WordPress Hosting · Comparison
Flywheel vs. WordPress.com
Flywheel and WordPress.com compared across Company facts, Pricing, Performance & infrastructure, WordPress management, Support & security and Platform & integrations — every fact sourced and re-verified from each vendor's public material.
Flywheel
Managed WordPress hosting built for designers and creative agencies; now part of WP Engine.
WordPress.com
Automattic's hosted WordPress service, from a free tier up to managed, plugin-enabled business plans.
Company facts
Headquarters
Austin, TX Flywheel is a WP Engine product; WP Engine is headquartered in Austin, TX
San Francisco, CA Automattic (WordPress.com's parent); a fully distributed company.
Employees
1.1k Headcount of parent company WP Engine (~1,100 globally)
1.5k Automattic (parent company) headcount, ~1,450 across 80+ countries.
Pricing
Starting Monthly Price (USD)
$25 Starter plan billed monthly; $300/yr (2 months free) if annual
$9 Personal plan, the cheapest paid tier; bandwidth is unmetered on all plans.
Entry Plan WordPress Sites
1 sites 1 WordPress site on the Starter plan
1 sites Personal plan hosts a single WordPress site.
Entry Plan Monthly Visits
25k 25,000 monthly visits on the Starter plan
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Entry Plan Storage (GB)
10 GB 10 GB disk on the Starter plan
6 GB Personal plan includes 6 GB of storage.
Free Trial Length (Days)
0 days No free trial; free demo sites and a 60-day money-back guarantee instead
0 days No free trial; WordPress.com offers a money-back guarantee instead.
Money-Back Guarantee (Days)
60 days 60-day money-back guarantee (excludes Agency and Custom plans)
14 days 14-day refund window on annual plans (7 days on monthly).
Performance & infrastructure
Underlying Cloud
Google Cloud Runs on the Google Cloud Platform
own datacenters Automattic-operated infrastructure, 28+ data centers across 6 continents.
Datacenter Locations
5 5 data center regions worldwide
4 4 site-placement regions: US West, US Central, US East, EU West.
Free CDN
Free global CDN powered by Fastly on all plans
Global edge cache / CDN included on all plans at no extra cost.
Web Server
NGINX NGINX serving static files and reverse-proxying PHP-FPM
NGINX NGINX-based stack.
Built-in Object Cache
Page caching only (FlyCache); no persistent object cache
Persistent object cache (Memcached) enabled by default on all plans.
Latest PHP Version
8.2 PHP 8.2 (default for new sites); 7.4 also selectable
8.4 PHP 8.4 selectable (8.2, 8.3, 8.4 supported).
Free SSL Certificate
Free Let's Encrypt SSL (Simple SSL) with any plan
Free SSL certificate auto-provisioned on all plans.
WordPress management
Automatic WordPress Updates
Automatic major and minor WordPress core updates
WordPress core and security updates are managed by the platform automatically.
Staging Environments
One-click staging sites included on all plans
Staging sites require the Business plan; not available on the entry (Personal) plan.
Automatic Daily Backups
Automatic nightly backups with one-click restore
Automated real-time backups/restore (VaultPress) require the Business plan; not on the entry (Personal) plan.
Backup Retention (Days)
30 days 30 days of nightly backups retained
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Free Site Migration
Free site migrations included
Free 'Do it for me' expert migration plus free content import; full plugin/theme site migration needs the Business plan.
SSH & WP-CLI Access
SSH gateway with WP-CLI on all Cloud Platform sites
SSH and WP-CLI require the Business plan; not on the entry (Personal) plan.
WordPress Multisite Support
Multisite requires Freelance, Agency, or Custom plan; not on the entry Starter plan
WordPress Multisite networks are not supported; each site needs its own plan.
Support & security
Uptime SLA (%)
99.9% 99.9% uptime
99.999% 99.999% uptime SLA.
24/7 Support
24/7/365 chat support on all plans
24/7 priority support requires the Business plan; Personal gets email + weekday/extended live chat, not full 24/7.
Malware Removal / Hack Fix
Free malware cleanup / hack fix if your site is infected on-platform
Daily malware scanning with automatic fixes, built into every site.
WAF / DDoS Protection
Fastly-based WAF and DDoS protection at the edge, included on all plans
Web Application Firewall and DDoS protection built into every site at no extra cost.
Platform & integrations
Control Panel
custom Custom Flywheel dashboard (replaces cPanel)
custom Custom WordPress.com dashboard (Calypso); no cPanel.
White-Label / Agency Features
Billing transfer to clients, collaborators, and multi-site management for agencies
Automattic for Agencies: unified multi-site dashboard, consolidated billing, client referrals, bulk discounts.
Email Hosting Included
No email hosting; Flywheel recommends a dedicated provider like Google Workspace
No mailbox hosting on the entry plan; Professional Email / Google Workspace is a paid add-on (free for 1 year only on Business/Commerce).
The verdict
Flywheel Best for developers needing staging and SSH on the entry plan
Flywheel's $25 Starter plan already includes staging, SSH and WP-CLI, nightly backups with 30-day retention, and 24/7 support. On WordPress.com those four all require the Business plan. It also bundles 10 GB storage and a 60-day money-back window versus 14 days.
Full profile WordPress.com Best for low-cost hosting with the strongest uptime SLA
WordPress.com starts at $9/mo versus Flywheel's $25, backed by a 99.999% uptime SLA against Flywheel's 99.9%. It ships a persistent object cache and PHP 8.4 by default, where Flywheel offers page caching only and PHP 8.2. The trade-off: staging, SSH, backups, and 24/7 support sit behind its Business plan.
Full profileSources · 27 verified references
wpengine.com automattic.com getflywheel.com wordpress.com developer.wordpress.com
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