My blog is now hosted on WP Engine. I’ve been impressed with the experience so far, including a migration process that went very smoothly – probably the smoothest WordPress migration I’ve ever done, to be honest.
Here’s how it happened:
- I set up my new WP Engine account and was offered a choice of data center location. Canada was one of the options. Bonus points for that! I’m tired of being stuck with either American or European servers.
- The automated migration worked without any hiccups. I followed the prompts, installed the migration plugin on my old hosting, and within a few minutes, everything was moved over.
- My last step was to update the DNS for my domain. The WP Engine control panel isn’t for beginners, but it’s intuitive enough for power users, and they have contextual prompts + links to documentation if you get stuck. I had no issue finding the IP address I needed to map my A records against.
I forgot to provision the Let’s Encrypt SSL certs after migrating, so there was a bit of downtime, but that was totally on me for missing a step. (Oops.)
Why the move to WP Engine?
With my recent career shift, I needed a new home for my blog, and for any future WordPress projects. I don’t have the bandwidth to look after a cPanel hosting account, and I’m comfortable paying a premium for top-tier support.
There are plenty of great managed WordPress hosting providers out there, but my mind immediately went to WP Engine.
They’re one of the longest-running players in the managed WordPress space. They were also the first MWP hosting provider I ever used, courtesy of their free hosting giveaway at WordCamp Toronto. I even had the pleasure of working on some walkthroughs for their control panel about a decade ago!
I also have friends and associates who work almost exclusively with WP Engine hosting, and I trust their judgment. š
Who else did I consider?
Flywheel (owned by WP Engine), Kinsta, SpinupWP, and Cloudways were others on my radar. I also thought about giving WordPress.com a try. The first four are geared more towards agencies, and WordPress.com didn’t feel “power user” enough for me.
WP Engine was a happy middle ground. š