This website was previously hosted on Digital Ocean, Siteground and A2 Hosting. They are all great WordPress hosting providers and we never had problems with any of them. We even wrote an article / review on our experience with them.
However, from time to time we like to change the web host. We do this to learn about the different services and options available on the marketing. So in October 2018 we moved this website to Kinsta.
Who are Kinsta?
Kinsta started in 2013. It is one of the youngest WordPress web hosts, yet it has already gained a lot of popularity. So we wanted to try Kinsta to see what the hype is all about.
Kinsta is different than most of the managed WordPress web hosts we have used before. They utilize Google Cloud’s global network and are powered exclusively by the Google Cloud Platform. In fact this is one of their unique selling points and one should expect optimum website loading times and superior uptime.
Migrating WP White Security to Kinsta
Kinsta offer free WordPress migrations from WP Engine and some other web hosts. However, not from A2 Hosting, where WP White Security was hosted. So we did the migration ourselves, which we wanted to so we can get a feel for their customer service and setup.
The migration process is well documented and most of it is automated with a plugin. It is so easy that you can migrate the site while abroad and waiting at the laundromat. This is not a joke – I had tweeted about this when I was migrating this website to Kinsta!
The advantages of remote working: you can migrate a website while waiting at the laundromat in a foreign country. pic.twitter.com/Oq1Elsjaov
— robert Abela (@robertabela) October 16, 2018
Before the migration the WP White Security was using a paid for HTTPS certificate. Migrating it was not an issue at all. However, I had a few questions on the migration so I contacted support. As expected, the agent was well informed and very responsive, so I got all the answers I needed in a few minutes.
First Impressions of Kinsta WordPress Hosting
Website Performance
The first thing we noticed when we migrated WP White Security to Kinsta was the improved website load time. We did not do any code or configuration changes. We migrated the website as is and the load time improved by almost 100%. Prior to moving our WordPress site to Kinsta the load time was around 850ms.
Easy to Use & Well Documented Service
Their service and control panel are very intuitive. Though this intuitiveness comes at a price. For example to keep the interface simple you only have one SFTP user. So if you have multiple developers working from different locations, you can still work around this limitation, but it is a bit of a hassle.
Their knowledge base is really extensive. So far I’ve always found for what I needed to do on Kinsta. Their blog is also worth following. A lot of tips for WordPress site owners.
Kinsta & WordPress Support
Support is something we always make an emphasis on. We think it is one of the most important aspects of web hosting. It is so important to me that I would rather host my website with an OK web host that has amazing customer service and support, than hosting it on a top performing web host with not so good customer service.
Quoting from the Kinsta website “All of our support engineers are WordPress developers, they create WordPress themes, plugins and contribute back to the core. 24/7 support is available for all of our customers 365 days a year.”
I second that. Contacting support is very easy. There are no queues, special email addresses or elevator music on the phone. Just login to the Kinsta customer portal, click on the chat icon and type in your question, as shown in the above screenshot.
We have had a few support cases and the agents always replied within a few minutes. And they were knowledgeable. When one of our support cases had to be escalated, there were no ifs and buts. It was escalated straight away and we had the issue sorted within minutes. This is quite unique, considering that in most cases you almost have to argue with the agent to have your support issue escalated.
Managed Hosting Tailored for WordPress
The biggest technical highlight of Kinsta is the fact that they use are powered exclusively by the Google Cloud Network. Though they also have all the other features that you would expect from a premium WordPress managed web host:
- Optimized WordPress stack
- Out of the box server-level caching and redirects
- WordPress backups
- Support for Let’s Encrypt HTTPS certificates
- Free Content Delivery Network (CDN)
- Secure infrastructure (hardware firewalls, two-factor authentication, enforced strong passwords) and free fixes of hacked WordPress websites
- A variety of admin tools such as web server logs viewer, database search and replace, IP deny tool and others.
Pricing, Plans & Everything Else
Good services, plugins, and themes do not come cheap. So do not expect the cheapest plans: Kinsta’s pricing is mid to upper range. Their Starter plan costs $30 a month. With the Starter plan you have 1 WordPress website, 20,000 visits, 10GB disk space and Free SSL & CND. Visits overages cost $1 per 1,000. If you are after a good bargain, like most of us are, pay for a whole year in advance and get two months for free.
They also have optional premium add-ons, like support for Cloudflare, Elasticsearch, Nginx reverse proxy, extra backups etc. Visit the Kinsta plans & pricing page for more pricing and features information.
Our Verdict on Kinsta’s Managed WordPress Hosting
The pioneers of a new product or service always have a competitive advantage because they were first on the market. However I feel that this is no longer the case with software and online services. The internet has allowed businesses to easily follow the pioneers, learn about their shortcomings and build something better.
Kinsta might not be the pioneers of managed WordPress hosting, but they have taken it a step further. They do not have a wow factor, but they do pay extra attention and make sure that:
- Documentation is up to date
- Provide world-class customer support
- Their service is easy to use
- The performance of their stack is a notch better than the rest.
For more information on this awesome managed WordPress web host visit the Kinsta website.
2 comments
Hi,
Thanks for the great article. Kinsta is a good choice for WordPress hosting – now I`m using it for one of my websites. Also from my own experience, I also used Liquid Web and WpEngine. Both are the great option for WordPress as well.
I’ve heard good things about Liquid Web but never used them. WP Engine are great. We still use them and have written a review about their managed WordPress hosting.