Media Temple is certainly no newbie when it comes to the web hosting industry. In fact, you might be surprise to hear they have been in business since 1998. They currently have over 1.5 million websites on their servers and do business in more than 100 different countries. As you can clearly see they have a client-base that is over 120,000+ strong. However, in 2013 Media Temple was actually acquired by GoDaddy which is the number one domain registrar. They are one of those web hosting companies that do offer fully managed WordPress hosting plans.
But, here at tbwhs.com we want webmasters to leave comments and rate Media Temple so that other webmasters can decide whether or not they want to do business with them. In my expert Media Temple review I want to look at their features, uptime, performance, customer support, and finally their price tag. Then, at the end of this review I will then recommend them or point you to another web hosting company.
Media Temple Features
WordPress hosting plans have four levels of service, starting at the personal plan which costs $20/month. All plans include a 30 day money back guarantee, 24/7 support, how-tos and walkthroughs, daily backups, automatic updates, managed services and developer tools. However, only the agency and executive level plans include a domain registration, which seems unusual (WebHostingHub & JustHost both allow you a free domain when you sign up with their entry plans). The storage and visitor limits seem fair for these type of packages.
WordPress Plans
• Personal – includes 30GB SSD Storage, 400,000 monthly visitors, 2 sites. Cost – $20/month.
• Studio – includes 100GB SSD Storage, 2 million monthly visitors, 10 sites, 2 Google Apps for Work email/user accounts, malware detection and removal for 5 sites. Cost – $60/month.
• Agency – includes 500GB SSD storage, 50 sites, 10 million monthly visitors, 5 Google Apps for Work email/user accounts, malware detection and removal for 10 sites. Annual plan includes 1 domain registration and 2 SSL certificates. Cost – $240/month.
• Enterprise – includes 1TB SSD Storage, unlimited visitors, 250 sites, 25 Google Apps for Work email/user accounts, malware detection and removal for 20 sites. Annual plan includes custom domain registration and custom SSL certificate. Cost – must call for quote.
However, I should mention that the prices for WordPress plans are quite high compared to BlueHost and Network Solutions.
Shared Plan
The shared access plan costs $20/month; this gives you access to the Media Temple ‘Grid’. The Grid is a cloud hosting platform that can host up to 100 websites, 1TB monthly bandwidth, 100GB SSD database storage and 1,000 email accounts. The grid uses dedicated MySQL SmartPool services, equipped with SSDs. The shared plan offers one-click app installs, an easy-to-use account center, and 24/7 live support. Essentially this is a self-managed plan, your sites are hosted and you are expected to do the rest of the work yourself.
VPS Plans
Media Temple does offer a number of different VPS plans. All plans come with 99.999% uptime guaranteed, high-performance SSD servers and 24/7 support. There are three levels, aimed at the various levels of expertise by the client. It ranges from $30 to $249/month.
• Self-managed – for people who are comfortable with control panels. Includes full SSH + root access, choice of Linux OS, instant provisioning and scaling, Parallels power panel web interface. Cost – $30/month.
• Managed – for people that have some understanding of control panels. Includes Plesk or cPanel + root access and automatic backups. Cost – $55/month.
• Fully managed – for people who have no experience with control panels. Includes professional management by professional SysAdmin, Plesk or cPanel + root access and automatic backups. Cost – $249/month.
Dedicated Plans
Media Temple does offer a number of different dedicated plans. These can be either self managed or managed. All servers include 99.999% uptime guaranteed, unlimited domain hosting, 10TB monthly bandwidth, 1TB SSD storage and installed software. There are three plans, depending on your level of expertise.
• Self-managed – If you want full root access to your dedicated server this plan is a great option. Provided that you know what your doing, and want to manage everything yourself. The price is $2,000/month.
• Managed – If you want access to your server but only limited to when you request it, a managed solution might be a better option. A lot of intermediate webmasters would be attracted to this plan. The price is 2,500/month.
