Reviews

Kinsta Review- Know The Ins And Outs Of This Managed WordPress Hosting And Help Your Site Thrive

WordPress hosting is a specific hosting that adds several useful features to make it easier to manage, secure, and speed up your clients’ WordPress site.

Managed hosting providers will keep your software up to date, monitor performance, ensure security, and solve any problems that may occur. You won’t have to continually worry about backing up your data because the managed hosting provider will do it for you.

All of this means that you have spare time to perform other tasks to help add value to your business and build long-lasting, sustainable customer relationships.

This is an article on Kinsta review, and in it, we discussed the nitty-gritty details of how the hosting solution works and the services it provides along with all its pros and cons.

What is Kinsta?

Kinsta is a renowned, expert-recommended managed WordPress hosting solution. Kinsta was founded in the year 2013, and since then, it has been tirelessly working to become the market leader when it comes to managed WordPress hosting. However, Kinsta’s target demographic isn’t just your ordinary web developers, no, Kinsta wants to become the go-to choice for users and developers who choose providers based on their service and not their price range.

Kinsta has a $30 per month entry-level plan, and it essentially provides you with managed WordPress hosting. Now managed WordPress hosting includes a variety of features being offered. Such attributes include some of the following:

1. You Get Exceptional Support:

Kinsta’s support staff is exceptionally skilled and is made up of WordPress developers and Linux engineers who are ready to tackle any form issues that may arise. Kinsta ensures exceptional customer support for all its customers. This means that you get the same treatment and care that its Fortune 500 company clientele receives.

2. Strategically Located Data Centers for Global Reach:

Kinsta has 20 data centers to take your pick from. These data centers are strategically placed and are local to prevent Network Latency.

3. Automated Backups

Kinsta provides its clients with automatic backups without any extra charges. Kinsta also allows you to create manual backups with just the click of a button. It offers multiple backup options for you to reduce your anxiety when it comes to securing your clients’ data.

You can back up data under five different categories:

Daily– Kinsta automatically backs up your data daily.
Hourly– Hourly backup is available for the more demanding e-commerce sites.
Manual– You can create up to 5 manual backups
System generated– The system itself creates automatic backups for certain events.
Download– Kinsta offers you an option where you can download backup data.

4. High- Performance optimization

Kinsta uses and offers four different types of cache that automatically perform at the server and software level. This means that Kinsta and its staff handle the caching while you simply sit back, relax, and enjoy the benefit of someone else performing the heavy technical load for you.

5. One-Click staging environments

Kinsta provides a one-click staging and testing option, which makes the testing procedure as hassle-free as can be.

6. Developer- friendly

Perhaps Kinsta’s most prominent feature is the MyKinsta dashboard. The MyKinsta Dashboard is discussed in further detail later in this Kinsta review. Meanwhile, Kinsta offers various other developer-friendly options, such as the ability to run multiple PHP versions between sites and staging sites.

7. Security is taken seriously

Kinsta provides its clients with both active and passive measures to stop malware attacks. Kinsta also blocks access to XL- RPC and disables the execution of code in WP- content and uploads so that hackers are unable to exploit it. Kinsta also facilitates free malware removal and hack repairs.

The Kinsta support team is on your site fixing things in the event of a security breach before you have even reported it to them. They are always monitoring. Kinsta uses the Google Cloud Platform firewall, which is extremely secure.

8. Built with scalability in mind

Kinsta automatically scales your site when your client experiences a surge in load and traffic. During such events, Kinsta allocates resources as needed without any external prompt from you. This results in a hosting configuration that is private and secure, and you have the necessary flexibility to be able to scale up or down depending on your requirements.

9. Reliable and faster lookup times with the premium DNS

Kinsta is one of the very few managed WordPress hosting providers that offer premium DNS through the Amazon route 53. It also uses DNS provider companies such as Dyn, Cloudflare, DNS made easy, etc.

What are the features of Kinsta, and how does it work?

