Managed WordPress
Flywheel
Designer-focused managed WordPress with free Local development tool and lower price than parent WP Engine
Founded 2012United StatesWP Engine
Overall Rating
4.0
Trustpilot: 4.4/5 (350 reviews)
Starting Price
$15.00/month
60-day money-back guarantee
Free SSL
Free Domain
Free Migration
24/7 Support
Pricing Plans
Compare Flywheel's hosting plans
WordPress Hosting
All plans include a 60-day money-back guarantee
Pros & Cons
What We Like
- Designers and creative agencies
- WordPress freelancers
- Users wanting free Local development tool
- Those who prefer Flywheel's interface over WP Engine
- Budget managed WordPress users ($15/mo entry)
- Sites needing free demo sites feature
What Could Be Better
- Need phone support
- Need PCI compliance (use WP Engine instead)
- Need Redis caching
- Large storage requirements
- Prefer independent company (owned by WP Engine)
- Owned by WP Engine since 2019
Rating Breakdown
Value for Money
4.0Performance
4.0Support Quality
4.0Security
4.0Features
3.5Ease of Use
4.5Transparency
4.0Overall Rating
Weighted average of all categories
4.0/5
Technical Specifications
Complete feature breakdown across all 170 data points
Storage & Resources
- Storage
- 5 GB SSD
- Storage Type
- SSD
- Bandwidth
- 20 GB
- Websites
- 1
- Databases
- Not specified
- PHP Versions
- 7.4, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3
Performance
- Uptime Guarantee
- 99.9%
- Uptime SLA Credit
- CDN Included
- CDN Provider
- Fastly CDN
- HTTP/2
- Brotli Compression
Server Locations
- Location Count
- 10 locations
- Choose Location
- Locations
- North America, Europe, Asia Pacific
Security
- Free SSL
- Wildcard SSL
- Dedicated IP
- DDoS Protection
- DDoS Level
- DDoS protection included
- 2FA
Backups & Malware
- Malware Scanning
- Malware Removal
- Firewall
- Backup Frequency
- Nightly (automatic)
- Backup Retention
- 30 days
- On-Demand Backup
- Restore Fee
- Free
Developer Tools
- SSH Access
- Git Deployment
- Staging
- Cron Jobs
- Redis
- WP-CLI
Language Support
- Node.js
- Python
- Ruby
WordPress
- WP Optimized
- Auto Install
- Auto Updates
- WP Staging
- WooCommerce
- LiteSpeed Cache
- Object Caching
- Multisite
Support
- Live Chat
- Chat Hours
- 24/7/365
- Phone Support
- Ticket Support
- Priority Support
- KB Quality
- 4/5
- Channels
- Live Chat, Ticket, Knowledge Base
- Languages
- English
- Email Included
- Account Limit
- 0
- Webmail
- Spam Filter
- Forwarding
Pricing Details
- Monthly Price
- $15/mo
- Renewal Price
- $15/mo
- 1st Year Cost
- $180
- 2nd Year Cost
- $180
- Setup Fee
- None
- Money Back
- 60 days
- Monthly Billing
- Min Contract
- 1 months
Free Inclusions
- Free SSL
- Free Domain
- Free Migration
- Free CDN
Migration
- Free Migration
- Sites Limit
- 1 sites
- Turnaround
- 2 days
- Quality
- 5/5
Control Panel
- cPanel
- Panel Name
- Flywheel Dashboard
- Softaculous
- Site Builder
Compliance
- GDPR
- PCI
- HIPAA
- Certifications
- SOC 2 Type II
CMS Platforms
- Drupal
- Joomla
- Magento
- Laravel
- Django
- Next.js
- Rails
- Static Sites
Content Policies
- Adult Content
- Gambling
- Crypto Sites
- Bandwidth Overage
- 20GB included on Tiny plan; $1-2 per 1,000 extra visitors; may be charged for consistent overages
- Storage Overage
- $1/GB for storage over limit
Business Features
- API Access
- Reseller Hosting
- White Label
- Green Hosting
Best For (Score)
- Beginners
- 4/5
- Bloggers
- 4/5
- Developers
- 4/5
- eCommerce
- 4/5
- Agencies
- 5/5
- Enterprise
- 3/5
Company Info
- Founded
- 2012
- Headquarters
- United States
- Parent Company
- WP Engine
- Trustpilot
- 4.4/5 (350 reviews)
Our Ratings
- Overall
- 4/5
- Value
- 4/5
- Performance
- 4/5
- Support
- 4/5
- Security
- 4/5
- Features
- 3.5/5
- Ease of Use
- 4.5/5
