May 12, 2020 Although not hugely popular like its main competitors, Flywheel is a company with an attractive and edgy feel that is primarily focused on offering reputable managed WordPress hosting, they only started in 2012. Flywheel is a managed WordPress hosting company with super fast load times, excellent built-in security, and an expert support team with very low wait times to get in touch with a support agent. Automated daily backups are set up by default, and Flywheel offers a free valet transfer service to migrate your site (s).
When you are just starting out there are dime a dozen of cheap hosting companies that can get you started for as low as $5 per month.
But when you are a fully functional online business or blogger or even a developer agency, you have a lot of headaches going on. A single downtime or a backup failure can cost you visitors and hence hard-earned money.
This is where managed WordPress Hosting comes in.
One of the best Managed WordPress hosting that is officially recommended by WordPress is, Flywheel hosting. Today, we'll talk about Flywheel Hosting review and see if it is the best managed hosting service out there.
Please Note:
This is not a sponsored post at all. I was impressed at what I heard about Flywheel's performance and hence decided to test it myself. This is the most comprehensive, data-backed review by me till date.
About Flywheel Hosting
Flywheel Hosting Company is the brain child of Dusty Davidson, Rick Knudston, & Tony Noecker in the year 2012. Flywheel hosting is a high-end WordPress hosting based in Omaha, Nebraska in the United States.
Flywheel is specifically a hosting aimed towards web designers and creative agencies.
Flywheel is one of the most trusted hosting service that is officially recommended by WordPress. The Flywheel team are in the hosting business since 2012 and specialize in best hosting for web designers and client management. They provide top-of-the-class hosting that is wicked speed, simple to use and the biggest thing is they are managed hosting.
In managed WordPresshosting, they are obviously a bit pricier than those $5 hosting, but they also take away all the headaches off your head. You don't have to worry about site updates, regular or daily backups, response time, malware protection, up-time or even caching to speed up your website.
My Initial Impressions of Flywheel Hosting
The site is the sleekest official hosting site for any hosting providers I have seen. Neat and professional that doesn't force you to buy them. The account signup page was also clean and minimal and the overall experience of buying an account from them was seamlessly simple.
Flywheel Web Hosting Review 2021
Below is the review of Flywheel hosting based on what it offers, how it compares against Flywheel's competitor hosting sites and my verdict. I will also list the pros and cons of Flywheel web hosting so that you can decide if it's worth the bang for your bucks.
Flywheel Hosting's Performance Analysis
Sites hosted on Flywheel are by far the fastest sites that I have come across. This is the sole reason they power sites like Phenomblue, and The Washington Post. These sites are the biggest and most visited sites they show why Flywheel is the reliable hosting solution for high traffic sites.
In my testing, instead of checking a new site with no obvious errors which many reviews do by testing a demo site with default WordPress themes, I thought it would be better to test random sites up and running with Flywheel hosting. I checked out various sites hosted on Flywheel managed hosting and recorded their load times and here is one site's results.
The time to first byte loaded within 0.6 is phenomenal. (tested using). The site loaded within 2 seconds which is quite faster than 74% of all websites in the world. (tested using Pingdom)
Site loading time with Flywheel Hosting
Uptime: What Are Flywheel Hosting's Uptime Rates?
Flywheel hosting has a record uptime of 100% and a lifetime uptime achievement of 100%. They are currently leading the charts and have many industry leaders like WPEngine, WebSynthesis and even WordPress.com VIP below them. (See screenshot below.) (tested using)
I don't think there anything else to be said here. If you host a site/client site with Flywheel managed hosting you can rest assured that you won't face any downtime, ever.
No visitor loss, no income loss.
Flywheel Hosting Features Review 2021
I don't want to sound fanboy type, but the ultimate truth is that Flywheel hosting has some amazing features that most of the top well-known hosting payers do not have, yet.