The MyKinsta dashboard:

MyKinsta is a comprehensive dashboard consisting of all the tools and features you might need to set up, track, and maintain your WordPress website just a click away. It was developed specifically to save you time and energy and with WordPress hosting in mind.

It helps save you the hassle of moving from places to place, looking for options. It consolidates everything in one place for you. This means you can manage multiple sites, control staging environments, domains, backups, access tools, and keep up with the growth of your site through analytics all from one place. It streamlines the process of managing your WordPress sites.

Main Dashboard:

When you log in to your MyKinsta dashboard, the first thing you come across is the MyKinsta dashboard which contains an overview of your WordPress sites, the total number of times your site was visited in a month, disk and CDN usage, billing invoices, unique visits along with a sneak peek of the new content Kinsta puts out each week.

The Kinsta dashboard consolidates everything you might need to manage your sites in one place.

The Kinsta support team is always just a press of a button away. You can directly chat with them through the dashboard. MyKinsta is offered in seven different languages, including English, Spanish, Dutch, German, Italian, and Portuguese.

The MyKinsta dashboard makes the management of your sites a mobile process. You can clear cache, initiate migration, and maintain your sites on the go by accessing MyKinsta from your phone.

Managing your sites:

The MyKinsta dashboard allows you to access all your websites from one place with just a click. You can arrange the sites by name, bandwidth usage, the total number of visits to the website, and even disk usage.

In case you have numerous sites, the search options allow you to access a particular website or move from site to site seamlessly.

New sits can also be added to your list. The dashboard gives you access to a wide variety of tools and options, all of which have a one-click installation option.

Google Cloud Platform has 23 data centers that are available to Kinsta. These are, as mentioned above, located locally, to prevent any sort of network latency. You can even run a multisite set up with Kinsta’s installer, which allows you to preconfigure for the subdirectory and subdomain installations.

The handy “one-click staging environment” that was previously mentioned can also be accessed from the MyKinsta dashboard. You can quickly shift between your live environment and your staging environment.

Domains:

The primary domain is how you refer to your website. You can set primary and secondary domains to address to your website. The MyKinsta dashboard gives you a plethora of content written by Kinsta that includes various tooltips to help you guide in managing your sites.

Backups:

Backups are one of the many perks of managed WordPress hosting, and Kinsta uses its MyKinsta dashboard to give you the best possible backup experience. This way, your data remains safe, and you stay stress-free. Kinsta offers automatic backups under five different categories- daily, hourly, manual, system generated, and download- all accessible through the dashboard.

All the backups are stored for a 14, 20- or 30-day period. This varies depending on your plan and requirements. Restoring your site can be done with a single click.

Tools:

The MyKinsta dashboard allows you to access a host of tools that enable you to do fun things that elevate, enhance, and maintain your sites.

A few of the individual functions you can perform are mentioned below:

Clear your sites’ cache.
You can restart your PHP, which will clear out any speed and connectivity issues.
Debug mode can be enabled to identify PHP errors.
Bulk search and replace
Password protection can be enabled
New relic monitoring
Manage, direct and redirect traffic over HTTPS

Redirects:

Redirect rules allow you to manage, direct, and redirect traffic from one location to another. The redirect rules can be added from your MyKinsta dashboard. This tool helps to prevent 404 errors when you make alterations and direct visitors to the right locations on your website.

Plugins:

Through the dashboard, you can access the list of installed plugins and check whether they are activated or not. Plugin updates can also be availed directly from the MyKinsta dashboard.

IP Deny:

Previously, in order to block specific IPs, you had to reach out to the Kinsta support team. Now you, yourself, can do it with just a click from your MyKinsta dashboard. This way, you can keep your sites secure from hackers, bots, and spammers alike. Such entities can have a significant impact on your visitors and bandwidth.

Password Protection:

You can now lock your site while it undergoes any sort of development from the public with Kinsta’s one-click password protection. With this, you can make sure the public cannot access the sites until your client is completely prepared.

