In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, finding the right hosting solution is paramount. Enter BionicWP, a leader in the realm of Managed WordPress Hosting solutions for Agencies. Specifically crafted to meet agencies’ unique needs, BionicWP’s Managed WordPress Hosting solutions empower agencies to deliver unparalleled services to their clients.
With a focus on performance, security, and reliability, these hosting solutions are designed to help agencies excel in both technical aspects and on-page metrics, positioning them for success in a competitive market. Whether you are an established agency or a growing freelancer, BionicWP’s Managed WordPress Hosting is engineered to propel your WordPress sites to new heights.
BionicWP is a relative newcomer to the Managed WordPress hosting solutions space. But they’re helping to change the way agencies manage websites. Founded by an agency owner frustrated by WordPress hosting options that didn’t meet their demands, BionicWP was born. It offers high-performance hosting powered by Google Cloud, automated security scans, and unique expert support options. All within an easy-to-use dashboard.
BionicWP: Redefining Managed WordPress Hosting Solutions
Before we get deeper into this BionicWP hosting review, it’s important to take a step back and talk a bit about how managed hosting fits into the hosting landscape as a whole.
Hopefully, this will help you see why using a managed WordPress hosting solution is a no-brainer for agency owners managing client sites.
Let’s start at the top.
There are three major categories of hosting:
- Business hosting. Also known as shared hosting.
- VPS hosting. This can be divided into self-managed, fully-managed, and managed WordPress hosting solutions.
- Dedicated server hosting. You get a private server just for your site.
Now, to make sense of these, let’s pretend you’re on a ship.
Shared Hosting
You book a shared bunk with six other people. You don’t know them, but you’ve all agreed this is the best way to cut costs while still enjoying time on the ocean. Of course, you get your own bed and general use of the space, but that’s it.
This is shared hosting. With shared hosting, you’re sharing server resources, but there are policies in place to ensure everyone gets their fair share.
VPS Hosting
Now, you’ve outgrown sharing and decide it’s time for your own room. It’s bigger, more luxurious, and has a tiny window to see the ocean. It has some other goodies; you can change the bedding, paint the walls, bring in new furniture, and make it your own.
This is VPS hosting. With a VPS, you optimize your server to meet your specific needs. You gain access to increased server resources, and you can tailor the server modules to enhance your performance significantly.
Now, within this, you have a managed WordPress hosting solution. The server is 100% optimized to run WordPress. Since WordPress has unique requirements, this server setup will help get the best speed, performance, and security possible.
Dedicated Hosting
If you’ve outgrown your perfectly optimized bedroom, then there’s one more option available. Here, the entire ship is yours. Not only are you the captain, but you can turn the ship into whatever you want. A megayacht, an old-school galley, or even a warship.
This is dedicated hosting. Having this much control and freedom sounds nice, but it’s simply too much for most website owners. Yes, you get complete customization, but you also need to handle server setup, maintenance, and security.
Now that you understand why a managed WordPress hosting solution is so important let’s get back to BionicWP.
In our BionicWP hosting review, we’ll take an in-depth look at this new agency-oriented managed WordPress hosting provider.
Keep reading to learn more about what makes this WordPress host stand out, take a look at its hosting dashboard, see real performance data, and get pricing information.
Let’s dive in!
The Core Components of BionicWP
Before we dive deep into our hands-on look at BionicWP WordPress hosting, let’s briefly overview some of the most important features.
- High-Speed Performance: You’ll find a server stack optimized for performance, a bundled CDN, and a server cache. Beyond this, there’s a page speed score guarantee and continuous monitoring to ensure you’re hitting these numbers.
- Unmatched Security: Two robust security scanners regularly scan your website for malware, trojan horses, and other online risks. There’s also a Web Application Firewall (WAF) to protect your server from attacks like cross-site scripting and SQL injections.
- Scalability for Growth: As your client’s sites grow in traffic, you need a host that can scale with you. Some hosts offer one-click scaling, while BionicWP scales automatically. Server resources are always available on-demand to help meet growing traffic or traffic spikes.
A Deep Dive into BionicWP’s High-Speed Performance
BionicWP takes speed very seriously. After all, the founders established this host primarily to prioritize speed and performance. Here’s a quick look at how it achieves this.
The Technology Behind the Speed
BionicWP uses Google Cloud network servers, creating a high-performance foundation. These are the same servers that Google uses for their own applications, so you know they’re fast.
On top of that, every plan can take advantage of the built-in CDN and Edge Cache features to improve your website speed and performance even further.
Also, ongoing speed monitoring ensures your site gets the fastest speeds possible. If your Google PageSpeed speed drops below 85 on desktop (80 on mobile), their team gets an alert and gets to work diagnosing and fixing the issue.
Real-World Performance Metrics
Now, all of that sounds great, but how does BionicWP perform?
To see how BionicWP performed in real-time, I used the Astra theme with an image-heavy demo site imported.