The plethora of these features that add value to the customers is what made Flywheel one of the top and WordPress recommended managed hosting service. Here are some of them:
1) Offers Managed WordPress Hosting
Flywheel Hosting is managed WordPress Hosting, which means they do all the labor for you and you just have to focus on what you are good at (your business).
They handle everything from site updates, to nightly backups and your WordPress security issues. The beauty of managed hosting is that you have someone at your service, always.
In case of site errors, any issues in security or occasional high traffic visits to your site, it won't get down. The experts at Flywheel are known to provide hosting solutions even on weekends and it is a relief.
Moreover, all sites are hosted on VPS hosting, not shared. This definitely impacts positively on your site's performance both for users and search engine wise.
2) Flywheel Hosting Has No Downtime
With the proof of 100% uptime (mentioned above) Flywheel has got your back even if you hit the 'hug of death' which is getting featured on the homepage of Reddit and thus getting millions of real time visitors on your site.
Rest assured the traffic on your special days like events, black friday offer etc can do nothing to your site's uptime.
3) Flexibility with Traffic Handling
Flywheel literally places no limit of your pageviews or visits irrespective of the plan you chose. No matter you are on the tiny plan or the enterprise plan, Flywheel has the technology to handle your site even if you get a millions of visits.
4) Flywheel Hosting's Free Site Migration
Have your site hosted on a blogger or another hosting previously?
Flywheel has got your back. The expert team provides you hassle-free site migration from Blogger to WordPress or changing of hosting to Flywheel with no extra cost.
This is something I wasn't aware (or rather say i couldn't afford when I migrated my blogger site to WordPress). With zero technical knowledge, I thought I was done but the broken links still haunt me to this day.
I know the pain, and unless you love hassles, you should definitely take advantage of free site migration service.
5) Flywheel Hosting Built-in Caching
Caching plugins make it easy for your site to handle too many requests with faster loading times. With Flywheel hosting plan (whatever you choose) you get free caching system. They have there own caching technology and why on earth would you pay extra for something when your host can provide it for free.
This is the fact I came across when I was looking for ways to cut my WordPress site maintenance costs. I used WP Rocket (the best in the industry) which cost me around $99/year. I now think I waste $99 on something that is offered for free!
6) Flywheel's Automatic Backup
Love your site?
I can't stress enough on how important backing up your site is. One single mistake and all your content, important files and everything in between can get hacked/lost forever.
There are dime a dozen WordPress plugins for manual backups but the thing is you can't always rely your whole online business on a third party tool. And who has the time to manage/set those timely backups, check if they are stored onto your cloud or email provider etc.
Flywheel provides free nightly backups that backs up everything on your site every night. If anything should go wrong, your site can be restored to bring back to the previous stage, in just one-click. You can sleep sound giving your business on safe hands.
Get started with your own account at https://www.getflywheel.com
Flywheel Hosting For Designers: What Specific Features Should You Buy For
Below are some of the features that make Flywheel the best managed hosting for WordPress designers & developers. These features can be useful for anyone, but really make it worthwhile for developers to use it as a platform to develop and manage new client sites.
7) FREE Flywheel demo sites
Flywheel Hosting Login
Let's face it, most designers and WP site developers have to use a demo site on which they can test, show their work to the client. Now, since Flywheel hosting is specifically designed hosting for web designers and creative agencies, you get unlimited demo Flywheel sites for free.
They are free for 14 days, but I have heard people get it for unlimited times by just mailing the team (you'll have to test it yourself, though).
This feature of Flywheel sites has an advantage for non developers or normal bloggers like me who can use it to test new designs, site features and even try a new plugin out there in the demo site without hurting the user experience on the main blog.
Flywheel Hosting Reddit
8) One time login
Ever hassled how you have to login again and again to the dashboard. Yeah, I hear some spreadsheets rollin' where you have to manage all your client accounts and passwords.
I don't think there anything else to be said here. If you host a site/client site with Flywheel managed hosting you can rest assured that you won't face any downtime, ever.
