WPEngine Server Locations & Data Centers

WPEngine is one of the best WordPress hosting providers you can go with. The hosting company offers the best features and performance you can’t resist.

However, their data centers locations are quite confusing for many people. They use Google Cloud, AWS and Microsoft Azure for different hosting packages.

For the same reason, many people are confused here. We will see where the data centers of WPEngine are located at.

Don’t worry, by the end of the guide, you will have a clear idea about the WPEngine server locations.

WPengine Server locations

Many confusions are going on when people wish to know the data center location. We will clear all things here.

So, let’s begin with the basic understanding. Three cloud companies come into the picture here.

• Google Cloud
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Microsoft Azure

Google Cloud is the default, while AWS and Azure are only offered on Premium plans. Each of them has a few locations from which you can choose.

Now, there is a small twist here.

Unlike other companies, you don’t get complete freedom here. There are two main types of hosting that you can select here. One of them is shared hosting and the other one is dedicated hosting.

It doesn’t need a lot of information. Most people already know about it.

However, WPEngine has not classified the plans directly. So, many newbies will be confused here.

Therefore, we will clear it out first before we see the locations.

Now, why are we telling you about shared hosting and dedicated hosting? Well, because there are certain restrictions on data centers based on the hosting you have selected.

Still, confused? Don’t worry, we will see the location and you will understand everything.

Shared Hosting Data Centers Locations (Google Cloud)

At first, we will see the locations that are available for shared hosting only. These are the locations that will be assigned to you if you go with a shared plan (Essential on the current pricing page).

• North America: Iowa, South Carolina, and Montreal.
• Europe: Netherlands, London, Belgium, Finland, and Frankfurt (Frankfurt may cost extra).
• Asia/Pacific: Sydney, Singapore, Tokyo, and Taiwan (Tokyo and Taiwan may cost extra).
• Middle East: Tel Aviv.

That's 13 Google Cloud locations in total.

These are the locations from which you can choose.

So, are you wondering how you can select the right location? We will talk about it later on in the same guide.

Before that, let’s talk a little bit about AWS.

Dedicated Hosting Data Centers Locations (AWS)

Now, if you are planning to go with a Premium plan, you can choose AWS as your data center. WP Engine offers its AWS clustered servers only on Premium plans.

Even in AWS, there are the same three continents.

• North America: Ohio, Virginia, Montreal, and Oregon.
• Europe: London, Ireland, and Frankfurt.
• Asia/Pacific: Singapore and Sydney

Microsoft Azure Data Centers Locations (Premium plans)

WP Engine also offers Microsoft Azure servers, but only on Premium plans. There are eight Azure locations.

• North America: Washington, Virginia, and Iowa.
• Europe: London and Netherlands.
• Middle East: Dubai.
• Asia/Pacific: Pune and Sydney.

How do I choose the best WPEngine Data Center for my website or blog?

This is one of the questions that people often have in their minds. People are confused about how they can choose the best data center for their website.

There are two main factors you can focus on here.

Know the Audience

If you have the majority of the audience from a specific location, your job is almost done. You don’t need to worry more here.

You can simply use that location as your data center. For instance, if you have a majority of traffic coming from the US, you can choose one of the locations from North America.

So, if you already have some traffic, you can analyze it and then decide which server you want to choose. You don’t need to stress much about finding the nearest location here.

Even if you don’t have any data center near to your location, we have got a solution for you. We will talk about it later.

As of now, let’s see how you can find the best location that loads fast from your current location.

Check the Latency

You can always check the latency of the servers. People often call it ping.

Using Ping, you can check how fast the website will open from your location. One of the things that you need to keep in mind is that this is the speed from your location and not the actual speed.

Here are two websites you can use to check out the latency/ping of the data centers. Just open the website and look at the ping next to your location.

• https://www.gcping.com for Google Cloud datacenters.
• https://www.cloudping.info for AWS datacenters.

For AWS, you will have to click on “HTTP Ping” to get the ping of all the locations.

What if the country I’m targeting isn’t supported among their servers’ locations?

Many webmasters over here might have the traffic coming from a different location that is nowhere near to the given location. So, we will see what is the alternative you have here.

For that, you can surely use CDN. It stands for Content Delivery Network. CDN is very much useful as it has edge locations.

