WP Engine Review

WP Engine is a web hosting provider that specializes in WordPress hosting. The company was founded in 2010 and has since become one of the leading hosting providers in the industry. WP Engine’s hosting plans include a variety of options such as shared hosting, managed WordPress hosting, and dedicated hosting, all of which are designed to provide high performance and security for WordPress websites. 

The company prides itself on providing fast and reliable hosting services with exceptional customer support, all while offering competitive pricing plans. WP Engine also offers a variety of additional features and tools specifically tailored for WordPress users, such as automatic updates, daily backups, and advanced security options. 

With its focus on providing high-quality hosting solutions for WordPress websites, WP Engine has gained a reputation for being one of the most reliable and innovative hosting providers in the industry. In this review, we’ll take a closer look at WP Engine’s hosting plans, features, and performance, to help you decide if it’s the right hosting provider for your WordPress website.

Overview

WP Engine is a popular web hosting provider that specializes in WordPress hosting. Founded in 2010, the company has grown to become one of the leading providers of managed WordPress hosting, serving over 120,000 customers in 140 countries. WP Engine offers a range of hosting plans that are optimized for WordPress, with features such as automated backups, staging environments, and developer tools. 

The company prides itself on its fast and reliable hosting, with a 99.99% uptime guarantee and lightning-fast page load times. WP Engine also offers a range of add-ons and integrations, including content delivery networks, security services, and analytics tools, to help users get the most out of their WordPress sites.

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Customer Support

WP Engine is a web hosting company that specializes in providing managed WordPress hosting services. Along with their hosting services, WP Engine offers a range of customer support options to help their clients get the most out of their hosting experience.

One of the key customer support options from WP Engine is their 24/7 support team. This team of experienced WordPress experts is always available to assist with any hosting-related issues or questions that clients may have. They can provide support via phone, live chat, or ticket system, depending on the client’s preference.

WP Engine also provides a comprehensive knowledge base on their website. This knowledge base includes a wealth of information on WordPress-related topics, including how to manage your WordPress site, troubleshoot common issues, and optimize your site’s performance. Clients can use the knowledge base to find answers to their questions or to learn more about the hosting services that WP Engine provides.

In addition to their live support and knowledge base, WP Engine provides a range of tools and resources to help clients manage their WordPress hosting services. For example, their custom-built control panel provides easy access to server settings, application management tools, and other important details about your hosting service. They also offer a variety of integrations with popular WordPress plugins and themes.

Overall, WP Engine provides a comprehensive set of customer support options for their managed WordPress hosting clients. Whether you need help resolving technical issues or simply want to learn more about managing your WordPress site, the WP Engine support team and their online resources are always available to help.

Plans & Pricing

WP Engine is a managed WordPress hosting provider that offers high-performance and reliable hosting solutions for websites and applications built on the WordPress platform. They provide a range of hosting plans designed to suit the needs of businesses, agencies, and individuals.

Here are the plans and pricing available from WP Engine:

Plan NameMonthly PriceAnnual PriceFeatures
Startup$25$3001 site, 25,000 visits/month, 10GB local storage, free SSL/TLS certificates, managed WordPress updates, 24/7 support
Growth$95$1,15010 sites, 100,000 visits/month, 20GB local storage, free SSL/TLS certificates, managed WordPress updates, 24/7 support, advanced security features, website performance analytics
Scale$241$2,90030 sites, 400,000 visits/month, 50GB local storage, free SSL/TLS certificates, managed WordPress updates, 24/7 support, advanced security features, website performance analytics, dedicated environment, global CDN, SSH gateway
CustomContact WP EngineContact WP EngineCustomizable plans based on specific needs and requirements

All of the plans come with a 60-day money-back guarantee, free site migration, and access to a variety of tools and resources, including the Genesis Framework, StudioPress themes, and the WP Engine DevKit for local WordPress development. WP Engine also offers add-on services for additional needs such as content delivery network (CDN) and managed migrations.

WP Engine provides top-notch customer support through their 24/7 support team, which is available via live chat, phone, and email. They also have an extensive knowledge base and resource center with tutorials, guides, and articles to help customers troubleshoot and resolve issues on their own.

