The best managed WordPress hosting providers (reviewed and compared)

WordPress powers 40% of the internet, remaining the most popular content management system in the world. The extensive functionality it offers, combined with its ease of use and high customization capabilities, make it an appealing choice for many aspiring website owners.

Building a great website will help you increase content engagement. But choosing the right managed WordPress hosting provider will define the success of your online business in the long term.

Even the most spectacular design will not keep your visitors engaged if your website suffers from poor performance and frequent downtime. That is why the importance of hosting can not be overstated.

In this comprehensive guide to WordPress hosting, Liquid Web will share expert tips on how to find the best managed WordPress hosting solution in 2024. We compared six major chart-topping hosting providers to see if what they offer is actually worth your time and money. To learn more, just keep reading.

The best managed WordPress hosting providers

Here’s a quick overview of the providers we’ll be discussing to help you assess which of these options is most applicable to you:

Provider	Starting price	Best For	Key Features	Notable Limitations
Liquid Web	$5.25/mo (75% off for the first three months)	Small to enterprise-level websites	• 10+ PHP workers  • Premium plugins included  • 30-day backups  • Cloudflare CDN  • Visual comparison tool	• No free domain  • Limited infrastructure customization
Bluehost	$1.99/mo (70% off first year)	Small WordPress blogs and business sites	• Free domain (1st year)  • Free SSL  • Website templates	• No automated updates  • Limited backups  • High renewal rates
SiteGround	$2.99/mo	Small to medium-sized businesses	• Google Cloud infrastructure  • CDN included  • 30-day backups  • Auto updates	• Limited upgrade path  • No free domain  • High domain rates
Kinsta	$35/mo and up	Enterprise-level websites	• Google Cloud infrastructure  • Cloudflare Enterprise • Strong support team	• Expensive  • Limited PHP workers  • Many paid add-ons
HostGator	$7.95/mo	Beginners	• Free domain  • Free SSL  • Daily backups  • SiteLock security	• Limited WordPress options  • Not for larger sites  • No clear upgrade path
WP Engine	$20/mo	Small to large mission-critical sites	• Cloud infrastructure  • CDN included  • Daily backups  • Performance monitoring	• Expensive  • Many paid add-ons • Limited storage/bandwidth

Now, let’s take a look at each our these best managed wordpress hosting providers in closer detail.

1. Liquid Web

Liquid Web has been offering the best managed WordPress hosting for over two decades. Combining years of experience working with the content management system with cutting-edge technology solutions, Liquid Web has built a secure and highly scalable infrastructure fully optimized for WordPress. See why WordPress users trust Liquid Web with their business.

Liquid Web managed WordPress hosting is a perfect solution for small to enterprise-level websites due to a wide range of hosting plans. Smaller cloud plans include everything you need for a great start, and you can easily upgrade as your business grows.

One notable aspect of Liquid Web WordPress hosting solutions is having the same tools and optimizations included regardless of the plan you choose. There are no hidden fees or unnecessary add-ons that will make your hosting expenses go soaring as you build your online presence.

Performance and uptime:

Liquid Web ensures high performance by using the cloud hosting architecture and a wide range of server-side optimizations. It includes the best caching solutions, expertly tuned for WordPress, and a generous amount of hosting resources allocated to each website.

Liquid Web includes a minimum of 10 PHP workers on all managed WordPress hosting plans, and 20 PHP workers on WooCommerce hosting solutions. On top of that, the amount of system memory per one PHP process is not limited. This helps ensure all resource-intensive plugins and other add-ons you have on your website are functioning properly.

Liquid Web maintains global data centers and offers a lightning-fast content delivery network with over 20 points of presence worldwide. Using the CDN powered by Cloudflare helps bring static content closer to your website visitors and eliminates any latency.

With a guaranteed uptime of over 99.9% and auto scaling to handle traffic surges with confidence, you can forget about poor website performance and downtime.

Security:

Security is one of the top priorities for Liquid Web. Managed WordPress hosting plans bring together a wide range of server-side and website-level solutions to build a secure hosting platform. Secure permissions, full user isolation, and advanced firewall rulesets significantly reduce the attack surface by eliminating the possibility of privilege escalation or cross-account hacks.

Solid Security Pro, the industry-leading WordPress security plugin, is included in all our WordPress and WooCommerce hosting plans.