Edge locations are the servers where copies of your site’s files are cached. Whenever the user visits a website, they will see the data from the location that is nearest to them. Because the data travels a shorter distance, the website loads faster.

With WPEngine’s hosting, you don’t have to worry about all these. You can have peace of mind as the CDN is included in every plan. It doesn’t matter whether you go with the Essential, Business, or Enterprise plan, you will get the Cloudflare-powered CDN at no extra cost.

The CDN that you will get here is Cloudflare Enterprise CDN. They previously used MaxCDN. It’s one of the best CDNs to use.

So, there is nothing to worry about. Also, Cloudflare's network has edge locations in more than 330 cities in 125+ countries. These are CDN caching points, not places where WP Engine hosts your site.

Therefore, all your users will get the best experience. We will now see a glance at the benefits of using CDN.

• It increases the security of your website.
• The users will get the website served from the nearest location. As a result, the speed will increase.
• It’s available for free on WPEngine hosting. So, why not use it?

There is nothing to switch on: the CDN works automatically once your domain points to WP Engine's Advanced Network or Global Edge Security.

Where can I choose the data center?

You probably are wondering where can I select the data center, right? If you have visited WPEngine before, you might not find the option to select the data center. So, we will see how you can select the data center location.

At first, if you are going with shared hosting, you will only have to choose from Google Cloud data center locations. There are no other options.

Now, not all people want to use the same location, right? For that, you can change the data center.

You can simply log in to your WPEngine’s user portal and then start the process to create a website. You will be asked about the data center during this process. It will only be asked when you are creating your first website.

If you wish to see the location that you have selected, you can head over to Sites and then select the environment you want. You will see the region name in the “Overview” section itself. Just head over to the section and you will find everything you are looking for.

In the same way, if you want to select the location for premium and enterprise dedicated hosting, you can contact your account manager. They will help you with it.

WPEngine infrastructure

WPEngine was the first WordPress DXP (Digital Experience Platform) to use Google’s next-gen hardware to provide the best-performing service. It increased the overall speed by more than 40% which is a huge increase in speed.

Usually, the speed is 2.2 or 2.8 GHz but in the C2 instance of Google’s next-gen servers, you will get 3.8 GHz speed. The servers are based on Intel Xeon 2nd Gen hardware.

So, you can surely rely on the servers. They also have the next-gen VM. If you are using their premium plan, you can get it at no extra charge.

Google Cloud Platform and AWS are SOC 1 & 2 compliant and ISO 27001 certified. There is no further information given regarding AWS.

However, their service is custom. So, you can ask the account manager about the server specifications. Depending on your requirements, they will assign the perfect server for you.

As they are from reputed cloud services, you can be worry-free here. You will get the best hardware specifications and infrastructure. Both AWS and Google Cloud are reputed names in the industry providing the best service.

The only thing that matters here is the location. So, make sure that the location you choose is correct. If you pick the wrong one, WPEngine’s support can move your site to another data center later, and the CDN can also speed up the site for distant visitors.

About WP Engine

WPEngine is the best managed WordPress provider you can go with. It was founded back in 2010 and has been increasing its performance at a tremendous speed.

A few years back they were the first company to use Google’s next-gen servers which increases their speed by 40%. There are many great upgrades they have done over the past years.

The headquarters are located in Austin, Texas, USA. WP Engine says it has served more than 1.5 million users and customers in 150+ countries.

It’s built for growth. You can easily scale up your hosting. They are managed hosting providers. So, they will handle all the things for you. You can focus on your business while they manage your WordPress hosting.

Is WPEngine Worth it?

Now that you know all the things about WPEngine, we will now ask the final question. Is WPEngine worth it?

Yes, It is worth it. Their data centers run on AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, three of the largest cloud platforms.

So, the data centers are fast. Along with the data center, they also have mind-blowing support and security. You can contact them anytime you want via live chat.

Therefore, it’s pretty clear that WPEngine is surely worth it. Performance, support, and management are the core reasons why you should go with WPEngine.

You can definitely choose any of the plans you want. You will get excellent server speed and performance.

So, what is your take on WPEngine? Are you going to use their service? You can surely share your opinions in the comment section.