Whether you’re just a beginner or a pro blogger, we all know that hosting matters. Having quality hosting means you have a fast and secure website, and that’s pretty important when you’re trying to turn it into a business.
After all, if your site goes down or the user experience sucks, you’ll lose money, and that’s something that no one wants, right? What we want is cutting-edge technology and good enterprise business plans for your wp hosting.
Today we’re going to take a look at Kinsta Hosting, a relatively new web hosting company established in 2013.
In this kinsta hosting review we’ll see if this is a good hosting solution for you.
Table of Contents
Some basic stuff you should understand about web hosting
When looking for the right web host, you’ll come across a lot of unfamiliar terms like CDN, SSL, bandwidth…etc. I’m going to give you some simple definitions for each one of these to help you get the idea.
Ok let’s start.
CDN
This stands for Content Delivery Network. It’s a system of servers distributed around the world that’s used to deliver the content of your website based on the visitor’s geographical location.
In other words, there are many servers across the world, each one storing a copy of your website’s content. Should someone make an attempt to access your site, the CDN delivers that content using the server that’s the closest to the visitor.
Why?
Because it reduces the page load time so it makes the site loads faster.
ssl certificate
This is a security mechanism that allows users to exchange sensitive information like credit card numbers, passwords, etc. safely with your website. This is particularly great if you have an e-commerce store or a website that has a database of user accounts. Having a two-factor authentication is always a plus.
SSH
It is a network protocol that allows users to access another computer over an unsecured network remotely. It’s is widely used by network administrators for managing systems and applications remotely.
FTP
It stands for “File Transfer Protocol”. Basically, it’s a set of rules that enable files to be transferred from one device to another. You can use FTP to upload files to your website in bulk, deactivate plugins manually in case you can’t log into your dashboard, make changes to core WordPress files and fix common server errors.
Uptime and downtime
Uptime measure that amount,t of time a website is up and running compared to the amount of time it’s not up (usually it’s when the server is in a maintenance phase). When a hosting provider says that their uptime is 99.5% for example, it means that your website will be online and accessible 99.5 of the time.
Downtime is the opposite of uptime. If a website has an uptime of 99.5%, the downtime will equal to 0.5%.
If you were wondering why hosting providers don’t offer 100% uptime, it’s because their servers need maintenance from time to time so they need to stop working for a little while.
Is Kinsta Good: The Bottom Line Up Front
Pros
- Great customer support
You can say that the support staff with a wide knowledge base is there for you. They have a live chat system available 24/7 to help you with any problems you might have. Their support team is composed of highly experienced and knowledgeable WordPress users and engineers, so you can bet they will help you solve any technical issues on your end.
- They use Google Cloud Hosting Platform
They use Google’s Servers to host your content and manage your website. This means that you get the fast response time and the high level of security that Google can offer on your own website.
- Their servers offer fast page load times
Basically, your site will load fast with this platform. Pingdom indicates that the average response time on a webpage hosted on Kinsta is 163 ms, so 0.163 second.
In other words, about 1/6 of a second. That’s lightning fast. However, you should know that this isn’t the real load time you should expect on a live website. This is just an average. Still, Kinsta offers really good load times which isn’t a surprise because once again, they use Google Cloud Platform.
- They offer lots of security features
We’ll get into the details a bit later but you should know that if you choose Kinsta, you don’t have to worry about your site being hacked or going down. They offer SSL certificates, daily automatic backups, uptime checks
Cons & Problems
- You don’t get an e-mail address
I’m sure you didn’t see that one coming. Since the vast majority of hosting providers nowadays offer one or multiple e-mail addresses with their hosting plans, it might seem a bit strange that Kinsta doesn’t offer one and you’re right.
As a blogger, it’s essential to have at least a professional e-mail adress. You can still get one from G Suite (Google’s premium e-mail service) or something similar.
The thing is that you have to pay additional fees for an e-mail adress that should have been included in your hosting plan, so that the first con of choosing Kinsta.
