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What is Flywheel?
Flywheel hosting was founded in 2012 by Dusty Davidson, Tony Noecker, and Rick Knudtson. Before creating Flywheel, all three worked in web development and were fed up with the current hosting options out there. They put their experience together to create a new host designed specifically for websites built on WordPress.
Flywheel offers everything you would expect from any other traditional hosting company and a whole lot more.
- Caching and performance
- Security
- Software updates
They also offer incredible WordPress support. Unlike other hosts, Flywheel does not store your data on a physical server — they store it in the cloud. Flywheel specifically uses the Google Cloud Platform, one of the largest (and best) cloud platforms globally.
Flywheel WordPress Hosting Features
FlyWheel Hosting Cloud Platform
Flywheel now uses the Google Cloud Platform as part of its web hosting environment.
Flywheel has recently upgraded its hosting infrastructure and partnered with the Google Cloud Platform to make it a real cloud hosting provider. Flywheel customers have one of the most excellent benefits: the website’s resources can now scale almost immediately and without limitation. This allows for faster loading times and more stable hosting environments.
Free Demo WordPress Websites
We can not talk about Flywheel’s features without mentioning the free demo site. You can effortlessly set up a demo site for free on Flywheel! Once you’re all set and ready to go live, you can either pay on your own or transfer billing and site ownership to your client! You can try Flywheel for free for 14 days!
These demo sites have features that make it a must-try! They are :
- Simple to Create – They have a step by step process that makes it easier than ever to start working on a production-ready demo site immediately.
- Production-Ready – These demo sites give you the real feel of how your site is going to perform once it’s live. Every website even carries the same caching and the same security enhancements!
- Easy Ownership Transfer – As you’re ready to bite the bullet and go live, transferring ownership is simple and easy.
- Password Protected – Your demo site is protected by a password until you or your client pays for them. This gives you complete privacy until you’re ready to go live!
It’s totally fine to be still on the fence about launching your website, the demo site will allow you to fully test Flywheel’s interface.
Local WordPress Installation Tool
Flywheel Local, a free tool, can be used to help you create local WordPress websites. After installing the software on your Mac/Windows computer, you will have a local WordPress environment. Flywheel Local will be a valuable tool for anyone who has ever had to set up or troubleshoot a local WordPress environment.
Flywheel Local is not just simple. It makes installing WordPress locally easier.
Flywheel Local also allows you to develop on a staging WordPress site. When you, your client, and your team are satisfied with your work, the site can be moved to the live hosting environment. For example, a staging site online is better than a local one if several people work on a site.
WordPress Website Staging
Flywheel Local also allows you to develop on a staging WordPress site. When you, your client, and your team are satisfied with your work, the site can be moved to the live hosting environment. For example, a staging site online is better than a local one if several people work on a site.
Once you have enabled staging, you can quickly transfer contents between staging and live environments.
Flywheel staging lets you push just the file or database changes. Flywheel allows you to avoid overwriting existing content while development is taking place. By making only the file changes, you can keep the site as it is.
Flywheel makes it easy to secure your staging site. This prevents unauthorized visitors from finding it or search engines from indexing it before it’s available for public consumption. WordPress website staging was available on all plans but not the entry-level. But, with the switch to cloud hosting, it is now available to all Flywheel customers.
A staging site is necessary if you want to improve your WordPress website editing skills or conduct theme and plugin testing.
WordPress Website Blueprints
Blueprints – a Flywheel feature that is geared towards developers, is another. Blueprints were created to make it easier to build WordPress websites faster. In addition, it allows you to save a theme and plugin configuration for a new site.
Flywheel blueprints let you save a WordPress site configuration to use as a starting point.
You can save time if you notice that every client website you create uses the same theme, essential collection of plugins, and has the same core pages. You can then use one of your blueprints for every new WordPress website project.
FlyWheel Account Collaborators
Flywheel sites also offer the option of adding collaborators, a valuable feature for designers and developers. For example, you can add collaborators to your Flywheel dashboard so that they can manage or work on the website at the hosting level.
Collaborators may be invited to manage WordPress sites through the Flywheel dashboard.
