In short
Cloudways, Krystal and WP Engine run WordPress with caching, a CDN option, SSL, backups and migration help, and each lists a London or UK option. They differ in how they are built: Cloudways puts you on a cloud server you choose, Krystal runs its own UK infrastructure, and WP Engine runs a managed platform on Google Cloud by default.
See Cloudways' managed hosting plans
Cloudways lists its cloud providers, server sizes and locations, including London, on its own site.
How this comparison works: provider-stated facts, A to Z
Every WordPress hosting company describes its service differently, which makes like-for-like comparison hard. This page puts three WordPress hosts into the same tables, feature by feature, so you can see where they match and where they differ.
A few ground rules shape what you will find here:
- The facts come from each host's own website. We read each host's plans, feature and support pages in November 2026 and noted what each one says. Where a host's site did not confirm something, the table says so rather than guessing
- The hosts are listed A to Z: Cloudways, Krystal, WP Engine. The order is alphabetical and nothing more
- There are no scores, ticks against crosses or speed claims. Hosts describe the same features in different words, and a feature listed by one host is not automatically the same as another host's version of it
- There are no prices. Prices, offers and renewal terms change often, so each host's own site is the place to see them
Read the tables as a shortlist tool. Once you know which hosts fit your needs, open their guides below and then their own sites. If you are still deciding what kind of hosting you need, start with our guide to managed WordPress hosting.
At a glance: hosting type and platform
The biggest difference between these WordPress hosting providers is how each one is built, and that shapes almost everything else:
| Cloudways | Krystal | WP Engine | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hosting type | Managed cloud hosting on a server you choose (Flexible), or fully managed autoscaling hosting (Autonomous) | Managed WordPress on its Onyx platform, or standard cPanel hosting | Managed Hosting Platform for WordPress |
| Infrastructure the host names | DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Cloud, your choice | Its own infrastructure, which Krystal says it builds and runs | Google Cloud by default; AWS and Azure on Premium plans |
| Dashboard | Cloudways platform | Onyx dashboard | User Portal |
| Sites per plan | As many as your server can support | 1 to 10, by plan | 1 to 30 on Essential; see WP Engine's site for Business and Enterprise |
| Isolation | Your own cloud server | Dedicated resources per site; two containers per Onyx site; CloudLinux isolation between accounts | Shared (Essential) or isolated (Business, Enterprise) |
In plain terms: Cloudways gives you a server you size yourself, with the management layer on top. Krystal's Onyx and WP Engine give you a platform built around WordPress, where you buy capacity by sites and visits. Our guide to shared vs VPS WordPress hosting explains why isolation matters.
See WP Engine's managed WordPress plans
WP Engine lists its plans and data centre options on its own UK site.
Data centres, including London
Hosting close to your visitors cuts the time each page takes to arrive. Every host here lists a UK option:
| Cloudways | Krystal | WP Engine | |
|---|---|---|---|
| UK location | London on DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS and Google Cloud; Manchester on Vultr; London for Autonomous | Managed WordPress backed by its own UK infrastructure; its technology page names a data centre in East London | Google Cloud London; AWS London and Azure London on Premium plans |
| Total locations the host lists | Varies by cloud provider | 4 global locations | Google Cloud, AWS and Azure regions, by plan |
| How you choose | Per server, when you launch it | See Krystal's site | When the first site on the account is created |
For a UK business with mostly UK customers, any of these London options puts your server close to them. If your visitors are spread across Europe or further, the CDN in the next table matters as much as the data centre. Our guide to UK-based WordPress hosting covers location, CDNs and UK GDPR in more depth.
Caching and CDN
Caching keeps ready-made copies of your pages so the server does less work for each visitor, and a CDN serves those copies from locations near your visitors. Here is what each host lists:
| Cloudways | Krystal | WP Engine | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Server caching | Varnish, Memcached and Redis built in; Breeze plugin pre-installed | LiteSpeed Cache pre-installed; Redis on premium plans | EverCache, with Varnish page caching |
| Object caching | Redis; Object Cache Pro on 4GB servers and above | Redis on premium plans | See WP Engine's site |
| CDN | Cloudflare Enterprise add-on on Flexible; included on Autonomous | CDN with 40+ points of presence on Business plans and above | Global CDN powered by Cloudflare, on every plan |
| Performance extras | Lightning Stack (NGINX with PHP-FPM); vertical scaling | Live request, error-log and resource views | NitroPack front-end optimisation and APM, by plan or add-on |
Most of these hosts manage caching at server level and ask you not to stack extra caching plugins on top: Krystal recommends against adding another caching plugin on Onyx, and WP Engine says some caching plugins are not needed on its platform. Check the host's guidance before you migrate a site with a caching plugin installed. For more on speed, see fast WordPress hosting.