CDN:

Under normal circumstances,70% of bandwidth requests can be divested and 50% less load times can be experienced with the help of a CDN. Kinsta has partnered with KeyCDN to help turbocharge your assets and media worldwide. You can enable the Kinsta CDN with just a click directly from the MyKinsta dashboard.

Logs:

You can view your files directly from the dashboard. This makes the debugging process much more comfortable without the hassle of using a command line or SFTP Client. Search, and force-reload functionality is also available.

Migrations:

Every Kinsta plan, irrespective of its price, includes at least one and sometimes multiple free migrations. You can request for a migration directly from your MyKinsta dashboard. Any extra migrations can be done for additional charges. You can request for a migration directly from the dashboard.

Any extra migrations can be performed with additional charges. To initiate a migration, you simply must fill up a form with specific details for the Kinsta support team, who will later schedule a migration at your convenience.

Kinsta DNS:

Kinsta offers premium DNS services with the help of Amazon Route 53. You can directly manage all your DNS records from the dashboard and even perform in-line editing.

Analytics:

The analytics part of the dashboard is divided into many sections so that you can review all sorts of data about what is occurring on your WordPress website.

The different sections and what kind of data each one provides include some of the following:

CDN usage:

Bandwidth usage
Top files by requests
Top files by bytes
Top file extensions
HTTP response codes
New relic monitoring
Manage, direct and redirect traffic over HTTPS

Resource Usage:

Dispersion:

Response:

Performance:

Geo and IP:

Cache:

You can look at the statistics from the last 24 hours, last seven days, or the previous month. Kinsta can even show you comparison statistics of a certain time at your request.

User management:

You can add any number of members to your team with Kinsta’s multi-user feature. You can delegate access to your site, depending on your requirements. The members can have all access to your website, or they can be set as administrators or developers.

The MyKinsta dashboard offers two levels of site users- company and site level. While company level users have access to only company-level information. And, site-level users have access to their specific sites.

For company-level users, there are three sublevels of information access.

Sit level users are further categorized into two types:

Activity Log:

With the activity log on the MyKinsta dashboard, you can keep track of all activity on your account for the past eight weeks. Domain changes, the creation, and deletion of sites, etc. are some of the mentionable activities that you can keep track of with the activity log. You can even keep track of who performed what activity with the multi-user function and more than one person on your team.

Kinsta pricing and packaging

The starting price of Kinsta’s managed WordPress hosting plans is $30 per month. This is Kinsta’s most affordable plan and offers with a WordPress installation, along with 20,000 visits and up to 10Gb disk space.

While other managed hosting plans’ prices are usually dependent on, and categorized by bandwidth and traffic, Kistna’s pricing structure is a little different. Each Kinsta pack differs in price depending on the number of monthly visitor allowance is included in each package. For every 1,000 visitors, you will be charged an extra dollar after going over your visitor limit. Don’t worry; your site will continue to function normally.

Kinsta offers ten different plans at different price points. The difference between each of the packages resides in the number of monthly visits and the amount of storage space being offered. However, all the plans provide the same load times and safety features. There will be no compromise in the quality of service despite the varying price range.

The ten packages, the features they offer, and their price is listed below:

1) Starter Pack- $30/month

2) Pro- $60/month

3) Business 1- $100/month

4) Business 2- $200/month

5) Business 3- $300/month

6) Business 4- $400/ month

7) Enterprise 1- $600/month

8) Enterprise 2- $900/month

9) Enterprise 3- $1200/month

10) Enterprise 4- $1500/month

One tiny drawback of Kinsta is the fact that they don’t accept PayPal payments. However, worry not, they accept all major credit cards such as Visa, American Express, Mastercard, and even Discover.

Kinsta is a scalable provider that offers many plans to put up with any type of website and fit all your needs. All Kinsta’s plans have the same hardware engine, so you get top-notch service regarding the technicalities no matter which packs you choose for yourself.