Ratings

  • Overall Score: 94/100
  • Reliability: 94/100
  • Usability: 94/100
  • Customer Support: 94/100
  • Features: 94/100

Overview

WP Engine is a web hosting company offering an excellent WordPress Digital Experience Platform founded by Jason Cohen in 2010.

WP Engine as a WordPress host means that it is tailored and optimized to host WordPress websites. It includes managed hosting, enterprise hosting, and client management in its services.

In just a decade of WordPress hosting experience, they have power over a million WordPress sites scattered in 150 countries. Among these are business industry giants like Volvo, Pandora, Yelp, Etsy, and many more. It offers shared hosting with 19 server locations around the world.

WP Engine and its quest to grow as the number one WordPress host have acquired other web hosting providers like Flywheel and partners with the best and superior technology product and service providers, including Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS), and many more. They also partner with Cloudflare CDN(content delivery network) to protect a WP Engine site from malicious attacks.

WP Engine offers quality hosting services centered on creative agility, enterprise performance, actionable intelligence, and ecosystem integration.

Are you planning to host your website at WP Engine? Check out this review to learn more about this web host. We will cover topics such as the sign-up process, website management tool/control panel, site builder, pricing, features, security, and many more.

Getting Started With WP Engine

WP Engine hosting prided itself on the three S in WordPress website hosting: speed, security, and service. We are here to put this web host to the test. Starting with the cheapest plan, allow me to walk you through the sign-up process

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WP Engine offers the Startup hosting plan that comes with one website, 25000 visits per month, 10 GB storage, 50 GB bandwidth per month, free SSL certificate, and many more for $25 per month. See the Buyer’s Guide below to see WP Engine’s plan, pricing, and full features. If you are starting small, this is a perfect plan for you.

After clicking the Get Started Button, I was redirected to the Checkout page. On this page, I get to choose my billing cycle, either annual or monthly. I prefer monthly billing since I am only trying to get a glimpse of how it works for now. You can choose a yearly billing cycle to get a massive discount from the WP Engine.

Also included on this page are the powerful add-ons you can select to enhance your plan and your website. The options include Smart Plugin Manager for $10 per month, Global Edge Security for $30 per month, additional sites for only $20 per month, and Genesis Pro for another $30 per month.

After I input my add-ons, I added my account info and my billing info.

Here’s the total bill for my WordPress plan, including my add-ons.

Once my payment was confirmed, a welcome message from WP Engine was sent to my email address.

To view your user portal and manage your website, you can go back to the WP Engine page and log in to your WP Engine account.

Up next, I will show you the WP Engine User Portal and discover what we can do from there.

Using and Managing Your Website in WP Engine

Seamless WordPress dashboard, staging sites, and easy installations are just some of the features included in WP Engine WordPress Hosting plans.

To manage your website using the WP Engine portal, you have to log in.

Once you are in, you will be greeted by this dashboard. Here, you can see the following:

Plan Usage – shows your plan limits and usage

Projected number of visits – shows your daily visits

Monthly reports -displays the monthly summaries of requests, browser user, and bot traffic.

System Status – shows the live updates of the WP Engine platform, including maintenance and downtime reports.

We’ve Got Your Back – displays helpful articles about navigating your User Portal and your Sites. Also included are the new features and products of WP Engine.

SITES

This tab found at the left side of your WP Engine User portal page shows all your active WordPress sites. I like their feature where you can group your sites accordingly. It makes finding your site accessible, especially if you are managing a lot.

From this tab, you can initiate a site transfer or add a new site with a click of a button. A site could be used to refers to the three environments of web design: production, staging, and development. Each environment is a completely independent installation of WordPress. Copying between these environments is also easy through the WP Engine User Portal.

Also, it shows are the PHP versions of each site, available storage, bandwidth, and visits. You can also find your WordPress website or domain by using the search bar.

Clicking the three-dot menu at the right side of each site and you will be redirected to the following:

  • Backup — to creates a backup
  • Purge Cache —to purges server caches
  • Seamless login — to log in to wp-admin
  • Delete environment — to delete and remove all data

Under the Sites tab of your WP Engine User Portal, you can see the following subtabs:

Atlas

This section will only appear on your tabs if you have opened an account with Atlas. Otherwise, this is not visible. Atlas allows you to manage your headless WordPress applications.

e-Commerce

From this tab, you can access the features and tools of your online e-commerce store.