Flywheel makes it very simple to add a colleague. Simply click on the appropriate button for each site that you would like to collaborate. Flywheel will send the user an invitation to join the collaboration by entering their email address. Flywheel makes it easy to share secure access with clients if a team member performs tasks such as doing backups.
Free WordPress Website Migrations
Flywheel’s free site migration policy is a great reason to consider Flywheel if you have a WordPress website or clients do.
Start by creating a Flywheel account. Then fill out the migration request form. The Flywheel migration team will create a copy of your WordPress website, which will then be copied to a Flywheel server. It takes approximately 24 hours. You can also pay $49 to have it done in eight working hours.
Flywheel provides free WordPress website migrations with all pricing plans.
Once you have viewed the Flywheel-hosted website and are satisfied, you can pick a plan before the site goes live. You can expect no website downtime due to the way this works.
Flywheel-free migration might be a good choice if your site is complex and you are worried about switching to a different host.
Flywheel Pricing
FlyWheel has 4 different pricing structures. Ranging from Starter at $23 per month to a custom package that doesn’t have a listed price and is catered to your specific needs. You have two options for whether to pay monthly or annually.
- The Tiny plan which begins at $13 per month gives you one website with 5K visitors per month and 5 GB storage.
- The Starter plan which begins at $25 per month gives you one website with 25K visitors per month and 10 GB storage.
- The Freelance plan which starts at $96 per month gives you the opportunity to host up to 10 websites , 100k visitors per month and 20GB in storage.
- The Agency plan which begins at $242 per month gives you 30 websites, 400K visitors maximum per month and 50 GB in storage.
I know what you’re saying this is a steep price compared to other competitors who offer hosting plans at a much cheaper price tag. However, unlike other hosting platforms Flywheel is solely WordPress managed so like its key competitors that are WordPress Hosted, they offer a great price!
Note well, the price does not come with a domain name but that is not uncommon among hosting platforms.
Oh yea, I almost forgot, if you want to switch web-hosting it’s FREE with Flywheel.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Tons of Features
- Quick Performance
- It’s Tuned For WordPress
Cons:
- High Price compared to other competitors
Customer Support
Flywheel also offers amazing customer support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year! They don’t even call them customer service experts, they are known as the Happiness Engineers.
Flywheel Final Thoughts – Is it worth it?
Based on our thorough review of their hosting platform we can say that Flywheel is worth it! Despite Flywheel having some restrictions against some plugins, they have an ABUNDANCE of features that make it worth the price.
If you have a WordPress website or thinking of making one, Flywheel is definitely an option you should consider moving forward.
FAQ About Flywheel
Anyone can use and benefit from Flywheel hosting, but it was engineered specifically for designers and developers. Since its inception in 2012, it has become one of the most popular WordPress managed hosting providers for many reasons.
Overall, it provides a much better experience for WordPress users than shared platforms do.
One thing we love about it is its cool Blueprint feature. It lets you create new sites quickly by allowing you to save theme and plugin configurations.
With a few clicks, you can copy your favorite themes and plugins to multiple sites. Blueprint also lets you save site settings, permalinks, contact pages, and all sorts of other details that take time to create every time you build a site.
Another thing that makes Flywheel great for developers is that once your demo site is ready to go live, all you need to do is change the DNS setting and turn off password protection. You can take your site from demo to live with almost zero effort.
The bottom line is that Flywheel makes site building easier. And that’s exactly what most developers and designers are looking for.
There are a couple of key things that make Flywheel stand out from the competition. For WordPress developers, these options make it one of the most effective hosting platforms out there.
Optimized Dashboard
Unlike other hosts, the Flywheel dashboard is simple and easy to navigate. All of your backups, stats, and domains are so easy to view that you’ll actually save time instead of wasting time locating what you need (as is often the case with other dashboards).
Staging
Don’t want to disrupt the live version of your website by making edits and changes? Flywheel offers a staging site where you can make all of your changes and additions without affecting your live site. When you’re ready to apply your changes, a simple button push will send all of your changes to your live site.
Free Migrations
Not excited about the thought of migrating your site to a new host? Instead of having to do it yourself, Flywheel will do it for you. Just send them a migration request, and they’ll take care of everything.