Not sure which host to choose?
See the three hosts side by side on the features each one lists.
Security features
Every host here includes SSL and some form of firewall. Beyond that, the security layers differ:
| Cloudways | Krystal | WP Engine | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Firewall and DDoS | Imunify360 firewall with WAF rules, DoS, brute force and bot protection; Cloudflare WAF and DDoS on Autonomous | Firewalls and DDoS protection at network level | Proprietary firewall; Layer 3+4 DDoS protection; managed WAF and advanced DDoS as an add-on |
| Vulnerabilities and malware | Malware scanning and alerts; Patchstack-powered vulnerability scanner; Malware Protection add-on cleans files | Intelligent Protection (Patchstack virtual patching) on every managed plan; malware scanning and removal | Security patching and plugin risk scans; disallowed plugins disabled |
| Dashboard login and user access | 2FA on the account; IP whitelisting for SSH and SFTP | Extra Onyx users with access to the sites you choose | SAML SSO and MFA for the User Portal; granular user permissions |
| Certifications and compliance the host lists | See Cloudways' site | ISO 27001; Cyber Essentials Plus | ISO 27001; SOC 2 Type II; Cyber Essentials |
Security is shared work: the host protects the server and network, and you keep WordPress, plugins and user accounts in good order. Our guide to secure WordPress hosting explains what to look for and what stays your job.
Backups and restores
Backups are the safety net for everything else. All three hosts take automatic backups, but frequency, retention and storage location differ:
| Cloudways | Krystal | WP Engine | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Automatic backups | Automated, on a schedule you set | Daily as standard; hourly on Business; more frequent on larger plans | Daily backup checkpoints |
| On-demand backups | Yes | Up to 2 manual backups at a time | Yes |
| How long they are kept | See Cloudways' site | Restore points for the last 30 days | No less than 30 and no longer than 60 days |
| Where they are stored | Offsite backup storage, charged per GB on Flexible | See Krystal's site | Offsite on Amazon S3 in the same region, encrypted |
| Extras | One-click restore | Upgrade to hourly on some plans | Restore to another environment; downloadable backups |
Whichever host you choose, take a manual backup before big changes, and keep an occasional copy somewhere other than your host if your site holds data you cannot rebuild.
Staging and developer tools
A staging site is a private copy where you test updates and changes before they reach visitors. All three hosts include staging in some form:
| Cloudways | Krystal | WP Engine | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Staging | On every plan; push live in one click | Two staging sites per live site, one-click deploy | Production, Staging and Development environments per site |
| Developer access | SSH and SFTP; team SFTP credentials; PHP 7.4 to 8.4 | SSH and SFTP, and PHP version control, on Onyx; SSH and Git on standard hosting | SSH; Git-based CI/CD on Business and Enterprise |
| Safe updates | Site Manager Pro add-on tests updates on a staging clone | Automatic core, plugin and theme updates | Smart Plugin Manager, an add-on on Essential and included on higher plans |
If your site is built and changed by a developer or agency, staging is close to essential. Our guide to WordPress hosting with staging explains how a good staging workflow runs.
Migration help
Moving an existing site is often the part people worry about most. Each host offers a way in:
| Cloudways | Krystal | WP Engine | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moves done by the host | Its engineers migrate your first website from any web host; managed migration on Autonomous | Its team migrates your first three sites; further sites charged per site | Managed site migrations on Business; hands-on migration on Enterprise |
| Do-it-yourself tool | Cloudways WordPress Migrator plugin | Not needed: the team does the move | Automated Migration plugin |
| Check before going live | Your site at the old host is left as it is during the move | Preview the migrated site before you update DNS | Test on WP Engine before you update DNS |
Krystal also offers Switch Credits, which turn unused time on an eligible contract with another host into credit with Krystal. Our step-by-step guide to moving a WordPress site to a new host covers DNS, email records and testing.