Features list

Kinsta offers you guaranteed money-back in 30 days
Kinsta uses Google Cloud Platform
Free unlimited basic migrations from other hosting services and one free premium migration.
Kinsta can support multiple sites at once
20 data centers located globally
Both automatic and manual back up options are available
Well trained and well-equipped support staff available 24/7 to help with any of your issues.
Backups can be retained for 14, 20, or 30-day periods.
Easily switch between staging and live environments to test out updates and further develop the site.
Security against hacks and malware removal available
Supports multiple users
PHP 7.3 support
Cache plugin with a white label
Access to SSH

Pros

We discussed nine prominent features offered by Kinsta in detail and have listed all the other features being offered. In this Kinsta review, let us look now at ten reasons why Kinsta can be considered an excellent managed WordPress service host.

1. Superior Speed

The human attention span is about 8 seconds; therefore, now, speed is everything. How fast your website load is directly correlated to the number of conversions. If a website takes up too much time to load, your visitor will likely get bored and move on from your site.

The average speed of Kinsta, after running it through a server speed checker, was found to be 179.5ms

Google’s recommended server response time is under 200ms. Anything above that is considered as slow. The shortest response time recorded through the server speed checked was a rapid 10ms.

Webpage loading time

Kinsta users have a host of tools such as CDN and caching technologies that help them optimize their websites and cut down on webpage loading times.

However, without the use of such advantages, Kinsta has a loading speed of about 1.1s, which might not make it the fastest hosting solution available, but this is still seriously fast timing.

Therefore, it can easily be considered one of the fastest top-tier hosting solution that provides excellent loading times.

2. Kinsta offers Google Cloud Server hosting

This is, perhaps, Kinsta’s most notable feature. Kinsta singularly provides Google Cloud Server hosting. Therefore, it can be said that the infrastructure of Kinsta is entirely different compared to a typical dedicated or shared hosting solution.

Unlike traditional hosting solutions where hosting is done through a single server located in a data center Kinsta uses cloud hosting. You may ask, how exactly does cloud hosting work? Cloud host uses virtual server space. This virtual space, in turn, uses the multifaceted network of physical servers. Doing so results in some great perks regarding speed, scalability, reliability, and flexibility.

Kinsta utilizes Google’s private fiber network. There are very few hosting solutions that currently do this. Google’s fiber network is one of the world’s biggest and can reach up to 10,000TB/s in certain areas.

To top all this, Kinsta not only uses Google Cloud platform, but it has subscribed to Google Cloud’s Premium Tier. This means that Kinsta users can experience speed and security of the highest level and unlike any other hosting solution users.

One other mentionable feature of Kinsta is the strategically located data centers to ensure maximum reach. This is made possible with Google Cloud Platform’s 20 different data locations placed worldwide. You can select the data center that is physically closest to the audience you are targeting and, as a result, reduce latency and load times.

The premium DNS offered vis Amazon Route 53 also helps with speed optimization.

In short, Kinsta’s infrastructure has been designed with speed in mind.

3. Tools to help turbocharge

Kinsta has a self-proclaimed “speed-obsessed architecture.” Kinsta achieves this with the help of various technologies such as PHP 7, NHNIX, MariaDB, and LXD software.

However, the most significant technology that plays a hand in creating Kinsta’s superior speed is CDN. As mentioned above, a CDN, under normal circumstances, 70% bandwidth requests can be freed and 50% less load can be experienced with a CDN.Kinsta has partnered with KeyCDN, which is a fantastic IPv6 and HTTP/2- enabled content delivery network. KeyCDN is one of Europe’s leading CDN providers based in Switzerland. It has a superb brand image and supposedly has a hit ratio of 94% and serves up to 40,000 customers and

Kinsta CDN might not include the entire range of all the perks offered by KeyCDN. Still, users can hop on to a specific bandwidth of KeyCDN and enjoy its extensive global network, and its strategically placed 34 locations to help turbocharge their media.

The MyKinsta dashboard has made everything CDN related very easy to handle. Whereas CDN and caching services usually come separately, Kinsta has tied everything together into a neat little package for your convenience.