• Fully managed – If you have no prior server management experience and it all totally overwhelms you, you can have a tech manage your server completely. This will cost you $2,669/month.
No these are not typos the prices are 2000+ a month. A lot of other hosting companies do sell dedicated plans for $125-$300 a year, though.
Domain Names
Media Temple does allow their clients to purchase domain names with them. You can purchase domain names for the following prices:
Money-Back Guarantee
Media Temple does offer a 30 day money-back guarantee. This is really what the industry standard is. So for any reason if you don’t feel they are the right fit for your web hosting needs you are entitled to a refund. If a company doesn’t offer a money back guarantee that at least matches the 30 day standard, it would raise some red flags with me. For instance, one company ServerPronto only offers a 7 day refund, which is a huge mistake.
Now that we know what hosting plans Media Temple has I can now evaluate their uptime, performance, and customer service. Towards the end of this Media Temple review I will summarize everything and either recommend them or point you elsewhere.
Media Temple Uptime and Performance
Uptime
Media Temple does have a 99.9% uptime policy which webmasters have learned to flock to over the years. Meaning if we have downtime on our websites we go elsewhere. I really wish a lot of other web hosting companies would let you know your servers status on their website. Thankfully, Media Temple does allow you this extra added piece of mind. They do have a section that shows you your system status too. This lets you know whether or not your service is available or offline.
As far as uptime is concerned I can say that most of the feedback from Media Temple clients is fairly decent. Meaning for the most part Media Temple does live up to their 99.9% uptime policy. There are a couple of complaints that show when GoDaddy acquired them there were some issues with uptime. However, like I said the feedback in regards to uptime seems to be pretty decent.
Performance
Whenever I evaluate a web hosting companies performance I like to check with isitdownrightnow.com. This gives me a readout of their server response times. I tested their servers response time and it was 69.03 ms. This isn’t horribly slow, but isn’t all that fast either. Typically, I like to see a response time under 20 ms. Their main focus is grid hosting, which is cloud hosting; this helps with website speed a lot. Rather then needing to purchase a CDN (content delivery network) you are paying for grid hosting which does help the performance a lot. Their infrastructure is fantastic in that aspect. From everything I have read on Media Temple it doesn’t seem like their clients are not complaining about slow loading websites. I can attribute this to using SSD hosting. There are no complaints with me in terms of performance there.
Media Temple Customer Support
Media Temple does have a ton of options for customer care. They have a special section on their website which is called a “community”. This has a number of user generated articles which really do show you how to do anything you could possibly want to do with Media Temple. I really did spend about 1 hour going through them and reading various articles and they are very helpful. Ok, I lied they are insanely helpful!
Media Temple does have a toll free number that you can call 24/7. They even have a ticketing system. Live chat is available to answer questions. However, when I was reviewing Media Temple their live chat was offline. I am not sure if sales was just offline on live chat, or they have business hours for their live chat feature.
Overall, from everything I have read I do believe Media Temple does have very good customer support. There have been a few complaints about support, but for the most part the feedback seems to be very positive.
Media Temple Summary
Media Temple isn’t one of my recommended companies. No, I am not stating that they are horrible or anything like that. In fact, they are a decent hosting company. However, I believe their prices are very high compared to a lot of other companies. I mean paying 2,000- 2,600/month for a dedicated server seems to be quite expensive. In fact, their VPS and shared plans cost a pretty penny, too. But, if you got the money want to use them I say by all means go for it. Just know that other companies will charge you a fraction of the price for servers that are about the same as the ones at Media Temple.
In fact, this InMotion review shows that their VPS and dedicated plans are a whole lot cheaper than Media Temple’s prices. However, if you’re considering a shared plan you might want to check into SiteGround because they will cost you 4-15 dollars per month which is far less money than what Media Temple offers.
However, if you have used Media Temple in the past I would love to hear what you have to say about them. Please leave a comment, either good or bad and I will be sure to publish it. If you feel this Media Temple review has helped you please feel free to share it on any social media sites you use. Thanks so much for reading the reviews!