Flywheel vs Liquid Web: guide for 2024

Final verdict

Looking over Flywheel vs. Liquid Web, it’s clear why both hosts are so popular. They have both hosted millions of
websites that run on WordPress for decades, building up a loyal customer base.

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  Liquid Web (Overall grade: 8.4)
  
  
  provides a more versatile and robust hosting service with a wide range of managed options, including VPS and dedicated servers. It shines in high-performance hosting, offering features like autoscaling, multi-server environments, and a comprehensive suite of security measures. Liquid Web’s high availability and proactive monitoring are significant strengths, ensuring reliability for high-traffic and complex hosting needs. However, the platform’s more complex interface and the need for additional support could pose a learning curve for non-technical users. Additionally, email hosting capabilities and certain feature details are less explicit, requiring direct consultation for specific needs.
  
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  Flywheel (Overall grade: 8.4)
  
  
  offers a streamlined and intuitive hosting experience specifically designed for WordPress users. It excels in uptime performance and managed WordPress hosting features like FlyCache, CDN support, and nightly backups. Flywheel is highly regarded for its ease of use, particularly beneficial for agencies and professionals managing multiple WordPress sites, thanks to its collaboration tools and demo sites. However, Flywheel lacks VPS and dedicated hosting options and does not provide email hosting services, which could be a limitation for some users.
  

Hosting types offered

Both platforms provide a variety of hosting types, each designed to meet the different needs of users.

Although both offer a variety of hosting plans tailored to different needs, in
certain cases, one platform may prove to be more suitable.

Detailed comparison

🏆 Winner Flywheel: Flywheel offers exceptional uptime and availability, making it the best choice for dependable web hosting.

Flywheel delivers on its promise of a high uptime guarantee at over 99.9%, backed by actual performance showing 100% uptime in a monitored two-week period. Users benefit from an average response time of 371ms, significantly faster than the market average. Additionally, Flywheel provides 24/7/365 support through multiple channels, ensuring any issues are resolved promptly.

Liquid Web also offers an impressive suite of features, including high availability hosting with multi-server environments and a proactive monitoring system. The service guarantees 100% power and network uptime, supported by a generous credit policy for any downtime. With managed high availability and instant data replication, Liquid Web aims to keep your site online without fail. Nonetheless, Flywheel’s consistent performance and rapid response times give it the edge.

🏆 Winner Flywheel: Flywheel offers superior performance and comprehensive features for WordPress sites.

Both Flywheel and Liquid Web offer high-performing hosting services, but Flywheel edges out with its tailored approach for WordPress performance. Flywheel’s platform uses built-in managed caching and a CDN powered by Fastly, ensuring fast load times without needing plugins. Their Flywheel Cloud Platform provides dedicated resources, which avoids shared server space, further enhancing performance. Liquid Web features a 10 Gbps network and robust processors like AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon, but its strength lies more in its versatility rather than specialized WordPress optimization. Both services offer global data centers and utilize SSD/NVMe storage for excellent speeds.

Website speed

Flywheel’s emphasis on WordPress site performance stands out. Their managed caching, paired with CDN from Fastly, ensures pages load quickly. Flywheel also offers performance insights for continuous improvement. Liquid Web, with its advanced processors and NVMe/SSD storage, provides excellent speed as well, especially on their VPS and dedicated server plans. Yet, Flywheel’s dedicated focus on WordPress-specific optimizations results in slightly better performance for those sites.

Scalability

Flywheel allows custom plan creation tailored to your needs but doesn’t provide dynamic scaling. You can upgrade plans as needed. Liquid Web offers a more scalable solution with features like autoscaling, which adjusts server resources automatically based on user demand. Both provide dedicated servers, but specific pricing details for scaling Flywheel aren’t readily available, whereas Liquid Web includes autoscaling at no extra cost.

🏆 Winner Flywheel: A hosting provider with comprehensive security features and compliance measures.

Both Flywheel and Liquid Web, have notable differences in their approaches to technical and operational security, as well as in their compliance with regulations.

Technical security measures:

Flywheel offers free SSL certificates, PHP 8.1 support, a Fastly WAF, intelligent IP blocking, plugin security alerts, free malware removal, auto-healing technology, and nightly backups. Liquid Web, on the other hand, provides SSL certificates, firewalls, VPNs, DDoS attack protection, web application protection, an F5 AIP intrusion detection system, and data encryption at rest. Both providers ensure security but Flywheel offers some unique features like auto-healing technology and plugin security alerts.