No visitor loss, no income loss.
Flywheel Hosting Features Review 2021
I don't want to sound fanboy type, but the ultimate truth is that Flywheel hosting has some amazing features that most of the top well-known hosting payers do not have, yet.
The plethora of these features that add value to the customers is what made Flywheel one of the top and WordPress recommended managed hosting service. Here are some of them:
1) Offers Managed WordPress Hosting
Flywheel Hosting is managed WordPress Hosting, which means they do all the labor for you and you just have to focus on what you are good at (your business).
They handle everything from site updates, to nightly backups and your WordPress security issues. The beauty of managed hosting is that you have someone at your service, always.
In case of site errors, any issues in security or occasional high traffic visits to your site, it won't get down. The experts at Flywheel are known to provide hosting solutions even on weekends and it is a relief.
Moreover, all sites are hosted on VPS hosting, not shared. This definitely impacts positively on your site's performance both for users and search engine wise.
2) Flywheel Hosting Has No Downtime
With the proof of 100% uptime (mentioned above) Flywheel has got your back even if you hit the 'hug of death' which is getting featured on the homepage of Reddit and thus getting millions of real time visitors on your site.
Rest assured the traffic on your special days like events, black friday offer etc can do nothing to your site's uptime.
3) Flexibility with Traffic Handling
Flywheel literally places no limit of your pageviews or visits irrespective of the plan you chose. No matter you are on the tiny plan or the enterprise plan, Flywheel has the technology to handle your site even if you get a millions of visits.
4) Flywheel Hosting's Free Site Migration
Have your site hosted on a blogger or another hosting previously?
Flywheel has got your back. The expert team provides you hassle-free site migration from Blogger to WordPress or changing of hosting to Flywheel with no extra cost.
This is something I wasn't aware (or rather say i couldn't afford when I migrated my blogger site to WordPress). With zero technical knowledge, I thought I was done but the broken links still haunt me to this day.
I know the pain, and unless you love hassles, you should definitely take advantage of free site migration service.
5) Flywheel Hosting Built-in Caching
Caching plugins make it easy for your site to handle too many requests with faster loading times. With Flywheel hosting plan (whatever you choose) you get free caching system. They have there own caching technology and why on earth would you pay extra for something when your host can provide it for free.
This is the fact I came across when I was looking for ways to cut my WordPress site maintenance costs. I used WP Rocket (the best in the industry) which cost me around $99/year. I now think I waste $99 on something that is offered for free!
6) Flywheel's Automatic Backup
Love your site?
I can't stress enough on how important backing up your site is. One single mistake and all your content, important files and everything in between can get hacked/lost forever.
There are dime a dozen WordPress plugins for manual backups but the thing is you can't always rely your whole online business on a third party tool. And who has the time to manage/set those timely backups, check if they are stored onto your cloud or email provider etc.
Flywheel provides free nightly backups that backs up everything on your site every night. If anything should go wrong, your site can be restored to bring back to the previous stage, in just one-click. You can sleep sound giving your business on safe hands.
Get started with your own account at https://www.getflywheel.com
Flywheel Hosting For Designers: What Specific Features Should You Buy For
Below are some of the features that make Flywheel the best managed hosting for WordPress designers & developers. These features can be useful for anyone, but really make it worthwhile for developers to use it as a platform to develop and manage new client sites.
7) FREE Flywheel demo sites
Flywheel Hosting Login
Let's face it, most designers and WP site developers have to use a demo site on which they can test, show their work to the client. Now, since Flywheel hosting is specifically designed hosting for web designers and creative agencies, you get unlimited demo Flywheel sites for free.
They are free for 14 days, but I have heard people get it for unlimited times by just mailing the team (you'll have to test it yourself, though).
This feature of Flywheel sites has an advantage for non developers or normal bloggers like me who can use it to test new designs, site features and even try a new plugin out there in the demo site without hurting the user experience on the main blog.
