What Is Kinsta?

Whether you’re setting up your business today or want to get it ready for tomorrow, you’ll need a robust web host to keep up with its long-term demands.

This will ideally be one that can manage sites full of flashy, dynamic content, especially as users’ standards and expectations are continually increasing.

Kinsta specialises in hosting WordPress sites, and their customers often report speed boosts of up to 200%.

With ample data centres and CDN locations, mixed with innovative Edge caching, it’s no wonder people turn to Kinsta to handle their enterprise; it even has e-commerce features.

In this article, we’ll carry out a full Kinsta review to show you what it has to offer.

We’ll look at its main features, how it works for different users and even compare it with other top hosts. That way, you can make an informed decision and only go with Kinsta if it fits your growing business.

What Sets Kinsta Apart?

Kinsta is unusual in that it focuses squarely on hosting WordPress sites. It’s far from the only provider in this niche, but it still stands above many of its competitors. Every plan is full of customisable add-ons, including (but not limited to):

• Redis caching
• Extra storage
• More sites
• PHP allocation
• Automatic plugin/theme updates
• Dedicated servers
• Backup exports

Any one of these could be a lifesaver. For example, Kinsta’s auto-updates use special testing to see if your site still runs well afterwards. If there’s a problem, it’ll simply revert everything to your last backup. This saves you the pain of updating a plugin only to find it breaks your layout.

Of course, you’ll have to pay for each of these add-ons — and, price-wise, some are much fairer than others. The extra disk space, for example, is around £15 per extra 20 gigabytes. Plenty of hosting platforms offer 50 GB as standard for the same price. 

This is where we run into our first major issue with Kinsta: the prices. They’re providing a strong service for sure, one that can handle a large enterprise’s demands, but there are similar hosting providers that are much more affordable. 

However, Kinsta boasts much higher visitor limits than most platforms and uses Edge caching to speed up its pages. It’s got no shortage of features that can make up for the price. It all depends on your priorities and how your site performs without these add-ons.

Kinsta also aims to serve small businesses and vast enterprises alike. This means including an impressive high-level DDoS protection package in each plan, saving users possibly hundreds of pounds on Cloudflare (or a similar service) every month. That being said, even small enterprises can face bills of over £100 a month, depending on their needs.

Managed WordPress hosting is at the core of Kinsta’s services — this means they’ll take care of installing and updating your website’s WordPress architecture. You still design the site itself; this just means less busywork for you in keeping everything humming along nicely.

Kinsta pairs this with an impressive range of features that aim to ensure your site runs smoothly, no matter its demands or traffic. With the right package, you’ll even be able to handle over 1.25 million monthly visitors. However, many of these features are available on any plan; that’s more than we can say about a lot of its competitors.

With this in mind, here are just some of the main reasons Kinsta’s Managed WordPress hosting puts it close to the top:

1. Automatic Updates

It’s not just WordPress that needs regular updates; your plugins and themes do too. This should never end with you tearing your hair out, however. If Kinsta detects that an update has changed your site’s layout, it’ll automatically undo these changes, rather than leave your site broken.

We were lucky not to see this feature in action, but it’s certainly impressive. You can even make it less or more “sensitive,” in case you only want to undo updates that massively affect your site.

2. Free Site Migrations

Plenty of platforms offer this feature, sure, but it’s still great to see! Once you sign up, you can request a migration via the MyKinsta dashboard; you only need to provide a few basic details to get started.

You can pay extra for faster migrations, though it only took us a couple of days. The Kinsta team also removes any malicious code it finds and allows you to check the site before it goes live.

3. Edge Caching

Even the best host in the world can be let down by bad caching that slows sites to a crawl. With Edge caching, pages load up to 80% faster, have fewer server requests and instantly get a big performance boost.

We’re happy to report that Kinsta’s Edge caching lives up to its claims, at least as far as we can tell. Our pages loaded quickly on PC and mobile, even with a lot of busy graphical elements.

4. Security Infrastructure

Security is never about one single feature — the best platforms have a range of safeguards all working at once. Kinsta’s main standouts here include a Cloudflare firewall, a premium Google Cloud to keep your data safe and Linux-based site isolation.

The platform’s team also tests your website 480 times daily for security flaws. We didn’t run into any problems on this front but, if we did, Kinsta’s 14-day backups would have kept us safe from any serious consequences.

5. APM Performance Monitor

Even with innovative caching and a robust provider, you still need to know how well your site’s doing in practice. Kinsta APM can track your website’s real-time performance and give details on slow queries and anything else bogging it down.

Kinsta APM gave us a bunch of recommendations that helped speed up our sites. This tool is a perfect fit for businesses and even developers; you’ll know if the plugin you’re building will harm a site’s performance.

6. Premium Add-Ons

In addition to these free features, we again need to mention Kinsta’s paid add-ons and how they help. For example, redis caching lets you reuse cached objects, speeding up your sites even more, though for an extra £75 a month.

Few customers use all of these add-ons, and for good reason — they’re expensive and it all adds up incredibly quickly. Only invest in these if you’re sure your website can’t reach its full potential without them, such as if you absolutely need extra storage.

Different kinds of businesses naturally use Kinsta in different ways. Smaller-scale Kinsta packages, for example, are a perfect choice for fledgling enterprises. Of course, everything uses the same robust Kinsta architecture, but the particulars will always depend on your site’s unique needs.

We’ve found that Kinsta has plenty to offer nearly any type of business. Whether you’re creating an online store or setting up an educational resource, Managed WordPress hosting could bring you to the next level. This doesn’t always mean extra features — but it’ll give you a service that focuses on what matters to you.

Here’s a quick rundown of what Kinsta can do for different institutions:

1. Agencies

If you manage sites for your own clients, Kinsta offers an Agency Partner Program. These plans include multiple WordPress installations, allowing you to add these sites to your account easily.

