Am I A Kinsta Affiliate?
Yes. But as a husband, father, and teacher, my word defines me. I won’t risk my reputation promoting garbage. My honest Kinsta review follows.
Why Kinsta?
In my 24 years of experience with websites and web hosts, I have not seen a webhost that provides all the following:
Is Kinsta Reliable?
The following companies use Kinsta. Ricoh. Tripadvisor. Flippa. Workforce. Ubisoft. Intuit. GE.
Kinsta hosts universities, professional blogs, universities and thousands of other heavy-volume agencies worldwide.
Read some case studies that describe customers’ experiences with Kinsta.
Kinsta also has a 99.9% SLA-backed uptime guarantee.
Yes, Kinsta is reliable.
Is Kinsta For Small Businesses Too?
If you own a small business, you want the same things big companies want.
Kinsta provides all that, and they have plans starting at $30 per month. Prepare to ride in luxury, because all plans use Kinsta’s rock-solid infrastructure, powered by the Google Cloud Platform.
Yes, Kinsta fits small businesses.
Is Kinsta Fast?
Kinsta’s hosting infrastructure is powered by the Google Cloud Platform (GCP), including Google’s premium tier network. Other hosts may use GCP, but often not their premium tier network; rather, they use a lower standard tier network. If a host uses Google’s premium tier network, it’ll be clear in their marketing.
There are several advantages to using a service like the Google Cloud.
Kinsta also utilizes Google’s C2 machines. C2 virtual machines (VMs) are Google’s best high-end machines, equipped with top-tier Intel Xeon CPUs. Again, other hosts may use GCP, but utilize Google’s inferior N1 machines.
How about 28 data centers? Kinsta uses Google Cloud Platform’s multi-regional deployment mode so you can choose the data center closest to your location, right from the Kinsta dashboard. None of Kinsta’s closest competitors have more than 15!
What about a CDN (content delivery network)? All plans with Kinsta include integration with Cloudflare. A CDN is a geographically distributed group of servers providing fast delivery of Internet content. CDNs provide several benefits.
Yes, Kinsta is fast.
Is Kinsta Secure?
All Kinsta’s plans come with enterprise-level Cloudflare integration. Cloudflare is a CDN (content delivery network) that provides speed and security for your website.
Kinsta’s websites are all protected with two firewalls: GCP’s IP-based firewall and Cloudflare’s web application firewall. Malicious traffic will be stopped without you even knowing.
Cloudflare includes DDoS (distributed denial of service) protection. If your site gets hit with a DDoS attack, it goes down. DDoS attacks happen. A lot.
Kinsta monitors every website every two minutes for uptime. Software-based restrictions protect your site, real-time DDoS detection hums in the background, and proactive measures constantly restrict malicious code from infecting the network.
Kinsta supports two-factor authentication, IP geolocation blocking, and auto-bans IPs with more than six failed login attempts in one minute. Strong passwords are enforced on new installs.
All Kinsta websites are fully encrypted. Kinsta only supports encrypted SFTP and SSH connections when accessing WordPress sites and offers free Let’s Encrypt certificates for HTTPS.
No website is completely safe. So Kinsta offers two full weeks of automatic backups in case something does happen.
Kinsta offers a security guarantee. If your Kinsta website is hacked, they’ll work with you for free to fix it.
Kinsta completely isolates not just each account, but every website, in its own lonely software container. So, the software that powers each website is totally private and unshared even between your own websites.
Kinsta forces all websites to run current versions of PHP. Old versions are insecure. WordPress security patches are auto-applied as they are deployed.
Kinsta’s servers and CDN support TLS 1.3. It’s faster and more secure than TLS 1.2.
Yes, Kinsta is secure.
Is Kinsta Supportive?
Kinsta offers one tier of 24/7 live support.
Kinsta offers a comprehensive knowledgebase.
