WP Engine

For hosting progannum.com, I was considering a managed WordPress plan that has a reputation of meeting mission critical needs and yet most cost effective. Out of numerous, I considered WP Engine and Nexcess given my association with them as agency and affiliate partner for my other entities. The third option which I finally opted was AWS. Given my past experience hosting WordPress sites on Amazon Lightsail using Plesk Web Admin edition, I found AWS the most cost effective one. While Plesk Web Admin comes free with a Lightsail instance, more managed features can be activated by pro Plesk subscription. On the downside, there will be limited support from both AWS and Plesk unlike WP Engine and Nexcess where you get 24×7 customer support and true managed WordPress environment with few clicks, easy install of WordPress site.

Reading ratings/reviews on Trustpilot is a great way to leverage experience from past and present customers about a brand. Unlike the likes of G2 and Capterra where paid reviews lead to a bias, Trustpilot appears far more trustworthy.

WPEngine has its one site WordPress managed hosting plan starting from 30$ when paid monthly (keeping aside initial discounts). With Nexcess, it is 19$ per month.

Initially I contemplated applying for AWS Activate Founders Credit.

But as could be seen later in the screenshots, not approved. The reason should be I had already availed AWS Activate Founders Credit for one of my other entities in 2020 being granted 1350$ AWS credit (1,000 USD in AWS credits, valid for two years, and $350 USD in AWS Developer Support credits valid for one year).

Registering for an AWS account

Applying for AWS Activate

Launching WordPress site on Lightsail @5$ per month plan with first 3 months free making use of Plesk Web Admin option (free version)

The free Lighsail instance that is provided for 3 months is apparently for one AWS account, one instance. As could be seen from the screenshots above, I was not allowed to activate 10$ plan and instead asked to get in touch with the AWS Support. As I raised a ticket, I received a phone call over which the AWS Support agent enquired about the no. of instances I am planning to use. He further said that for one user, they allow one free instance and that he will help activate 10$ plan. As I already in the meantime activated 5$ plan, I was told that for this AWS account, it will not be possible now to revert to the free 10$ plan trial of 3 months. If indeed I needed to activate 10$ AWS Lightsail plan (with initial 3 months free), then I might need to register a fresh AWS account. I decided to continue with the 5$ plan.

Interesting to note is that each AWS Lightsail instance launched on Plesk hosting stack (Plesk Web Admin edition) allows 3 WordPress websites. So with a 5$ per month AWS Lightsail plan, you can have 3 WordPress sites up and running. Obviously you will need to upgrade your AWS Lightsail instance from 5$ per month to higher in case memory and resources exhausted.

Once AWS Lighsail instance activated with Plesk Hosting Stack, next process is to move to Plesk dashboard and from there launch WordPress instance.

Here is the process explained in my earlier articles:

1. Plesk Hosting Stack on Ubuntu: 3 websites under one instance with plans starting 5$ per month on Amazon Lightsail and a demo of migration with free Migrate Guru plugin
2. Managing multiple WordPress websites under one AWS Lightsail hosting plan through Plesk

Also by upgrading your Plesk Web Admin edition, you can get more managed WordPress features and upto 30 domains (websites) instead of 3 domains.

Read our review about AWS Lightsail and Plesk here on TrustRadius: AWS Lightsail: Highly recommended for launching WordPress websites

Although AWS Activate credit was not approved, within few days of opening the AWS account received an email of offer of 300$ AWS credit. This should be more than sufficient to avail AWS Lightsail hosting for free for the WordPress site for more than 12 months of their 5$/10$ per month plan.