WordPress.com vs. WP Engine

Last verified 35 days ago · 27 sources · Updated automatically

WordPress.com and WP Engine 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.

WordPress.com

Automattic's hosted WordPress service, from a free tier up to managed, plugin-enabled business plans.

HQ San Francisco, CA

Visit WordPress.com Full profile

WP Engine

Managed WordPress platform for businesses and agencies, with staging, CDN, and developer tooling.

HQ Austin, TX

Visit WP Engine Full profile

Attribute

WordPress.com

WP Engine

Company facts

Headquarters

San Francisco, CA Automattic (WordPress.com's parent); a fully distributed company.

Austin, TX Founded 2010 in Austin, Texas

Employees

1.5k Automattic (parent company) headcount, ~1,450 across 80+ countries.

1k 1,000+ globally distributed employees (lower bound)

Pricing

Starting Monthly Price (USD)

$9 Personal plan, the cheapest paid tier; bandwidth is unmetered on all plans.

$30 Startup plan, billed annually ($30/mo)

Entry Plan WordPress Sites

1 sites Personal plan hosts a single WordPress site.

1 sites Startup plan: 1 WordPress install

Entry Plan Monthly Visits

—

25k Startup plan: 25,000 monthly visits

Entry Plan Storage (GB)

6 GB Personal plan includes 6 GB of storage.

10 GB Startup plan: 10 GB local storage

Free Trial Length (Days)

0 days No free trial; WordPress.com offers a money-back guarantee instead.

0 days No free trial; 60-day money-back guarantee instead

Money-Back Guarantee (Days)

14 days 14-day refund window on annual plans (7 days on monthly).

60 days 60-day money-back guarantee (annual plans)

Performance & infrastructure

Underlying Cloud

own datacenters Automattic-operated infrastructure, 28+ data centers across 6 continents.

Google Cloud, AWS Google Cloud on all plans; AWS (and Azure) on Premium

Datacenter Locations

4 4 site-placement regions: US West, US Central, US East, EU West.

28 across Google Cloud, AWS & Azure; AWS and Azure regions plus 3 GCP regions are Premium-tier only

Free CDN

Global edge cache / CDN included on all plans at no extra cost.

Global CDN included on all plans

Web Server

NGINX NGINX-based stack.

NGINX NGINX-based stack

Built-in Object Cache

Persistent object cache (Memcached) enabled by default on all plans.

Object caching enabled by default; dedicated Redis on higher tiers

Latest PHP Version

8.4 PHP 8.4 selectable (8.2, 8.3, 8.4 supported).

8.4 PHP 8.4 (beta; requires WordPress 6.7+)

Free SSL Certificate

Free SSL certificate auto-provisioned on all plans.

Auto-renewing SSL included on all plans

WordPress management

Automatic WordPress Updates

WordPress core and security updates are managed by the platform automatically.

Managed WP, PHP & MySQL updates included

Staging Environments

Staging sites require the Business plan; not available on the entry (Personal) plan.

1-click staging & dev environments on all plans

Automatic Daily Backups

Automated real-time backups/restore (VaultPress) require the Business plan; not on the entry (Personal) plan.

Daily & on-demand automatic backups

Backup Retention (Days)

—

40 days Revert to any backup up to 40 days

Free Site Migration

Free 'Do it for me' expert migration plus free content import; full plugin/theme site migration needs the Business plan.

Free automated migration plugin (WP Migrate)

SSH & WP-CLI Access

SSH and WP-CLI require the Business plan; not on the entry (Personal) plan.

SSH gateway with WP-CLI and Git on all plans

WordPress Multisite Support

WordPress Multisite networks are not supported; each site needs its own plan.

Multisite supported as add-on (Growth+); not on Startup

Support & security

Uptime SLA (%)

99.999% 99.999% uptime SLA.

99.99% 99.99% uptime SLA

24/7 Support

24/7 priority support requires the Business plan; Personal gets email + weekday/extended live chat, not full 24/7.

24/7/365 chat support on all plans

Malware Removal / Hack Fix

Daily malware scanning with automatic fixes, built into every site.

Free hack fix / malware cleaning for infections on-platform

WAF / DDoS Protection

Web Application Firewall and DDoS protection built into every site at no extra cost.

Basic network DDoS included; managed WAF + advanced DDoS via paid Global Edge Security

Platform & integrations

Control Panel

custom Custom WordPress.com dashboard (Calypso); no cPanel.

custom Custom dashboard (WP Engine User Portal / my.wpengine.com)

White-Label / Agency Features

Automattic for Agencies: unified multi-site dashboard, consolidated billing, client referrals, bulk discounts.

Agency plans, partner program, multi-site client management

Email Hosting Included

No mailbox hosting on the entry plan; Professional Email / Google Workspace is a paid add-on (free for 1 year only on Business/Commerce).

No email hosting; recommends a dedicated provider (e.g. Google Workspace)

The verdict

WordPress.com

Best for low-cost, hands-off hosting with built-in security

Starts at $9/mo versus WP Engine's $30, with a free CDN, free SSL, and object cache included. A WAF and DDoS protection are built into every site at no charge, where WP Engine gates managed WAF behind a paid add-on. It also posts a higher 99.999% uptime SLA. The trade-off: no staging, automatic backups, or SSH on the entry plan.

Full profile

WP Engine

Best for developers needing staging, backups, and SSH

Its $30/mo Startup plan includes 1-click staging, daily automatic backups with 40-day retention, and SSH plus WP-CLI and Git access, none of which WordPress.com offers on its entry plan. Support is 24/7 on every tier versus WordPress.com's weekday/extended chat, and it ships 10 GB storage to WordPress.com's 6 GB. It runs on Google Cloud across 28 datacenter regions.

Full profile

Sources · 27 verified references

automattic.com wpengine.com wordpress.com medium.com developer.wordpress.com

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