Operational security measures:

Flywheel implements role-based permissions and a federated identity service for simplified user authentication. Liquid Web provides 24/7/365 on-site support, quarterly PCI compliance scans, and compliance assistance. Both offer round-the-clock support but Flywheel adds value by offering free migrations and proactive malware removal by their Happiness Engineers.

Compliance and certifications:

Flywheel meets HIPAA, GDPR, 21 CFR Part 11, GCP, and is SOC 2 audit certified. Liquid Web supports GDPR and HIPAA compliance and provides PCI compliant hosting solutions. It also holds SSAE-22 (SAS70) & Safe Harbor certifications. Both hosting providers cover comprehensive compliance requirements, but Flywheel offers more certifications relevant for different industries.

🏆 Winner
Flywheel: Comprehensive managed WordPress hosting with a focus on top-tier support and user-friendly workflow tools.

Flywheel and Liquid Web both offer exceptional features tailored to different user needs. Flywheel’s focus on managed WordPress hosting with features like FlyCache, nightly backups, and Auto-Healing Technology makes it user-friendly, especially for those focused on WordPress. Their free site migrations, managed security, and 14-day demo sites cater to users looking for a hassle-free setup and maintenance. Flywheel’s collaboration tools and Blueprint feature further enhance the workflow for developers and agencies. They do not offer email hosting, which could add an extra step for users needing email services.

Liquid Web, on the other hand, offers a broader range of managed hosting options, catering to complex hosting environments and high availability needs. They excel in providing HIPAA or PCI compliant infrastructure, making them an excellent choice for users in need of compliant solutions. Their proactive server management and 24/7/365 support with guarantees on response times emphasize reliability. Liquid Web offers versatile managed VPS and WooCommerce hosting, ensuring high-performance and scalability without compromising on speed or security. While it does not explicitly mention FTP/SFTP and staging environments in the provided details, the managed hosting environment typically includes these features.

Both providers support a range of users from beginners to experts with user-friendly website builders and WordPress staging areas. However, in terms of developer tools, both Flywheel and Liquid Web offer robust options including SSH access, support for multiple programming languages, and Git for version control, thus appealing to developers looking for advanced capabilities.

Email services:

Flywheel does not offer email hosting services and recommends using providers like Google Apps. This means users will have to manage email services separately. Liquid Web’s email hosting is not explicitly detailed in the provided information but is generally included in comprehensive managed hosting packages. For specific email capabilities, including transactional email and campaigns, contacting Liquid Web directly would be advisable.

🏆 Winner Flywheel: Known for its competitive pricing and robust features.

Evaluating the pricing of plans among various hosting providers can be complex due to their differing pricing and renewal strategies. Additionally, certain plans require annual commitments, which adds to the difficulty of making comparisons. The prices listed are based on monthly commitments; plans requiring annual commitments are indicated. Although some providers offer identical plans for WordPress and shared hosting, we have created separate tables for each to enhance clarity.

Flywheel and Liquid Web both offer a variety of hosting plans, catering to different needs and budgets. Flywheel has a clear advantage in offering annual discounts across its plans and includes features such as free migrations and 24/7/365 chat support. On the other hand, Liquid Web has a wider range of plans extending into VPS and dedicated servers, offering higher storage and bandwidth options. Flywheel’s plans are simple and come with inclusive features like SSL certificates and nightly backups, making it a valuable choice for WordPress sites. Liquid Web shines in specialized areas like WooCommerce and VPS hosting but may be more suitable for businesses with specific needs in those areas.

Enterprise plans

Flywheel’s Custom Plan offers exclusive benefits tailored to high-traffic sites, including custom storage and bandwidth, and dedicated account management. Liquid Web’s ENTERPRISE plans come in both WordPress and WooCommerce variants, offering scalable options like up to 60 PHP workers and significant storage. Both providers ensure 24/7 support, but Liquid Web extends its service into specific realms like managed VPS and cloud dedicated servers, adding versatility and depth. Flywheel focuses on providing all-around care for large WordPress sites with guaranteed customer support.

🏆 Winner Flywheel: Flywheel offers a streamlined and straightforward WordPress hosting experience.

Flywheel provides a custom admin panel tailored to WordPress users, which is designed to be intuitive for both technical and non-technical users. The layout is clean and organized, making it easy to access different functionalities such as site management, billing, and performance analytics. Additionally, features like Blueprints and site cloning enhance workflow efficiency, allowing users to manage multiple sites with ease. The staging site feature is particularly useful for testing changes without affecting the live site.