Genesis Pro

In this tab, you can see and manage all the Genesis themes and blocks.

USER

This tab lets you manage your account users, technical contacts, and activity logs.

Account Users — users who have access to sites

Technical Contacts —contacts about WordPress updates, security notifications, and other technical concerns

Activity Log — contains information about the changes in your user portal and who made the changes.

TOOLS

In this tab, you can see and manage the following:

  • Local — contains the downloads and information about the Local development tool
  • Global Edge Security — controls WP Engines advanced security solution
  • Page Performance — displays the page-level performance tests
  • Smart Plugin Manager — keeps your plugins updated all the time

BILLING

In this tab, you can manage your invoices, hosting plan, and plan usage.

  • Invoice — Locate invoices, plan renewal date, and other pertinent WP Engine account information.
  • Modify Plan — Change your hosting plan type or include add-ons with your hosting plan.
  • Plan Usage (Beta) — See your hosting plan usage at a glance and by the environment.

ADDITIONAL MENU ITEMS

  • Pin
  • Live Chat
  • Support 24/7
  • Hi, [your name] – allows you to manage your user account
  • My Profile -lets you manage your account
  • Set up Multi-Factor Authentication
  • Add SSH keys
  • Enable WP Engine API access
  • Seamless login to WordPress
  • Logout -signs you out of your User Portal

In the next section, I will show you the different parts of the overview dashboard and how you can use them in managing your WordPress website.

WP Engine Control Panel

Since WP Engine only manages WordPress websites, it does not use standard control panels like cPanel or Plesk.

WP Engine dashboard for website management is built-in together with the hosting account dashboard. It’s easy to navigate and with quite a clean and simple design.

You can access this overview page by clicking the name of your website in the Sites tab. Each site has a different overview page, so you would not have difficulty managing more than one site under your care. Changes you make to one site will not affect the other sites.

Here are the contents of the Site Overview page that you can use to manage your WordPress site.

Domains —displays all domains added to that specific website. You can manage you can add domains, manage redirects, duplicate domains, and many more.

CDN (Content Delivery Network) – From here, you can enable and configure your CDN settings.

Redirect rules —you can access redirect rules, add a new rule, configure the existing ones, and many more.

Backup points — On this page, you can locate backup and restore, make a backup checkpoint, restore a backup, download a backup, and many more.

Access logs — displays the visitor’s info, such as IP address for the last 24 hours.

Error logs — displays the last 24 hours of Apache PHP error logs

SFTP users — in here, you can manage your SFTP clients, add, edit SFTP users, and many more

Git push — from this page, you can generate SSH Key, configure SSH setting, add SSH Key to the User Portal, and many more.

SSL — from here, you can manage and add SSL certificates to your domains. Having an SSL certificate removes the “Not secure” message when a user opens your site. WP Engine uses an SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt.

Utilities — from here, you can enable or disable your password protection, object cache, and multisite; purge cache, configure file permissions, and many more.

Site migration — displays the steps for migrating your existing site using the Automated Migration plugin, generates SFTP credentials, shows a manual migration checklist, and many more.

Go Live Checklist — displays the steps when taking a website live.

phpMyAdmin — brings you to your phpMyAdmin to quickly access and management of your database.

WordPress Admin —allows for a seamless login to your WordPress Admin dashboard.

Environment Stats – this box comes with the DNS Information, Technical Contact, SSH Login, WordPress Version, Visitors, Bandwidth, Storage, Usage CSV, and the option to Delete Environment

WP Engine Website Builder

WP Engine as a managed WordPress host with only ten years of experience, must think of a way to get an edge over more established WordPress hosts.

WP Engine offers a local WordPress development tool you can use in building your website locally. You can easily download it on your PC, create your site online or offline, connect it with the WP engine, then push your site for staging or live.

Features included in Local are the following:

Local development comes with the following:

  • Automatic WordPress installations, including WordPress software and plugin
  • Advanced development features- offers root SSH access, WP-CLI, and PHP environments.
  • MagicSync- recommends the site files to update and to sync
  • Local Connect – Push and pull sites like Flywheel or WP Engine easily
  • Live Links – lets you create a temporary URL to send to clients and coworkers without deploying your site.
  • One-click admin- single username and passwords
  • Cloud Backups – quickly push and pull sites from Local to Google Drive or Dropbox to keep your workspace clean at all times.
  • Image Optimizer- compress image files offline and optimize the site for mobile view.
  • Hot-swap environments – easily swap multiple PHP environments or try out the latest version of MySQL right from Local.

