Media Temple Review

In a Nutshell

For over 20 years, Media Temple has helped web designers, developers, creative agencies and enterprises focus on growing their business while taking care of all their hosting needs. Its web and cloud hosting solutions power over 1 million websites, from top designers, popular blogs and online creative communities, to global advertising agencies, artistic Ecommerce experts and major brands.

Pros

• Plenty of options for web professionals and enterprises
• Managed cloud hosting on Amazon Web Services
• Great security packages keep sites safe
• Award-winning, U.S.-based customer support

Cons

• High-end hosting plans can get expensive
• Doesn’t offer cheaper hosting plans
• Lacks a drag-and-drop website builder

Ease of Use

Media Temple has a variety of plans available, many of which are geared towards business and high-traffic websites. That said, Media Temple leans towards being more complicated for the average person. The web host does offer 1-click WordPress installations as well as managed WordPress hosting plans for entry level website builders, where Media Temple will automatically keep your WordPress version updated, increase security, and perform daily backups. Unfortunately, that’s about as easy as it gets.

The hosting provider does not include a website builder in any of the available plans, which is strange considering that most do offer one, even in a limited sense, so that the user can at least get a basic website live on the web. They do offer a standalone website builder (more on that later), but it’s not compatible with any of Media Temple’s hosting plans. This means that you’d have to create your website somewhere else and upload it through File Transfer Protocol (FTP), which can be difficult to set up if you’re not familiar with web hosting.

Return on Investment

With Media Temple in particular, your return on investment is going to depend on how much money your site can bring in. Media Temple can be expensive for higher-end solutions, as they’re geared towards businesses and high-traffic websites. A heavy duty Virtual Private Server (VPS) will cost you $750 per month or more, but can cost as low as $55 per month for something not as hardware intensive. Similarly, dedicated web hosting plans start at $2,000 per month.

A $750 per month plan is going to put you in the hole really quickly if you’re trying to get your site off the ground. That said, the $55 per month VPS plan is your best bet for getting a return on investment on sites that are just starting up. You have one other option if VPS hosting is too much: shared hosting. Unfortunately, shared hosting in general has a lot of constraints and isn’t great for professional websites either, but starts at just $20 per month.

While Media Temple’s higher-end plans are pricey, they’re quite worth it, particularly if you’re seeking high-end hardware. Media Temple is one of the few companies that offer 64GB of RAM, 600GB of storage and 8TB of monthly data transfers. And that’s just for a Virtual Private Server. Dedicated hosting, that starts out at the aforementioned $2,000 per month, doubles the RAM and nearly the storage as well.

All that in mind, your return on investment highly depends on who you are. If you’re someone just starting out, smaller plans are your best bet. But, if you already are an established business or website seeking a higher-end solution, Media Temple’s hosting plans will pay for themselves.

Customer Support

Media Temple’s customer support is impressive. 

With 24/7 technical support via telephone, email and live chat. Not only that, but Media Temple offers helpful support through their Twitter account as well, which makes it easier than ever to get in touch with someone.

In our testing, Media Temple’s customer support was able to answer any question we had on hosting problems and technical questions in just minutes. It goes without saying, if you run into a major problem with your site even in the middle of the night, Media Temple will be able to help you out quickly and efficiently.

It’s worth noting that Media Temple’s 24/7 support is all based out of the United States.

You should also know that Media Temple does offer a 30-day money back guarantee if you aren’t happy with the service. It makes testing out some of Media Temple’s more expensive plans risk-free, which gives you a certain amount of peace of mind when deciding if you like the service for your needs or not.

For managed WordPress users, support is even more thorough. All traditional support options are available, including phone, Twitter, chat, and email, but users can also take advantage of 24/7 monitoring. If security issues arise, your Media Template team will be ahead of the game, providing immediate assistance.

Pricing

With Media Temple, users have 3 separate plans to choose from, each tailored toward a specific type of user. To help you choose, the company includes a “Great for” section on the pricing table, as well as a short video that explains the advantage of each plan.