- Transparency
- 4/5
Managed WordPress
- Available
- Pricing Model
- visits
- Visit Limit
- 5,000
- Overage Cost
- $2
- Dev Environment
- Dev Env Name
- Local
Regional Info
- Best Countries
- United States, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada
- Currencies
- USD
- Support Languages
- English
- Data Sovereignty
- GDPR, SOC 2
External Ratings
- Trustpilot
- 4.4/5
- Reviews Count
- 350
- G2 Rating
- 4.5/5
- BBB Rating
- NR
Advanced Technical
- DB Type
- MySQL
- Elasticsearch
- Image Optimization
- PHP Switching
Access & Limits
- SSH Tier
- All plans
- Staging Tier
- All plans
- Instant Activation
Additional Pricing
- Exclusions
- 60-day money-back guarantee for Tiny, Startup, and non-custom Freelance plans
- Payment Methods
- Credit Card, Debit Card, PayPal
- Auto Renewal
- SSL Provider
- Let's Encrypt (auto-renewed)
Support Details
- Community Forum
- Outsourced
- Object Cache Type
- Page Caching
Affiliate Program
- Affiliate Available
- Commission Type
- Per sale
- Commission Amount
- $50-$500 per sale depending on plan; 90-day cookie
Additional Policies
- File Hosting
- Proxy/VPN
- BW Overage Cost
- $1
- Suspension Policy
- Violation of ToS; non-payment; excessive resource usage
- Downloadable Backups
Additional Platforms
- PrestaShop
- Ghost
- Shopify Migration
- Wix Migration
- Squarespace Migration
- Webflow Export
Editorial Notes
- Best For
- Designers and creative agencies; WordPress freelancers; Users wanting free Local development tool; Those who prefer Flywheel's interface over WP Engine; Budget managed WordPress users ($15/mo entry); Sites needing free demo sites feature
- Avoid If
- Need phone support; Need PCI compliance (use WP Engine instead); Need Redis caching; Large storage requirements; Prefer independent company (owned by WP Engine)
- Known Issues
- Owned by WP Engine since 2019; No phone support; No Redis caching; Storage limited on entry plan (5GB); No dedicated IPs; No PCI compliance unlike parent WP Engine; Fewer features than Kinsta at similar price point
- USP
- Designer-focused managed WordPress with free Local development tool and lower price than parent WP Engine
- Ideal Customer
- Designer or creative agency wanting managed WordPress with great local development tools at lower cost than WP Engine
Competition
- Competitors
- WP Engine, Kinsta, Cloudways
- Best Alternative To
- WP Engine
We strive for accuracy, but pricing and features change frequently. Some data may be outdated. Report an error and we'll update it promptly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about Flywheel
Flywheel is excellent for designers and agencies wanting managed WordPress at a lower price than WP Engine ($15/mo vs $25/mo). The free Local development tool is highly praised. G2 4.5 and Trustpilot 4.4 ratings are solid.
Flywheel was acquired by WP Engine in 2019 for approximately $200M. It continues to operate as a separate brand with the same leadership team, originally founded in Omaha, Nebraska in 2012.
Flywheel Tiny plan starts at $15/month for 1 site. Higher plans from $30/month. Bulk pricing available for 30+ sites. No renewal price increases.
Yes, Flywheel has a designer-friendly dashboard and the free Local development tool makes it easy to build sites locally before deploying.
No, Flywheel does not include email hosting. Third-party email services are recommended.
Yes, Flywheel is WordPress-only managed hosting with staging, automatic updates, and nightly backups included.
Flywheel guarantees 99.9% uptime backed by Google Cloud Platform infrastructure.
Yes, with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Monthly billing available with no long-term contracts.
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