WP Engine sells managed WordPress hosting by plan, traffic and storage. Because WordPress is GPL, leaving WP Engine means running the same site on infrastructure you control.
Comparing WP Engine's managed hosting with WordPress on your own servers or cloud: caching, backups, staging, security patching and support that WP Engine handles, plugin freedom you gain, and the operating work and monitoring that move to your team or a partner.
Moving a WordPress site off WP Engine: downloading a full backup ZIP within its 7-day window, replacing WP Engine's platform caching and CDN, re-enabling or replacing plugins, setting up backups and staging, and switching DNS with minimal downtime.
Cost of ownership by component: WP Engine's plan fees and traffic tiers against servers, CDN, backups, security monitoring, updates and the people who run them, including how visit-based pricing compares with infrastructure that scales with load.
What a WP Engine backup contains and how to take it before leaving: full or partial backup ZIPs with files and database, the 30-day retention and 7-day download window, items to collect separately such as DNS, redirects and environment settings, and restore testing.
WP Engine removes plugins it judges harmful to its platform, including some caching and backup plugins. This page covers when those limits block a site's needs, what self-hosting allows instead, and the performance and security responsibilities that come with that freedom.
Tell us what you're working on, whether it's a deployment, an audit, a security test or a cyber range. You'll speak with an engineer who can help you scope it.