Enterprise WordPress hosting is bought on different terms from ordinary hosting. The questions are about uptime commitments, security reviews, data location, release process and who answers at 3 a.m., and the price is a contract, not a plan. These are the platforms we see large organizations run WordPress on. This is one of four audience lists beside our main WordPress Hosts list. The others cover small business, startups and agencies.
How we chose
- Uptime commitments: a written service level, and what happens when it is missed.
- Security and compliance: audits, access controls and where data is stored.
- Release process: separate environments, code review and safe rollbacks.
- Scale: proven handling of traffic peaks, large editorial teams and multisite networks.
- Support: named contacts who know WordPress, available at any hour.
Managed platform or your own cloud?
A managed platform such as WordPress VIP, WP Engine or Pantheon gives you a tested stack and one company to hold to account. Running WordPress on your own Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud account gives more control and needs a platform team to match. Most enterprises we work with choose a managed platform and spend their engineering time on the site itself.
Verdict
WordPress VIP is our first recommendation when the site is critical and compliance matters, and Seahawk is a VIP partner. WP Engine suits organizations that want a mature managed platform with broad tooling, and Pantheon suits teams that run many sites through a strict release process. Choose Servebolt when uncached speed decides revenue, and Altis when you want the platform run by an agency that builds enterprise WordPress itself. Kinsta, on our agencies list, also sells enterprise plans. If you need a partner to plan and build on any of these, see our list of enterprise WordPress agencies or talk to Seahawk VIP.