I used GTMetrix with the server location in Vancouver, CA to test. Then, I ran five separate tests and averaged the results.
Based on the average, the test site had a Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) time of 0.395 seconds, which is pretty fast.
Ensuring Security with BionicWP
With BionicWP, you get high levels of security that are designed to keep your site(s) safe. Let’s explore how this WordPress host handles security.
Proactive Security Measures
BionicWP takes a proactive approach to managing your website security. Doing what they can to stop a hack from occurring in the first place. Compare this to other security measures, which simply react to hacks after they occur.
With the highest-paying hosting plan, you get access to daily automated malware scans for all of your sites which MalCare and Wordfence power. Having two robust security tools ensures nothing slips through the cracks.
It also offers a Website Application Firewall (WAF), which helps to protect your website from malware and other attacks ever getting to your website.
Responding to Threats: BionicWP’s Approach
The last thing you want in a host is to be left on your own, trying to respond and recover from an online attack. That’s why BionicWP offers a free security fix guarantee.
If your website is compromised in any way from an outside source, they’ll fix the issue with the least amount of downtime possible. All for free.
You can think of your website as a castle. The WAF is the wall keeping out intruders, the daily security scans are the guards patrolling the wall, and the hack fix guarantee is their army, ready to fight off anyone who attempts to breach the castle wall.
Scalability and Flexibility: Growing with BionicWP
BionicWP combines easy-to-use features with flexibility. As the needs of your client’s sites change over time, you want a host that makes it easy to scale server resources. The last thing you want is a site you manage to go offline during a traffic spike.
Adapting to Your Agency’s Needs
No matter your hosting plan, deploying or migrating a new site is as simple as a couple of clicks. Scaling your server resources is even easier.
Since BionicWP actively monitors your website for speed, performance, and security, it receives alerts when traffic spikes occur or when you exceed server resources.
Then, the system automatically scales up your server to accommodate higher levels of traffic and bandwidth. It’s that simple.
Case Study: Scaling Success with BionicWP
There are pages of customer success stories on the BionicWP site. Taking sites with abysmal website speeds and performance and helping them get to an ‘A’ PageSpeed and YSlow scores.
For example, one site had a tragically slow page load time of 7.4 seconds. After optimizing their site, the new page load speed was 2.2 seconds. Not only that, but the PageSpeed Score jumped from a 37 to a 96. Plus, the Time to First Byte decreased from 0.7 seconds to 313 milliseconds.
This isn’t an outlier, either. If you’re having performance issues, then moving over to BionicWP could lead to the speed and performance boost you’re looking for.
Couple this with automatic server scaling, and you have an ultra-fast website that can handle as much traffic as you throw at it.
The BionicWP Advantage: Features That Set It Apart
Most managed WordPress hosting solutions offer a similar suite of features. After all, the process of hosting a website doesn’t change much on a technical level. However, BionicWP takes hosting a step further and becomes an integral part of your team.
Here are a few ways it stands out:
- Your website speed will be monitored 3 times per week. If your speed falls below the threshold, then their team will fix any issues for free.
- BionicWP uses two different malware scanning software. Plus, if your site gets hacked, they’ll fix it for free.
- For a flat monthly fee, you get access to website edits. Their team will update blog posts, change images, install plugins, and more.
- Server resources are always on-demand. So, when your site experiences a surge in traffic, the system automatically scales up the server resources.
- Website backups are done daily. If you need to restore a client site to a previous version, all it takes is one click.
Some managed hosts offer server-level support; the rest is up to you and your team.
BionicWP takes this a step further, where they become like a partner in your site’s success. When you’re managing dozens of sites for clients, this can ease the burden of site management.
Their team will act as your hosting provider, system admin, and virtual assistant.
One great add-on feature is called Site Edits. With this feature, their team will make changes to your site for you.
You can have them handle tasks like:
- Updating older content
- Replacing images across your site
- Changing out website banners and sliders
- Installing and testing new WordPress plugins
- Making small CSS tweaks
Currently, no other managed WordPress hosting solution on the market offers this feature. Of course, there are limits to this service, like you can’t ask their team to write custom code. However, it can be a very helpful add-on for overwhelmed agency owners trying to juggle multiple sites.
Pricing and Plans: Choosing Your BionicWP Package
BionicWP offers three different tiers for its WordPress hosting.
Each plan caters to different needs, so you’ll want to make sure that you’re choosing the right plan for you or your client’s websites.
All three plans include important features like a free SSL, daily automated backups, staging sites, uptime monitoring, and 24/7 support. The main differences are when it comes to speed and security.
Here’s how the two top-level plans compare:
- The second cheapest plan includes managed core, plugin, and theme updates. Plus, daily virus scans powered by two WordPress security powerhouses MalCare and Wordfence.
