Choosing the right hosting is one of the most crucial decisions you‘ll make for your WordPress website. It directly impacts your site‘s speed, security, reliability, scalability, and maintenance requirements. Among the various hosting options, two of the most popular choices are shared hosting and managed WordPress hosting.
In this ultimate guide, we‘ll take a comprehensive look at how shared hosting and managed WordPress hosting stack up, diving deep into their key differences and use cases. We‘ll equip you with the expert insights, data-driven analysis, and actionable advice you need to make an informed decision for your website. Let‘s get started!
Shared hosting is an entry-level hosting setup where your website shares a physical server and its system resources with hundreds or even thousands of other websites. It‘s the most affordable type of hosting since the server costs are distributed among all the sites hosted on it.
On a shared hosting server, resources like CPU, RAM, disk space and bandwidth are split among all websites on that server. Each site gets an allotment of resources based on their hosting plan.
However, the resources are not strictly partitioned. If one website on the server experiences a sudden surge in traffic or consumes more than its fair share of resources, it can impact the performance of other sites on the same server.
This is known as the "bad neighbor effect" – a poorly optimized site can slow down the entire server and everyone else on it suffers. It‘s a bit like living in an apartment complex. If your neighbor throws a loud party, it disrupts everyone in the building.
While shared hosting can be suitable for low-traffic WordPress sites on a budget, it has inherent limitations:
- Slow loading speeds due to lack of server resources and overcrowding
- Inconsistent performance due to sharing resources with other sites
- Limited ability to handle traffic spikes as your site grows
- Lack of WordPress-specific security measures and server hardening
- No WordPress-optimized caching or CDN for faster global delivery
- Dated versions of PHP which can hurt WordPress performance
- Responsibility for WordPress core and plugin updates falls on you
- No staging environment to safely test changes
- Generic support that can‘t always help with WordPress-specific issues
If your WordPress site is more than a hobby and uptime, speed and security are important to you, the risks and performance constraints of shared hosting often aren‘t worth the cost savings.
The Advantages of Managed WordPress Hosting
Managed WordPress hosting is a concierge hosting experience tailored for running WordPress at peak performance and reliability. Instead of using a generic one-size-fits-all server configuration, managed WordPress hosting is optimized for WordPress‘ specific requirements and eliminates the maintenance burden for you.
Superior WordPress Performance
With managed WordPress hosting, you‘ll see measurable improvements in WordPress speed and scalability:
- Servers with the latest high-performance hardware and software (PHP 7+, SSD storage, Nginx, HTTP/2)
- WordPress-optimized caching at the server level for faster page loads
- Built-in CDN to accelerate global delivery and handle high traffic
- Proactive monitoring to catch slowdowns before they impact UX
A 2020 study by Review Signal found that leading managed WordPress hosts consistently demonstrated 2-3x faster response times under scale testing compared to shared hosting providers.
Proactive WordPress Security
Managed WordPress hosts take a proactive, layered approach to securing WordPress:
- Highly-tuned WAFs (web application firewalls) to block malicious traffic
- Daily malware scanning and cleanup for early threat detection
- Hardened WordPress installations with locked-down file permissions
- Disallowing vulnerable plugins known to cause security issues
- Isolated containerized environments to contain breaches
- Automated WordPress security patches for rapid response times
Security is a full-time job, and managed WordPress hosts employ dedicated teams to protect your site around the clock so you don‘t have to stress about threats.
Automated WordPress Maintenance
With managed WordPress hosting, the host handles core WordPress maintenance for you:
- WordPress core updates are thoroughly tested and auto-applied
- PHP versions are kept up-to-date for security and performance
- Plugins and themes are monitored and updated to fix vulnerabilities
- Daily automatic backups give you a safety net for easy recovery
- One-click staging environments to test updates before pushing live
This frees up immense time and gives you peace of mind that your site is always running the latest stable and secure versions.
Expert WordPress Support
Unlike generic hosting support, managed WordPress hosts have support teams specifically trained in WordPress:
- In-depth knowledge of WordPress core, themes and popular plugins
- Faster resolution times for WordPress-specific error messages and bugs
- Proactive monitoring and fixing of WordPress issues, often before you notice
- Recommendations on WordPress best practices and performance tweaks
- Real WordPress experts available 24/7/365 over phone, chat and tickets
With shared hosting, you‘re mostly on your own when problems arise with WordPress. Managed WordPress support gives you direct access to WordPress professionals to keep your site running optimally.
