WP Engine
Ranked 5 of 6 web hosts by recommenders
People recommend it as a major managed PHP host that handles issues well. Critics mainly object to its conduct toward WordPress and open source, plus recurring outages.
People recommend it as a major managed PHP host that handles issues well. Critics mainly object to its conduct toward WordPress and open source, plus recurring outages.
18 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 12
- approval share
- 33%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Managed WordPress hosting people choose
“surely they only got 50% of the market share by doing a better job of it?”
Comment from 25 Jul 2026 in “Re: Bye Bye Gravatar” “if you're using something like WP Engine or Pantheon for hosting”
Comment from 12 Apr 2026 in “The End of Eleventy” Responsive to incidents and issues
“They're on top of it as I would expect any major PHP hosting service to be.”
Comment from 21 Oct 2026 in “Security advisory: Critical remote code execution vulnerabilities, update now” “surely they only got 50% of the market share by doing a better job of it?”
Comment from 25 Jul 2026 in “Re: Bye Bye Gravatar”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Conduct toward WordPress and its community
“they forked his open source project and built a hundred million dollar revenue business on top of it without contributing anything back to WordPress”
Comment from 1 Apr 2026 in “EmDash – a spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security” “WP Engine has been highlighting WordPress and using the word in a way that it did make a lot of non-technical people believe”
Comment from 11 Sep 2026 in “Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence” “they also started reaching out privately to theme authors with ambiguously-worded emails”
Comment from 10 Sep 2026 in “Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence” - Comment from 10 Sep 2026 in “Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence”
- Comment from 25 Jul 2026 in “Re: Bye Bye Gravatar”
Ongoing hosting issues and outages
“I am saying this as someone who has had repeated and ongoing issues with WP Engine as a hosting platform”
Comment from 9 Sep 2026 in “Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence” “The incident status page says they're deploying, but there haven't been further updates about how far along they are.”
Comment from 21 Oct 2026 in “PHP 8.2.35” “personally been bitten by this particular WP Engine misfeature”
Comment from 9 Sep 2026 in “Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence” Costly, not price-competitive
“cost a fortune - tens of thousands per year when you get a lot of traffic”
Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “The End of Eleventy” “They compete on ads, not on price.”
Comment from 3 May 2026 in “Breaking Up with WordPress After Two Decades” Not better than alternatives
“If you use a service like WPEngine, that's no better than using substack.”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “What Is a Dickover?” “WPEngine isn't even that amazing.”
Comment from 10 Sep 2026 in “Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence”
Other web hosts people recommend
The four most recommended other web hosts, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Neocities | 34 | 8 | 81% | 12 | — | Approved |
| NearlyFreeSpeech.net | 29 | 0 | 100% | 9 | 15 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| DreamHost web hosting | 16 | 11 | 59% | 7 | 20 yrs10 owners | — |
| Mythic Beasts hosting | 8 | 2 | 80% | 3 | — | — |
| WP EngineThis page | 6 | 12 | 33% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
17 of the 18 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“The incident status page says they're deploying, but there haven't been further updates about how far along they are.”
“They're on top of it as I would expect any major PHP hosting service to be.”
“WPEngine sound like complete soulless sucks, and I wouldn't give them a dime of my own money by choice”
“WP Engine has been highlighting WordPress and using the word in a way that it did make a lot of non-technical people believe”
“WP Engine contributed to the OSS app with thousands of developer hours a year”
“WPEngine isn't even that amazing.”
“WP Engine was banned from accessing the WordPress.org infrastructure”
“they also started reaching out privately to theme authors with ambiguously-worded emails”
“personally been bitten by this particular WP Engine misfeature”
“I am saying this as someone who has had repeated and ongoing issues with WP Engine as a hosting platform”
“surely they only got 50% of the market share by doing a better job of it?”
“it doesn't make what WP Engine did ethical”
“If you use a service like WPEngine, that's no better than using substack.”
“They compete on ads, not on price.”
“cost a fortune - tens of thousands per year when you get a lot of traffic”
“if you're using something like WP Engine or Pantheon for hosting”
“they forked his open source project and built a hundred million dollar revenue business on top of it without contributing anything back to WordPress”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.