First i will start off with what is optimised hosting?

[updated 17 October 2015]

In simple terms it means that your hosting provider has provided exclusive hardware or servers for hosting your blog and enhanced the software and plugins to make your blog runs more smoothly and faster than normal blogs and websites. You can also say it is better than shared hosting but more affordable than many dedicated hosting plans

If you are just beginning with your first WordPress blog, you have come to the right place by visiting start a website.info, because my mini optimised or managed WordPress hosting guide is sure to be very helpful to you. Even if you are already into blogging and have some knowledge of all this pricing comparison will help you.

One of the most voiced problems by website owners and bloggers is the problem of slowness in their websites and themes or website continuously breaking, or their websites getting hacked and different optimized or managed hosting takes care of all of this.

Are you a WordPress beginner who is wondering what is managed WordPress hosting or optimised wordpress hosting?

Well they both mean are the same, it’s just two different terms for the same product. Some hosting companies call it optimized hosting and some call it managed hosting

During your website-hosting research, you probably searched Google/Bing for numerous providers and found that prices of managed WordPress hosting is quite higher than the average shared hosting which you can get for as low as $3.95 per month.

You might ask –Why is there such a big price difference?

• · Is it really that much better?
• · Do I need managed/optimized WordPress hosting for my site?
• · Which is the best managed WordPress hosting company?

If you have all these questions, then you have come to the right place.

To sum it up in short for ya, Google search engine which pretty much runs 70 % of all searches online loves a fast, speedy Mobile optimised and secure website and managed hosting enables you to get all of these factors into your website or blog

In the following post, I will help you to select the best managed/optimized WordPress hosting for your WordPress blog and also provide some options for shared hosting just in case the price difference is not really appealing to you. In the past ten years of my own blogging journey, I have used more than 5 WordPress shared hosting services, two managed hosting services and one unmanaged dedicated VPS server.

There are other types of Word Press hosting options as well like (VPS, dedicated, etc.) apart from shared and optimised hosting.

Optimised /Managed Hosting Vs. Shared hosting

I have provide the prices for each host and also provided prices for shared hosting, but if your are starting a new blog and want to get a head start I would recommend optimized hosting. If you are a blogger already or small business website , then if you don’t have optimized hosting , you are just putting yourself behind in this competitive market.

I recommend bluehost hosting because I use their shared as well as optimised hosting and their nginx powered software-servers for this are doing a great job.

Techy webmasters have been powering their websites with nginx to make it run faster long before bluehost came up with this offer , so its definitely worth the difference in price. The other thing is they are cheaper than wp engine

Price comparison for Optimized hosting and managed hosting vs Shared

Hosting company	Optimized Hosting	Shared hosting
Bluehost	$12.49* Buy now	$3.49 (42%off) Buy now
Dreamhost	$19.95 Buy now	$5.95 (40% off) Buy now
Hostgator	Optimized- $7.46 * Click Here	$3.96 month (3 yr plan)Click here
Wpengine	$29 Buy now	Premuim Managed hosting
Godaddy	$5.99 Buy now	$3.99 Buy now
Hostmonster	$74.99 First month Dedicated Buy now	$3.95 Buy now

*Most providers the first month is cheaper (due to promotion) for managed hosting and then a slightly higher rate after that. Some hosting providers will provide a cheaper rate for the hosting if you lock in a longer term plan (these could be better for your pocket). All prices are monthly.

I would suggest that for a new WordPress blog (traffic less than 2,000/Day), Shared hosting is the best hosting option to start with. If it’s any higher than that you should probably think of upgrading to managed wordpress hosting

Twitter Update

How to start a Tech Food or Fashion blog The ultimate guide from A to Z blog Guide https://t.co/iwpGCrQT1m pic.twitter.com/U1803ES6PY

— DigitalGrog (@undermarrest) October 5, 2015

How did Bluehost come out with their optimized hosting product ?

Many users were not happy with the loading times and slowness of normal shared servers. So a lot of people requested that Bluehost add a new service optimized, especially for WordPress users. These people wanted the power of a fast loading time, and the advanced security protection for wordpress, from the Bluehost servers.

I just signed up for the ‘WordPress Optimized Hosting’ at BlueHost and wanted to share… (What I am happy about). It does seem like they have an nginx / varnish / apache setup going, which seems like over kill, though it works speedily enough. They are priced at $12.49 special price for the first month (check above buy link for more details)

From experience i can say this:
Bluehost Shared vs Bluehost Shared PRO , the PRO wins.

· BlueHost PRO you get:
3.000 mysql tables (sum of all mysql , 1.000 in normal version)
Dedicated IP + SSL
BackupPRO
And better speed, from 5% to 20% speed increase
For WP version of Bluehost you get more optimised things,
more dedicated ram.

In 50% of cases, the things are easy with website speed:

· More RAM = More speed
More Cores = More speed
W3 Cache (or any) = More speed

Hosting anywhere from 5 to 30 WordPress sites

Why just host 1 website on an optimized server, instead of hosting a single website like many other managed WordPress hosting providers, Bluehost lets you host up to 5 sites for their cheapest plan, and the maximum WordPress sites you can host is 30 on the enterprise plan. It also offers Positive WildcardSSL, and with SiteLock enterprise, and premium services that no one else offers

History with optimised wordpress blogs

Optimizing blogs with nginx is not that well known , but a lot of bloggers with technical knowledge of Servers and IT were already optimizing their word press blogs themselves to get the best speed and bug free running of their blogs. These webmasters/bloggers using word press customised with nginx and apache and also running blogs on home servers with good speed while some more nerdy folks were using varnish script or then Nginx customised with W3 total cache.

