I usually prefer to give a spin to some new hosting service for my side WordPress projects. It allows me to not only test their service but also add to my handful list of hosts which I can later recommend.<\/p>\n
Recently, I got introduced to this incredible Managed WordPress Hosting by WPWebHost<\/strong><\/a>. It’s a very reasonably priced feature-rich performant WordPress hosting<\/strong> service. It provides features like security<\/strong>, backup<\/strong>, and WordPress toolkits<\/strong> such as stage cloning, WP-CLI, and Github. I am pumped up to share this exciting new hosting service with you.<\/p>\n In this extensive review, I will be setting up a blog with WPWebHost and take a deep plunge into its functionalities. Also, I will perform some speed tests and see how it performs out of the box. So, let’s get started.<\/p>\n Established in 2001, WPWebHost<\/a> is a premium managed WordPress hosting<\/strong> company with its head office based in Malaysia. They’re the sister company of Exabytes<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a web hosting company with rock-solid presence in Southeast Asia. At Exabytes you can find every kind of hosting solution while\u00a0WPWebHost offers packages mainly optimized for WordPress<\/strong>. And it would be an injustice if I don’t give a mention to Andy Saw<\/a>\u00a0who’s playing a major role in this effort.<\/p>\n Being a sister company to a well-known brand it inherits many traits from Exabytes \u2014 great uptime<\/strong>, performance<\/strong>, support<\/strong>, and value for money<\/strong>. WPWebHost aims to\u00a0provide a secure,<\/strong>\u00a0performant<\/strong>, and quality<\/strong>\u00a0WordPress hosting service for individuals<\/strong> and small businesses<\/strong> while remaining affordable. Talking about the vision of the company, CEO Kee Siak Chan says:<\/p>\n Anticipating our customers\u2019 needs and delivering the key features and functionalities they require to be successful when it comes to building high-quality WordPress websites is what WPWebHost is about.<\/p> \u2014 Kee Siak Chan<\/cite><\/a><\/blockquote>\n In August 2017, WPWebHost partnered up with Plesk to power its high-performance WordPress hosting service. Talking about WPWebHost\u00a0Jan L\u00f6ffler, CTO Plesk says:<\/p>\n WordPress users have specific requirements and WPWebHost is poised to deliver best in class WordPress Hosting, with Plesk WordPress Toolkit and their phenomenal management and support.<\/p> \u2014 Jan L\u00f6ffler, CTO at Plesk<\/cite><\/a><\/blockquote>\n Being sister company of Exabytes, it shares common data centers with it. Exabytes currently have data centers at four locations:<\/strong><\/p>\n WPWebHost<\/a> utilizes the Dever, US<\/strong>\u00a0and Singapore\u00a0<\/strong>data centers to provide both shared and dedicated hosting environment to the users. It relies on the modern tech to provide a great hosting experience. Its backend architecture includes:<\/p>\n To get an idea of how performant a host is, I usually run a fresh WordPress installation and then perform a speed test. From these speed tests, you can get an idea of how your site is going to perform when you put up all the content and optimizations. That’s what I did with WPWebHost.<\/p>\n After setting up a fresh WordPress installation the average loading time was around ~720ms<\/strong>. Which is dead good.\u00a0\ud83d\udcaf\u00a0You can always implement optimization techniques and use CDN to further lower the page loading time.<\/p>\n I have performed those tests many times and almost every time I get this query string error. But that was not the case with WPWebHost. In fact, all the query strings had the proper version specified<\/strong> in their requests. The only performance downside was not leveraging the browser cache.<\/p>\n Onboarding process of WPWebHost<\/a> is pretty simple and straightforward. All you need to do is to purchase the desired hosting plan and WPWebHost will setup all the things for you. It offers a free .blog\u00a0<\/strong>with all the annual packages and installs WordPress automatically as you purchase a hosting.<\/p>\n Go to the pricing section of WPWebHost<\/a> and select any desired plan according to your needs. As you proceed, you get three options regarding the domain. You can either type a custom .blog domain<\/strong>, transfer domain<\/strong>, or use an existing domain<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Select the preferred option and click on continue at the bottom of the page. I am going for custom .blog name.<\/p>\n Next step is to select your billing cycle<\/strong>. You can either go for a monthly plan<\/strong> or yearly plan<\/strong>. Note that only yearly plan comes with a free .blog domain. Also, at this point, you can select your preferred data center<\/strong>. Currently, it offers two locations<\/strong> \u2013 United States & Singapore<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The next step is the domain configuration. You can additionally purchase a $2\/year ID protection<\/strong> to protect your identity. Once you’re done, click the Continue<\/em> button. Now you’ll review and checkout. Add your personal and payment details and complete the order.