Kinsta Web Hosting: Is It Worth The Hype?

Do you have an eCommerce store listed on WordPress? Or it doesn’t even have to be an eCommerce store. You’ll be surprised to know that as of 2023, the number of websites listed on WordPress was somewhere around 455 million. Just imagine! It makes having a reliable hosting service provider, even more essential. Out of all the popular hosting providers, Kinsta Web Hosting is the talk of the town.

But you might wonder, What are the downfalls of not needing a proper hosting service? Well there are many, to name a few

1. Poor Page Performance
2. Insanely Poor Customer
3. Negative effects on SEO or Ranking
4. Can’t handle Traffic
5. Low Traffic, and so on…

Consider this review article to be your guardian angel or helping hand. We would not ask you to blindly trust it, but we have done our share of fair research. This is the second article of our exclusive review series.

All About Kinsta Web Hosting

Kinsta is a managed WordPress hosting service that provides high-performance web hosting solutions for WordPress websites. It is difficult to believe that it was founded in 2013, seeing how quickly it has become one of the most popular hosting providers for WordPress sites.

This cloud hosting platform has its infrastructure built on the Google Cloud Platform.

You might wonder? What is a huge deal about it? It is because it provides fast and reliable hosting with excellent uptime. Not only this, but it also offers a range of plans with various features, including daily backups, free SSL certificates, advanced security features, and a custom-built dashboard for managing your site. 

Customer support is just extraordinary, with a team of WordPress experts available 24/7 to assist with any issues or questions. Kinsta web hosting offers a free migration service for customers looking to move their existing WordPress site to Kinsta.

Overall, Kinsta is an excellent choice for WordPress users looking for fast and reliable hosting with excellent support and a range of advanced features. We will further bi-furcate this into different sections.

1. Website UpTime

Kinsta web hosting provider has a reputation for offering a high uptime rate. According to their website, they guarantee a 99.9% uptime rate, which is on par with other top hosting providers in the industry.

However, it’s important to note that website uptime can be affected by many factors beyond the hosting provider’s control, such as,

• Website Traffic Spikes
• Server Maintenance, and
• Software Updates.

Kinsta uses the Google Cloud Platform, which is known for its reliability and scalability and has a global network of data centers to ensure fast and reliable website performance. To get a better idea of Kinsta’s uptime performance, third-party monitoring tools can be used. The screenshot of one such website, that actively uses Kinsta web hosting is here,

According to recent reports from these tools, Kinsta’s uptime rate is consistently above, which is a strong indicator of its reliability.

2. Customer Support

After I had successfully logged in, I was on the Kinsta web hosting platform. If a customer or a user has questions or issues regarding the working of the cloud hosting service, he can very easily open the chat box and ask the relevant questions. The chatbot takes less than a second to respond. Not only this, but once you have opened the chatbox, it will give you options to select from. Take a look at this reference image,

This takes away the element of confusion while asking questions. There are times when a user is confused and ends up asking the wrong questions. This feature eliminates this from happening.

The team of WordPress experts takes responsibility for solving the issue. There many countless websites that have excellent customer service in terms of replying to customers. But when it comes to resolving the faced issues, many fail to ace that.

3. Pricing

This can be considered to be one of the most essential categories. There are 4 main kinds of pricing plans,

• Starter Plan
• Pro Plan
• Business Plus
• Enterprise Plus

Confusing? Don’t worry because we are ready to bi-furcate each section for you,

• Starter Plan

Consider the starter plan to be the starting point of your web hosting journey. This is if you’re a beginner. Let’s know more about the Starter plan, which starts at $30 per month.

Here are some of the key features of this plan, that would :

1. Allows one WordPress install and up to 25,000 monthly visits
2. Comes with 10 GB of SSD storage
3. Free SSL certificates and CDN (content delivery network)
4. Daily backups with a 14-day retention period
5. Staging environment for testing and development
6. Free Website Migrations
7. Global data center locations to choose from
8. Kinsta’s Custom-Built Dashboard for site management
9. 24/7 Customer Support via live chat and ticket system

Suitable For: The Starter plan is suitable for small businesses, bloggers, and startups who are looking for a reliable hosting provider for their WordPress site but have a limited budget. However, if your website grows and requires more resources, you can easily upgrade to a higher plan offered by Kinsta.

