Updated September 2026: figures refreshed, a few details corrected, and links added.
If you’ve used the internet, you’ve used WordPress. It powers about 40% of all websites, according to W3Techs, from one-person businesses to some of the largest publishers in the world.
As a flexible, open-source content management system, WordPress enables organizations to build high-quality websites that can be scaled to meet a wide variety of needs. From staging sites to e-commerce capabilities, businesses and nonprofits seeking to make their web presence known can rely on WordPress to deliver a top-notch experience.
The flexibility of WordPress enables anyone to create and host a website. Although the vast number of plugins and page-building tools available have lowered the barrier to entry, the work of maintaining a WordPress installation can quickly become a daunting endeavor. Because of WordPress’ robust content management capabilities, it’s not unusual for sites to quickly accumulate hundreds of media files, themes, and plugins.
So even though WordPress is an easy-to-use website platform that can scale to meet the needs of any organization, managing its complexities can quickly turn into a full-time job. Fortunately, a managed WordPress host can reduce the stresses and challenges associated with WordPress hosting by taking over some of the most difficult and tedious website maintenance tasks.
What are the different kinds of WordPress hosts?
There are two primary types of WordPress hosts:
- Unmanaged WordPress hosts, which simply offer a server onto which WordPress can be installed. An absolute barebones option, unmanaged hosts are intended for pro-grade tinkerers who want complete control over a server’s underlying base system.
- Managed WordPress hosts, which provide server hardware equipped with the operating systems, software tools, and management services necessary to run a website. Rather than forcing organizations to assemble and host a website from scratch, managed WordPress hosts ensure that users have the necessary infrastructure in place to create, publish, and maintain websites without having to concern themselves with the underlying technology.
(WordPress.com, the hosted service, is a third option and a different thing from WordPress the software; we explain the difference in Slight Revision vs WordPress.com.)
The type of WordPress host that’s best for your organization depends entirely on your needs. However, in most circumstances, managed WordPress hosting can meet the needs of everyone from individuals and entrepreneurs to nonprofits and small businesses.
What are the benefits of a managed WordPress host?
Managed WordPress hosts like Slight Revision offer a wide variety of tools and services that make maintaining WordPress installations simple. By taking on some of the most critical back-end tasks, managed WordPress hosting allows organizations to focus on building high-quality websites without getting bogged down in the back-end weeds, including:
- Up-to-date WordPress maintenance. WordPress regularly releases updated versions of its software that include new features, bug fixes, and security patches, and older versions are not maintained with security updates. Managed hosts keep WordPress and its plugins current, and check that nothing broke afterward.
- Performance monitoring. Large WordPress sites can encounter performance issues when not properly maintained. Managed WordPress hosts carefully monitor the status of your WordPress instance, such as whether it’s getting close to running out of memory, to help prevent slow pages or website crashes.
- Frequent backups. Without the proper tools, backing up and restoring a WordPress site can be a difficult and time-consuming task. Daily and incremental backups through a managed WordPress host create regular copies of your site and its content, and in the event something goes wrong or gets deleted by mistake, changes can painlessly be rolled back.
- Malware monitoring. Malicious software can wreak havoc on unattended servers. With managed WordPress hosting, sites get continuously scanned to check for known malware and out-of-date software that could allow it to flourish.
- SSL/TLS certificates. A certificate verifies that a website is authentic and keeps communication between the visitor and the server encrypted (TLS is the modern name; “SSL” is the older one, still in common use). Managed WordPress hosts include certificates as part of a hosting plan. HTTPS is also a lightweight Google ranking signal, though far less important than good content.
- Email. Although WordPress doesn’t include email functionality, it offers many email-dependent features, such as contact forms. A managed host should make sure those messages actually arrive; on sites we host that use Gravity Forms, BrightFrame alerts us when a form notification fails to send. Mailboxes at your own domain are a separate service; many hosts, us included, can set them up on request, though a dedicated email provider is often the better fit.
These are just a few of the features offered by managed WordPress hosts, but they illustrate the point that there’s a lot of work to be done on the back end to properly run and maintain a WordPress installation. Without a trusted host that handles the nuts and bolts of basic maintenance and offers additional features beyond a bare server, small businesses and nonprofits will be required to devote additional resources to ensuring that the underlying technology is safe and stable. For a checklist you can use when comparing hosts, see what “managed WordPress hosting” should actually include.
Led by Eric, with 20+ years of experience, Slight Revision has offered secure, business-class managed WordPress hosting since 2010. Whether you’re starting from scratch or moving from an existing host, contact us today to receive a custom quote for a WordPress hosted site!