Let‘s summarize the key features of shared hosting vs managed WordPress hosting side-by-side:
| Feature | Shared Hosting | Managed WordPress Hosting |
|---|---|---|
| Server Resources | Shared among many sites | Reserved for your site only |
| Traffic Spikes | Can overload server | Handles spikes smoothly |
| WordPress Optimizations | None built-in | Caching, CDN, PHP 7+ built-in |
| WordPress Updates | Manual core/plugin updates | Automatic core/plugin updates |
| Security | Server-level only | WordPress-specific hardening |
| Backups | Not always included | Automatic daily + on-demand |
| Staging | Not included | One-click staging environments |
| Support | Generic hosting support | Expert WordPress support |
| Pricing | $2 – 15/month | $25 – $150+/month |
Shared hosting can be a good fit for WordPress in a few scenarios:
- You‘re launching a brand new site and have a limited budget
- You have a small personal blog or hobby site with low traffic
- You want the lowest cost option and don‘t need advanced features
However, once your WordPress site starts gaining traction, you‘ll likely outgrow shared hosting quickly. Monitor your traffic and resource usage in your hosting dashboard. If you‘re constantly bumping up against your limits, it‘s time to upgrade before you run into problems.
When to Use Managed WordPress Hosting
Managed WordPress hosting is ideal for:
- High-traffic WordPress sites that need scalability on-demand
- Business websites that require maximum uptime and performance
- Ecommerce stores running WooCommerce that need speed and security
- Publishers with image-heavy or dynamic content
- Agencies managing multiple client WordPress sites
- Owners who want to focus on their business, not their hosting
If superior performance, security, support and eliminating tedious maintenance are important to you, managed WordPress hosting is well worth the extra cost. You‘ll save a huge amount of time and frustration compared to trying to optimize WordPress on your own with shared hosting.
Choosing the Right Managed WordPress Host
If you‘ve decided managed WordPress hosting is right for you, here are the key criteria to look for:
- Performance: Does the host offer PHP 7+, SSD storage, server-level caching, built-in CDN?
- Reliability: Do they have a 99.9% uptime guarantee or automatic failover? What‘s their past track record?
- Security: Is there WordPress-specific security hardening? Firewalls? Malware scanning?
- Backups: Are automatic daily backups included? What‘s the restore process?
- Staging: Is a one-click staging environment available to test changes risk-free?
- Support: Is 24/7 WordPress expert support available? What‘s the average response time?
We‘ve thoroughly reviewed the top managed WordPress hosts and recommend these proven options:
- WPX Hosting – Known for the fastest support response times (under 30 seconds) and free migrations
- Kinsta – Premium managed WordPress hosting powered by Google Cloud Platform
- Nexcess – Automatically scales resources, fast global CDN and performance monitoring
The Importance of Independent WordPress Backups
While managed WordPress hosts typically include automatic backups, it‘s still crucial to set up your own independent backup system.
According to a recent survey by CodeGuard, 25% of WordPress users have experienced data loss. Of those, 47% were from hacking and 31% were from plugin or theme issues.
If your host gets hacked, goes out of business or makes a mistake, you could lose access to your site with no way to restore.
Independent WordPress backups give you full control over your backup schedule and storage location. Even if the worst happens to your host, you can restore from your own backup.
We recommend using a WordPress backup plugin like UpdraftPlus or VaultPress. They let you run automated backups to cloud storage on your schedule for added peace of mind.
Conclusion and Next Steps
Choosing between shared hosting and managed WordPress hosting comes down to your technical needs, budget and growth plans.
If you‘re just getting started with a low-traffic WordPress site, a quality shared host can be an affordable starting point. However, prepare to upgrade once you start seeing performance issues or spending too much time troubleshooting problems.
For WordPress sites that are core to your business and need to scale, managed WordPress hosting is the optimal choice. While more expensive, the boost in performance, security, support and time savings is more than worth it.
Evaluate potential managed WordPress hosts carefully using the criteria we outlined. Read customer reviews, check out performance benchmarks and take advantage of free trials or money-back guarantees to thoroughly test before committing.
By investing in the right managed WordPress host and maintaining your own backup system, you‘ll set your WordPress site up for success without the technical headaches.
