Summary
Flywheel is a rapidly expanding web host specializing in high-performance WordPress hosting. It caters to the needs of seasoned agencies, designers, and developers by providing a hosting platform that looks as good as it performs.
For
- Excellent development workflows
- Top-notch performance
- Custom caching solution
- 24/7 customer service via live chat (phone support available on higher plans)
- 10 free StudioPress themes
- Partnership program for agencies
Against
- No email hosting
- No domain registrations
- High prices
- Using your SSL certificate is an extra charge
- Limited in-house CDN bandwidth
Introduction
In 2012, Dusty, Tony, and Rick, three friends and web developers, founded Flywheel. Having experience in the field, they understood the challenges of acting as a go-between for clients and hosting providers.
Flywheel was created to give freelancers, agencies, and resellers an easy-to-use platform for utilizing a workflow-centric strategy, integrating clients, and collaborating on projects.
However, a great deal of accountability comes with going after this demographic. To be successful as an expert in this field, you need resources that enable you to operate more efficiently and effectively. Having access to such resources is especially crucial for teams or organizations.
Flywheel goes above and beyond the standard fare of WordPress hosts by providing convenient extras like site staging and automated backups.
Since Flywheel is one of the more expensive WordPress hosting alternatives, it is reasonable to assume you will receive what you paid.
Plans and pricing
Flywheel is a specialized WordPress hosting offering single and multi-site WordPress plans, WooCommerce plans, custom scaling plans, and a few add-ons. Unfortunately, none of the plans have domain registrations or email hosting available.
Managed WordPress hosting
Flywheel’s Managed WordPress hosting has four plans: Tiny, Starter, Freelance, and Agency. They also offer a custom plan, which you can build yourself.
Tiny – $13 per month
- 1 WordPress website
- 5,000 monthly visits
- 5 GB of storage
- 20 GB of bandwidth
Starter – $25 per month
- 1 WordPress website
- 25,000 monthly visits
- 10 GB of storage
- 50 GB of bandwidth
Freelance – $96 per month
- 10 WordPress websites
- 100,000 monthly visits
- 20 GB of storage
- 200 GB of bandwidth
Agency – $242 per month
- 30 WordPress websites
- 400,000 monthly visits
- 50 GB of storage
- 500 GB of bandwidth
Custom – custom quote
- 30+ WordPress websites
- Millions+ visits
- Custom storage
- Custom bandwidth
Tiny is an option that is worth considering if you intend to manage a site that is not very large. It has 5 GB of storage space and 20 GB bandwidth capacity, which are adequate for a more basic website.
The Starter is our recommended plan, as it balances pricing and resources offered. In terms of features, Tiny and Starter share all the same features, but Starter provides more resources.
The Freelance plan offers more resources and a substantial upgrade – more WordPress sites. You can host up to 10 WordPress websites on the Freelance plan.
The Agency plan is where it becomes really costly, but you also gain additional features, so this is more suitable for companies and small firms rather than individuals. With Agency, you receive more resources, up to 30 WordPress websites, your own dedicated account manager, phone support, and a migration dashboard.
WooCommerce sites
When WP Engine acquired Flywheel, they added WooCommerce-powered eCommerce plans to the offer. There are three plans: Professional, Growth, and Scale, plus the custom Dedicated plan if you need more resources and computing power.
Professional – $75 per month
- 3 WordPress stores
- 25,000 visits per month
Growth – $145 per month
- 10 WordPress stores
- 100,000 visits per month
Scale – $350 per month
- 30 WordPress stores
- 400,000 visits per month
As you can see, the only differentiator between these plans is how many websites you can host and how many monthly visits your plan can handle.
In terms of features, they’re identical and offer free automated migrations, ElasticPress search, optimized themes, free themes, etc.
Add-ons
In addition to hosting plans, Flywheel offers some exciting add-ons you can purchase.
Performance Insights – Flywheel’s experts evaluate your website and provide feedback on increasing your website performance, practical bits of advice, and areas of improvement. This service costs $25 per month to enable the addon for the first website and then $2 per month for each additional website.
