PressLabs Review

By: Presslabs SRL From România

Detailed Reviews

PressLabs is Timisoara, Romania based WordPress hosting company with 12 different data centers across the world. The company started in 2009 and incorporated in 2011. They don’t actually own any of the data centers where they provide hosting. They are basically reselling hosting space from leading players like SoftLayer, AWS, LeaseWeb, Hetzner, SingleHop and many others. Both the plans offered by PressLabs are ideally for very high traffic blogs and publishers and not for small websites.

What PressLabs lacks in their versatility in plans, they make up for in scalability and constant uptime. Their package includes a custom built-in Content Delivery Network (CDN) as part of their custom service. Their CDN servers span across the USA and Europe and are served from the location that’s geographically closer.

PressLabs boasts a built-in high performing caching method based upon the lightweight "nginx". No configuration is required and the PressLabs caching system is automatically optimized for all WordPress installations, making websites load without any effort. PressLabs also offers daily (automatic) backups of all databases, code and files and they are stored on Amazon S3 at no additional cost.

Key Features

The PressLabs key features include a robust Content Delivery Network (CDN), Hardware & Data Centre Redundancy, 24/7 Service Monitoring, and a High Availability DNS (From Amazon Route 53). Additionally, security conscious Corporations can be assured that PressLabs offers a secure dashboard, an encrypted SFTP protocol, and a forced HTTPS connection during all instances.

Different Packages

PressLabs offers two packages called “Hydogen” and “Helium”. Medium to large companies will find their Hydrogen package plan to be attractive as it allows 500k page views per month, and all additional features are included at no cost. Their one package includes CDN (US & Europe), nginx Caching, sFTP access, automatic core WordPress updates, Secure E-mail, unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, full daily backups, high availability DNS (Amazon Route 53), PHP logging, Data Centre Redundancy, and 24/7 Service Monitoring).

Another package “Helium” is mostly for very high traffic sites and wants latency based Geo-serving content. The price starts from $299/month.

Security

PressLabs offers a secure dashboard that is automatically secured without any end-user interaction. The secure dashboard offers HTTPS protocols for all interactions and hereby increasing security and keeping sensitive information (such as customer data or passwords) secure at all times, even if the website owner or an end-user is on a questionable network. PressLabs also boasts 24/7 service monitoring so Corporations can be rest assured that their websites are safe from hackers and available for end-users.

PressLabs makes full utilization of an encrypted SFTP protocol ensuring that all content remains secure at all times. All updates (WordPress core updates) occur automatically so there’s never a worry about maintaining updates. PressLabs considers constant updates to be a fundamental variable in WordPress security so all core updates are done automatically.

Gitfs

A must have environment today for the developer is to have code with version controlled file system. PressLabs offers their own created version control system called gitfs, which is a included with every plan so the developer can add, edit or delete code and deploy it though git repository without actually working on the live site. Gitfs is also ideal for multiple developers working on the same code.

Scalability

Customers have the option of surpassing their monthly limit of 500k pageviews. PressLabs offers an additional 100k pageviews for $10. There is no limitation to how many pageviews you have, and every additional 100k page views per month will cost $10.

Conclusion

PressLabs offers dynamic CDN features, robust security features, automatic updates and Hardware & Data Centre redundancy. That being said, PressLabs is NOT ideal for a small business or startup, and their high entry point makes it a poor choice for a solo entrepreneur. Medium to large Corporations should find solace in their effective Caching, CDN and high scalability.