Automattic (the company behind WordPress) announced a few days ago that the company is now offering a service called WordPress Enterprise.
Partners
- Amazon on the Polly plugin
What is Enterprise? A step in-between WordPress.com and WordPress VIP. Enterprise is a completely managed hosting option for businesses seeking something more than WordPress.com, but something that's far less expensive than WordPress VIP.
Pricing and Details
WordPress Enterprise doesn't come cheap at $500 per month, but Automattic reps say that the level of managed hosting is going to be so high that the price is justified. Is it? It all depends on what you want in a hosting company. For sure, $500 is far more than most other hosting companies charge for managed options, but it's hard to get a completely managed hosting plan with other companies too.
So, is WordPress Enterprise not a contender in the managed hosting scene? It might be. If you sign up for WordPress Enterprise, you'll get everything that you would get with WordPress.com plus some features from WordPress VIP plus Chartbeat and Flipboard integration. In short, it's the best that WordPress has to offer in one nice package – well, one expensive and nice package.
Managed Hosting Is Worth It
Whether or not you decide that the $500 Enterprise plan is right for you, there's no debating that fact that managed hosting is where it's at, and it's what you want when choosing a dedicated hosting option. Without managed hosting, you'll be left to your own devices, and that's never a good idea unless you know exactly what you are going. No idea? Don't go without managed hosting!
WordPress needs to break into the managed hosting space since the company deals with a lot of pressure from other hosting companies (and from sites like Tumblr). But, it will be interesting to see if companies want to pay $500 per month for what WordPress is offering. Would you pay this much for a managed hosting plan that's as simple to use as any other WordPress plan – and comes with some VIP advantages?
How to Choose
The best way to select a dedicated hosting plan is to find one that offers everything you want for the right price. If what Automattic is offering sounds like the exact thing you've been looking for, you can justify that $500 per month price. If not, it's probably out of your budget for now, and you can certainly find cheaper packages.
Compare what Automattic is offering as far as managed hosting goes with what you find elsewhere, and you'll soon see whether or not that price is crazy or just right. Would you sign up for the new WordPress Enterprise managed to host for your small business? Or, do you feel better about paying less? It will be interesting to see which one this one goes!
What for Customers?
- Easy to create content without the need for a developer or designer aligned with brand guidelines and code standards.
- Mobile-first design philosophy: Most traffic to a website comes from mobile devices. Also, Google uses ‘mobile-index' for SEO.
- Easy and automated core and plugin update to fix vulnerabilities, hence gaining the trust of visitors and businesses.
- Free & Open source
- Extensible, flexible and easy technology integrations.
Next Version: WordPress 5.0 release (“Gutenberg”) release estimate date is April 2018
WordPress 3.7 ‘Basie' in honor of Count Basie
It features reliable and secured automatic version updates in the background with dozens of new checks and safeguards.
Stronger password recommendations: enables complex long and unique password creation.
Better global support the automatic installation of the right language files and keeping them up to date.