- You don’t get a domain name
This surprised me as well. While most other hosting companies offer you a free domain name even in the starter plan, Kinsta doesn’t. Of course you can buy one for a really cheap price like 3$/year or something, but still, you have to set it up yourself which can be a bit of a headache if you’re not someone who knows their way around technology.
Real Customer Reviews: What People are Actually Saying
Good Things People Are Saying
The best fully managed WordPress host on the market
What do you like best?
- Cost
By switwhing from Pagely to Kinsta, we saved up 5,388$ a year which is a small fortune.
2. Support
We’ve tried all of the major WordPress hosting companies in the last 10 years, but I can honestly say that Kinsta has the best support team, hands down. Other web hosts don’t offer you live support from an actual engineer so you’re wasting precious time waiting for them to escalate your problem until it reaches the engineer that can actually solve your problem.
With Kinsta, you get that from the beginning so you’re really talking to someone who can solve any problems you might have right from the start. This is unbeatable and unheard of.
3. site Speed
Today, speed matters. I did a few test using Pingdom to compare how Kinsta was doing compared to other hosting providers, and the result was that Kinsta produced the fastest page load time, and not just by a few percentage points. Without touching anything else, the average WordPress site increased its page loading speed by 53%.
Bad Things People Are Saying
Heard so much great about Kinsta – I am so disappointed
After reading so many good reviews about Kinsta, I decided to move my two WooCommerce stores to them expecting a fantastic performance. Boy I was disappointed.
For both sites, I chose the 60$ plan. While I thought that having more PHP workers was great, now it seems like it’s more of a limitation to your site’s performance.
Site #1 was really slow. Sure, it was loaded with plugins and could have been optimized, I admit it. However, we need all of those plugins to integrate our store with other platforms like bookkeeping software, shopping feeds, email marketing, amazon, analytics, etc. Integrations that any online store needs for running a successful business.
Store #1 was really slow. I tried upgrading it to the 200$ plan. It made it a great deal faster but definitely not fast enough to reach Google’s page speed standards.
Site #2 was slow as well. It just had the necessary plugins for an eCommerce site but still was incredibly slow.
I guess Kinsta is great for WordPress sites that are fully cached and not dynamic like a WooCommerce store.
I’m really disappointed but I’ll give Kinsta 2 stars because of their great customer service.
What I noticed about all the customer reviews
I think you should also know that after seeing a bunch of reviews, I noticed that the vast majority of them were positive. The negative review that I put right here was actually one of the very few negative reviews I could find.
Website Set Up and Development
Does Kinsta Offer WordPress Hosting Specifically?
Yes, they do.
Do You Get a Free Domain Name When You Sign Up? (Some Hosting Providers Offer This)
No, and that’s one of the cons when using Kinsta.
Does this Platform Have Nameservers or Offer DNS Services?
Yes they do. In fact, every hosting provider out there has to offer some kind of DNS service so that people can access your site at any time.
Migrating a Site To Kinsta (and Transferable Installs): How Easy Is Migration?
It’s very easy. All you have to do is contact their support team after you sign up and they will migrate your site to Kinsta. Bear in mind that this is only available if your site is currently hosted on WP Engine, Flywheel, Pantheon, Pagely, Cloudways, or DreamHost.
You should also know that they offer unlimited migration for free so it doesn’t matter if you have one site or 50, they will take care of it for you.
Kinsta Control Panel (Cpanel): Do They Offer One To Manage Your Hosting?
Of course, they do. Their cPanel is pretty simple and allows you to manage your website like any other web host.
However, the most interesting part is that they also have a custom dashboard that you can use to manage your website as well. It looks pretty cool too. Here’s what it looks like:
FTP & SFTP: How Easy Is It to Connect?
It’s pretty easy. Go ahead and download an FTP client like FileZilla, then go to your website’s FTP details like the username, host, password, and port. Then, choose the files you want to upload and then import them to the WordPress media library.
Don’t worry, it’s really not that hard and they have tons of tutorials about this stuff on their website so it won’t be a problem for you.
Do They Offer Staging Environments and Temporary Urls?