• Pro Plan

The user can consider this to be the second stepping stone. This plan starts at $60 per month and includes:

1. Allows one WordPress install and up to 50,000 monthly visits
2. Comes with 20 GB of SSD storage
3. Free SSL certificates and CDN (content delivery network)
4. Daily backups with a 14-day retention period
5. Staging environment for testing and development
6. Free website migrations
7. Global data center locations to choose from
8. Kinsta’s custom-built dashboard for site management
9. 24/7 customer support via live chat and ticket system

That’s not all! It also comes with an additional set of features including SSH access, multisite support, and a white-labeled cache plugin

Suitable For: The Starter Pro plan is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses or websites that need more resources than the Starter plan offers.

With more storage, higher monthly visits, and additional features, the plan is custom-made to handle more traffic and for providing better performance for your WordPress site. If your website grows and requires even more resources, you can easily upgrade to a higher plan offered by Kinsta.

• Business Plan

Every business or website for that matter reaches a point, where they are ready to upgrade or upscale. This plan is exactly for that purpose. It starts at $200 per month and includes:

1. Allows up to five WordPress installs and up to 250,000 monthly visits
2. Comes with 50 GB of SSD storage
3. Free SSL certificates and CDN (content delivery network)
4. Daily backups with a 14-day retention period
5. Staging environment for testing and development
6. Free website migrations
7. Global data center locations to choose from
8. Kinsta’s custom-built dashboard for site management
9. 24/7 customer support via live chat and ticket system

Several additional features include multisite support, a white-labeled cache plugin, and Elasticsearch

Suitable for: The Business plan is ideal for larger businesses or websites that are receiving high traffic volumes and requires more resources than the previous plans offer.

With more storage, higher monthly visits, and the ability to host up to five WordPress sites, the Business plan can handle a significant amount of traffic and provide excellent performance for your WordPress sites.

• Enterprise plan

This can be the king of all the plans. It is designed for large enterprises, high-traffic websites, and mission-critical applications. The plan offers custom pricing based on the customer’s specific needs and includes:

1. Allows up to 150 WordPress installs and millions of monthly visits
2. Comes with custom storage and CDN options
3. Free SSL certificates and CDN (content delivery network)
4. Daily backups with a 14-day retention period
5. Staging environment for testing and development
6. Free website migrations
7. Global data center locations to choose from
8. Kinsta’s custom-built dashboard for site management
9. 24/7 customer support via live chat, phone, and ticket system

Additional features include dedicated account support, custom onboarding, and a range of performance and security optimizations.

Suitable for: The Enterprise plan is ideal for large-scale businesses, e-commerce platforms, and mission-critical applications that require high availability, security, and performance.

Kinsta’s Enterprise plan provides a custom solution that can handle millions of monthly visitors and can be tailored to the specific needs of the customer. The plan includes a dedicated account support team, custom onboarding, and a range of performance and security optimizations to ensure the customer’s website or application runs smoothly and securely.

4. Instant Back Ups

Kinsta’s Instant Backups feature is a standout offering compared to other hosting providers. Many hosting providers offer automated daily backups as a standard feature, but Kinsta goes beyond that with the ability to create instant backups and store them in a variety of cloud storage providers.

With Kinsta’s Instant Backups feature, users can easily create a backup of their website at any time with just a few clicks. This is particularly useful before making any major changes to a website, such as updating themes or plugins. In comparison, some other hosting providers may only offer automated daily backups or require users to manually create backups, which can be time-consuming and less convenient.

Overall, Kinsta web hosting’s Instant Backups feature is a valuable tool for website owners and stands out compared to other hosting providers. The ability to create instant backups, one-click restore and flexible backup storage options make it a reliable and convenient feature for website owners.

5. Migrations

Kinsta web hosting’s site migration service is known for being the easiest and most reliable in the industry. Here’s how it compares to other hosting providers:

• Automated Migration Plugin: Kinsta provides users with an automated migration plugin, which simplifies the process of transferring a website from another hosting provider to Kinsta.
• Expert Migration Team: If you don’t feel comfortable migrating your website yourself, Kinsta’s expert migration team can take care of the entire process for you. They are available 24/7 to help you transfer your website to Kinsta with minimal downtime.
• Free Migration: Kinsta offers a free migration service for new customers, which makes it easy for users to switch to Kinsta without incurring any additional costs.

The automated migration plugin, expert migration team, no downtime, and free migration offer to make it easy for users to transfer their website to Kinsta without any hassle

6. SSL Certificate

Kinsta offers SSL certificates as a standard feature for all of its hosting plans.

