Is Kinsta thinking about your needs or theirs?

Kinsta is a managed platform with hosting thrown in. Nexcess is managed hosting with unrivaled WordPress optimization, support, and platform features.

An online store sells records, speakers, and record players using WordPress blocks

How Kinsta misses the WordPress mark

Thin on PHP workers
No love for WooCommerce
Overages galore
Essentials are add-ons
Chat-only support

Compare Kinsta and Nexcess managed hosting

Only Nexcess offers Kinsta capabilities at a lower price
Key features
Nexcess
Starting at
$21/mo
PHP workers per site
10+
24/7/365 phone, chat, and email support
Free Cloudflare CDN
Traffic limits
No limits
Free premium migrations
Free staging sites
Dedicated hosting solutions
Automatic core updates
30-day backup retention
Developer-friendly
Self-owned infrastructure
Free premium plugins
Theme included
Kinsta
Starting at
$35/mo
PHP workers per site
2
24/7/365 phone, chat, and email support
Chat only
Free Cloudflare CDN
Traffic limits
25,000 visits/mo
Free premium migrations
1
Free staging sites
Dedicated hosting solutions
Automatic core updates
30-day backup retention
Developer-friendly
Self-owned infrastructure
Free premium plugins
Theme included

Where have all the PHP workers gone?

Kinsta includes two PHP workers in their Starter plan. That’s perfect for a brochure site, but if your site grows in complexity — two is not enough.
PHP workers are like umbrellas — having too few leaves you waterlogged when traffic pours in. The result is slow speeds, higher bounce rates, and bad gateways.
Nexcess maximizes speed and processing power with base and autoscaled workers. Even our entry plan scales up to 30 PHP workers per site.
Shop managed WordPress hosting
Performance metrics for a website show load times for specific pages on a website using Nexcess managed WordPress
An ecommerce store selling a record stylus and paper sleeves for $80 and $25, a hand pulls out a vintage record

Kinsta WordPress = WooCommerce

To Kinsta, WordPress and WooCommerce are the same. There are no WooCommerce-specific optimizations. Which is a problem.
WooCommerce requires more PHP workers and storage than WordPress. Kinsta does not accommodate these needs, which means you’re risking revenue.
Nexcess optimizes for WooCommerce. Catalyze revenue with flexible resources, dimensional caching, free ecommerce tools, and premium plugins.

Scalable if you have the cash

If your site grows fast, Kinsta may charge you. They may even demand immediate payment. Overages include $0.10 per GB (CDN), $2 per GB (storage), and $1 per 1,000 visitors (traffic).
Think upgrading your Kinsta plan will solve the problem? Maybe … but you’ll pay at least twice the cost of your original plan. Sometimes more.
Unlike Kinsta, Nexcess scales with your success. Resources auto-adjust to limit overages and upgrades. Because you shouldn’t pay extra for hitting a milestone.
A revenue chart shows steady rising costs with a sudden lift, a box reads monthly costs are now $4821 and up 300%

Tired of paying a fortune for Kinsta?

Nexcess will buy out your Kinsta hosting contract up to $1,000 when you switch

Adding up Kinsta’s add-ons

Kinsta includes many mission-critical features for WordPress, but some are excluded. Those features are paid add-ons and they’re … surprisingly essential.
Redis is $100/mo. Nginx reverse proxy is $50/mo. Offsite backups are $2/mo. If you need an add-on for a different site, expect to pay the same fee.
Every feature Kinsta sells as an add-on, Nexcess includes free. Redis, Nginx, staging, backups, and generous storage are automatic for every site.
Several shapes and blocks, not quite fitting together, pile up higher and higher
A WordPress support representative sits in a modern office, he smiles as he helps a customer via chat and by phone

Support without tickets, or a human voice

For most, the fastest path to support is to call an expert. Not at Kinsta. Their support is chat-only. If you have a complex situation, you have a lot of typing to do.
They also don’t use tickets. If an issue reoccurs, there’s no record to review. You either re-explain the issue or try to remember how to fix it. Both can take hours.
Get the premium, time-saving support you deserve with Nexcess. Available by phone, ticket, and chat, we explain and solve WordPress issues with speed and precision. 24/7/365.

Kinsta isn’t for everyone

You are sabotaging your WooCommerce website by using Kinsta

Fun fact #1: WooCommerce REQUIRES 512MB of PHP memory. Not-so-fun fact #2: Kinsta standard plans come with 256MB of PHP memory. (Yes that is half of what WooCommerce REQUIRES to function properly.) Not-so-fun fact #3: When you become aware of this the awesome support team will recommend that you upgrade to an agency account that comes with 512MB of PHP memory. Not-so-fun fact #4: Your request to upgrade will be declined if you do not have a website that says you are an agency. Bottom line: You are not paying a premium price for premium hosting. You are paying an extortionate rate to sabotage your WooCommerce website. Don't do it.

- Kirsty Thomson on Trustpilot

Many promises, very poor result.

Many promises, to be the fastest and best wp hosting. I started with the business pack 1, tested, asked for help. Quick response times, that started out well, I thought. But as soon as our site was live, the troubles began, slow load times and very slow backend. So I needed some more php workers. But then you need to upgrade to a more expensive plan. 3 times more expensive!!! Crazy! If I knew this in advance I rather stayed with our other host. We never had these issues there. It saved me a whole week of work.

- Bobby on Trustpilot

Totally overpriced and NOT reliable!

Totally overpriced. Instead of reliable hosting our site was down for a while. They make update so your wp doesn’t function without any notification. Support not helpful at all, only standard messages. STAY AWAY!

- Fabian W on Trustpilot

Kinsta WordPress vs Nexcess FAQ

Kinsta is a managed cloud hosting platform for WordPress, databases, and applications. It supplies hosting and site management tools for website owners.

Migrate from Kinsta to Nexcess free

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