The immediate irony of this post is that as it is published, it is hosted on WPEngine.
I just paid them $300 for last month’s usage. I have a vested interest in my WordPress hosting, and just the sites I host on WPEngine are getting half a million hits a month. I expect a lot more from their service, which, by the way, is great, when it works. But sometimes it doesn’t, and it is a nightmare to deal with.
Late last year I had an issue where my main network went down because of their automated updating system. I put in a hefty complaint, and made it through four support people until I was assigned to manager. And then the ticket wasn’t answered, for four months. Not kidding. They ended giving me a month’s credit, but never answered any my concerns. That should have been a sign to me, but I really don’t want to migrate 60+ sites right now (or ever, really). And maybe it was a growth spurt…
Well, another issue has cropped up. Anytime I use a function on their dashboard that triggers an email, I get it on average four days later. This includes creating backups (the backup is finished in 10 minutes on my largest network, but the email isn’t sent until later) and deleting instances. When I got my invoice yesterday, it came twice. That concerns me. If they aren’t delivering their email correctly, how I be sure they are delivering my email from the sites I host with them?
I went to ask them, and that process is why I am posting here. I had been told by one of their support folks to not log in directly to their hosted Zendesk instance anymore, but to instead use the support form on the dashboard. Zendesk sucks a lot already (you can’t mark an issue resolved unless you leave a message, and then it spams you a survey for each resolved issue), but I’ve used it enough to make new issues quickly. I’ve used the support form before, but something has changed. Can you see it in the screenshot?
Their color palette isn’t great, but notice that the “No, open a support ticket” button is muted. I can’t select it. So my options are “Yes”, the complete lack of self-help options resolved my issue, or “No, start a live chat” to file a complaint that their email system is no longer working correctly.
There are too many danger flags waving in my face. This is a company that can take $300 a month from me, while also wasting my time in a webchat window resolving an issue they shouldn’t be having at all. On Twitter there is a constant stream of praise for @WPEngine. But WPEngine isn’t in the media of being popular on Twitter, they are in the business of hosting weblogs. And they’ve failed at doing that.