Nexcess Review: Why We Changed Hosting Companies

When you’re running a monetized website, a good web hosting service is essential. 

Problems like laggy site speeds and protracted downtime are more than just a headache — they actively eat into your bottom line.

When most people start a new site, they opt for a good shared hosting package. Shared hosting means that your site is on the same server as dozens of other websites. 

This brings affordable price points, making it the most accessible hosting option for a new project.

But you also have to handle a lot of things yourself. Updating WordPress, updating plugins, keeping an eye on security — it can be a lot to deal with.

Managed WordPress hosting is an alternative option that takes care of tasks like this for you, freeing you up to focus on running your business.

A while back, we were having a bunch of problems with HTE’s shared hosting, so I started shopping around for other providers. 

This time, I decided to go with managed hosting instead, opting to work with Nexcess — and I’ve been thrilled with the results. 

Here’s my Nexcess managed hosting review, based on my experiences with this excellent web hosting company.

Why I Switched to Nexcess Hosting

Recently, I made the decision to switch HTE’s hosting over to a managed hosting plan from Nexcess. 

I’d been using a different host for four years, Siteground, with generally good service. But there were two issues that led to me shopping around for a new web host.

• My old hosting service moved my site from their own servers to a white-labeled version of Google Cloud instead. I really don’t want my site hosted by Google at all. In fact, I was honestly a little insulted that they did this without giving me any notice, and without my approval. 
• Their servers kept going down, taking our site with it. The HTE website was going down for hours at a time, repeatedly. Our entire business operates online, so this is just plain unacceptable. 

When I was looking for new hosting, there were a few key features I wanted:

• Helpful, responsive 24/7 support
• Fast, secure, and stable in-house servers
• No traffic limits or overage charges. Some hosting companies — including the one I was with in the past — will throttle your site abruptly if your traffic climbs over the limit. Nexcess never does this.
• Automatic, daily website backups
• The ability to use a staging site to test out major changes safely

My last hosting company wasn’t managed hosting, just a shared hosting package. 

Honestly, I’d never even known how much I was missing by not using managed WordPress hosting. 

I’ve been using Nexcess for six months now, and I can’t imagine ever going back to hosting that I need to manage myself.

I’ve been very impressed with Nexcess’s team. It’s large enough to provide impeccable support and server management, but at the same time, they don’t feel like a faceless corporate entity or treat me as a statistic.

What is Managed WordPress Hosting?

Odds are, you’re currently using shared hosting, whether you are aware of it or not.

Shared hosting packages are an excellent choice for getting started and getting your site off the ground. 

But as your business grows and your traffic keeps climbing, you’ll find that eventually, you need to go a step further with your hosting.

Managed hosting is what it sounds like — the hosting company takes a far more active role in managing and maintaining your site, giving you a lot less to juggle and worry about. 

Some of the things they’ll take care of for you include:

• Making sure your site is backed up
• Updating your themes and plugins regularly
• Keeping an eye on your site’s security
• Speeding up your site

You’ve either been doing this stuff on your own, or worse, not at all.

Your job is to run and grow your business, not learn how to maintain servers.

Standard Web Hosting vs Managed WordPress Hosting

So how does standard hosting compare to managed hosting? 

The thing with shared hosting is that it’s designed to be economical. It offers affordable pricing, plus the basic services that any website definitely needs.

The drawback there is that the hosting provider needs to keep costs down. You’re sharing a server and its resources with a whole bunch of other sites — anywhere from a couple dozen, to literally hundreds — without any particular focus on your website.

This does present a risk of your own site malfunctioning or slowing down, due to an unrelated problem with someone else’s site that’s hosted on the same server. Most quality shared hosting services do a lot to prevent this from occurring, but the extremely inexpensive ones can be prone to it.

Shared Hosting Pros & Cons

Some of the upsides to shared hosting include:

• Affordability
• You can often host an unlimited number of sites for one flat monthly cost
• There usually isn’t a hard cap on traffic

But it also comes with its fair share of drawbacks:

• Slower site speeds overall
• Activity on other sites can impact your site’s load time
• Things like backups and updates aren’t automated

Managed WordPress Hosting Pros & Cons

Managed hosting is more like a concierge service, taking care of all the little details for you, with more personalized attention and TLC for your specific website.

Managed hosting from providers like Nexcess offers a great range of benefits you won’t get with a typical shared hosting plan.

• Server architecture designed specifically to accommodate WordPress sites
• Built-in caching
• Automatic WordPress updates
• Automated site backups
• Security features like firewalls and malware scans
• Access to a convenient, intuitive management dashboard
• Ability to create and use a staging site, so you can test out major changes without the risk of messing up your live site
• Access to knowledgeable customer support agents 

As with anything, there are a few cons as well.

• Higher monthly cost.
• Stricter limits on traffic caps than you’ll find with shared hosting, meaning that as your traffic goes, your hosting costs will go up.
• There may sometimes be restrictions on which plugins you can use, in order to ensure good site performance.