WP Engine WordPress Themes

Genesis Pro and WP Engine offer free themes together with their hosting plans.

Genesis Pro is a WP Engine add-on plan that gives users access to advanced tools and features to make website building more straightforward and faster. These tools can be used for an unlimited number of sites, including those not hosted at WP Engine. You can access this from the User Portal.

Inclusions are the following:

  • Genesis Blocks – these are plugins containing libraries of web page-building blocks, sections, page layouts, and many more. It comes in two versions: Genesis Blocks, free for all WP Engine hosting plans, and Genesis Block Pro, which needs a subscription. The Pro version has more features than the free version, including premium blocks, full-page layouts, and many more.
  • Genesis Custom Blocks Pro – this plugin makes it easy to create and build your custom blocks. You don’t need to learn JavaScript code, but you need to know PHP, HTML, CSS, and block editor. Genesis Custom Blocks if for free, while the Pro requires payment. 
  • Genesis Framework- is used to control the codebase and functionality of the site. It is a secure, fast, and search-engine-optimized foundation for a WordPress site.
  • StudioPress themes – are easy-to-use themes that work best with the Genesis Framework.

WP Engine App Installer

Since WP Engine offers managed WordPress hosting only, all the apps offered are already pre-installed or can be installed with just a click of a button.

Installing WordPress themes in WP Engine is not something you should worry about. WP Engine’s add-ons like Genesis, Atlas, and more, can be easily and quickly installed.

WP Engine Customer Support

Customer support is undeniably a vital factor in choosing a web hosting company. WP Engine’s support team is available via call, chat, or email. However, phone support is not available for all plans. Also included are some support articles you can read.

I tried the live chat support feature. Unfortunately, they do not have support 24/7 on standby. I only talked to a bot, and it sent me support articles related to my question. My first question was about WP Engine’s WordPress plans and the second one was about the WordPress installations. Both are answered by a bot only. It gave me a link to the support articles about the WP engine plans.

This could be a downside for those customers who have urgent business or issues that needs to be resolved. I suggest that for urgent matters, it is best if you use other means of communication.

Buyer’s Guide for WP Engine

WP Engine is a web hosting provider that is limited to offering managed hosting environment for WordPress. A managed hosting service means that the system configurations of the WP Engine servers are done by its pool of experts and tech teams on the customer’s behalf. Like any other WordPress hosting provider, it comes with features that can help you grow your website.

Below is a detailed discussion of the WP Engine hosting plan, including the pricing and the features. WP Engine acquired another web hosting company, but we will not include it here.

Plans, Pricing, and Features

MANAGED HOSTING

WP Engine WordPress hosting plan gives you the three S in WordPress hosting: speed, security, and stability that you need to begin or grow your website.

WP Engine’s managed web hosting service comes with the following key features:

  • 24/7 support
  • Ten premium themes
  • Free automated migrations
  • Daily backups
  • Free SSL and SSH
  • Offers staging site and test site
  • Faster site speed with website caching
  • Threat detection & blocking
  • Site content in the cloud (CDN)
  • Handoff to clients with transferable sites
  • Activity log & user permissions
  • Page performance monitoring
  • Local developer tools
  • SSH access with WP-CLI, MySQL, and bash
  • GIT & SFTP connections
  • Multi-factor password authentication
  • Up-to-date PHP

Included in this WP Engine plan are the following hosting packages:

Startup

This WP Engine web hosting service is ideal for starting a small website or personal blog. It includes the following additional features:

  • Price starts at $25 per month
  • 1 WordPress site included
  • 25000 monthly visits
  • 10 GB storage
  • 50 GB bandwidth per month
  • All key features

Professional

This WP Engine Managed Web Hosting plan is ideal when you are already building your brand. It has the following inclusions:

  • Price starts at $49.17 per month
  • Multisite available for purchase
  • Three sites included
  • 75 000 monthly visits
  • 15 GB storage
  • 125 GB bandwidth per month
  • Phone support
  • All key features