<\/p>\n Soon you’ll receive a couple of onboarding emails. They include some onboarding emails, payment invoice, WordPress installation details, and a few useful links to get started. That’s it, now if you visit your .blog domain, it will be up and running WordPress.<\/p>\n In order to access your hosting dashboard, log in to your WPWebHost account and click on your blog link listed in the active services. It will automatically login to your Plesk powered dashboard<\/strong>. Now, if you have ever used any Plesk powered hosting service, it will be familiar to you.<\/p>\n On the left side, you have all the different sections related to your site that you can configure. While at the center you have options related to the selected section. At the top of the left sidebar, there’s a search box to quickly search the settings. Now let us move on the different features one by one.<\/p>\n In this section, you can find all the details related to your websites and domains. Most of them include technical details which you should not worry about. However, there are a few useful things here that you should be familiar with:<\/p>\n WPWebHost<\/a> allows you to either add a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate<\/strong> or a custom SSL certificate<\/strong> if you have one. In order to add a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate head towards Let’s Encrypt\u00a0<\/strong>section. It will take you the certificate details page.<\/p>\n Enter your email address to receive SSL related notifications. Select different options according to your choice and finally hit\u00a0Renew\u00a0<\/strong>button. It will automatically add SSL certificate to your domain. Also, it will be renewed automatically 30 days before expiration.<\/p>\n This feature allows you to deploy your website with code available on Git. You can either select a\u00a0GitHub\/BitBucket <\/strong>repository or a\u00a0local repository<\/strong> to sync website code. It supports both HTTP and SSH protocols for transferring data.<\/p>\n In the logs section, you can find the log of all the activities<\/strong> on your hosting. You can also enable real-time logs or filter the logs to get specific results. Logs can be really helpful while debugging and fixing the things.<\/p>\n Also, there are many other specific settings available regarding domains and hosting. Like you have an option for selecting the PHP version<\/strong>, copying your site<\/strong>, and\u00a0managing firewall<\/strong>.<\/p>\n In the email section, you can manage all the email addresses for your domain<\/strong>. You can have all the usage stats, create new email addresses, allocate space to them, delete them, or modify them. The Mail Settings tab you have some general email settings.<\/p>\n In the statistics tab, you can find all the stats regarding traffic and disk usage<\/strong>. Each of them is further divided into usage by services. It can be really helpful in analyzing the usage of disk space and planning ahead properly.<\/p>\n WordPress is the main section where all the settings related to our site resides. Here, you’ll find three tabs \u2014 Instances, Plugins, Themes. In the Instances section, you have all the key functionalities like cloning<\/strong>, backups<\/strong>, core updates<\/strong>, security scans<\/strong> etc. While other two tabs deal with plugins\/themes related settings only.<\/p>\n Backup manager allows you to create the backup of your settings and data files. You can either take manual backup<\/strong> or schedule a backup<\/strong> to automatically backup the data for you. Also, you can store your backup on remote storage<\/strong> via FTP connection. All the backups are kept for 30 days<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The way stagging works in WPWebHost is little different, first you need to clone your current installation of WordPress. It will create a copy of your current installation on staging.yourdomain.com<\/strong>. That’s your staging area where you can make all your changes.<\/p>\n The site sync feature allows you to synchronize the settings and data between two different instances<\/strong>. You need have a source instance and a target instance to carry out the operation. The data in the target host is completely overwritten.<\/p>\n Once you have made all the changes in your cloned site, you can simply sync the original and cloned one via sync feature. This way your changes will be live.<\/p>\n WPWebHost provides free security scan feature. It searches for possible vulnerabilities in the system and suggests actions to fix them<\/strong>. Usually, you don’t find a security check feature built-in in the host, rather you have to rely on third-party service. So, it’s definitely a plus for WPWebHost.<\/p>\n However, I can’t say anything about how reliable it is. It will definitely take some time and testing before I can finally say anything about this.<\/p>\n Plugins section is where you can find everything about your plugins without logging in into your WordPress dashboard. You can check for new updates, install plugins, activate, and deactivate the plugins. You can even upload plugins to install.<\/p>\n Just like plugins, you get a theme tab where you can manage all themes related stuff. You can manage their installations and all the updates. You can also activate\/deactivate themes from this tab.