Paired with robust solutions for DDos and brute force protection and instant attack mitigation, the web application firewall implemented can filter out the vast majority of malicious requests coming to your WordPress website. Free unlimited SSL certificates ensure end-to-end encryption for an improved user experience.

Backups and updates:

Liquid Web offers automatic software updates for WordPress core, themes, and plugins. Using the Visual Comparison tool, a premium solution for tracking any plugin conflicts and potential incompatibilities, makes update management easy and headache free.

Advanced development tools such as Development Sites and additional staging environments offer seamless development and easy deployment. Liquid Web keeps 30 days worth of off-site backups stored at a remote location to offer one-click restores in critical moments of website maintenance.

Premium WordPress software solutions:

Liquid Web focuses on the idea of having the best solutions built in, so WordPress website owners can leverage a high-performance platform with a wide range of premium software solutions included.

Managed WordPress and WooCommerce hosting plans feature the Installer plugin — a catalog of expertly selected premium plugins for WordPress.

Our Installer Plugin allows you to leverage the industry-leading solutions for better performance and security, improved SEO, and advanced ecommerce functionality, free of extra charge. A large number of premium plugins that can be installed in one click makes Liquid Web the best managed hosting for WordPress.

Liquid Web pros:

• Affordable WordPress and WooCommerce hosting plans.
• Automatic updates.
• Advanced development tools.
• Premium WordPress plugins included free of charge.
• Domain registration and global DNS.
• Free SSL certificates.
• 30 days of free daily off-site backups.
• A lightning-fast CDN powered by Cloudflare.
• One management portal for all website administration tasks.
• No upsells or resource overage charges.

Liquid Web cons:

• Limited infrastructure customization options and no root access.
• No free domain name included.

Liquid Web pricing

Liquid Web managed WordPress and WooCommerce plans start at $19. With an annual subscription, you can enjoy three months of premium WordPress hosting for as low as $5.25 for the first three months. The Spark plan allows you to bring your business online, with the Maker (Creator) and Designer (Merchant)  plans available as you expand into more websites.

Wondering how we compare? Learn how Liquid Web delivers more value than any other host. Compare our hosting plans now.

2. Bluehost

Bluehost is pretty popular in the WordPress community. Let’s see if it can be considered the best WordPress managed hosting provider.

Bluehost offers four managed hosting plans for WordPress that include everything you need for a quick start. A free domain name and SSL for the first year can make Bluehost WordPress hosting an appealing choice for many aspiring website owners. However, very limited functionality and strict limitations can overshadow the hosting experience.

Bluehost managed WordPress hosting can be ideal for small WordPress blogs and business websites that do not receive many website visitors and do not require much additional functionality. As the hosting provider also offers VPS and dedicated hosting, large and midsize businesses are encouraged to move to their own server infrastructure.

Performance and uptime:

Bluehost does not reveal what infrastructure optimizations are implemented to ensure fast load times, but promises 75% faster response times on their platform compared to using no additional caching and other performance solutions. Bluehost encourages their customers to use Cloudflare to optimize the delivery of static content.

Security:

Bluehost offers free SSL certificates on all managed WordPress hosting plans. While basic DDos protection and a web application firewall can protect WordPress websites hosted, website owners need to implement additional solutions on the website level to achieve a better level of security.

Backups and updates:

Bluehost does not offer any automatic updates for WordPress, so users will be responsible for installing the latest version of WordPress, themes, and all plugins.

The Basic and Plus hosting plans do not include any backups, with only the most expensive of the four — the Pro plan — providing automated backups.

Bluehost pros:

• One of the most affordable WordPress hosting solutions.
• Free domain name for the first year.
• Free SSL certificates.
• A number of website templates available.

Bluehost cons:

• Very limited functionality included.
• No automated updates.
• No backups included.
• High domain renewal rates after the first year.

Bluehost pricing

Bluehost managed WordPress hosting plans start at $1.99 monthly (this is the 70% off price you can pay with an annual subscription. This discount is only valid for the first year, with auto renewals taking place at regular rates.

All four WordPress hosting solutions do not differ much in terms of pricing as Bluehost expects midsize and large websites to be moved to VPS or dedicated hosting as part of the upgrade path.

3. SiteGround

SiteGround is another hosting provider that offers one of the best managed hosting WordPress solutions for both beginners to the platform and experienced website owners.

SiteGround can be ideal for small to medium-sized businesses that need a fast and reliable hosting platform. The three main plans include a wide range of features and built-in tools.

