can make a massive difference when getting started with a web hosting service. Here’s an outline of what we discovered:

  • Crystal clear understanding: There’s nothing like face-to-face interaction. With a properly structured introduction to the HostPapa platform, new users can understand essential concepts and functions right from day one. If the slightest thing doesn’t make sense, onboarding allows you to ask for a plain English explanation. 
  • Stress reduction: We recommend making a list of questions to ask in your onboarding session. For example, what has frustrated you about web hosting in the past, or what makes you nervous when expanding your website? Minimize the learning curve and get the answers you want.
  • Simple efficiency: A thorough onboarding session can help you gain the skills and knowledge to get the most from your web hosting service. It’s simple and efficient, particularly in regard to the time you save. 
  • It’s personal: Remember the computer lessons with large classes? The ones where asking questions was difficult? Not with one-on-one. As well as personalized, easy-to-understand guidance, you ask questions and get what you need out of the session.
  • Confidence shows: Onboarding sessions boost confidence by letting you open up about what you’d like and what may worry you in the future. Overall, we believe you’ll receive a huge confidence boost when navigating your web hosting environment.

To wrap up, investing time in an onboarding session—especially when it’s free—will give you the foundation to understand your hosting solution and achieve all your online goals.

HostPapa vs. WP Engine: A Comparison

  • Reliability and performance: Both HostPapa and WP Engine invest in top technology for optimal performance. However, HostPapa is committed to supplying blazing-fast page load speeds thanks to Enterprise Edge CDN, Full Page Caching, Smart Routing, and automated image optimization. All these result in the average TTFB of around ~70ms. Just think mind-blowing speed.
  • Independence and support: HostPapa’s focus on customer commitment and reliable support stands out when compared to WP Engine. They prioritize customer satisfaction above all.
  • Security measures: While both providers offer robust security features, HostPapa provides a combination of local server protection provided by Imunify360 Web Security System with CloudFlare’s Enterprise Edge CDN’s Security that covers all the edge Points of Presence, which results in the top-notch, uncomparable security.

When It Comes to Security, Whose Hands Are Safest?

You’ll find that both HostPapa and WP Engine are keen on good security. However, the two approach the issue with different strategies and focus on various areas.

HostPapa has offered its users a multilayered security suite. This comes in the form of:

  • Free SSL Certificates: All HostPapa’s plans include this feature to ensure secure data transmission between the website and the visitor.
  • Firewall: To help you defend yourself against malicious online attacks, the web hosting service includes a strong built-in firewall.
  • Regular malware scanning: To detect and remove malware, HostPapa runs routine and robust scans.
  • Backups and Restore: For easy restoration in the event of data loss, HostPapa offers daily backups for your peace of mind.
  • The latest updates: The fight against hackers and viruses is an ongoing battle. To help you adapt, HostPapa keeps server software at the top with the latest security patches.

On the other side of the fence, WP Engine has focused specifically on WordPress. This has made its security more specialized and niche.

In terms of security, WP Engine has: 

  • WordPress-centric security: The platform WP Engine performs from is optimized for WordPress. It includes security measures strictly made to order for the platform’s weaknesses.
  • Real-time detection: WP Engine uses ultra-modern technology to detect and stop threats.
  • Automatic updates: The platform focuses heavily on updating WordPress at its core level, focusing on themes, plugins, and attempting to reduce the risk of vulnerabilities.
  • Large security team: WP Engine employs several security experts, who monitor and respond to any threats WordPress may encounter.
  • Global CDN: WP Engine’s global content delivery network aims to help protect against DDoS attacks and also looks to rev up performance.

As you can see, both WP Engine and HostPapa provide an array of security features. WP Engine has chosen to focus on WordPress, while HostPapa has many features that focus on security. If you’re focusing on WordPress, then WP Engine offers great features. WP Engine has chosen to focus strictly on WordPress, while HostPapa has many more features that focus on security, ensuring your website and business are always protected against any form of malicious attacks.

Help That Stays Still & Moves at the Same Time

One essential area in which HostPapa excels over WP Engine is in its Knowledge Base. As well as an extensive archive for users looking to troubleshoot or improve their site, the Knowledge Base at HostPapa can provide much more. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a concept that has been around for a long time but is seldom explained in simple terms. Not so at HostPapa. Not only do new users have access to a comprehensive introduction to SEO but there is also an extensive beginner’s guide to hand. 

With video content becoming increasingly popular, HostPapa has increased its presence in creating this type of content. With new videos each day, handy hints and tips are offered for web hosting and everyday business features such as Gmail. The list of videos is constantly updated with new content: How do you filter Gmail or send it with a different email address? HostPapa will soon explain in under 90 seconds.

HostPapa’s Knowledge Base is easy to use and designed to address every customer question.

Get Managed WordPress & Save 50% on a 2-Year Term:

Final Words

In the end, HostPapa is a reliable, secure and customer focused WordPress hosting that you can safely move to, given the challenges other providers are facing. Their feature-packed plans, smooth migration process and excellent support makes them a great choice for individuals and businesses looking for a hosting partner.

When it comes to choosing a WordPress hosting provider, HostPapa’s performance, security, and support are the winning combination in the hosting space.

Whether you are starting a new website or considering moving your existing one, HostPapa’s WordPress hosting solutions offer a safe and reliable option to meet your needs effectively. Visit HostPapa today and experience hassle-free WordPress hosting like never before!

By choosing HostPapa, you are not just selecting a hosting provider but you are joining a supportive community that cares about your online success. HostPapa is also strongly committed to helping you achieve your business goals with ease.

Disclaimer: The comparison presented in this blog post is based on information gathered from the provided scrape of the HostPapa website. It is recommended to conduct further research before making a final decision on selecting a hosting provider.

HostPapa: Your Partner in Web Success!

Loukas is a technology enthusiast. He enjoys writing content for numerous amount of topics. He's also a music fan who loves playing the guitar and occasionally shooting photos and videos professionally.

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