4. 99.9% Guaranteed Uptime

Kinsta offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee that is backed by SLA. Cloud hosts, in general, are better suited to keep websites online. Therefore, the guarantee is probably a result of Kinsta’s Cloud hosting infrastructure. Kinsta continuously monitors and performs uptime checks almost every minute. You will be notified if Kinsta is unable to correct and error response code within half an hour.

5. Gives you more time to focus on company growth

One of the advantages of managed WordPress hosting, in general, is the fact that the host takes care of site management so that you can focus on expanding your site and creating long-lasting relationships with the audience.

Kinsta’s MyKinsta dashboard makes the whole process of site management and absolute breeze. The features of the My Kinsta dashboard are mentioned above in the article, so I won’t repeat it. Its easy-to-use interface, coupled with the full range of tools and options it gives you, allows you to continually improve your website without the worry of technical issues looming overhead.

6. Kinsta has an exceptional support team.

Kinsta has an exceptional, well-skilled support team at your disposal 24/7. The support team is made up of and skilled WordPress developers along with Linux hosting engineers. So, it’s safe to say they know what they are doing. Kinsta also ensures that all their clients are treated the same. Therefore, both a small startup and a Fortune 500 company can directly contact real experts with their problems without the hassle of level 1 or level 2 support representatives.

An Intercom widget (kind of like the messenger chat head) is a live chat and ticket solution. Kinsta uses this to provide the full time 24/7 support. It has stored chat history. Navigating different parts of the dashboard does not result in the window closing. This is a nifty little perk. The support staff is knowledgeable, polite, and, most importantly, they are prompt.

Moreover, as mentioned above, Kinsta also puts out updated blog posts on your MyKinsta dashboard with helpful tips and tricks to make your life as easy as possible.

The 30-day money-back is also an added perk.

7. Easy migration and set up

Kinsta’s entire interface is designed to be as simple as possible. You can set up your account in seconds, and the dashboard is designed to be helpful for everyone- from beginners to seasoned professionals.

Every Kinsta pack- no matter its pricing- includes site migration. Usually, it offers at least one free one, and sometimes more than one can be performed with an additional charge. While a manual migration can be performed with Kinsta’s help, an automatic migration, however, helps save you the technical headache. The automated migration can be initiated with a simple request from your dashboard, and you will not be incurring and form of downtime. You will be notified when the migration process has been completed, and you can double-check it to verify that everything is, indeed, in order and smooth.

8. Superior security and backup service

Kinsta’s superior backup system has been mentioned a few times throughout this article. This is because they are indeed worth mentioning. Kinsta provides you with both automatic and manual backups. It backs up your data daily and even generates automatic backup for certain notable events.

Kinsta also offers various measures such as hack repair and malware remover as a security boost. It also provides SSL support and firewalls and round the clock monitoring. In the event of a hack, the Kinsta team is usually on the site cleaning up before you can even catch wind of what has happened. Kinsta’s stellar security is discussed in detail earlier in the article.

The fact that Kinsta goes above and beyond for its users can be attested by the fact that it offers four name servers for DNS pointing, whereas other traditional hosts offer only two. Providing this ensures that in case one of the sites goes down, you can rely on others to keep on running.

9. Scalability

Earlier in the article, I mentioned that Kinsta was built with scalability in mind. And let me reiterate- it really was! Scalability is a result of Kinsta’s cloud-based construction.

Kinsta has joined forces with the Google Compute Engine. This means at the event of an unexpected traffic surge Kinsta dramatically scales a website’s container to hold as many CPUs as required. Because of the cloud architecture, the scaling is done automatically, preventing your site from crashing.

You may have to pay an extra dollar for every 1000 visits over your package limits, but the vital point to note is your site will not go offline. You will be notified at 80% and 100% usage, but under no circumstances will your site not be available to your audience. Imagine going viral and losing all traction because your site crashed due to overcrowding! Such a thing will never happen with Kinsta.

If you know when such a major traffic surge might occur, then you can utilize Kinsta’s Exponential Traffic Spikes and Surges Upgrade.

