Managed vs Unmanaged WordPress Hosting – What’s the Difference?

If you’re reading this, I assume you’re already somewhat familiar with WordPress — the immensely popular content management system used by more than 27 million sites across the web. If you’re still wondering what the difference between managed and unmanaged WordPress hosting is, then continue reading.

Hosting providers take care of some of the daily tasks that can be time-consuming for developers and bloggers, like installing WordPress and updating it when necessary. While this might not sound like a big deal, it can save you a great deal of time and effort once you’re used to working with a certain hosting provider.

The big question is: What exactly is the difference between managed and unmanaged WordPress hosting? Let’s dive into it.

Managed Vs. Unmanaged: What’s the Difference?

The short answer is: Managed and unmanaged WordPress hosting are pretty much the same, except for one big difference.

With managed WordPress hosting, you have someone walking you through the whole process of setting up your blog. From installing WordPress to connecting it to a payment processor to selecting a domain name and creating a social media account, your web host will take care of the whole process for you. This can save you a lot of time and effort.

Unmanaged WordPress hosting, on the other hand, means that you’ll have to do a lot of the work yourself. You’ll need to install WordPress onto a separate server, and then configure it to work with your chosen web host. After that, you’ll have to create your content, build your audience, and then begin sending out emails to your list with a hosted solution like MailChimp or HubSpot.

So, in short, managed WordPress hosting is where all the work is done for you, while unmanaged WordPress hosting is when you have to do most of the work yourself.

Advantages Of Managed WordPress Hosting

Let’s not beat around the bush here — the big appeal of managed WordPress hosting is that it takes a lot of the stress out of running a blog or a website. Once you’ve started blogging, you’ll soon realize how time-consuming it can be to keep up with the content that people are actually interested in reading. Having a team of people helping you out — whether they’re experienced WordPress developers, designers, or both — is exactly what you need to be able to focus on what’s important to you without worry.

Running your own WordPress blog takes a lot of time, effort, and learning how to do everything manually. Even when you have someone helping you out with the administration side of things (i.e. managing your website content), you still have to do a lot of the work yourself. This is where most people run into problems, because they don’t have the time or energy to do everything that’s needed to keep up with a blog.

If you decide to go this route, then the first thing you should do is install WordPress onto a separate server from your digital marketing agency or web design firm. This way, you can have complete control over what’s going on and don’t have to worry about security or reliability issues. You can also use a service like CloudFlair to create a sandboxed environment for testing and the like, where you can be sure that nothing bad will happen. This makes it a lot easier to get started, especially if this is your first time ever setting up a blog.

Disadvantages Of Managed WordPress Hosting

As much as we’d all love to have our own personal assistant to take care of all the little things that we don’t have time for, that’s probably not reality. So, instead of having someone else do these chores for you, you’re going to have to get used to doing them yourself. Just remember: everything comes with effort, and creating a blog is no different. You’ll need to put in the time to learn how to use WordPress and how to create content that people want to read.

Managed WordPress hosting has its perks, but it comes with some significant disadvantages as well. One of the biggest is that you have to take care of a lot of the routine tasks that come with owning a website. You have to learn how to update WordPress when necessary, build links, and study metrics like traffic and conversion to determine what’s working and what isn’t. This is a lot of responsibility for someone who’s just getting started.

If you have a team of people helping you run your blog or website, then you have the option of taking advantage of their experience and expertise. However, if you’re doing this all on your own, then be prepared to learn a whole lot in the process.

Why Should You Consider Unmanaged WordPress Hosting?

If you decide that you don’t want to go the managed WordPress hosting route and want to take the DIY approach to creating your website, then you should consider using an unmanaged WordPress host instead. This is where you have complete control over the content that you create, as well as how it’s presented. You don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to make any changes to this content — you can be as creative or as minimalistic as you want, without any limitations.

The biggest advantage of using an unmanaged WordPress host is that you have total control over what’s going on. You can install WordPress onto a separate server and configure it to work with your chosen web host. Once this is done, you can use the online builder to build your website, or download a WordPress theme and start creating content right away.

While this may sound like a lot of work to do everything yourself, you’ll be surprised at how much time and effort is actually saved by not having to worry about routine tasks like updating WordPress or dealing with technical errors or crashes. These are all things that you have to worry about when using managed WordPress hosting, and it can be a lot of stress when you’re just getting started.

There’s also the cost factor to consider. If you decide to go the managed WordPress hosting route, then you’ll have to pay a subscription fee to your chosen web host in order to have full control over your content and to be able to make any changes that you want. The good news is that this cost is typically recovered once you start generating traffic and make a profit from your website.

On the other hand, using an unmanaged WordPress host means that you’re on your own — there’s no charge for the service, and you won’t have to pay for anything other than your content. So, in this case, the cost isn’t that much more than just paying for a standard blog or website. Plus, you don’t have to worry about updates or security issues — the provider takes care of all of this for you.

The choice between managed and unmanaged WordPress hosting is a personal one and depends on what you prefer. For those interested in taking the DIY route and wanting to learn how to create a blog or website, then consider using an unmanaged WordPress host so that you can be as creative as you want without any restrictions. If you want someone else to take care of the routine tasks so that you can focus on what’s important to you, then managed WordPress hosting is the way to go.

Is One Route More Tricky Than The Other?

The main reason why we recommend against going the unmanaged WordPress hosting route and choosing to go the managed WP hosting route is that, at some point, you’ll inevitably have to switch. Letting someone else take care of the routine tasks is convenient, but eventually, you’ll have to switch to an engineer or a programmer to update the WordPress code or to fix any issues that might arise. This is a lot more costly — not just in terms of money but also time — especially if you’re doing this all on your own. So, if you decide that this is the route that you need to take, then consider using managed WordPress hosting so that you don’t have to worry about any of this down the road. It’s definitely a decision that you need to make well before you start using a particular host, but at least it won’t be a stressful decision if you go this route.

Managed and unmanaged WordPress hosts are pretty much the same aside from one big difference — the latter is where you have complete control over the content that you create, while the former has someone else taking care of the routine tasks so that you can focus on what’s important to you.