Kinsta vs Nexcess
We give Kinsta a 2.2 GPA and Nexcess a 1.6, out of 4.0. Kinsta grades higher on the free plan, features and platforms. They get the same grade on value for money and ease of use.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Kinsta
Managed WordPress hosting priced by sites, visits or bandwidth
How we grade them
| 2.2GPAKinstaFair | 1.6GPANexcessWeak | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | CGraded against the other managed WordPress hosts, not cheap shared hosting. Launch is $350 a year after a free first month, so two years cost $700, about $29.17 a month, toward the dear end of that group. Each extra site is $30 a month. | CNo price on record: every plan is quoted after a talk with its team, so no two-year figure can be worked out. It sits at C, the grade for no stated price. The add-ons are priced: Imunify360 malware scanning is $30 a month, cPanel from $20. |
| Free plan and trial | DThe first month is free on Launch, Single and WP 2 for new customers, but you sign up to a paid plan to get it, so it works like a trial that needs payment details. After that there's a 30-day money-back guarantee. | FNo free plan and no trial, and no self-serve plan to try at all. You start with a conversation. |
| Features | BDaily backups, one-click staging, a Cloudflare firewall and CDN, free malware removal, unlimited free migrations, SSO and its own APM tool for slow plugins. Hourly backups and Redis are paid add-ons, but the managed WordPress job is all there. | CManaged WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento and Shopware, managed VPS, a compliance-ready setup and full migrations including email and DNS. The gaps the listing names: malware scanning is a $30 add-on, and cPanel and Plesk cost extra. |
| Ease of use | CNo app store rating to go on. Kinsta's team moves your sites over for free, which helps, but there are plans, limits and add-ons to get your head around. | CNo app store rating to go on. Its team plans the setup with you and does the migration, which helps, but you can't just sign up and start. |
| Platforms and integrations | BA web dashboard with no app on record, plus a REST API for creating sites and clearing cache, and backups to Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Storage. | CA web service with no app or API on record. The named integrations are the platforms it hosts and its control panels: WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento, Shopware, cPanel, Plesk and InterWorx. |
| Best for | managed WordPress with an API and monitoring | stores that need PCI-ready managed hosting |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Kinsta and Nexcess. How we grade
Where they differ
At a glance
| Kinsta | Nexcess | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free trial | Paid |
| Starts at | $30 per month for 1 site, billed annually ($35 billed monthly) | Not published |
| Free plan | None | None |
| Free trial | First month free on Launch, Single and WP 2 plans for new customers, then a 30-day money-back guarantee | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Kinsta Inc. | Nexcess Corp. |
| Price read from | kinsta.com | Not confirmed |
| Checked | Oct 17, 2026 | Oct 17, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Kinsta
- Business sites that have outgrown shared hosting
- Agencies and teams that need staging, user roles and an API
- WooCommerce shops that want a host managing WordPress for them
Nexcess
- Stores that need PCI-ready hosting for WooCommerce or Magento
- Businesses moving off shared hosting that want a managed VPS
- Teams that prefer to plan hosting with an engineer rather than pick a plan online
Worth knowing
Kinsta
- Plans cap monthly visits, bandwidth and storage; going over keeps the site online but adds overage fees, with alerts at 80% and 100%.
- Each extra site is $30 a month and each extra 20 GB of disk is $20 a month.
- A visit is each unique IP address in a 24-hour period, and visits to all sites on a plan count toward one monthly limit.
- Redis caching, hourly backups, external backups and premium staging are paid add-ons.
Nexcess
- No hosting plan has a published price; WordPress, ecommerce and VPS hosting are quoted after talking with its team.
- cPanel costs $20 a month for 5 accounts, $35 for 30 or $50 for 100, and Plesk is $15 a month on Windows servers.
- Imunify360 malware scanning is a $30-a-month add-on, ThreatDown intrusion monitoring $34 and per-server DDoS mitigation $111.
- Its pages lead with regulated industries such as healthcare and finance, so there is no self-serve plan for a small blog.
Key features
Kinsta
- Firewall, CDN and malware removal
- Sites sit behind a Kinsta firewall and Cloudflare with enterprise DDoS protection, are served from a CDN with edge caching, and get malware cleaned up at no charge.
- Daily backups and staging
- Sites are backed up every 24 hours, kept for 14 days on entry plans, and have one-click staging. Hourly backups and premium staging are paid add-ons.
- Kinsta API
- A REST API creates sites, reads site details, clears cache and restarts PHP, so routine work can be scripted.
- Built-in APM tool
- Kinsta's own application monitoring tool traces slow plugins, queries and requests on a site.
- Unlimited migrations and users
- Kinsta's team migrates any number of WordPress sites for free, and you can add unlimited users with their own access levels, with SAML single sign-on.
- 24/7 support in 8 languages
- Support is by chat around the clock, from people rather than a bot.
Nexcess
- Managed WordPress and WooCommerce
- WordPress and WooCommerce environments come with automatic updates, security hardening and performance tuning, and scale up for traffic spikes.
- Magento and Shopware hosting
- Ecommerce environments for Magento and Shopware are managed at the application layer, with autoscaling and a bundled CDN for Shopware.
- Managed VPS
- Each VPS has its own CPU, RAM and storage, with OS and security patches, DDoS protection, firewalls, a CDN and WAF, and 7-day Acronis backups.
- Control panel choice
- InterWorx is included free on Linux servers; cPanel and Plesk are available for a monthly fee.
- Compliance-ready setup
- The platform is built for PCI-DSS, HIPAA and SOC 2 requirements, and PCI ASV scans and vulnerability scanning can be added.
- Full migrations
- Its team moves files, databases, email and DNS records, including SPF, DKIM and DMARC, and verifies sites before DNS is switched.
Plans
Kinsta
Launch$30
per month for 1 site, billed annually ($35 billed monthly)
Resource-based plan with 75,000 visits, 15 GB bandwidth and 15 GB storage a month. First month free.
Single 35k$30
per month for 1 site, billed annually ($35 billed monthly)
Billed by 35,000 visits a month, with 10 GB storage; Single 20GB is the same price billed by bandwidth instead. First month free.
Launch Plus$50
per month for 1 site, billed annually ($59 billed monthly)
125,000 visits, 25 GB bandwidth and 25 GB storage a month for one busier site.
Build$58
per month for 2 sites, billed annually ($69 billed monthly)
200,000 visits, 40 GB bandwidth and 30 GB storage a month shared by two sites.
WP 2$59
per month for 2 sites, billed annually ($70 billed monthly)
Two sites billed by 70,000 visits or 40 GB bandwidth a month, with 20 GB storage. First month free.
Expand$83
per month for 5 sites, billed annually ($99 billed monthly)
350,000 visits, 65 GB bandwidth and 40 GB storage a month across five sites. Larger plans run to Lead at $250 a month for 20 sites.
Nexcess
Pricing could not be confirmed. See nexcess.com.
Ways to pay less
Kinsta
- Annual discount
Two months off with annual billing
Paying yearly costs ten times the monthly price, for example $350 a year for Launch instead of $35 a month.
- Other savings
Up to $10,000 in hosting credits for agencies
Eligible agencies on Agency plans can get up to $10,000 in hosting credits, plus free hosting for the agency's own site.
Nexcess
No public discounts listed.