Here’s a brief overview of this element:

• Free SSL: Kinsta offers free SSL certificates for all websites hosted on its platform. This means that users do not have to purchase an SSL certificate separately or deal with the technical aspects of installing it.
• Automatic Renewal: Kinsta’s SSL certificates are automatically renewed, so users do not have to worry about manually renewing them yearly.
• Multiple SSL Options: Kinsta offers multiple SSL options, including Let’s Encrypt, GlobalSign, and custom SSL certificates. This flexibility can be helpful for users who have specific SSL requirements or preferences.

The free SSL, automatic renewal, and easy setup make it a reliable and convenient feature for website owners.

7. Bandwidth

Kinsta web hosting provides generous bandwidth allowances across all its hosting plans, making it a suitable option for websites that receive high traffic volumes.

What does it offer?

• High Bandwidth Allowances: Kinsta’s hosting plans come with high bandwidth allowances, ranging from 50GB per month on the Starter plan to unlimited bandwidth on higher-tiered plans.
• No Overage Charges: Kinsta does not charge overage fees for exceeding monthly bandwidth limits. Instead, websites will be paused until the next billing cycle.
• CDN Integration: Kinsta offers integration with a content delivery network (CDN), which can help reduce bandwidth usage and improve website performance. This feature is available on all plans at no additional cost.

8. SFTP Access

It provides SFTP access on all its hosting plans, making it easy for website owners to securely transfer files to and from their websites.

Here is a list of all the elements that are included in this feature:

• Secure: SFTP is a secure file transfer protocol that encrypts data during transmission, making it a safer option than regular FTP.
• Convenient: Kinsta’s SFTP access is user-friendly and easy to use, even for those with limited technical knowledge. The access details are provided in the user dashboard, and files can be transferred using an SFTP client such as FileZilla.
• Included in all plans: SFTP access is included in all Kinsta hosting plans, from the entry-level Starter plan to the high-tiered Enterprise plan.

Kinsta web hosting’s SFTP access ensures website owners can transfer files securely and conveniently, without the risk of data breaches or hacks.

9. UI/UX

Kinsta web hosting provider’s user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) are well-designed, intuitive, and user-friendly, making it easy for website owners to manage their websites.

How is the UI/UX smooth? Here is how,

• Intuitive: Kinsta’s UI/UX is designed to be user-friendly and easy to navigate. The dashboard provides a clear overview of the website’s performance, including traffic, resource usage, and backups.
• Customizable: Kinsta’s UI/UX is customizable, allowing website owners to tailor the dashboard to their specific needs. For example, website owners can choose which metrics to display on the dashboard or add custom widgets for third-party integrations such as Google Analytics.
• Responsive: Kinsta’s UI/UX is responsive, meaning that it is optimized for use on a desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.

The responsive design and extensive knowledge base add further value to the hosting service.

Here is an example of how the dashboard usually looks like,

10. Reputation

Kinsta web hosting is known for its exceptional performance be it in the security, aspects of support, user-friendliness, and premium pricing when compared to other web hosting services. Kinsta also provides multiple layers of security to protect your website from attacks and hacks and has a knowledgeable and responsive support team available 24/7.

The custom-built dashboard makes it easy to manage your website. While Kinsta’s plans are slightly more expensive than some other web hosting services, they offer premium features and performance that make it a popular choice among managed WordPress hosting providers.

Don’t believe us? Hear it from all your favorite eCommerce websites:

“Kinsta has quickly become one of the most popular managed WordPress hosts and for good reason. Their cutting-edge infrastructure, support and security, and developer-focused tools and features make them the best in the business.”

– WPBeginner

 

“Kinsta is one of the most impressive managed WordPress hosts available. Their use of Google Cloud Platform ensures exceptional speed and reliability, while their commitment to security and support is second to none.”

– IsItWP

These quotes highlight Kinsta’s strengths, and demonstrate Kinsta’s reputation in the market, as compared to other web hosting providers.

The Final Verdict — Is it worth the HYPE?

After reviewing each feature thoroughly, and further bi-furcating each feature into subcategories. We can conclude, by saying that — Yes, it is worth the hype. Kinsta web hosting is one of the best in the market because they know what they are doing. The key or the driving force behind all businesses be it a web hosting service provider or an eCommerce business is making the customers happy.

And I was thrilled to use Kinsta’s web hosting services. That’s our side of the story for Kinsta Web Hosting Review. If we’ve missed any pointers or you liked our research on this or this helped you in any manner kindly share your love/queries/suggestions in the comments.