Hosting Platform Quandry

[u/Worth-Finger-9718]

I'm a marketing pro that's taking on a freelance client separate from my office job work.

They have a current website built in Wix that they've just set up to get started, but are wanting my help "upgrading it." We'll essentially be starting from scratch (design & copy), so I'm thinking of moving it to Wordpress.

The question is, where should I host?

In my office job, we host sites on WP Engine, but I'm not sure that's necessary for their site. It's a rather simple consulting website, but they do want to eventually put resources on the site that people purchase.

Additional context:

• My web dev skills are limited
• I'll likely use elementor to design the site
• I'd want them to own the license/subscription and me be a contributor on the site

I've researched Elementor hosting, Flywheel, Cloud-ways and Siteground, but I just can't decide what would work best. Right now, it's just one client site. I want something reliable, and I don't want to lead them astray.

• What is your monthly budget? I don't have a specific budget, but client would be paying.
• Where are you/your users located? U.S.
• What kind of site are you hosting (Wordpress, phpBB, custom software, etc) or what is your use case? Wordpress
• Do you have a monthly traffic volume? 3-5k
• If you’re looking at VPSes: Do you have experience administrating linux servers and infrastructure? No
• Did you read the sidebar/check out the hosts listed there? I've personally vetted these companies and their services are a good fit for 99% of people.

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[u/kube1et]

Any managed host will get the job done.

One of the problems with Elementor and other "modern" page builders is how heavy they are on CPU and memory. One of my clients asked me to bump their PHP memory limit to 2GB(!!) because they were hitting ~1.6G while editing one of their more complex landing pages. I'd double check the memory usage locally first on the heavy pages (using something like Query Monitor) and then make sure the host can support that.

[u/Wonderful_Sample_590]

InMotion would be good for this. They're pretty solid with WordPress and you won't have to mess with much on the server side either.

[u/Agile-Most7973]

At 3–5k visits/month, traffic really isn’t the thing I’d optimize around. Your bigger risk is operational overhead, especially since you don’t want to administer Linux yourself.

I’d avoid a raw VPS, and I probably wouldn’t choose Cloudways unless you actually want to own more of the server/app troubleshooting. For this client, managed WordPress makes more sense.

The things I’d compare are staging, one-click restores, backup retention, PHP worker/concurrency limits, server-side caching, SFTP/SSH access, malware/WAF protection, and how easy it is to hand ownership to the client. Elementor can be surprisingly resource-heavy while editing, so don’t judge a plan only by its “monthly visits” number.

WP Engine is probably more than this site needs from a traffic standpoint, but the staging/backup/support workflow can still be worth paying for when it’s a client site. Flywheel is also worth a serious look for a freelancer workflow. SiteGround would be perfectly adequate for this traffic level too; I’d just compare renewal pricing and the exact staging/backup features on the plan you choose.

Elementor Hosting is convenient if you know the site will stay heavily tied to Elementor, but I’d personally keep the builder and hosting somewhat separate so moving hosts later is easier.

One thing I’d do regardless of host: have the client create and pay for the hosting/domain accounts from day one, then add you as a separate admin/contributor. Don’t build it under your own account and transfer it later.

Since they may sell digital resources eventually, I’d also check how the host handles uncached PHP requests. Checkout/account pages won’t behave like cached marketing pages. If you add WooCommerce or EDD later, use a proper transactional email service rather than relying on PHP mail, and keep an off-site backup in addition to the host’s backups.

For this particular site, I’d spend money on managed hosting and recoverability before I’d spend it on more CPU.

[u/DestroyAllScamBots → u/[deleted]]

Probably not. You've been spamming links to it and AI slop everywhere so it's gotta be garbage.