Nightly Backups
You’ll never have to worry about backing up your site with Flywheel. This host offers an automatic backup system to save your data and create a log file every single night.
Auto-Install Options
With the Blueprint feature, you can auto-install your favorite themes and plugins on multiple sites. This can save you a good amount of time, especially if you’re building several sites.
No Need for Security Plug-Ins
Flywheel has incredible security measures built into its platform. They’ll keep your sites safe from malware and other attacks, and you won’t even need to install any security plugins.
Free Demo Sites and Free Local Development
With a free trial membership, Flywheel lets you create free demo sites. You only have to pay for a site once it goes live. When the demo site is ready, you can easily share it with your client to get their approval.
With a paid membership, you can enjoy the free Local by Flywheel app and create sites locally with Flywheel’s free development application. Flywheel’s local development app allows you to test your site in different environments, install WordPress seamlessly, and let clients view their local environments.
Excellent Performance
Flywheel is designed specifically for WordPress optimization, offers a custom caching solution, and provides enhanced load speed through free CDN (content delivery network).
Their web hosting services also include a free SSL certificate and streamlined SFTP with global availability at data centers in North America, Asia, and Europe.
But the biggest benefit of all may be that it offers 100% uptime. With Flywheel hosting, your website will never experience any downtime. Though most reputable hosts offer 99% uptime, that’s still about 87 hours per year that your site will be down. With Flywheel, your downtime is zero.
Local by Flywheel is a local development environment, optimized for WordPress. It’s an alternative to similar tools such as XAMPP, MAMP, and WAMP.
Local by Flywheel does the heavy lifting for you behind the scenes so that you can get on with developing sites rapidly. A new WordPress site can be installed in a few clicks – no more downloading WordPress, no editing wp-config.php or fiddling with ports! Local handles all that for you.
Method 1: Installing App Manually
Please note: you should download and install programs only from trusted publishers and retail websites.
- First, open your Web browser, you can use Chrome or any other Browser that you have
- Download the Local by Flywheel installation file from the trusted link on above of this page. Or you can download via this link: Download Local by Flywheel
- Select Save or Save as to download the program. Most antivirus programs like Windows Defender will scan the program for viruses during download.
- If you select Save, the program file is saved in your Downloads folder. Or, if you select Save as, you can choose where to save it, like your desktop.
- After the downloading Local by Flywheel completed, click the .exe file twice to running the Installation process
- Then follow the windows installation instruction that seem until completed.
- Now, the Local by Flywheel icon will seem on your Desktop
- Click on the icon to running the Application into your windows 10 pc/laptop.
Method 2: Installing App using Windows Store
- Open the Windows Store App and Download Latest Version.
You can find the Windows Store at your desktop widget or at bottom in the Taskbar. It looks like a small shopping bag Icon with the Windows logo on it.
- Finding the apps on Windows Store
You can find the Local by Flywheel in Windows store using search box in the top right.
Or you can Select Apps if you want to explore more apps that available, according to popularity and featured apps.
Note: If you don’t find this app on Windows 10 Store, you can back to Method 1.
- Installing the app from Windows Store
When you’ve found the Local by Flywheel on windows store, you’ll see the name and logo, followed by a button below. The button will be marked Free, if it’s a free app, or give the price if it’s paid.
Click the button and the installation will begin. Then you can click Open when it’s complete.
If you’ve already installed the app on another machine, it may say Install instead.
They do not offer email accounts! We recommend you host email with Google Apps for email.
Absolutely! If you sign up for an annual plan on Flywheel, you’ll receive two months of hosting for free.
Managed WordPress Hosting 60-day money-back guarantee
If you are not completely satisfied within 60 days of purchasing a new website hosting plan, you may cancel your plan through your dashboard, and request a full refund by sending an email to [email protected].
Please note: All new Tiny and Startup plans are included in the 60-day money-back guarantee. All new Freelance plans that do not include custom onboarding are also included in this guarantee. However, all Agency and Custom plans are excluded from this guarantee. This guarantee does not apply to upgrades or renewals.