- The most expensive plan includes everything in the previous plans, plus Bionic Speed. This feature guarantees a 90+ on GTMetrix and Google PageSpeed Insights desktop. Plus, you get ongoing speed optimization.
You’ll probably want to go for either of the two top-level plans as an agency owner. Having automatic updates can be a huge time saver. Plus, the performance guarantee ensures your clients’ sites will be fast.
Here’s the full pricing breakdown:
Keep in mind that for our BionicWP WordPress hosting review, we’ve been using the Speed & Secure plan, which starts at $25.90 per month.
Beyond the price you pay for hosting, you have two additional add-on services, Unlimited Edits, and White Label Inbox Management. These are by no means required, but they can be worth the investment for agencies who want to outsource some of their workload.
Currently, the only plans available are on a monthly basis. According to their team, they’re working on yearly pricing, but there’s no set time when this will be available.
Also, the pricing you pay is per site per month. So, you will pay an additional monthly hosting fee for every site you manage.
If you go beyond your existing server resources, here are the additional payment guidelines:
- You’ll pay $2 for every 1GB of additional disc space.
- There’s an overage charge of $.10 for each GB of bandwidth used (over your 50GB plan limit).
- If your site goes over 20,000 visits, then you’ll pay $1 for every 2,000 visits.
Getting Started with BionicWP: A Step-by-Step Guide
Getting started with BionicWP couldn’t be simpler. Once your account is set up you can launch your site directly from your hosting dashboard. The process of launching a new WordPress site is easy.
- Click the Create One button in your dashboard.
- Choose the hosting plan from the drop-down list.
- Enter your site URL and choose your data center region.
- Click Launch.
If you’re building a brand new WordPress site, then you can start building on your temporary domain name straight away. Then, all you need to do is point your real domain to the site when you’re ready for it to go live.
For those who have an existing WordPress site, BionicWP offers a free migration service. The entire migration process can take anywhere from 24 to 48 hours.
All you need to do is submit your website and registrar details. They also offer a secure form for submitting your account passwords.
Navigating the BionicWP Dashboard: A User’s Perspective
Navigating the dashboard couldn’t be simpler when you log in to your account. You’ll find an overview of your website performance, billing, and updates on the main screen. This is a quick way to see if any sites you’re managing need your attention.
You can click over to the Sites tab to see a list of every site you’re hosting. You can use the search feature to find specific sites.
Clicking on any website takes you to the Site Details settings screen. Here you’ll be able to do things like:
- Switch your PHP version
- View your SFTP/SSH login credentials
- Restore or download website backups (for you or your clients)
- Clear your website cache
- View the server resources your site is consuming
- Create a staging site to test site changes safely before pushing live
- Clone an existing site
It’s also where you can enable the Edge Cache. Turning this on makes it so a cached version of your site will be served to visitors from the server location that’s closest to them.
Domain Management
Next, you have the Domain Management tab. Here you can manage all the domains that are associated with your website. You can easily add new domains with a couple of clicks.
WordPress Site Management
If you want a birds-eye-view of the plugins and themes the site is running, you can click over to the WordPress tab. You can update plugins and themes by clicking the update button.
Server and Activity Logs
BionicWP maintains real-time PHP logs, server logs, and searchable activity logs. If you have sites with multiple admin-level users, then this can help you see what actions have been taken on your site or server. It can also help spot errors and issues with your websites.
Site Sharing and Collaboration
BionicWP makes it easy to share all of your sites, or a single site, with your client or other team members. In the Collaborators tab, you have full control over the permissions of each user.
BionicWP Customer Support: Here When You Need Us
BionicWP is more than just a host; they’re a partner in your business. This extends to their customer support team too. Not only do they have 24/7 support, but their team is very responsive and helpful. Plus, they’re staffed by WordPress engineers, so you’re only dealing with WordPress experts.
To test the quality of their support, I asked a range of questions, from technical to basic account setup, during many different times of day. They responded within one minute and were able to answer all of my questions.
You can reach support by sending a support request inside your hosting dashboard or clicking the chat icon on every site page.
All of your support requests are automatically sent to your email as well, so you can respond from your email, if it’s easier.
Conclusion: Why BionicWP is the Comprehensive Solution Your Agency Needs
Overall, BionicWP is a solid choice if you’re an agency owner looking for a high-performing and easy-to-use WordPress host.
They performed well in the GTMetrix tests and offer guaranteed Google PageSpeed Insights scores on the highest-priced plan.
Beyond performance, their hack promise, regular website scans, and website edits addon show they really care about the success of your site and the sites you manage.
The dashboard isn’t the most advanced, but it offers everything you need to quickly deploy websites, manage your server, and get back to serving your clients.
Unfortunately, there is no money-back guarantee. But since you only have to pay for one month up-front, giving this host a test drive for your sites might be worthwhile. You can also stage a website and make edits or test plugins for free since you only pay once your site goes live.
You can get started today using the button below…