Through this, you can effectively resell your server space to clients as part of your services and reap the benefits. The right plan gives 60 installations, letting you take on dozens of clients.

You’ll also enjoy high visitor counts (possibly over a million), which you can spread across each client. On top of this, your agency’s own site will be free and listed on Kinsta’s own Agency directory.

2. Small Businesses

Smaller or newer companies don’t always have cash to burn. That means they’re better off with a cheaper plan. Despite its high prices, Kinsta still has low-tier options with plenty to offer.

For example, if you expect 35,000 visitors or fewer, the Single 35K plan is only around £23 each month. As you grow, you’ll hopefully earn enough to afford the bigger packages.

However, there are no discounts for small businesses on other plans. If you suddenly get a lot of traffic without the revenue for an upgrade, your site could slow down significantly.

3. Enterprises

Large enterprises require a plan that keeps them running smoothly even under the heavy load with constant traffic. Kinsta’s Edge caching and high-volume plans help them keep up with more than a million monthly visitors.

Kinsta aims for 99.9% uptime. We can’t verify this ourselves, but we didn’t encounter any issues or downtime. Big businesses can also buy extra backups to keep their site safe in any situation.

In addition, if your site needs 24/7 availability, Kinsta’s real-time support is ready to help at any hour. We tested this ourselves and can verify that they only use real engineers, not chatbots.

4. E-Commerce Stores

If you’re running a WordPress store, you’re almost definitely using WooCommerce. Kinsta offers dedicated WooCommerce hosting and even lets you scale your plan to fit shifts in demand, such as during the holidays.

Users can fine-tune their store’s settings via MyKinsta. This includes only letting people browse from countries you ship to, or redirecting users to your store’s subdomain for their country.

Kinsta will automatically set up WooCommerce on your site. You can then customise it to match your store, such as adding payment methods and marketing channels, filtering products and so much more.

5. Nonprofits

Kinsta actually gives a 15% discount to any registered nonprofit, including churches, NGOs and charities. You’ll have to talk to their sales team, but it’s worth it if trying to justify larger plans.

This is a feature we’ve seen nowhere else — yet one that could make a real difference for these groups. You can also arrange a custom plan to better suit a nonprofit’s shifting needs.

However, these discounts don’t extend to the platform’s premium add-ons. This means if your nonprofit needs an extra 20 gigs of storage for your site, you’ll just have to pay the full £15.

Is Kinsta Worth the Price?

We’ve already talked a fair bit about Kinsta’s packages and prices. But is Kinsta worth it? Here’s how much each single-site plan costs, broken down by monthly visitor numbers:

• 35,000 visitors: £262 per year
• 65,000 visitors: £375 per year
• 125,000 visitors: £674 per year
• 315,000 visitors: £1,273 per year

These plans all include 10 gigabytes of storage and 14 days of backups. The following plans will give you 15 GB and 20 days of backups, respectively:

• 500,000 visitors: £2,172 per year
• 750,000 visitors: £2,808 per year

Plans beyond this could cost more than £4,500 a year. Ideally, as you get more visitors and grow your business, you’ll have the means to upgrade your plans.

Now, the elephant in the room: storage. To be honst, 10 or 15 GB isn’t a lot, especially for such high prices. Websites today demand more dynamic content than ever, and you might have no choice but to embed your media on your site directly.

With this in mind, an extra £15 a month for 20 more gigabytes doesn’t seem so bad. However, a lot of services offer similar packages for less money. For example, Hostinger offers 100 GB and 200,000 monthly visitors for just £120 a year.

It’s only fair that we see how Kinsta stacks up to the competition. Sure, it has a lot of impressive features, but are they worth hundreds more pounds? Here’s our breakdown — for the sake of a more straightforward comparison, we’ll use Kinsta’s Single 315k plan as a baseline.

The numbers don’t lie: other providers beat Kinsta on price. Many of these are on a discount for the first year or so but, even afterwards, none come close to £107 monthly. Hostinger renews at £20.99 monthly after your first term’s up, for example.

However, it’s clear that Kinsta is especially good for high-volume sites. The plans selected were, for other providers, the highest-tier ones. Kinsta offers two traditional plans above this before the service graduates to Enterprise/Custom packages.

This also shows just how limited Kinsta’s storage options are. Many managed WordPress plans offer ten times as much storage for a fraction of the price. 10 GB is a fair amount, sure, but you’ll probably find yourself dialling the site’s content back without even realising it. Buying more gigs will also just make the price difference even more apparent.

That being said, Kinsta’s add-ons give it a level of flexibility other services don’t have. You can’t, for example, buy your way beyond 40 gigabytes at SiteGround. On top of this, Kinsta’s focus on caching puts it ahead of most major brands in terms of raw site speed.

Hostinger, GoDaddy, and other similar platforms might do the job just as well as Kinsta, and at a much lower price. However, if you’re running a nonprofit — or just really want your site to run as fast as possible — Kinsta’s discounts and loading speed could give it an edge.

Overall, Kinsta is a pretty powerful WordPress host. From our tests, it runs well and packs quite a punch in terms of features. Most hosts don’t offer a built-in performance monitor or an in-depth update tester. Buying extra storage might seem like a needless expense, but it might be the only way to keep up with your competitors.

Kinsta also offers an incredibly diverse range of plans, with multi-site options for clients that run or work with several businesses. We can’t sweep its price tag under the rug but, if you’ve got the budget, you’re paying for a quality service and access to its exclusive add-ons.

This platform is a great choice all-around, especially if you have a site with high traffic and many graphically demanding elements that might otherwise slow it down. If the plans fit your budget, it could be a perfect match for your WordPress website.