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When you’ve been managing websites for as long as I have, you instinctively know which hosting platforms are worthwhile and which ones will likely give you a headache. I launched my first WordPress site back in 2006 when the concept of “self-hosting” was a big mystery. Over the past 18 years, I’ve tried just about every type of platform imaginable — from a free site with WordPress.com and Wix to more hands-on, self-hosted solutions.
If there’s one thing all of this experience has taught me, it’s this: choosing the right hosting can either make or break your website. Trust me, I’ve had my fair share of hosting nightmares from budget hosting plans and sudden website crashes at the worst possible time.
However, everything changed when I switched to managed WordPress hosting with Kinsta. I finally found a solution that gave me peace of mind and the features I needed to grow and manage my websites without hassle. In this article, I’ll walk you through the essential things I look for in a good WordPress host and how
What to Look for in a WordPress Host
Before I tell you why I’m such a big fan of
1. Managed WordPress Hosting
What exactly is managed WordPress hosting? Simply put, it’s a type of hosting service where WordPress specialists handle all the complicated technical stuff — that way, you don’t have to.
This includes everything from routine updates and rock-solid security to reliable backups and website performance optimization. If you’re not a developer — or maybe you are but don’t want to deal with the stress of constantly maintaining your website — this feature is a must.
Why It Matters: Think of managed website hosting like taking your car in for a free tune-up monthly, with a mechanic on-call 24/7 in case anything goes wrong. This takes the pressure off you because you don’t need to be a tech expert to keep your site running. The hosting provider takes care of everything so you can focus on what you do best.
2. 24/7 Customer Support
Imagine this: You pour your heart and soul into planning an epic product launch with a strategic marketing campaign. Then, right when you think things are going great — BAM. Your website crashes, and it always seems to happen at the worst times.
This is why choosing a hosting service that offers 24/7 customer support is essential. This way, you know that there’s always somebody you can contact if your site goes down.
Why It Matters: Website downtime is the worst — not only because you’re missing out on potential customers but because it also affects your sales. It can damage the trust you’ve worked hard to build and negatively affect your SEO ranking. And since most website issues seem to occur at the most inconvenient times,
3. Easy Backups
Here’s something I think we can all agree on: websites crash. It’s inevitable, and you must be prepared when you run any website. When those unfortunate situations happen, you’ll be glad you opted for a host that offers easy backups. Seriously, it’s a website owner’s lifeline.
Why It Matters: Having an easily-accessible backup available can mean the difference between a minor, stress-free inconvenience and a full-on website disaster that takes days or even weeks to recover from. One time, I ran into an issue where I had to restore a backup. Thankfully, I used a hosting service with a simple one-click restore option, and I was back in business within minutes. Disaster averted. With Kinsta, backups are automatic, so you can breathe a little easier knowing they’re there if you need them.
4. Top-Notch Security
It doesn’t matter how large (or small) your website is, if you’re a small business, or a solopreneur just getting started; hackers want to target your website.
Strong security measures are essential, and this is another area where
Why It Matters: Having great website security isn’t just about making sure that your valuable data is protected — it’s also about showing your visitors that you’re trustworthy. Nobody wants to give their information to a website they feel isn’t safe. Nobody wants to deal with trying to restore their website and reputation after it’s been compromised. It’s just not worth the risk, especially when there are excellent hosting providers like
5. Speed
In today’s fast-paced digital environment, nobody’s going to wait for a slow website to load — they’re just going to move on to one that’s faster. That’s why choosing a hosting provider that prioritizes speed is critical.
While a great hosting provider won’t magically guarantee your website is fast — there are many other factors — it’s one of the biggest determining factors that can make or break your website speed.
Why It Matters: A slow website impacts user experience and makes your website visitors frustrated. To top things off, it also tends to impact your SEO ranking, which ultimately means fewer visitors and sales for your business.
6. Automatic WordPress Updates
Anytime you let things like WordPress core or plugin updates lapse, you might as well put up a giant “Welcome” sign for hackers to target your website. These updates often include security patches and other important things that help to prevent bad things from happening.
Thankfully, you can prevent all this hassle with a quality managed WordPress hosting service that automates all of these updates, meaning you never even have to think about whether things are up-to-date or not.
Why It Matters: The automatic updates you get with a great hosting service free you to focus on other tasks without worrying about things being up to date.
7. Storage and Bandwidth
As your website continues to evolve and grow over time, so will your content library, high-quality images and video, and website traffic.
That’s why picking a website hosting service that provides a high level of scalability is critical. What does this even mean? It means that the host you choose should easily accommodate your website traffic without affecting things like load time, functionality, or security as it continues to grow.
Why It Matters: Imagine putting all your effort into making an awesome website only to find out a few months later that the plan you’re on isn’t able to support things like increased website traffic. Now you’ve got to go through the hassle of upgrading, changing plans, or switching providers because your current one just isn’t cutting it. Save yourself a headache by picking a host with plans designed to grow with your business. This way, you only pay for the storage and bandwidth you need, and you can feel confident knowing that things can scale up as needed in a few clicks.
How Kinsta Delivers (And Then Some) on These Must-Have Features
Now that we’ve talked about the critical non-negotiable things I look for in a great WordPress hosting service let’s see how
I’ve put together a helpful table to show you how
| Requirement | Kinsta’s Features |
|---|---|
| Managed WordPress Hosting | Yes – a fully managed hosting solution with support by seasoned experts and convenient automated maintenance. |
| 24/7 Customer Support | Yes — available 24/7, 365 via convenient live chat with their in-house WordPress support professionals. |
| Easy Backups | Yes — automatic daily backups and convenient one-click restore options to help simplify your life. |
| Top-Notch Security | Yes — free SSL certificate, enterprise-grade DDoS protection, consistent malware scanning, and those all-important automatic updates. |
| Speed | Yes — The Google Cloud Platform delivers unparalleled speeds designed to take your website performance to a new level. |
| Automatic WordPress Updates | Yes — they take care of the WordPress core updates and plugins for you. Just set it, and forget it. |
| Storage & Bandwidth | Yes — highly scalable plans designed with ample storage and bandwidth to support websites of any size, which means you can focus on what matters most — growing your business. |
User Experience
Kinsta’s MyKinsta dashboard is one of my favorite things about their hosting plans. The dashboard lives up to the hype. It’s streamlined, well-organized, incredibly intuitive, and very easy to use.