Support channels
When something goes wrong, how you reach your host matters. Here is what each host lists:
| Cloudways | Krystal | WP Engine | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live chat | 24/7, on every plan | Yes | 24/7, on every plan |
| Phone | With the Premium support add-on | Weekdays 9:00 to 17:00; 24/7 emergency cover on larger plans | 24/7 on Business; priority support on Enterprise |
| Tickets | Yes | Yes | Yes, alongside chat and phone |
| Where the host says its team is | See Cloudways' site | Based in the UK | European support centred in Limerick, Ireland |
| Extra support options | Advanced (adds an account manager) and Premium (adds a private Slack channel) add-ons | Hands-on WordPress help on Onyx | Priority 24/7 support and a dedicated account team on Enterprise |
Hosting support covers the hosting and how WordPress runs on it. Design, content and custom code usually sit with whoever builds your site, so check each host's scope of support if you expect hands-on help with plugins or themes.
Plans and billing model
The way each host bills is as different as the way each host is built:
| Cloudways | Krystal | WP Engine | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan families | Flexible (pick a server size) and Autonomous (autoscaling) | Personal, Business and Agency | Essential, Business and Enterprise |
| How you pay | Usage tracked hourly and invoiced monthly; no contract | Monthly, annual or biennial | Monthly or annual |
| Currency the host shows | US dollars | Pounds sterling, excluding VAT | Several, including pounds sterling |
| Trying it first | A Flexible trial with no credit card, on DigitalOcean, Vultr or Linode | A 30-day trial on managed WordPress plans | See WP Engine's site |
Prices are on each provider's own site, and it pays to read the renewal terms as well as the first-term price. Our guides to WordPress hosting costs and WordPress hosting plans explain what drives the price and how to size a plan.
How to choose a hosting company for WordPress
Start with what your site needs, then use the tables above to narrow the field:
- Location: if most of your visitors are in the UK, check each host's UK option on the plan you want
- Hosting model: a WordPress platform packaged by plan (Krystal's Onyx or WP Engine) or a cloud server you size yourself (Cloudways)
- Plan details: staging, backup retention, on-demand backups and the number of sites
- Support: the channels and hours on your plan level
- Moving in: who migrates your site, and how many sites are covered
- Billing: hourly, monthly, annual or longer terms, and how prices are shown
Our picks for UK WordPress hosting match common situations, such as an online shop, an agency or a large organisation, to the hosts whose own pages describe them, and include a ten-point checklist and a guide to testing speed on your own site.
Read each host's guide
Each host has its own guide on this site, written to the same structure, so you can read them side by side:
- Cloudways WordPress hosting: managed cloud servers on the provider you choose, London and Manchester locations, hourly usage billing
- Krystal WordPress hosting: a UK company with its own UK infrastructure, Patchstack protection and a UK-based support team
- WP Engine WordPress hosting: development, staging and production environments, Google Cloud London and plans from small business to enterprise
When you are ready, follow the links to each host's own site to see current plans, limits and prices.
Explore Compare hosts
Frequently asked questions
Which WordPress host is right for my business?
The one that matches your site. Start with where your visitors are, how many sites you run, who maintains them and how you want to be billed. Then use the tables on this page: if you want to choose your own cloud server, look at Cloudways; for a platform built around WordPress with Google Cloud London hosting and separate development, staging and production environments, look at WP Engine; for a UK-registered host with UK-based support, look at Krystal.
Why are the hosts listed alphabetically?
So that the order carries no meaning. The tables, guides and links on this site list the three hosts A to Z: Cloudways, Krystal, WP Engine. We do not rank or score them.
Where do the facts on this page come from?
From each host's own website: its plans, features, data centre and support pages, read in November 2026. Where a host's site did not confirm a detail, the table says to check the host's site rather than guessing. Hosts change their plans often, so confirm the details on the provider's own site before you buy.
Can I compare WordPress hosting providers on speed?
Not fairly from headline figures, because each host measures speed on its own test sites. This page compares the caching, CDN and server features each host lists instead. To compare speed, put a staging copy of your own site on each host you are considering and run the same tests on the same pages before you change DNS.
Where can I see prices?
On each provider's own site. We do not list prices on this site because they change, and offers and renewal terms vary. Our guide to WordPress hosting costs explains what drives the price.
Do I buy hosting through this site?
No. You buy your plan directly from the host, on its terms. Every fact on this page comes from the host's own website, and plans, prices and terms are on each provider's own site.
See Cloudways' managed hosting plans
Cloudways lists its cloud providers, server sizes and locations, including London, on its own site.