Growth

This WP Engine web hosting package includes all the features you need for managing your growing WordPress websites. Included are the following features:

  • Price starts at $95.83 per month
  • 100 000 visits/ month
  • 20 GB Local storage
  • 200 GB Bandwidth
  • Phone & chat support
  • Multisite available for purchase
  • All key features

Scale

This WP Engine web hosting package is ideal for high-traffic sites. It comes with the following:

  • The price starts at $241.67 per month
  • 30 WordPress sites
  • 400000 visits/month
  • 50 GB storage
  • 500 GB bandwidth
  • Phone & chat support
  • WordPress Multisite available for purchase
  • All key features

Dedicated Hosting Custom Plan

In this plan, WP Engine lets you customize your hosting plan according to your need and budget. It comes with the following features:

  • Dedicated, high-availability architecture
  • 99.99% uptime SLA
  • Easily scale resources
  • Advanced security
  • 24/7 Premium dedicated support
  • White glove onboarding with Launch Readiness Assessment
  • Premium Plus service
  • Application Performance Monitoring
  • Dedicated Developer Environment

MANAGED HOSTING PLUS

This WP Engine plan gives automatic plugin updates to ensure quality WordPress site performance.

The plus features include the following:

  • Automated plugin updates
  • Plugin updates tested with AI, including 3rd party plugins
  • Auto-rollbacks if issues detected
  • Choose which plugins are auto-updated

Startup

  • The price starts at $28.33 per month
  • 1 WordPress site included
  • 25000 monthly visits
  • 10 GB storage
  • 50 GB bandwidth per month
  • All key features
  • All plus features

Professional

  • The price starts at $52.50 per month
  • Three sites included
  • 75 000 monthly visits
  • 15 GB storage
  • 125 GB bandwidth per month
  • Phone support
  • All key features
  • All plus features

Growth

  • The price starts at $104.17 per month
  • Ten sites included
  • 100 000 visits/ month
  • 20 GB Local storage
  • 200 GB Bandwidth
  • Phone & chat support
  • All key features
  • Managed Hosting plus features

Scale

  • The price starts at $258.33 per month
  • 30 WordPress sites
  • 400000 visits/month
  • 50 GB storage
  • 500 GB bandwidth
  • Phone & chat support
  • All key features
  • All plus features

Dedicated Hosting Custom Plan

Same features as the managed hosting plan.

E-COMMERCE HOSTING

This WP Engine web hosting plan has every tool and feature you need to build or transfer your WooCommerce score.

Startup

This WP Engine e-commerce plan comes with all the basics of building or migrating your online store.

  • The price starts at $30 per month
  • 1 WordPress site included
  • 25000 monthly visits
  • 10 GB storage
  • 50 GB bandwidth per month
  • All key features

E-commerce hosting features :

  • One-click store creation
  • Optimized store theme
  • WooCommerce template
  • Automated plugin updates

Professional

This WP Engine plan is the best e-commerce hosting plan to boost online store sales and traffic.

  • The price starts at $62.50 per month
  • Three sites included
  • 75 000 monthly visits
  • 15 GB storage
  • 125 GB bandwidth per month
  • Phone and chat support
  • All managed hosting key features

E-commerce plus features:

  • Instant Store Search (powered by ElasticPress)
  • One-click store creation
  • Optimized store theme
  • WooCommerce template
  • Automated plugin updates

Growth

This WP Engine e-commerce plan includes all the tools and features you need to make your business grow.

  • The price starts at $116.67 per month
  • 100 000 visits/ month
  • 20 GB Local storage
  • 200 GB Bandwidth
  • Phone & chat support
  • All managed hosting key features

E-commerce plus features:

  • Instant Store Search (powered by ElasticPress)
  • One-click store creation
  • Optimized store theme
  • WooCommerce template
  • Automated plugin updates

Scale

This WP Engine web hosting plan is ideal for high-traffic online stores.