10.Optimized for E-commerce Sites

Kinsta is, frankly, fantastic for e-commerce businesses on WordPress. WordPress itself is an attractive place for entrepreneurs with its free plugins such as WooCommerce. Since these plugins are what make up the bulk of the technical aspect of WordPress, such e-commerce sites can be very resource-draining and overwhelming.

The following is a list of all the perks business owners using WordPress can have with Kinsta’s support.

Fast server-level caching along with instructions in place for enhanced functionality of e-commerce sites. Cart, my-account, checkout are examples are certain pages that should not be cached and therefore are excluded from the caching list.
Kinsta is designed to deal with traffic surges, so when the point where you have outgrown your current pack, simply upgrade without your site going offline even for a second. You can avoid the complicated process of site migration, which you might have to do with shared hosts. This is an especially nifty perk for e-commerce websites that keep on adding pages of products.

Overall, with Kinsta and its overwhelming support, you can really focus on growing your business and catering to your customers without worrying about the technical aspects of running and managing your website.

cons

1. Pricier than other hosting solutions

Kinsta is considered as a premium managed WordPress service provider. We all know that anything that provides better service than others tend to be pricier than others.

The monthly costing can be thought to be slightly high. The most basic standard pack starts at $30/month, and the price goes all the way up to $1500/ month.

However, Kinsta’s service quality is unparalleled, so the real question you must ask is -Is the better service worth the extra money? Let me answer that for you- in most cases, it absolutely is. If you are a moderately big business with a lot of traffic to your website, you can purchase the yearly plan instead of the monthly plan to cut down on costs just a tiny bit.

But if you have a small business and not a lot of traffic to your site Kinsta maybe a little too pricey for you.

However, with Kinsta, you absolutely get what you paid for and more.

2. No domain registrations

A significant drawback with Kinsta is the fact that it does not register domains. In order to do this, you will have to go to another service, which can be a little bit of a hassle.

3. No email hosting

Along with domain registrations, Kinsta doesn’t offer email hosting either. This is both a pro and a con. It is a con because once again, you will have to go through the hassle of going to another service to register email. However, at the same time, this allows Kinsta to allocate the bulk of its server power to hosting instead of delegating to domains and emails.

4. Certain Plugins are not allowed

Kinsta does not let you install any caching or backup plugin. This can pose a problem for the people who are used to making and storing their own backups.

Some additional plugins that are not allowed include Image Optimizer, WordPress Popular Posts, and EWWW.

Final thoughts- so who exactly is Kinsta for

Kinsta’s two most prominent feature is its speed and ease. That said, it by no means can be considered cheap. But it can be well worth the price if you take a few things into considerations.

Use Kinsta if

Your site is on the rise with a steady or rapid growth within a month
You run an e-commerce website where site performance is directly correlated to conversion rates and the number of visitors.
You already have a website that has large traffic, usually and sometimes has surges. However, you don't want to deal with the surges and their dire consequences.
You know that your site will experience sudden rapid traffic due to some viral marketing campaign or other reasons, and you do not want your website to be offline while you work to accommodate so many people.

Conclusion

In short, this Kinsta review establishes that Kinsta is a fast and reliable managed WordPress hosting provider with a Google Cloud Platform and cloud-based architecture.

The presence of the many distinguishing features on each pricing tier, along with the massive are for development, makes Kinsta attractive to a wide range of users and especially for the people who like to customize their WordPress sites. Kinsta can be considered an excellent alternative to other companies such as WP Engine.

Therefore, if you are looking for a swift and dependable host for your WordPress website or want to introduce your new site with managed WordPress hosting, Kinsta is entirely right for you.

The guaranteed 30-day money back can help with your decision-making. Therefore, you can sign up and see your website in the staging environment. There you can see how beautifully fast Kinsta works, how quick the load times are, and how prompt the support team is and decide for yourself and get a refund if you are not satisfied!

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Yousuf Hossain

I am an entrepreneur who always invests time closely with people to successfully bring their business online. My main mission with this blog is to help people with offering them free guides and tutorials related to website design and marketing so that people can grow their online businesses following my guidance and path!