While managed hosting tends to cost more than shared hosting, the investment is worth it, especially if your site is already generating some solid revenue. 

Nexcess is a top tier managed web hosting provider. If shared hosting isn’t giving you everything you need, we can’t recommend Nexcess enough.

At HTE, we switched over recently, and we’ve been thrilled with the results. The cloud platform at Nexcess is designed to handle everything from a basic blog to a high-traffic online retailer, and everything in between. 

Why You Should Try Managed Hosting

If you’ve got a successful site and you’ve been using shared hosting, there’s no better time than now to make the switch to a managed WordPress hosting package from Nexcess. 

Little to No Downtime

Ever run into unexpected downtime, when your site just won’t load, because of something on the server end of things? 

It’s a massive pain, and even with a quality shared hosting plan from a good provider, it can still happen every now and again. In many cases, it’s because your site has more traffic than the server can manage.

With managed hosting, this doesn’t happen. 

Speeds up your WordPress Site

Managed WordPress hosting from Nexcess is designed specifically for WordPress sites. Everything is optimized for WordPress specifically, keeping your site loading fast.

Faster loading times create a seamless user experience. If things take more than a second or two to load, users often bounce. This is especially important for ecommerce — people won’t wait around for things to load when they could go to a competitor. 

Fast load times reassure customers that your site is legitimate and trustworthy — something that’s super important when they’re giving you their credit card info.

Get On-demand Specialized Support

With managed hosting from Nexcess, you’ll get support from trained, experienced WordPress experts with the knowledge to troubleshoot just about any problem that might come up. 

Having the support reps trained on a specific CMS — in this case, WordPress — is a huge advantage.

Nexcess Features: What You’ll Get

Nexcess is ideal for “mission critical” businesses, where any website downtime is guaranteed to eat into your bottom line. They have the robust infrastructure to handle the demands of a business that relies on their website for revenue.

Their hosting plans include a suite of great features:

• 14-day free trial for WordPress plans (no credit card required)
• High-speed performance and zero downtime
• Free SSL certificate
• Amazing 24/7 technical support
• Automatic WordPress core & plugin updates
• Free site migrations
• Multi-layered caching
• Security and malware monitoring
• Multi-site management dashboard
• No traffic overages or limits, with automatic scaling
• Automatic image compression
• Multiple site management tools
• Daily backups
• Development tools such as Git, WP-CLI and SSH

For larger operations with more unique requirements, Nexcess offers additional customized solutions.

Plans & Pricing: Find Your Perfect Managed Hosting Package

Nexcess offers three different pricing tiers, starting at just $19/month and going up from there.

They’re owned by a company called Liquid Web. Their slogan is “The Most Helpful Humans in Hosting,” and they really do live up to that promise. They own data centers in eight different locations, in both the US and in Europe.

Right now, we’re offering HTE readers a special discount. You can get started today for just $7.60, plus a free trial for the first 14 days.

Nexcess Managed Hosting Pricing Plans

Nexcess offers a selection of different pricing plans for managed WordPress hosting, starting at just $19 a month.

These prices are based on a monthly subscription, but if you pay annually, you’ll get 2 months free.

Package	Spark	Maker	Designer	Builder	Producer	Executive	Enterprise
Number of websites	1	5	10	25	50	100	250
Storage	15 GB	40 GB	60 GB	100 GB	300 GB	500 GB	800 GB
Bandwidth	2 TB	3 TB	4 TB	5 TB	5 TB	10 TB	10 TB
Staging	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Backups	Every 30 Days	Every 30 Days	Every 30 Days	Every 30 Days	Every 30 Days	Every 30 Days	Every 30 Days
Email accounts	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Monthly Price	$19	$79	$109	$149	$299	$549	$999

Nexcess Pricing Plans for WooCommerce Sites

Nexcess also offers a suite of plans specifically for online retailers using WooCommerce for WordPress.

	Starter	Creator	Merchant	Standard	Growth	Enterprise
Number of stores	1	3	5	10	20	30
Storage	30 GB	60 GB	100 GB	300 GB	500 GB	800 GB
Recommended volume of orders per hour	Up to 500	Up to 1,000	Up to 2,500	Up to 3,000	Up to 5,000	Up to 10,000
Bandwidth	3 TB	5 TB	5 TB	5 TB	10 TB	10 TB
Monthly Price (based on annual plan)	$15	$65	$124	$249	$457	$832

HTE Special Discount

Ready to make the switch to managed hosting? Nexcess has you covered! 

I was so impressed with their hosting that I asked the company for an exclusive discount that I could share with my followers. I know a lot of you have run into the same problems with shared hosting that I was struggling with before switching to Nexcess.

I don’t just recommend Nexcess. I trust them with my website. 

My entire business depends on fast, secure hosting. With Nexcess and their outstanding support team, I couldn’t feel more confident that my site is in good hands.

If you’re looking for the best of the best in web hosting, Nexcess is where it’s at.

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