But better than those things, all Kinsta support engineers are WordPress experts. This differentiates Kinsta from other webhosts that typically employ tiers of service.
I’m a WordPress expert. How can I help?
When you first call (or chat, or email) most web hosts, you’ll be connected to the lowest tier of support. They may be able to answer simple questions, but complicated issues will require additional support tiers. Getting that needed support can be frustrating or impossible.
With Kinsta, when you contact support, you get a WordPress expert. Every time. They don’t outsource and there are no “tiers of support.”
Yes, Kinsta truly supports every client.
Do Clients Like Kinsta?
Customers who try Kinsta love them. Check out reviews on G2, the world’s top software review site used by millions of people.
Check out customer quotes about Kinsta on this page.
Kinsta has collected several case studies from clients as well.
Kinsta and Your Business
Check out this all-too-common scenario.
Your website is down. You don’t know why. You try to figure it out but have no clue. Panic builds.
You call your 24/7 technical support. You wait 42 minutes. Someone answers. They sound proficient but really, they’re a low-paid employee with very little real WordPress or website development experience.
You attempt basic troubleshooting steps. Nothing works. After an hour, you are escalated to the next tier of support. If you’re lucky, you talk to someone right away. More likely, you wait for a call back or an email.
After two days and multiple support tiers your website is still down.
You now know you were hacked. Your backup plugin wasn’t configured correctly so you don’t have a legitimate backup. Your search rankings have plummeted because your site is not returning results. Sales have halted.
It’s time to hire a developer.
Hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars later, your site is running again. But it’s still slow. And there are still intermittent outages because you’re using a cheap host. Customers complain about the frustrating website experience.
So, you look for a new web host. You find one and migrate your site to their servers. It’s a frustrating, technical and expensive endeavor.
And the problems start anew.
Try Kinsta. They’ll migrate your website for free. You’ll have 24/7 technical support from WordPress experts. Your website will be consistently monitored and backed up daily on one of the fastest and most secure infrastructures in the world. Automatic caching and optimizations will keep your site fast. Your site administration will be simple and intuitive.
And if, somehow, there is a problem, Kinsta will work with you to fix it.
Kinsta Cons
Kinsta isn’t perfect. There are no perfect web hosts.
Kinsta doesn’t include email service, which most hosts do. They focus solely on making a fast, secure, reliable platform for WordPress websites and leave email service to those who do it best.
Kinsta allows only one WordPress install on their base plan. This isn’t a problem for most folks who only have one website. For five WordPress installations you must move up to their next plan, which is $60 per month. Other web hosting companies often allow you to install multiple WordPress installations on cheap plans. But remember, you’ll be sacrificing speed, reliability, security and service for an inferior product.
Kinsta isn’t the cheapest. But if you’re a business owner, you want (and need) the best. Paying a little more for enterprise-level speed, security, reliability and service will garner more conversions and save you money and headaches in the long run.
Kinsta Verdict
I’ve been in this business for 24 years and have never experienced a webhost like Kinsta. They simply offer more than their competitors and they have plans for the little guy and for enterprises.
They have redesigned their administration panel to be their own. It’s much simpler and far more intuitive than cPanel (the most commonly used site management platform).
Kinsta is obsessive about speed, security, reliability and service. Your website will run in the background (as it should) and your customers will always have a pleasant experience on your website, no matter where they are in the world.
If your website somehow does get hacked, which is unlikely, Kinsta will work with you to solve the problem.
Kinsta isn’t the cheapest, but like my dad always said, “In life, you get what you pay for.”
Whether you’re a small business, an independent blogger, a university or a Fortune 500 company, Kinsta has a plan for you. Give them a try. Your website, your customers, and your IT team will thank you.
My Kinsta Review – Leave A Comment!
Thank you for taking the time read through my Kinsta review.
I’d love to hear from you. Please leave a comment. Tell me about your experience with Kinsta.
Also, take a few minutes to read my newest article about why choosing the right web host is so important!