<\/p>\n Apart from all these settings, there are many features available. For example, you can\u00a0clone your site instance<\/strong>,\u00a0enable\/disable server cache<\/strong>, enable maintenance and debug\u00a0mode.<\/strong> All this can be done right from the main WordPress settings with just single-click.<\/p>\n The support center of WPWebHost contains an ample amount of documentation<\/strong> to get started with. There’s a detailed section on email setting<\/strong>s and getting familiar with the dashboard<\/strong>. It’s constantly being updated<\/strong> with up to date documents, which is pretty great. Also, they regularly publish some great posts on their blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n The support team of WPWebHost is based in Malaysia. Due to the time zone difference, it usually takes sometime before a support person gets to you. However, once you get connected with the support person, they’re good at assisting you.<\/p>\n WPWebHost currently offers 3 different packages<\/strong> starting from $9\/mo (WP Lite) to $79\/mo (WP Geek)<\/strong>. The packages vary in terms of features which get with each of them. However, they share a common architecture<\/strong> with a shared environment in WP Lite<\/strong>, a semi-shared environment in WP Plus<\/strong>, and a dedicated environment in WP Geek pack<\/strong>. Note that above-mentioned prices are current discounted prices by WPWebHost.<\/p>\n With each yearly purchase of these packages, you a get a free .blog domain<\/strong>. Also, there’s a Jetpack Professional<\/strong> version included in WP Geek and WP Plus package. While the WP Lite package comes with a personal plan of Jetpack<\/strong>. WPWebHost utilizes the Photon CDN by Jetpack for serving images in WP Lite package.<\/p>\n The WP Plus and WP Geek packages also include features like Git<\/strong>, unlimited @ your domain emails<\/strong>, malware and security scans<\/strong>, and 200+ premium themes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\ud83c\udf96\u00a0WPWebHost<\/h2>\n
![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-Header-Image.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\ud83c\udfd7\u00a0Architecture<\/h2>\n
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\u26a1\u00a0Speed Test<\/h2>\n
![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-Speed-Test.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-Requests-Analysis.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\ud83d\udd25\u00a0Getting Started With WPWebHost<\/h2>\n
\u2192 Step #1<\/h3>\n
![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-Domain-Selection.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\u2192 Step #2<\/h3>\n
![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-Billing-Plan-and-Data-Center.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\u2192 Step #3<\/h3>\n
![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-Purchase-Checkout.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\u2699\u00a0The Dashboard<\/h2>\n
![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-Dashboard.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\ud83c\udf10\u00a0Websites & Domains<\/h2>\n
\u2192 SSL Certificate<\/h3>\n
![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-SSL-Certificate.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\u2192 Git<\/h3>\n
![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-Git.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\u2192 Logs<\/h3>\n
![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-Logs.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\u2192 Other Settings<\/h3>\n
\u2709\u00a0Email<\/h2>\n
![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-Email.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\ud83d\udcc8\u00a0Statistics<\/h2>\n
![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-Statistics.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\u24e6\u00a0WordPress<\/h2>\n
\u2192 Backup Manager<\/h3>\n
![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-Backup-Manager.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\u2192 Site Stagging (Clone & Sync)<\/h3>\n
![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-Sync-Sites.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\u2192 Security Scan<\/h3>\n
![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-Security-Scna.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\u2192 Plugins<\/h3>\n
![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-Plugins-Settings.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\u2192 Themes<\/h3>\n
![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-Themes-Settings.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\u2192 Other Settings<\/h3>\n
\ud83d\udcd6\u00a0Documentation & Support<\/h2>\n
![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-Docs.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\ud83d\udcb0\u00a0Pricing<\/h2>\n
![\"Wpwebhost](\"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WPWebHost-Plans.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/jhyky6z.gif\")
<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n