Our systems automatically upgrade your WordPress to the latest WordPress core, as soon as new WordPress version is released. We also update WordPress plugins once a month.

We do update WordPress plugins automatically, based on a monthly schedule. We do not update WordPress themes.

No, we do not support SSH or FTP. All management could be done via WordPress management console.

We do not provide priority support to free WordPress accounts via our support system. For support, you could search for a solution in our documentation website, or as a question in our community support forums.

Each WordPress website runs in a container with server hardware resource allocation. We limit the CPU time, RAM, IOPS, files limit. The 1 ECU CPU represents 10% time of a single CPU core. Correspondingly, 20 ECU CPU allocation gives 200% CPU time or full access to 2 physical CPU cores.

All plans could be upgraded easily at any time. You could start with WordPress free and upgrade to a higher plan when the time suits.

No, we do not provide a free domain name for new WordPress installations, however, you could register a domain name as part of the checkout process.

We do not restrict you from installing custom themes and plugins, however, we recommend to stick to the best practices and avoid uncontrolled installing of every plugin available. Every account comes with hardware resources cap, so be wise when activating plugins or themes.

No, our managed WordPress plans are single-site only. However, you could get a cPanel account and install a multisite WordPress using Softaculous script installer.

Popular hosting companies offer 25% CPU limit (2.5 ECU) and 512MB of RAM for Unlimited sites hosting plans. Our allocation of 1 ECU (10% CPU time) and 512MB or RAM is well enough to run a single (even busy) blog, company website, satellite website or a small eCommerce website.

In fact, we benchmarked our Free WordPress as a Service account (we used a test account https://wp8.readyhost.net.au) using the loader.io and the blazemeter.com. This is to give you enough confidence that even Free WordPress account will give you enough power for what you need.

Benchmarks of the free WordPress: test description

In all tests, we used a fresh installation of WordPress 4.7.4 with 20 dummy posts. All posts contain one or more images of various sizes.

The theme used: Twenty Seventeen,

Plugins used

• Nginx Helpers
• W3TotalCache

All URLs were accessed over HTTPS with a free SSL certificate

Benchmarking results by loader.io

We tried multiple configurations to benchmark the limit of the free WordPress website. The Free WordPress was capable of reliably serving 5 visitors per second or 300 visitors per minute. This is the equivalent of about 20 - 30 real users browsing your website simultaneously.

You can access test results here: http://bit.ly/2r8E1g1

Benchmarking results for the Free WordPress as a Service package outlines capability to handle small traffic spikes

Benchmarks using the Blazemeter tool

We cross-checked our performance benchmarking finding for the free WordPress as a Service plan, to confirm the consistency across multiple benchmarking platforms.

The result of benchmarking by blazemeter.com could be browsed from their report page 

The Blazemeter test was running by accessing the home page and several posts. The test run for 20 minutes with 50 simultaneous users. The hit rate was around 10 page views per second.

Benchmarking of free WordPress as a Service by Blazemeter to outline capabilities of free WordPress - service 50 concurrent users for 20 minutes test

Top command shows the moment where 50 concurrent users are browsing a Free WordPress as a Service website with dummy content. You can see only a few highly efficient PHP processes, enough to handle 50 website visitors.

We used blazemeter.com to test the Free WordPress with W3TotalCache plugin and without it. Check out this screenshot:

Blazemeter benchmarks outline that W3TotalCache vs Uncached WordPress is capable of delivering 47% more requests

Conclusion

The Free WordPress as a Service plan is very capable of handling small traffic spikes, which should be more than sufficient for the majority of personal or small business websites. In our tests, the 50 users constantly browsing the site by hitting 20 different URLs during 20 minutes outline that the free account is capable of serving a much higher traffic.