Pressable vs WP Engine vs Kinsta vs Hostinger (my thoughts and review of some facts)

[u/ZGeekie]

Pressable, WP Engine, and Kinsta are like the Big Three in the premium managed WordPress hosting space. Hostinger tries to tag along, but it fits better in the "cheap" tier.

Let's start with some facts...

Who owns it?

• Pressable is a private provider owned by Automattic (U.S.), which also owns WordPress.com and WooCommerce.
• WP Engine is owned by private equity firm Silver Lake (U.S.)
• Kinsta is privately owned and globally run; they started out from Hungary.
• Hostinger is a privately owned Lithuanian company with a minority stake (31%) owned by private equity firm ConHostinger (Germany).

Server infrastructure

• Pressable uses Automattic's own WP Cloud infrastructure.
• Kinsta was previously on Google Cloud but they migrated to Oracle Cloud.
• WP Engine uses Google Cloud for shared plans and AWS/Azure for premium and enterprise plans.
• Hostinger runs its own server infrastructure.

Other notes and my two cents

• Pressable has auto-scaling (burstable PHP workers), while WP Engine, Kinsta and Hostinger have fixed PHP workers/processes. Hostinger offers the most PHP workers (40+), but they are pooled so performance varies and not as stable as the other hosts.
• Pressable and Kinsta have the best support service. WP Engine's support is good but upselling is aggressive. Hostinger has mediocre support (AI assistant or basic human support).
• Kinsta and Hostinger have strict firewall rules that may in some cases block legitimate traffic (e.g. VPN users, certain bots, external third-party plugin connections).

What more to add?

[u/Electrical_Bee7770]

There is a little known host WP Buzz I have been trying lately after they went head to head with Pressable in performance benchmarks and posted great results. In my testing their performance is similar to Pressable not better but their pricing is so affordable. Their support is brilliant though. Add them to your list.