7 Best Managed WordPress Hosting Options for Enterprises

WordPress now powers over 40% of all the websites on the internet, from personal blogs to global enterprise brands like Microsoft, Samsung, The New York Times, Forbes and more.

Its open-source nature, ease of use, flexibility, and vast ecosystem make WordPress an extremely attractive option even for large companies managing complex websites with heavy traffic.

However, adopting WordPress at true enterprise scale comes with some unique hosting challenges that must be properly addressed.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through:

• The key benefits of using WordPress for large organizations
• The obstacles to be aware of
• What exactly to look for in enterprise-grade hosting
• The top managed WordPress hosting providers optimized for enterprises

Why Enterprises Trust WordPress

Before we dive into the hosting considerations, let‘s briefly review the main advantages that make WordPress trusted by leading global brands to power their online presence and content.

Easy Content Management

The intuitive WordPress dashboard and editor allow you to create and publish content quickly without needing to know coding. This enables your marketing teams, writers, and editors to focus on creating content vs wrestling with complex CMS platforms.

According to Mark Maunder, Former CEO of WordPress pioneer WordPress.com:

”The simplicity of WordPress and ease-of-use of the WordPress Admin, which is the back-end for WordPress, means that almost anyone can learn to create content or modify your website.”

Seamless Integration

WordPress can readily integrate with various business platforms like your CRM, ERP, marketing automations systems, HR tools, proprietary systems, and more through plugins and APIs.

This high degree of flexibility to connect WordPress into you wider tech ecosystem is key for enterprise adoption.

Vast Theme & Plugin Ecosystem

With over 55,000 free and paid plugins and over 8,000 free and premium themes available, WordPress can be customized and extended to achieve virtually any functionality you may need.

No other CMS platform comes close to the breadth of WordPress’ ecosystem. This richness of plugins and themes makes WordPress adaptable as your needs evolve.

Scalability

While scaling WordPress has its challenges which we’ll cover, its modular architecture and lack of bloat means, if optimized properly, it can grow to handle enterprise-level traffic and workloads.

Notable examples are sites like TechCrunch, The New York Post, and People which handle millions of visitors each month on WordPress.

Open Source Foundation

The open source nature of WordPress means the core software is continuously improved, updated and secured by its large global community of open source developers.

It does not rely on a single private company‘s roadmap. The open ecosystem fosters innovation and integration capabilities.

Control & Flexibility

With WordPress, you retain full ownership and control over your website, content, and data. This is unlike some proprietary CMS platforms where you may be locked into a single vendor.

You can freely migrate your site and content as needed. This flexibility and lack of vendor lock-in is attractive for enterprises.

Overcoming WordPress Adoption Hurdles

Despite its many advantages, adopting WordPress at an enterprise scale comes with some key challenges and risks you need to be aware of:

Site Speed & Performance

Large amounts of traffic, users, plugins, third party trackers, growing multimedia content, and more can begin to impact site performance and page load speeds, degrading user experience.

According to Kinsta, the main factors impacting WordPress speed are:

• Bloated themes and plugins
• Server location
• Images and other media
• Caching and CDNs
• Database optimizations
• Hosting infrastructure

So WordPress performance needs to be proactively managed.

Security Threats

With its open source nature, WordPress sites are often targets of attackers. Security risks like DDoS attacks, malware injections, data leaks need to be guarded against.

Per Sucuri, WordPress sites are far more prone to being compromised than other CMS platforms:

CMS Platform	Website Infections
WordPress	85%
Joomla	12%
Drupal	3%

Keeping WordPress secure at scale requires constant vigilance.

Technology Sprawl

As your WordPress site grows, managing themes, plugins, updates, integrations, optimizations, and other technical aspects can become highly complex and unwieldy over time.

Scaling & Reliability Concerns

For businesses relying heavily on their website, high availability and uptime along with the ability to smoothly handle traffic spikes are must-haves. But scaling WordPress to enterprise levels can expose limitations.

Support Limitations

Most low-cost WordPress hosting providers offer only basic email or chat support. This can prove inadequate when managing enterprise WordPress issues where prompt resolution is critical.

The good news? All these challenges and hurdles associated with WordPress adoption can be adequately addressed by choosing the right managed enterprise-grade WordPress hosting provider.

Let‘s look at what exactly defines “enterprise-grade hosting” and key features to look for.

What Defines Enterprise-Grade WordPress Hosting

Enterprise-level WordPress hosting goes far beyond basic shared hosting in what it must provide.

When choosing a hosting provider to run your business‘ critical WordPress presence, look for these key must-have features:

Hyper-Fast Infrastructure

Site speed and performance should be the top priority. Enterprise hosting will leverage a modern infrastructure like cloud-based servers combined with a content delivery network (CDN) to deliver consistently fast page loads globally.