Yes they do. They offer a staging site so you can test out different tweaks and modifications to your site without affecting the live version. They also offer a temporary Url just after you create your site so that you can access it even before you buy a domain name.
Templates & Blueprints: Do They Offer Site Setup Templates?
Yes they do. Considering that Kinsta is a WordPress web host, you get the usual default theme when installing WordPress. As you know, there are plenty of free and paid WordPress themes out there to choose from so that shouldn’t be a problem.
PHP Versions: Do They Support Legacy and The Latest Versions?
Yes they do. They support the latest versions of PHP.
Do They Support Git or Command Line Tool Integrations?
Yes they support Git andcommand line tool integrations.
SSH Connection: Do They Support It?
Yes they do.
Kinsta Speed & Load Time
Services and Goodies Offered With Hosting
Uptime, Outages & Down Time
They offer excellent uptime. Pingdom says that for the last 7 days at the time of writing this article, Kinsta has an uptime of 100%. If you plan on choosing Kinsta to host your site, expect something close to 99.99%.
Do They Offer a CDN With Hosting?
Yes they do
Does Kinsta Offer Shared Hosting and Dedicated Servers?
They don’t offer any of those. Kinta says that they offer isolated software containers instead. Basically, each site has its own private software container that runs on a virtual machine that has 96 CPUs and hundreds of GBs of RAM. The more resources your site demands, the more are allocated to it.
Https: Do They Offer a free ssl certificate or Letsencrypt?
Yes. They offer free SSL certificates that you can install in just one click.
How Do Site Backups Work?
They offer daily site backups and they store them for 14 days. You can back up manually as well.
Redirects: Do They Support Server Level Redirects?
Do They Support Multisite & Subdomains?
Yes, but not for the cheapest plan. They offer this feature for the 60$ plan and beyond.
Does Kinsta Offer Email Hosting?
No they don’t. If you want e-mail hosting, you’ll have to buy your own professional e-mail account from G Suite or a similar service.
Security & Past Hacking Incidents
Kinsta Pricing, Plans & Money Back
Pricing, Packages & Plans
Kinsta offer 8 plans ranging from 30$ a month all the way up to 900$ a month. Well, that’s a lot to choose from!
Of course we can’t cover all of them because there are simply too many, but we’re going to focus on the starter plan and see what you get for 30$ a month:
- 1 WordPress installation
- 20,000 monthly visits
- 5 GB SSD storage
- Free CDN
- 30 day money back guarantee
- Free unlimited migrations
- SSH acces
- PHP 7 support
and tons of other features. You can see the full details about their plans here.
Do They Have a Monthly and Annual Plan Payment Option?
Yes, and as usual it’s cheaper if you pay for a whole year. However, we always recommend paying for one month to test things first, and then pay for a whole year if you see that it’s the right host for you.
Do They Offer Unmetered or Unlimited Bandwidth Plans for Hosted Websites?
No, they don’t. They explain right away how many users you can get per month, and that’s better than giving you some abstract bandwidth that you can’t really quantify.
For example, if you go for the starter plan, you’ll be able to receive up to 20,000 every month so that’s your bandwodth limit.
How Does Canceling a Plan Work?
It’s very easy. Go to your Kinsta dashboard, click on billing on the left menu, and then click on cancel plan at the bottom. That’s it.
Promo Codes & Discounts: Do They Have Special Offers?
No they don’t.
Does Kinsta Have a Satisfaction or Money-Back Guarantee?
Yeas, they have a 30-day money back guarantee.
Customer Service and Support
Kinsta Phone Number: Do You Get a Real Person?
They don’t offer phone support. You get live chat with engineers and developers that will solve your problems. Their great customer support is one of the reasons behind their success.
They offer a team of experienced nd knowledgeable people who can actually solve your technical issues.
Kinsta Alternatives: What We Would Recommend Instead
If you’re looking for something with almost the same features but a little bit cheaper in terms of pricing, check out WPX hosting. That’s another one we’ve also reviewed. They also have great customer support and basically the same functions as Kinsta for $24 instead of $30 for the starter pack.
Sign Up
You can sign up for Kinsta from here.