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I’ve moved my sites to WPX Hosting and I love it. Here is my WPX Hosting review so you can decide if they’re the perfect host for your sites too.
In this review, I’m going to tell you:
- why I migrated my websites to a new host
- the options I considered before choosing WPX
- why I settled with WPX
- what WPX offers
- how they compare with some of the top WordPress hosts online
- my experience with migration, speed, support and more…
- what I like and don’t like about WPX
By the end, you’ll see that WPX really is one of the best web hosts for your websites in 2021 especially if you’re looking for the SEO benefit.
What is WPX Hosting?
When I started my affiliate marketing journey back in 2006, WPX Hosting wasn’t even around. That’s because they started in 2013 with three objectives for a hosting company.
- To provide superior page loading speed
- Offer 30 second support response time 24/7/365 on live chat
- To offer jargon-free simplicity through their custom built user panel
WPX offers speed-optimized WordPress hosting with cloud CDN and data-centers in three locations:
- Chicago
- London
- Sydney
Among their offerings to potential customers, besides the promise of speed, are:
- unlimited free migrations from any web host
- guaranteed free and fast fix if your site goes offline
- free speed optimization
- free malware detection and removal
- 30 second average response time on live chat
I was very impressed by what WPX was offering (even though I had already been previously influenced by a review from someone I trusted).
Why I Decided to Move My Websites
I used to host my websites on Wealthy Affiliate’s web hosting as it was free for paying members.
However, I did have some issues from time to time and it is not the fastest hosting at all since I encountered problems with Google’s Core Web Vitals.
The Google algorithm update was the main reason why I decided to find a new host for my websites.
WPX offered faster speed and claimed to have beaten out a number of popular web hosts in independent speed tests. They also had a focus on helping clients win at Google’s Core Web Vitals.
4 Web Hosting Companies I Considered
Facing the decision to move my websites, I considered four web hosting companies for my websites before settling with WPX Hosting.
These web hosts all have great reviews, provide satisfactory hosting for WordPress sites and put speed as one of the benefits you can have if you host with them.
The web hosting companies I considered were:
To say I considered these web hosts means that I at some point ended up on the website to compare features or look at pricing with the intent to purchase, chatted with the sales support team or became a customer.
WP Engine
One of the web hosts I’ve always wanted to try was WP Engine so I decided to give that a shot and bought their Start Up plan for this website. If it was good, I’d pay for the Professional plan which would allow me to host three websites.
After migrating my site using their easy migration plugin, my site ended up with an error which I asked the tech support to fix. They looked at the logs and unfortunately couldn’t figure out what was going on.
This worked out for me in a way. I cancelled and decided to keep looking for another host. I would go with WPX right after.
Later, I found out that the reason why my website had an error was because I migrated with a banned WordPress plugin. There are some plugins you can’t use on their service and I had one installed.
Cloudways
Another web hosting company I considered going with was Cloudways.
Cloudways offers cloud hosting, both managed and unmanaged for WordPress. You choose from five available cloud hosting providers and launch your server.
I’ve seen this as a very popular alternative to Siteground on a WordPress Hosting Facebook group where I’m a member. People seem to love Cloudways because it is fast and reliable.
My main gripes about Cloudways is that it seems a bit too technical for me and I don’t really get how the pricing works. If I could figure out those two things, I would probably go with this option.
I did some research to try to understand more about it but in the end I just had to choose something else.
A2 Hosting
In terms of pricing, A2 Hosting looked very attractive. I could pay $120 for a 3 year term and host unlimited WordPress sites.
That was until I realized I wanted managed WordPress hosting and not shared WordPress hosting. Managed WordPress hosting was way more expensive at A2 than the other hosts with 3 sites priced at $55/month (regular price).
I did like that they focused on delivering speed. I just thought that for the price, I might as well start with something less expensive.
Kinsta
A marketing buddy of mine uses Kinsta and loves hosting there so I took a look at them too.
The pricing seemed a bit like WP Engine’s and I didn’t like that they used Google Cloud for their infrastructure.
I only looked at Kinsta briefly based on my friend’s recommendation. I was not going to move my sites there when the other options were more attractive.
What About SiteGround?
One web host that I didn’t consider was SiteGround.
Even though I had recommendations for it on this website, I was already starting to hear frequent negative feedback about their service and support.
I’ve since removed those recommendations for SiteGround and replace them with WPX, the company that I’m now hosting with.
3 Reasons Why I Chose WPX Hosting
There are at least four reasons I can think of why I decided to go with WPX Hosting.
- Matthew Woodward’s review
- Pricing for 5 websites better than hosting 1 website at WP Engine or Kinsta
- My first month was $1
Matthew Woodward’s Review
The first time I heard about WPX Hosting was through a highly respected blogger and SEO expert, Matthew Woodward.
His review touched on all the reasons why WPX was a great host for him and compared speed testing results with other hosts.