Managed Plugin Updates – With this addon, Flywheel will automatically update your plugins (you can choose – daily or weekly) and provide you with a report on the process. This add-on costs $8 per month per website.
Core features
While resource allocation is not their forte, Flywheel provides a great deal of features when it comes to performance, security, and convenience. All plans can take advantage of the built-in server caching and a free CDN (Fastly), and Flywheel also uses Nginx for better performance on Google Cloud infrastructure.
In terms of security, they provide free SSL certificates (Let’s Encrypt), a server-level web application firewall to protect websites from malicious requests, and free malware removal if anything penetrates the security.
In addition to the above, Flywheel also provides a staging websites feature, automatic backups, blueprints (a tool that allows you to create a website from a template quickly), managed plugin updates, a simple FTP feature (one login to all your websites), and a well-designed custom dashboard.
Interface
The simplicity of Flywheel’s services is a hallmark of the company. The company’s primary objective is to free you from any hosting-related responsibilities so that you can concentrate on running your business.
Website designers, among other creative types, may find this method particularly appealing. It is really effective if the platform takes care of every technological aspect. In this section of my Flywheel review, I will walk you through the steps I took to set up and administer the platform.
Flywheel allows you to create a demo website that you can use to test their services for 14 days or to showcase an example to your client before they sign off. You can also transfer the website directly to the client while still having access to it. That way, your client can pay for Flywheel services from their end and be the website owner while you work on it.
Here’s how creating a new website looks:
Overall, the interface is clean, intuitive, and has all the necessary tools. If you run multiple websites, Flywheel makes it simple to manage them all by providing a method for labeling and filtering them.
When you select a site, you’ll be sent to a control panel to access and modify settings like staging sites, backups, plugins, etc.
Flywheel has stayed true to its excellent user interface rather than adopting a more generic control panel with database access (such as phpMyAdmin) like most host companies. In this way, those who have never used database tools will feel entirely comfortable doing so.
On the other hand, people that got used to phpMyAdmin might not appreciate this.
Support options and quality
Flywheel has round-the-clock, top-notch customer service. Live chat and ticket support are included with all Flywheel plans and can be accessed with a simple widget in the dashboard’s bottom-right corner.
In addition to a dedicated account manager, customers on the Agency plan or a custom plan have access to phone assistance from 9 AM to 5 PM CST, Monday through Friday. However, phone help is not included in the more affordable options.
Flywheel has top-notch customer service, with polite, knowledgeable personnel that quickly and effectively resolve any difficulties. Overall, you won’t be let down, and only another host, Skystra, can equal Flywheel’s quality of service.
The competition
Compared to shared WordPress providers, Flywheel is more expensive, especially if you must host many sites. When compared to other premium managed WordPress hosts like Kinsta and WP Engine, Flywheel’s pricing is competitive. It’s more costly than shared providers, which often have lower costs and allow unlimited websites.
Skystra is an excellent alternative because it prioritizes fast load times, reliable support, and reliable performance for WordPress and WooCommerce websites and stores. Hosting 1 WordPress site will set you back as little as $4.95 a month, and all of their hosting plans include free email, free SSL, free CDN, premium caching, and other advanced features that can increase your site’s speed by as much as 125%.
Skystra offers domain registrations and email hosting, which is a massive differentiator for some people. To find out more about Skystra, check out our review.
Another great choice if you’re on a tight budget is HostGator, which offers monthly shared hosting options starting at $2.75 and a website builder for $4.95. HostGator provides free domain registration for the first year, unlimited disk space, and round-the-clock chat support. To learn more, check out our in-depth review of HostGator.
Final verdict
If you’re seeking top-tier quality and assistance and are ready to pay for it, Flywheel is a fantastic choice. Flywheel provides lightning-fast performance, helpful functionality, and top-notch 24/7 live chat support.
But ultimately, if you’re prepared to put money into the website and pay the rates, Flywheel won’t disappoint in terms of performance and support.
Flywheel has a cool feature in which new users can sign up without cost and begin building a demo site immediately. If and only if you decide to make your site public will you be asked for payment information (credit card).
Value-wise, you may be better off with a cheap host if you don’t require outstanding performance and speed and/or host many lower-traffic sites.
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