Similar to other managed WordPress hosts on our list, SiteGround ensures high performance and advanced security by using the cloud architecture and a web application firewall. However, as SiteGround also offers VPS hosting, larger businesses are expected to rent their own server to accommodate traffic.

Performance and uptime:

SiteGround uses the Google Cloud infrastructure to build their platform for hosting WordPress. The host

implements advanced caching and a number of optimizations to the PHP and database server configuration to ensure great web page load times for all websites.

The host has also recently introduced their CDN and SiteGround Optimizer, a plugin included with all WordPress hosting plans to help website owners manage PHP and enable all performance optimizations.

With all improvements taken into account, SiteGround might be the best managed hosting for WordPress if your website is resource-intensive.

Security:

SiteGround uses a web application firewall with a number of custom rules to keep WordPress websites from authorized access and various security vulnerabilities. On top of that, the host has developed their own intelligent anti-bot software. Free SSL is a great addition to the existing security features.

Backups and updates:

SiteGround offers 30 days of backups on all managed WordPress hosting plans. On GrowBig and GoGeek solutions, you can create up to five on-demand backups at a time.

Automatic WordPress core and plugin updates make SiteGround even more appealing.

SiteGround pros:

• Affordable managed WordPress hosting.
• Automatic backups and WordPress updates included.
• Free SSL certificates.
• A CDN included.
• One management portal for all website administration tasks.

SiteGround cons:

• Limited upgrade path.
• No free domain name included.
• High domain registration rates.

SiteGround pricing

Just like other hosts, SiteGround offers discounts if you prepay for a year. Without any discounts, WordPress hosting pricing ranges from $2.99 to $34.99 monthly.

4. Kinsta

Kinsta is a premium managed WordPress hosting provider designed for enterprise-level websites. Kinsta is extremely popular in the WordPress community, but it can not at all be considered an affordable hosting solution, especially for beginners.

Kinsta offers 10 different managed WordPress hosting plans that allow for a different number of monthly visits and websites hosted.

One of the first things that catch your attention is a relatively low amount of hosting resources included with each hosting solution. Having focused on building a strong support team and the brand image, Kinsta requires you to pay much more than other hosts to get access to their platform and premium support.

Performance and uptime:

Kinsta builds its WordPress platform on the Google Cloud infrastructure and includes the paid Cloudflare Enterprise plan to ensure high-performance and uptime. Caching and database optimization can help speed up your WordPress website even more.

However, all WordPress hosting plans, including the Enterprise solutions, allocate less than 15 PHP workers per website, which is an extremely low number. You can get 10 or more PHP workers only having paid over $1000 monthly on the Enterprise 2 hosting plan.

Moreover, solutions such as Redis cache or Nginx reverse proxy, are going to cost you an additional $50-100 a month. Liquid Web and some other hosting providers on the list include that free of charge.

We are sure that Kinsta customers leverage the high-performance platform Kinsta maintains, but trying to achieve great web page load times will almost inevitably make your costs go soaring with this hosting provider.

Security:

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall with managed rulesets ensures a high level of security and protection against DDos and brute force attacks. Free SSL certificates are included with all WordPress hosting plans.

Backups and updates:

Kinsta includes two weeks to twenty days of daily backups on Starter, Pro, and Business plans, with 30 copies of your website saved on Enterprise plans. If you would like more backups saved, hourly backups will cost you an extra $50-$100 a month.

The need for storing backups externally on Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Storage will also bring additional expenses.

Kinsta does not offer automatic WordPress updates and encourages their customers to test new releases first in the staging environment.

Kinsta pros:

• Kinsta is fully focused on hosting WordPress.
• A wide range of hosting plans.
• Free SSL certificates.
• CloudFlare Enterprise included.
• One management portal for all website administration tasks.
• Great support.

Kinsta cons:

• More expensive than other WordPress hosting solutions.
• Constant upsells.
• A small amount of hosting resources allocated.
• No domain registration.

Kinsta pricing

Kinsta managed WordPress hosting starts at $35 monthly, and your hosting costs double as you upgrade. For example, the Business 1 plan with 5 WordPress installations and 4 PHP workers included will cost you $155 monthly, while you will have to pay up to $1650 a month on Enterprise solutions.

5. HostGator

HostGator is one of the best options for absolute beginners who need a reliable platform to start building their online presence using WordPress. A free domain name and a number of other features included make HostGator plans one of the best managed hosting WordPress solutions.