CDNs in particular are vital for minimizing server response times by caching static assets across edge locations closer to visitors.

According to Kinsta, websites hosted on their Google Cloud powered infrastructure see average page load times of sub-1 second compared to a 12 second average on basic shared hosting plans.

Seamless Scalability

The hosting platform must scale seamlessly in real-time to accommodate sudden traffic spikes from promotions, breaking news or other events – without crashing or slowing down.

Auto-scaling, load balancing across multiple servers, and overprovisioning resources are commonly used to achieve this flexibility.

Rock-Solid Reliability

Given the business impact of a website outage, cloud-based failover systems and server redundancies are needed to offer high uptime of 99.95% or more along with quick disaster recovery.

Monitoring tools to catch issues before they impact users also bolster reliability.

Enterprise-Grade Security

Robust security measures are essentials for an enterprise hosting environment, including:

• Web application firewalls
• Ongoing DDoS mitigation
• Malware detection
• Proactive vulnerability scanning
• Granular access controls
• Regular patching, updates
• Encryption of data
• Round-the-clock monitoring

Optimized for Collaboration

Development teams need access to tools that make them productive. Enterprise WordPress hosting should ideally include:

• Integrated staging sites to test changes safely.
• GIT version control integration.
• Collaboration platforms like Slack or Jira.
• Debugging capabilities.
• Deployment workflows.

24/7 Expert Support

Access to 24/7 expert support teams with guaranteed quick response times is vital for enterprises where extended website outages can have major business impacts.

Flexible and Transparent Pricing

While costs are higher than basic hosting, flexibility and value are still important when evaluating options. Look for pricing models that offer flexibility to scale up or down based on your evolving needs.

Leading Enterprise-Grade WordPress Hosting Providers

Keeping those must-have enterprise hosting features in mind, let’s explore some of the leading managed WordPress hosting providers optimized for enterprises:

1. Kinsta

Kinsta offers specialized WordPress hosting plans built and optimized for the needs of mid-to-large enterprises.

Powered by Google Cloud Platform across over 20 regions, it delivers superb performance through a robust global infrastructure.

Here are some of Kinsta’s key features:

• Google Cloud Platform – Leverages Google‘s premium tier network of data centers.
• Free CDN, SSL, and unlimited bandwidth – Ideal for handling enterprise traffic levels.
• Staging sites – Experiment safely before deploying site changes.
• Instant auto-scaling – Seamlessly adjust resources to match traffic demands.
• Enhanced security – Hardened servers, firewalls, Varnish caching, and more for optimal security.
• Intuitive dashboard – Manage hosting and monitor site analytics all from WordPress admin.
• WooCommerce optimized – Purpose-built plans for high traffic ecommerce stores.
• 24/7 world-class support – Quick access to WordPress engineers to resolve issues.

Kinsta is proudly trusted by leading global brands like Microsoft, Ubisoft, Intuit, Magic Leap and more to manage their high-traffic WordPress sites.

Their specialized enterprise plans start from $1000/month but balance robust performance with ease of management.

2. WP Engine

WP Engine is a managed enterprise WordPress hosting provider used by major global companies like Facebook, Home Depot, Trivago, Xero, and more.

Their enterprise-grade features include:

• Optimized platform – Infrastructure and tools purpose-built for WordPress.
• Global CDN – Ensure speed across the globe.
• Auto-scaling – Resources scale up/down dynamically based on traffic.
• Staging environments – Review changes before deploying to live sites.
• GIT integration – Enables smooth development workflows.
• Analytics – Gain visibility into performance and user behavior.
• Malware detection – Advanced threat monitoring and blocking.
• GDPR compliant – Adheres to strict privacy regulations.
• 24/7 expert support – Fast responses from experienced WordPress engineers.

Pricing starts at $250/month for their Growth plan targeted at enterprises. WP Engine does not offer monthly contracts, indicating their focus on long-term partnerships.

3. Pagely

Pagely is a leader in managed WordPress hosting focused exclusively on enterprises. Their specialized infrastructure and support are engineered for large businesses.

Key features of Pagely’s enterprise hosting include:

• High availability – Multi-region redundancy for max uptime.
• Optimized AWS infrastructure – Leverages Amazon‘s global cloud platform.
• CDN powered – Caching, performance optimization and DDoS protection.
• Auto scaling – Adds resources automatically based on site traffic.
• Staging sites and clones – Test changes in safe isolated environments.
• Migration assistance – Pagely‘s team helps you transition hosting.
• Fanatical 24/7 support – Engineers available around the clock to resolve issues quickly.