He had had a bad experience with WP Engine and migrated to WPX hosting which was a much better host mainly because they:
- were the fastest (based on his speed tests)
- had the best support (no long waits in a chat queue)
- were super affordable.
His review was so influential that even WPX mentions him multiple times on their site and even use his speed test results.
So when it came time for me to move my own sites, I remembered this review and because speed is what I wanted most, everything clicked.
Affordable Pricing
I actually tried WP Engine before going to WPX. The price for WP Engine’s Start Up plan which only lets you host 1 website is $30/month when you pay monthly.
With WPX, you pay $24.99/month on their Business Plan which lets you host 5 websites.
Two other plans are available:
- Professional Plan – 10 sites for $49.99/month
- Elite Plan – 35 sites for $99.99/month
Going with annual billing term reduces your pricing also.
And if you want to save money and try WPX hosting, then you have to see the #1 reason why I chose WPX hosting right away.
My First Month Was $1
While checking out the pricing for WPX Hosting, I got a pop-up offering a discount on my first month of hosting for only $1.
I was already considering signing up so I was happy to get a discount like this.
My first month with WPX was only $1 and I was happy enough with what I got so I stayed with them.
Migrating to WPX Hosting
Once signed up, I now had the task of getting my sites migrated to the new web hosts.
WPX Hosting offers unlimited free migrations to their platform from any host. The process is simple.
In your client area, just select Migrations from the top menu.
You’ll be presented with a Migration request form which you’d fill out for each site.
There are instructions on how to fill the form but it’s pretty straight-forward.
One part of the form asks you to select the migration process depending on where you’re migrating from.
If you’re migrating from SiteGround for example, the form will let you fill out out CPanel link, username and password. Choosing FTP or SSH will ask for all the required info including port, usernames, URLs and passwords.
Since my setup was a bit different (you have to log into Wealthy Affiliate to access the hosting dashboard), I had to choose other and give instructions on how to access the sites I wanted to move.
Once I submitted my request, I received an email to let me know the process had begun and it would be complete within 24 hours. It was actually completed in around 17 hours.
My next steps were to change my DNS for the domain so my website would be live on the new hosting and once that was done, install my free SSL certificate.
Installing an SSL certificate was free and easy as well. Just go to manage your websites, find the SSL buttons and follow the prompts. They install in about 10 seconds.
The migration process was simple and without any problems unlike my experience with WP Engine. I felt at ease with my new web hosts.
What I Like About WPX Hosting
With any product, web hosting included, there are things you’re going to love and there are things that may bother you a bit.
Here are some of the things I like about WPX Hosting.
1. Support
There is nothing more annoying than to launch chat on a web host only to see that you’re in a queue where you’re the 15th customer with a wait time of 7 minutes.
Nothing like that with WPX. You start the chat and someone is there to help in less than 30 seconds. Every time.
I’ve only had to contact them about two or three times and each time, I think they might have responded in under 20 seconds.
Possibly the best web hosting support I’ve had in all the years I’ve been online.
In addition to chat support, you can also open a ticket and if you just need to know how to do something, there’s a knowledge base with easy to follow instructions.
2. Pricing
For the service that WPX delivers, I find that $24.99/month is a very good deal for 5 sites.
Compared to WP Engine and Kinsta, I can host more sites for less and get great service.
Getting the first month for only $1 was a great bonus also.
3. Improved Speeds
The main reason for migrating my sites to a new host was to get better score in Google Page Insights to satisfy Google’s Core Web Vitals update.
The tests I did after migrating confirmed that my scores did go up both for mobile and desktop.
WPX helps you optimize speed by using:
- WPX cloud – their own hand-built CDN with 26 end-points globally.
- W3 Total Cache – extra caching to improve speed.
- Autoptimize plugin to optimize CSS, JS and other stuff that slows page loading.
You can also use the WP Rocket plugin which is optimized for handling WPX’s custom technology platform, XDN, so that it can deliver faster loading speeds and better Core Web Vitals scores.
The WP Rocket plugin can also deliver faster loading times with their caching, further minify HTML, CSS and JS files for faster fetching, and lazy-load images.
I’m happy with the speed that I’m getting as it is an big improvement from my previous host.
What I Don’t Like About WPX Hosting
I’m not even sure if there’s anything that I’m bothered by or don’t like about WPX.
It’s only been a month and some days up to the point I’m writing this WPX Hosting review. If anything changes, I’ll be sure to put it here in this section.
Wrap-Up
WPX Hosting is definitely a good host to consider if you’re looking to improve your website speed and win at Core Web Vitals.
You’ll find that they’re:
- fast when it comes to page-loading speed
- excellent with chat support with no waiting (under 30 seconds response time)
- a very affordable WordPress host with pricing starting at $24.99 for 5 sites.
They offer free unlimited transfers from any web host and are definitely a better alternative to hosts like SiteGround and WP Engine in my opinion.
Check out WPX Hosting and make the move today.