Flywheel Hosting Reddit
8) One time login
Ever hassled how you have to login again and again to the dashboard. Yeah, I hear some spreadsheets rollin' where you have to manage all your client accounts and passwords.
Well. that thing is going to be history because Flywheel manages one-time login with a new re-imagined SFTP which stands for SSH file transfer protocol (read more on that here). The whole process is way lot more easier than coda because you have a bird's eye view on every account hosted under you.
9) Flywheel's Collaboration tools
Flywheel makes it worthwhile to share your web design work with clients and team members for collaboration without having to share your passwords or access details. This is seamlessly easy since you don't have to change your passwords every time a sharing is done.
Flywheel makes it seemlessly easy for clients to give feedback easily and the hosting accounts you make for them can be deleted once the deal is over.
10) Billing management with clients made simple
Unlike other hosting companies, Flywheel is built keeping the best hosting facilities for WordPress developers/designers in mind. You don't have to pay for your clients and and they don't have to login to your hosting account to pay for the bills of the newly developed sites.
With Flywheel, billing is easy like breeze. You just enter the email of the client after hitting the ‘complete billing button' and the team at Flywheel will sent them an email which has the billing amount paid in a button click. It's that easy. You can also revoke access if the client neglects or fails to pay.
Flywheel Pricing Review 2021: How Much is Flywheel Hosting?
I personally like how Flywheel has a lot of flexibility added to their plans and packages range. To start with Flywheel pricing, they have a starter plan called Flywheeltiny plan which gets you started at just $15/month (coffee anyone?).
The other plans vary based on your traffic requirements and multisite needs.
They have plans ranging from $30/month to up to $75 per month which can handle millions of visits (they do have a soft limit of 100k visits but promise not to shut you up even millions of visits, ever).
How Much Does Flywheel Cost For Designers?
Flywheel Hosting
Flywheel is by far the best affordable hosting for freelance developers and agencies. Flywheel's pricing plans start at $100/month for up to 10 WordPress installs, Free Flywheel SSL and WordPress multisite support.
$100/month is a no brainer given the benefits and easy client management features of Flywheel.
Related:Best web hosting with monthly billing cycles
Flywheel Hosting alternatives
- Kinsta Hosting:Kinsta is a perfect Flywheel alternative that hosts your site on Google servers. They're a bit expensive that what Flywheel currently is, but all worth it. Check out our Kinsta Hosting Review.
- WPX Hosting: WPX Hosting is where I currently host my sites. They're fast, offer amazing managed hosting services and cheaper than Flywheel. Check out our WPX Hosting review or WPX hosting discount coupon to know more.
- WPEngine: WPEngine is another great alternative to Flywheel that some of my friends use. I currently have no experience with them (& will update this section if I decide to check them out).
Flywheel Costumer Support Review 2021
Flywheel is humble despite the big brand it is and that is how it should be. You have access to the customer care 24*7 and email support is fast and responsive.
Here is what Carrie Dils, a WordPress developer and genesis framework expert has to say about her experience with Flywheel.
Carrie Dils' review of Flywheel Hosting
Since, this review shouldn't be only by me, I actually went out to find real customer reviews of Flywheel hosting. Here is one more:
And this one for their customer service priority.
The Good (Pros of Flywheel Hosting)
- checkBest hosting with no downtime
- checkClean and user friendly interface
- checkFree Flywheel demo sites
- checkEasy client collaboration & billing options
- checkFree site backups per day
The Bad (Cons of Flywheel Hosting)
- Flywheel hosting doesn't sell domains. If you don't have a site, you'll want to first register your domain via your favorite domain registrar like Godaddy or namecheap.
- Flywheel doesn't provide email hosting which might be absurd for some. But it has it's own benefits. I suggest not hosting emails on the same server. Here's why.
My Verdict: Flywheel Hosting Review
Flywheel hosting review has shown how you can excel by giving your customers the top priority. They have tons of satisfied customers and most high profile developers and freelance agencies trust them with their hosting.