Even if you don’t consider yourself techy, you’ll have no problem navigating this dashboard, designed specifically for those more familiar with using WordPress. You can quickly access things like routine backups, performance monitoring, and exceptional 24/7 customer support. Everything you need is right there, just a click or two away.
It can be a bit of an adjustment if you’re switching from a traditional shared hosting provider, like Wix. Even if you have used these other providers,
Performance & Reliability
One of the main reasons why I finally caved and switched to
What I’m about to say next is a huge deal, so listen closely: You always want to select a website host with a high uptime level because even a little downtime can be costly for your business.
Pricing & Plans
With plans starting at $35 a month for their most basic option, there’s no question that
Let’s break down those pricing tiers:
Starter Plan: $35/month
This plan is a great option for new bloggers or small, single-site owners who don’t get a crazy amount of website traffic. You’ll still want access to great features and resources but don’t have a huge hosting budget to work with.
Pro Plan: $70/month
The Pro plan is usually a great option for service-based businesses that need access to more resources, such as storage space and bandwidth, to keep their websites running smoothly. If you have a larger site and generate more traffic — and are ready to take your business to the next level — it makes sense to opt for a Pro Plan with unlimited free premium site migrations, which lets you move your website over from another host free of charge.
Let’s say your website gets more traffic than your current plan covers. What happens? While
Weighing the Pros and Cons:
I’ve already touched on a lot of
Pros
- The MyKinsta dashboard has a great look and is one of the simplest, most intuitive, and user-friendly control panels around. If you aren’t very technical you’re going to love using this dashboard.
- They use the fastest network in the world, delivering incredible speeds people look for in a hosting provider.
- Kinsta consistently goes above and beyond to ensure its customers get the help and resources they need — even including small helpful extras like a redirect tool.
- The company utilizes Google’s premium Cloud Network for the speed and stability it’s known for.
- Each website hosted on the
Kinsta platform has its container, including all the software and resources needed to operate independently. So, even if someone else’s site experiences technical difficulty, your site is completely isolated from those problems, keeping you up and running.
Cons
- It’s expensive, with no free plan available and the cheapest plan starts at $30 a month. You can view their latest pricing here. Budget-conscious businesses, bloggers, and entrepreneurs will likely want to opt for more affordable hosting services (at least initially).
- Although
Kinsta does an excellent job of providing access to everything you need, you will need to use an additional service for things like a personalized business email becauseKinsta doesn’t offer its own email hosting. - Their support system is one of the best in the business, but if you’re someone who absolutely needs access to phone support you will have to decide whether the other features of their 24/7 chat support are good enough for your needs or if having direct access to a human on the phone is something you aren’t willing to compromise on.
- Some hosts allow clients to pick their data center location, but
Kinsta selects this for you.
Who Would Benefit from Using Kinsta ?
Although Kinsta provides top-notch website hosting, the reality is that their hosting plans aren’t great for everyone. They focus on businesses that generate higher revenue. If you are a smaller company on a limited budget, you’re probably better off opting for a more basic host at a lower price point until your revenue consistently increases enough to where upgrading makes good financial sense. So who is
Small Businesses
If your website serves as a core part of your overall revenue, a reliable host is critical to keeping things running smoothly so clients can continue accessing your website to browse your content, schedule consultations or book appointments online, purchase products, and more. Because
Faster sites are more likely to get higher SEO rankings. Here’s why: 1️⃣ Better user experience = longer visits 2️⃣ Google’s Core Web Vitals rewards speed 3️⃣ Faster crawling = more pages indexed 4️⃣ Mobile speed boosts SEO rankings Learn more ↓
kinsta .com/blog/wordpre…2 days ago
Bloggers
Exceptional performance and user-friendly dashboards let you devote your energy to creating awesome content, honing your writing craft, growing your email list, expanding into additional digital products or affiliate marketing, or networking with and learning from other creators. You can focus on these activities instead of stressing about whether your hosting provider meets all of your website needs.
Agencies
You juggle so many moving parts as it is; constantly managing numerous websites adds unnecessary complexity. Kinsta completely understands this challenge, so they offer a multi-site feature where you can effortlessly manage each of your clients from a single convenient, user-friendly platform. Easy, stress-free, and exactly what busy creative agency professionals look for in a high-quality hosting service that grows as your clientele expands. This is an incredibly useful feature if you’re managing multiple client websites at once.
Conclusion
When deciding if a hosting platform is the right fit for you, remember this — just like relationships and job hunting — there is no perfect hosting service or platform that’s going to check off every single box for everyone. People’s wants and needs vary. However, after switching to
FAQs about Kinsta
What is Kinsta used for?
If you have a website built using WordPress,
Why is Kinsta so expensive?
I totally get it. When I was evaluating hosting solutions and saw
Is Kinsta worth the extra expense?
In short: yes. Although it may not be ideal for people with websites that have little to no traffic, if your business depends heavily on your website —
What type of hosting does Kinsta offer?
Unlike other companies that provide more generalized website hosting services,
How does Kinsta Hosting Compare to WP Engine?
Both
Conclusion
While