*Prices last updated August 2018

Available Features and Add-Ons

Media Temple has a few features that will help you with your site’s success. For security, you can buy an SSL certificate for $75 per year. This is extremely necessary for online stores, as SSL enables an encrypted connection, keeping user data as private and hidden as possible.

There’s also a website builder called Virb, but it’s an entirely separate tool from Media Temple’s hosting plans. It operates similar to Wix or Weebly and costs $10 per month. If you’re not sure about the website builder, there’s a 10-day free trial with no payment information required.

Media Temple also offers TrueSpeed Content Delivery Network (CDN), but costs $30 per month as an add-on, if it is not already included in the product package. Additionally, Media Temple offers a Security Pack, which includes much of SiteLock’s anti-malware protection and removal features. All of this works together to ensure that you have a fast and malware-free website that is protected against things like hackers and phishing scams. If this product is not already included in the package, it starts at $49 per month, for total security on up to 5 different sites.

While Media Temple has some great features, there actually aren’t a whole lot of options here. Not only that, but not having a website builder compatible with website hosting plans makes things a little frustrating if you’re looking for a drag-and-drop tool to get a website online quickly.

Media Temple’s available features extend to managed WordPress hosting as well. For those who enjoy the stability and security of WordPress but prefer to take a hands-off approach, managed plans provide a perfect marriage between design capabilities and speed. Offering integrated support, around-the-clock monitoring, and automatic updates, users can enjoy a comprehensive hosting experience. Users with existing WordPress sites can easily migrate to Media Temple, while new users can make use of one-of-a-kind themes and developer tools to launch a beautiful, high quality site.

Scalability

Media Temple has an excellent amount of hosting options to meet almost every possible need in scalability and visitor capacity. First up is their shared hosting plans, starting at $20 per month for 20GB of SSD storage, 1,000 email accounts and 1TB in monthly data transfers. There are a variety of shared hosting plans, which go all the way up to $150 per month, giving you 2,500 email accounts, 500GB of SSD storage and 5TB in monthly data transfers.

Managed WordPress hosting starts at the same $20 per month, and provides you with automatic WordPress and supported plugin updates and includes up to two WordPress installs. 

Functionality is robust, offering four unique plans designed to meet user requirements. Ranging from two sites and support for 250,000 monthly visitors to 100 sites and 1 TB of SSD storage, there’s a lot of variation for WordPress platform users. From small business requirements to large scale operations, Media Temple can support a comprehensive range of business needs.

Media Temple’s VPS hosting is a little more impressive. Starting at just $55 per month, you get 2GB of RAM, 30GB of storage and 2TB of bandwidth. There are 6 levels of the VPS hosting available, with their most expensive tier being $1,500 per month. This will get you 64GB of RAM, 600GB of storage and 8TB of bandwidth.

If you need more power than that, Media Temple offers dedicated hosting. Starting at $2,000 per month, you get unlimited domain hosting, 10TB of monthly data transfers, 128GB of RAM and 1TB of all-SSD storage. It’s worth noting that this plan should only be managed by experienced System Admins, as server management is done through the command line. More expensive plans start at $2,500 per month if you’re familiar with a control panel or $2,700 per month if you want someone from Media Temple to manage your server. This last plan requires no experience whatsoever, and might be your best choice for the layperson, but the $2,500 plan can easily be self-managed through online tutorials.

Media Temple offers other hosting as well. WordPress on Amazon Web Services (AWS) hosting costs $2,500 per month. The company also offers custom-managed Amazon Cloud hosting, but you’ll have to contact sales to work out a price based on your specific needs. Plans start at $500 per month, but that doesn't include any AWS pricing. Media Temple offers Enterprise solutions as well, but that’s also something where you’ll have to make a sales inquiry.

Conclusion

Media Temple might not offer many beginner-friendly budget options, but it does offer premium and top-of-the-line services for high-traffic websites. WordPress sites are right at home here, with full management services available in four scalable plans. And with great security packages available, you can guarantee your site’s safety from hackers and malicious attacks. One thing’s for sure: Media Temple is the go-to, high performance host for any website that needs superior hardware.

But, if you’re someone just starting out, choosing a cheap plan like Media Temple’s $20 shared hosting option is almost always the way to go before pulling out the big bucks.

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