HostGator could be good for you if you are just starting your online business and have a long way to go until your website starts receiving a large number of daily visitors. The Starter plan allows you to host just one website, while the Business plan includes three WordPress installations.

However, if you are running a larger website or plan to host an online store, HostGator WordPress hosting is not for you. As the host also offers VPS and dedicated servers, experienced website owners can move to their own platform to accommodate traffic as their business grows.

Performance and uptime:

HostGator guarantees 99.9% uptime and fast page load speed for all WordPress websites hosted. This is achieved by a number of solutions implemented on the server side. Cloudflare is included with all WordPress hosting plans to speed up your website even more.

Security:

HostGator includes free SSL certificates and a number of built-in security solutions. SiteLock Security and  CodeGuard offer malware monitoring, vulnerability scanning, and daily backups to provide an additional layer of security for your WordPress website.

Backups and updates:

Daily automatic backups are included in all three managed WordPress hosting plans. HostGator offers from 1 to 3G of storage for daily backups, so the number of website copies you can have at once depends on the size of your website.

Automatic WordPress core, theme, and plugin updates, however, are not provided. HostGator customers are encouraged to run updates manually to ensure the latest versions of the software in use are installed on time.

HostGator pros:

• Best WordPress managed hosting for absolute beginners.
• Very affordable.
• Free SSL certificates.
• Free domain name included.
• Free daily backups.
• A number of premium security solutions included.

HostGator cons:

• Very limited options for hosting WordPress.
• Not suitable for larger websites.
• No clear upgrade path.

HostGator pricing

HostGator offers discounts if you sign in for three years, which is the default option selected once you try to register a hosting account. This way, you can get 40% off and pay just $4.50. monthly for the Starter plan. Without any discounts, HostGator pricing for WordPress plans ranges from $16.49 to $29.69 monthly.

6. WP Engine

WP Engine is another hosting provider on our list that is focused on WordPress. From small WordPress blogs or business websites to large, mission-critical portals and marketplaces, WP Engine offers managed WordPress hosting solutions for a large audience of business owners.

Similar to Kinsta, WP Engine positions itself as premium hosting, and the WordPress plans the host offers are not really affordable. With just 10G of storage and 50G of bandwidth included with the smallest managed WordPress plans, WP Engine might not be the best choice for small websites.

Performance and uptime:

WP Engine provides high-performance hosting on a modern cloud infrastructure with WordPress optimized caching. The host guarantees over 99% uptime, and integrates a CDN to speed up the delivery of static content.

Page performance monitoring helps test how fast the critical areas of your website load and gives recommendations on how to achieve better web page load times.

Security:

WP Engine offers malware monitoring, automatic threat detection, and free SSL certificates to ensure end-to-end encryption. You will need to pay an additional $15 a month to get more advanced web application firewall protection, with $4 extra to enable website monitoring.

Backups and updates:

The host offers free daily and on-demand backups with one-click restores. When it comes to updates, WP Engine will keep your website using the latest versions of WordPress and PHP, but you will have to pay extra to get automated plugin updates.

WP Engine allows you to create additional development and staging environments to test out new functionality before pushing it to the live site.

WP Engine pros:

• High-performance WordPress hosting.
• A CDN included.
• Free SSL certificates.
• Free daily backups.
• Automated plugin updates.

WP Engine cons:

• Rather expensive.
• A number of add-ons for an extra charge.
• No domain registration.

WP Engine pricing

WP Engine offers four main hosting options for WordPress, with prices starting from $20 monthly.

Choosing the best managed WordPress hosting provider

Managed WordPress hosting allows you to focus on your business while a team of WordPress experts is responsible for managing all technical aspects of your online presence. With a hosting platform optimized for WordPress, you can significantly simplify your life as a website owner. But how do you choose the best managed hosting for WordPress?

Choosing the best managed WordPress hosting provider is challenging. When you are just starting out, you need an affordable hosting solution with a great website builder and a number of WordPress plugins. But as your business grows and receives more attention, you start prioritizing website performance and security.

Liquid Web has the best solutions built-in, allowing you to stop prioritizing one aspect of website hosting over another. Whether you are new to WordPress or are currently running a large website with thousands of active users, we can meet your unique hosting needs.

Explore our plans to get started today.

Frequently Asked Questions About Managed WordPress Hosting