Pagely starts at $1000/month for Business Class hosting and $2500/month for true enterprise-grade solutions.

Their clients include major global brands like Boeing, Edmunds, Western Union, Sophos, PBS, Thomson Reuters, and more.

4. WordPress VIP

WordPress VIP offers a specialized enterprise-grade hosting solution acquired by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and Jetpack.

WordPress VIP provides:

• A high performance infrastructure with dedicated CDN.
• Fully managed hosting platform.
• Hosting experts handle infrastructure, updates, monitoring.
• Platform scales seamlessly to any size.
• Tested with some of the world’s largest, highest traffic websites.
• Built-in security measures and active threat monitoring.
• Access to elite WordPress developers for support.
• End-to-end consulting on best practices.

Pricing is not public but starts at five-figures monthly based on individual business needs and can go well into six-figures for extremely large websites.

WordPress VIP caters to the world‘s largest media publishers and companies like Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, Capgemini and more.

5. Cloudways

Cloudways brings the power, flexibility, and performance of leading cloud hosting platforms like DigitalOcean, Linode, AWS, Google Cloud, Vultur to users through managed WordPress services.

Benefits for enterprises include:

• Managed services – Cloudways configures, monitors, scales your cloud servers.
• Leading cloud infrastructure – Host sites on DigitalOcean, AWS, GCP.
• CDN powered – Global content delivery network to speed up sites.
• Cloning – Create copies of sites instantly for testing.
• WooCommerce optimized – For high-traffic online stores.
• Easy migration – Their team helps you switch hosting providers.
• 24×7 expert support – Fast response times from Ubuntu certified gurus.
• Pay-as-you-go pricing – Pay only for exact resources utilized.

Cloudways starts at $10/month but offers fully customizable enterprise-grade solutions and support.

Clients include Rokket Media, UCLA, CurrencyFair, University of Cambridge and more high traffic sites.

6. Savvii

Savvii provides fully managed enterprise WordPress hosting on a high speed platform designed for security, scalability and optimal performance.

Their solution offers:

• Optimized AWS infrastructure – Leverages Amazon‘s global data centers.
• 4X faster page loads – CDN, caching, image optimization for speed.
• DDoS protection – Built-in protection against DDoS attacks.
• Proactive threat monitoring – 24/7 security scanning and threat response.
• Staging sites – Review changes in isolated environments.
• Free SSL – Activate free SSL certificates in one click.
• Migrations – Their team helps transition hosting.
• 24×7 fanatical support – Get help within minutes from experts.

Savvii starts at $1000/month for enterprises requiring their optimized performance environment.

Their clients include major brands like AppDynamics, Shutterfly, WikiHow, GoPro and more operating WordPress at substantial scale.

7. Nexcess

Nexcess offers fully managed, high performance WordPress hosting solutions specialized for enterprises.

Key capabilities include:

• Optimized architecture – Built for speed, security and stability at scale.
• Enterprise-grade infrastructure – Handles substantial traffic loads and spikes.
• High availability – Redundancy across global data centers for max uptime.
• Enhanced security – Firewalls, VPN access, proactive threat monitoring.
• WooCommerce specialized – For high-volume online stores.
• Migrations – Free migration services.
• 24/7 enterprise support – Swift access to WordPress engineers.

Nexcess starts at $25/month for managed WooCommerce hosting but offers fully custom enterprise solutions and pricing.

Their enterprise clients include Rockstar Games, Fandango, A&E, Dictionary.com and more companies with business-critical WordPress sites.

Key Takeaways – Choosing Enterprise WordPress Hosting

Selecting the right enterprise-grade WordPress hosting is crucial but also challenging given the many providers promising high performance and reliability.

Keep these key criteria in mind as you evaluate options for your business:

• Look for true enterprise-grade capabilities – CDNs, distributed infrastructure, high availability, hardened security, and expert support. Don‘t settle for less.

• Opt for major cloud infrastructure such as AWS, Google Cloud, Azure for reliability. Avoid smaller niche players.

• Consider platform optimizations like page caching, image optimization, database caching for speed.

• Prioritize providers with strong client service track records – aim for under 30 minute response SLA.

• Carefully evaluate reviews from other enterprise users – don‘t rely solely on testimonials on the provider‘s own website.

• Look for flexible scaling of hosting resources to match your evolving traffic needs.

• Expect significantly higher costs than basic shared hosting. But compare value, not just price tags.

While the leading managed WordPress hosts here certainly require major investment, their heavy focus on enterprise clients means they can deliver the performance, reliability, security, and support needed for business-critical websites operating at substantial scale.