You might ask “what is nginx”

Nginx (pronounced “engine x”) is a web server with a strong focus on high concurrency, performance and low memory usage. It can also act as a reverse proxy server for HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP, POP3, and IMAP protocols, as well as a load balancer and an HTTP cache.

To put it in simple non techy language they were already optimizing their wordpressblogs to get eh best speed and usability to gain a superior advantage over other blogs. Now with bluehost , Dreampress, Go daddy and WP engine coming out with managed-optmised wordpress from out of the box , that advantage is pretty much gone

What are alternatives to optimised or managed hosting ?

Blog VPS hosting

Vps hosting involves a virtual machine sold as a service by an internet hosting service. It’s like having your own computer but in the cloud ,so you can install and run anything from it . The technology behind VPS hosting is similar to that of VMware or Virtual Box. These programs allow you to run several virtualized operating systems on one machine

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated Hosting plans can be compared to owning a house. You are allowed and have access to all resources available on the machine. In the Web hosting business, a dedicated server refers to the rental and exclusive use of a computer that includes a Web server, related software, and connection to the Internet, housed in the Web hosting company’s premises.

The Best Managed WordPress Web Hosting Services for 2015

I’ve already mentioned bluehost optimised hosting too many times , so I will just continue with the rest and just provide a little bit more details of feature so what they provide

Dreamhost ( Dreampress 2 – Optimized wordpress hosting )

Dreamhost is also offering managed (optimized) word press hosting. Their price is $19.95/mo when you sign up for an annual plan, take nay shorter plan and you will have to shell out $24.95 a month.

DreamPress 2 Features

Now with SSDs

PHP 5.5 with OPcache & optional HHVM

Dreampress highly reliable managed WordPress hosting service from DreamHost is hosted on virtual private servers and they have added speed enhancing features such as Solid State Drives (SSDs) and optional HHVM (Hip Hop Virtual Machine). You may ask what these fancy terms do, in simple english it will help prevent site slowness, website errors, or frustrated visitors.

 

WP engine – Some info about wp engine

Wp Engine is mainly an premuim optimized web-hosting provider and has many plans starting from $29 a month – up to $249 + a month including personal / professional / business / premium /enterprise plans.

For E.g.

Their personal plans has the following features

· 1Wordpress install

· 25k month visitors (pay more for more)

· 10 Gb local storage (more than enough)

· Unlimited data transfer

Create a Website Today

 

Hostgator –Dedicated Hosting(VPS Hosting)

Hostgator has dedicated hosting which is managed through virtual private servers. They run a Semi-Managed VPS for their $11.97 plan(Snappy 500 -now 40% off). They have other plans like Snappy 1000/2000/4000/8000 which you can take according to your requirements.

Their Dedicated plans use Virtual Private Servers with no control panel and are considered semi-managed. Support for these is limited, but they provide full root access allows you total control, as well as the ability to install advanced software and completely customize your hosting environment.

Features of their dedicated hosting

· HostGator VPS servers utilize 32-Core AMD Opteron 6376 processors

· 128GB of RAM

· 3.6TB of RAID 10 storage.

They are available 24/7/365 via Telephone, Live chat, and Email for assistance and support.

Godaddy Optimised

Godaddy calls its optimized wordpress hosting product as managed wordpress hosting.

A$5.99/mo
ON SALE – SAVE 40%
A$9.99 /mo when you renew

Features of Godaddy Managed Hosting

• 1 website
• 10GB SSD storage
• 25,000 visitors/month
• SFTP Access

Hostmonster

Hostmonster and hostagator both suggest free plugins like W3total cachce and WP super cache to speed up your shared hosting blog. However hostmonster also offers dedicated hosting in the cloud.

• WP Super Cache (recommended)
• W3 Total Cache

Standard Plan features

$149.99 PER MONTH $74.99*FIRST MONTH

• Dual core, 2.3 GHz Intel® Xeon Processor
• 3 MB cache
• 4 GB RAM
• 500 GB (RAID 1)
• 5 TB/month
• Free Domain Name
• 3 IPs
• CentOS 6.5 (64-bit)

Hosting is really an essential part of any online business or blog. Making sure that you use a plan that’s ideally suited to your needs as a blogger or a business is crucial to serving a fast, secure website for your visitors.

Special Promotion Offer for APRIL 2016  from Digital GROG + BLUEHOST

From April 25th until May 2nd at 11:59 PM MT, we’re offering$3.49/mo for 36 months (link here)on the Basic Plan. 

And, as a special bonus, My readers can enjoy the ultimate steal of $2.95/mo for 12 months on the Basic Plan and $4.95 for 12 months on the Plus Plan.(this promo starts promo Wednesday, April 27th! – Get it here )

Normal Deal links below

You hopefully now have a good overall understanding of the differences between shared and managed(optimised) WordPress hosting. In short: If you’re running a WordPress website and have $12 to $19 a month to spare, you should almost certainly make the switch to a managed WordPress host.

A good hosting plan you choose can often directly influence your website’s earnings! So make the right choice and get on with starting your website today, without wasting any more time. Goodluck!

Related articles across the web

• Does Your Website Make Any of These 10 Common Mistakes?
• Google, Twitter and Publishers Seek Faster Web
• Why Running Multiple WordPress Firewalls is a Bad Idea