  • The price starts at $291.67 per month
  • 30 WordPress sites
  • 400000 visits/month
  • 50 GB storage
  • 500 GB bandwidth
  • Phone & chat support
  • Managed WordPress hosting key features

E-commerce plus features:

  • Instant Store Search (powered by ElasticPress)
  • One-click store creation
  • Optimized store theme
  • WooCommerce template
  • Automated plugin updates

Custom

The WP hosting E-commerce Custom Plan comes with the following features:

  • Dedicated, high-availability architecture
  • Compute-optimized infrastructure for faster load times
  • Instant Store Search for higher-converting product search
  • Woo-optimized automated plugin updates
  • Genesis Pro custom eCommerce blocks
  • 99.99% uptime SLA
  • Easily scale resources
  • Advanced security
  • 24/7 Premium dedicated support
  • White glove onboarding with Launch Readiness Assessment
  • Technical health evaluation and recommendations
  • Dedicated developer environment

Security and Backups

WP Engines’s secure web hosting services includes the following security features:

  • Protects from malicious traffic spikes (DDoS)
  • Security firewall for your traffic (WAF)
  • Automated WordPress plugins updates
  • Plugin updates tested with AI, including 3rd party plugins
  • Auto-rollbacks if issues detected
  • Choose which are auto-updated and which are disallowed plugins

Startup

  • The price starts at $44.17 per month
  • 1 WordPress site included
  • 25000 monthly visits
  • 10 GB storage
  • 50 GB bandwidth per month
  • All managed WordPress hosting key features
  • All security features

Professional

  • The price starts at $75.50 per month
  • Three sites included
  • 75 000 monthly visits
  • 15 GB storage
  • 125 GB bandwidth per month
  • Phone and chat support
  • All managed WordPress hosting key features
  • Secure hosting security features

Growth

  • The price starts at $125 per month
  • 100 000 visits/ month
  • 20 GB Local storage
  • 200 GB Bandwidth
  • Phone & chat support
  • All managed WordPress hosting key features
  • All security features

Scale

  • The price starts at $291.67 per month
  • 30 WordPress sites
  • 400000 visits/month
  • 50 GB storage
  • 500 GB bandwidth
  • Phone & chat support
  • WP Engine hosting key features
  • Secure hosting security features

WP Engine’s web hosting plans offer automated and manual backups to help protect and secure your data. These backup files help restore sites, download, or copying to other site environments.

Server Speed

From inside your WP Engine user portal, you can access a Page Performance Tool to run a test on your website. Performance results will be sent to your email address.

WP Engine will give recommendations on how you can improve your website’s load times and page speed from the results.

Pros

Here are the advantages of using WP Engine’s managed hosting service:

  • Optimized and tailored for WordPress users.
  • Simplifies WordPress website management
  • Fully-managed so you don’t need to worry
  • Excellent uptime guaranteed
  • Good customer service
  • Daily automatic backups and option for manual backups
  • Real-time threat detection
  • Easy to use staging site environment
  • Excellent load times and server speed with personalized recommendations for improvement
  • Simple, clean, and easy to use dashboard
  • Free automated migrations
  • Free SSL Certificates
  • Threat detection & blocking
  • Site content in the cloud Content Delivery Network (CDN)
  • Genesis Pro and Local Development Tool for easy and fast website building
  • Page performance monitoring tool
  • Multi-factor password authentication
  • Up-to-date PHP
  • Scalable according to your site’s needs
  • Good WP Engine customers review
  • Automatic WordPress core updates

Cons

Listed below are the disadvantages of using WP engine hosting:

  • Phone support is not for every plan
  • A bit pricey compared to other specialized web hosts
  • Only offers managed WordPress hosting on shared servers
  • Limited phone support for Startup plan customers.
  • Do not offer free email accounts
  • Do not offer domain registration
  • Traffic and storage are limited on all hosting plans.
  • CDN integration is only included for the expensive plans
  • Live chat support is not real-time
  • Add-ons are pretty costly as well

Final Thoughts

WP Engine as a web host is packed with features that could make your hosting life easier. All WP Engine plans come with an easy-to-use dashboard, excellent uptime, daily automatic backups, and many more. Although the WP Engine pricing is a bit expensive compared to other hosting providers, it offers free tools and add-ons to build your sites.

The WP Engine support is quite acceptable, though talking to a real person is not really 24/7. If your issues are not that urgent, you can use the available support articles and tutorials. They also have phone support and email support you can use instead.

Overall, my WordPress hosting WP Engine experience as my WordPress hosting provider was exquisite, and the reviews from its user online are excellent.

I hope this WP Engine review helped you in your web hosting journey!