The fact that huge sites like The Washington Post are powered by Flywheel Managed Hosting under the hood gives it some solid credibility and positive reviews.
Flywheel has zero downtime (100% uptime), easy collaboration & billing facilities. The malware protection guarantee and hacker-free environment will give you enough time to do just what you are good at, business.
Moreover they transfer your site along with all data to them with expert supervision and without costing a dime which makes them the favorite of their customers.
If you're a website developer or freelance agency dealing with web design clients or a content powerhouse like TWP, you should definitely try them for sure.
Or visit www.getflywheel.com to know more
Hosting isn't always the most simple portion of your website to setup, considering there are so many types of hosting and many of them don't offer quick one-click installations.
Although the industry is moving towards a more simplistic view of quality hosting in general, many companies are still struggling to offer powerful managed WordPress hosting without the complex setup and backend features.
That's not the case with Flywheel Hosting.
FlyWheel Coupon
This company is known for its simplicity, and it's built from the ground up for designers and creatives who need a quick and easy way to host their WordPress websites.
Lucky for you, WPKube landed an exclusive coupon with the people at Flywheel, allowing readers to use the wpkubeisfly discount code to attain a two month hosting discount. This is a solid deal, considering many hosting companies require you to signup up for a full year, and it's nice to cut down on the costs during the first few months of your website launch.
The reason Flywheel stands out in our mind is that the company offers several pricing plans to cater to all of your projects. Not only that, but the platform scales with your agency, helping you out with building, launching and managing your WordPress site.
Features From the Flywheel Hosting Company
One Click Staging
Flywheel has a unique feature that lets you complete the staging of your site without going live. Conduct your designs and modifications from the backend, and once you've decided that the site looks great, push your content to the internet.
Caching (All built-In)
Caching is a pain, so Flywheel makes it a little less tedious for you. All caching is built-into the system, so you don't have to worry about plugins or managing the caching settings that you may not understand. This assists in making your websites blazing fast.
Free Demo Sites
When you signup with Flywheel you gain access to free demo sites for building your client sites on. This way, you can seamlessly transfer the content to your client sites once it's completely ready. What's cool is that you can show off the site progress along the way, and transfer the billing to your client upon completion.
Automatic Backups
Each site you host is backed up every night, and the files are placed at a secure location. This way, if a site ever gets hacked you can simply restore it later.
Malware Monitoring
We think the standout feature from Flywheel is the Malware protection. Since WordPress is known for vulnerabilities, Flywheel scans your site on a consistent basis and alerts you if something looks wrong. What's more is that they repair your site for free if you get hacked.
Flywheel Pricing Structure
Pricing is one of the main reasons we like to recommend Flywheel, since the company has various plans for you to choose from. This improves your chances of saving money, while also empowering you to get the features you need, without paying for anything extra.
The Starter Plan ($23 per month) works on a single site, where you receive 25,000 monthly visits, 5GB of disk space, 50GB of bandwidth, and optional SSL Support, and a CDN.
The Freelance Plan ($105 per month) works for 10 WordPress installs, with 100,000 monthly visits, 20GB of disk space, 200GB of bandwidth, SSL Support, CDN, and multisite.
The Agency Plan ($266 per month) is for 30 WordPress installs, giving you 500,000 monthly visits, 50GB of disk space, 500GB of bandwidth, SSL Support, CDN, and multisite.
Custom Plans – they also have custom plans and are primarily for those companies that don't fit into one of the pricing plans discussed above.
Remember to Use Your Coupon!
Flywheel Hosting Reviews
Signing up for hosting only takes a few minutes, so it's easy to get excited about the whole ordeal. Just don't forget to punch in the wpkubeisfly coupon code upon checking out with Flywheel. After that, you can enjoy your two months of discounted hosting and start working on what matters most: Your website content.
Flywheel Hosting Coupon
(read our full Flywheel review)
Flywheel Hosting Coupon
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