Liquid Web, on the other hand, offers a more traditional setup with a standard cPanel for managing hosting environments. This cPanel is familiar to many users, especially those with previous hosting experience, but it might be slightly overwhelming for non-technical users. Liquid Web’s admin panel is robust with a wide range of functionalities, but its complexity might require a steeper learning curve. The inclusion of proactive management services, however, somewhat mitigates this complexity by offering users additional support in managing their hosting environment.

Both Flywheel and Liquid Web provide robust migration tools, but Flywheel takes the lead by offering free migrations for all sites. Flywheel’s migration process is streamlined and user-friendly, with a dedicated migration dashboard that allows users to submit, prioritize, and monitor the progress of their site migrations. Liquid Web also provides assistance with site migration, but the extent of this assistance and its cost are not as clearly outlined as Flywheel’s offering. Liquid Web’s approach seems more individualized, focusing on helping users migrate their sites, stores, or applications, which might come with additional costs depending on the complexity.

The platforms provide extensive knowledge bases filled with guides, how-to articles, and instructional content. Flywheel offers comprehensive help documentation and 24/7/365 chat support, with additional phone support available during business hours. Their help center also includes resources such as a blog, ebooks, videos, and case studies. Liquid Web also provides an extensive knowledge base with articles, tutorials, and resources, and guarantees a 59-second initial response for phone and chat support, as well as a 59-minute initial response for helpdesk support. Both hosting providers have substantial help centers to assist users with their hosting needs effectively.

🏆 Winner Liquid Web: Exceptional user role flexibility and management capabilities.

Flywheel offers a collaborative environment where collaborators have significant access, such as site management, SFTP, and database management, but are restricted from billing, site deletion, and site reset. Liquid Web, through Plesk, provides four default user roles—Administrator, Webmaster, Application User, and Accountant. Plesk allows for the creation of custom user roles, offering remarkable flexibility in defining permissions. While Flywheel provides robust collaborator functionalities, Liquid Web shines by permitting the creation and customization of user roles, making it a more adaptable choice for diverse permission needs.

Flywheel’s user interface focuses on simplicity, with an intuitive dashboard that facilitates collaborator addition and removal through straightforward actions. Conversely, Liquid Web’s Plesk interface provides an array of management tools with distinct views—Service Provider and Power User—each offering tailored functionalities for different admin needs. The “Create User Role” feature in Plesk adds depth to its user management, making it more versatile for intricate setups. While both platforms emphasize ease of use, Liquid Web edges out with its comprehensive tools and customizable roles.

In terms of access control efficiency, Flywheel offers seamless management via its dashboard, though it introduces limitations on critical actions like billing and site deletion for collaborators. Liquid Web’s Plesk stands out with its customizable roles and efficient role assignment, which scales well with an increasing user base. The “Additional Administrator Accounts” feature provides added flexibility and ensures that growing teams can be managed efficiently. Liquid Web’s approach to detailed role customization allows for more granular access control, aligning well with the demands of larger or more complex operations.

Flywheel User Roles Table

Liquid Web User Roles Table

🏆 Winner Liquidweb: Providing unparalleled customer support around the clock.

Flywheel offers a variety of customer support options including 24/7 chat, phone support during business hours, and email/ticket support. They feature a Migration Dashboard for streamlined site transfers and even provide dedicated account managers for personalized assistance. Customers appreciate Flywheel’s extended support availability and performance insights through monthly reports.

Liquidweb excels in customer service with their Heroic Support® teams available 24/7 via phone, chat, and email. Their support response time guarantees set them apart, offering 59-second initial responses on phone and chat, and 59-minute email responses. They also provide proactive monitoring and custom solutions, reflected in their high customer satisfaction score.

User feedback

Flywheel is highly regarded for its intuitive user interface, efficient WordPress management, and reliable speed and performance. Customers appreciate the ease of site migration, robust support, and included features like SSL and backups. However, some users highlight concerns over recent pricing changes, slower customer service response times, and issues with email limits and staging environments. Despite a few drawbacks, Flywheel is praised for its agency-oriented focus, making it a strong choice for professionals managing multiple client websites.

Customer feedback for this hosting provider is mixed, with significant polarization in user experiences. While some have praised the company for its reliable uptime, exceptional support, and proactive monitoring, others have experienced severe dissatisfaction due to frequent downtimes, unresponsive customer service, and unethical billing practices. Long-term customers, in particular, have noted a sharp decline in service quality and support efficiency, attributing it to recent management changes. Despite positive reviews highlighting excellent technical support and overall reliability, a growing number of users advise against using this provider due to these negative aspects.

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