Media Temple Hosting Review: Read Why We Think Developers Will Love Their Tools

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Media Temple is a developer-friendly web host offering a variety of plans from AWS cloud to managed WordPress and VPS plans.

Their customer support is comprehensive in scope and delivered by in-house technical staff.

But how does their platform perform? Has their acquisition by GoDaddy affected their product?

Here’s what we found out.

Media Temple Homepage Screenshot

Pros and Cons

Here’s a high-level overview of the upsides and downsides of working with Media Temple.

Pros

  • Managed services
  • Developer tools support
  • Uptime guarantee
  • Helpful resources
  • All-inclusive plans

Cons

  • Expensive
  • Not the easiest for beginners
  • Uptime guarantee only on select plans

Pros

There’s a lot to like about Media Temple, including its robust web hosting plans and 24/7 support. Some plans include managed services. The company also puts out detailed self-help materials in case you need assistance setting up your hosting, building your website, and so on.

Cons

Media Temple isn’t the right fit for everyone, though. Its offerings might be too complex for those new to the world of web hosting and website development, and its resources aren’t really geared toward beginners. Furthermore, those who are looking for bottom-of-the-barrel pricing won’t find that here.

About Media Temple

Media Temple — also referred to as (mt) — is a Los Angeles-based company founded in 1998 to provide creatives, such as web developers, designers, and startups, an optimal environment for hosting their websites.

Today, Media Temple offers web hosting and cloud services that power over 1.5 million sites in over 100 countries.

Big brands using Media Temple include Samsung, Starbucks, and Adidas.

Acquired By GoDaddy

The company was acquired by GoDaddy in 2013, but, through a novel arrangement, the two companies operate independently.

At the time of the acquisition the founders explained that GoDaddy’s investment would enable Media Temple to expand and that “GoDaddy was the only company who would commit to maintaining the (mt) brand, company culture, mission, and autonomy.”

Hosting Types and Plans

Media Temple’s services are well-suited to new to intermediate developers who’ve never run a website before.

Is There a Website Builder?

We should note that Media Temple links to the Virb brand site builder. However, this builder seems stagnant. We have not found any signs that new development or features are being produced for the Virb. The last tweet Virb put out was in 2016. And it was the only tweet of the year.

The lack of a viable site builder means that you’ll need to have the skills to create a website on your own — unless you use WordPress.

Plenty of Options for Advanced Devs

An advanced programmer will also feel at home with Media Temple. There are plenty of technical aspects one could make use of. In fact, the cheaper unmanaged VPS, where you have nothing but a clean install of Linux and some basic programs to work with, is a challenge only an expert can take on.

The Grid: Shared Public Cloud

Media Temple provides comprehensive customer support from an in-house team based in Los Angeles.

Tired of the slow shared hosting characterizing the industry, Media Temple created its own shared cloud servers to maximize speed.

Surprisingly, the cheapest plan offers 100 websites and 1 TB of bandwidth.

The infrastructure is well-designed. Built on clustered architecture and SSD (solid-state drive) storage, the system detects bursts of activity and automatically moves your database to a high-load server that can handle it. No more downtime during high-activity periods.

Video: Installing an SSL Certificate

One-click installer for apps like WordPress,
30-day backups, and a custom control panel come with all plans. The more expensive plans include a CDN (content delivery network), firewalls, and extra free malware removals.

All plans come with a staging environment.

To simplify CPU allocation, the Grid allocates plans a certain number of “GPU cycles” that can be easily monitored and calculated. If you’re not used to being charged for CPU or RAM usage, it may be confusing, but you’ll get the hang of it quickly.

Bloggers, first-time website owners, resellers, and developers can all enjoy the benefits of Media Temple’s specially optimized shared cloud hosting plans.

Media Temple Shared Hosting
Media Temple Shared Public Cloud Hosting Plans

Managed WordPress Hosting

While many hosts offer WordPress plans that are lackluster at best, Media Temple goes well over what is expected. Though this comes at a higher price, it may be worth it since these are managed plans where you get assistance with day-to-day system administration tasks.

The cheapest WordPress plan provides 50 GB of SSD storage and supports 250,000 monthly visits.

Media Temple offers two plans from which you can choose: Personal and Pro. The best option for you depends on how many sites you need hosting for, as well as your expected monthly traffic levels.

These two plans don’t just offer the baseline. Two websites, plenty of storage space, and unlimited bandwidth should provide more than enough elbow room for most blogs.

If your business requires a network of websites, try the advanced plan to double or quadruple your visitor and storage allowance.

Media Temple WordPress Hosting
Media Temple Managed WordPress Hosting

Add-Ons: SSL Certificates, G-Suite, and More

Paid add-ons include site packs to get extra websites and storage, a TrueSpeed CDN, SSL certificates for e-commerce blogs, and G-Suite to connect small companies. Depending on your needs, these can prove invaluable.

If you’re new to coding or WordPress, there’s no need to worry. These plans are managed, so all the system administration is taken care of.

Support staff trained specifically for WordPress help is available 24/7. If you’re still on the basics, WP Easy can get a simple site setup with no technical knowledge required.

Finally, 30-day backups are free and ensure that no mistake can take you offline for long.

Developer Features: Git, SSH, Staging

Advanced developers will fit in here as well. All plans come with staging sites, so you can make modifications without risk of ruining your main website.

SSH access, Git, PHP, and other administrative access tools are available. Automatic WordPress updates and optimizations make this the best choice for blogs new and old. Sound good? Visit Media Temple now.

Managed and Unmanaged VPS Hosting

Last but not least is VPS hosting, a wonderful choice for knowledgeable programmers and high-load websites.

Total control is the selling point of these packages. Intermediate to advanced devs can do their work from a control panel or the command line.

Self-managed VPS is the cheapest of the two, and should only be chosen by those comfortable with Linux. Ubuntu, Debian, or CentOS.

All come with Parallels Power Panel and support for Perl and Python. Other than that, you get a fresh install, and from there it’s up to you.

If you need more than what’s included in the self-managed VPS server, consider a DV option.

Media Temple VPS Hosting
Media Temple VPS Hosting Plans

What is a DV Server?

DV is the brand name of Media Temple’s managed VPS (virtual private server) hosting platform. A DV server is a server on this platform. DV servers run on CentOS 6 (a distribution of Linux) and you can choose either the Parallels Plesk or cPanel control panel.

Video: Plesk control panel demo.

If you’re comfortable with coding, but not quite ready to build something from the ground up, this is the appropriate choice.

Apache, MySQL, Perl, Python, and Ruby support are all assets available to you. This version comes with automatic backups as well.

Dedicated Hosting

For those who need the fastest, most resourceful, and most secure web hosting environment, Media Temple offers dedicated servers.

Dedicated servers come with 24/7 support, your choice of managed services (opt for full management, or choose to DIY everything yourself), and 99.99% uptime guarantee.

Customer Support

Media Temple offers 24/7 support via live chat, phone, email, and even Twitter. Users new to coding and hosting can get education and guidance along with troubleshooting.

A comprehensive statement of support provides a clear list of what you can and can’t be helped with. There’s both a bite-sized chart and a list that goes into extreme detail.

Online Resources and Knowledgebase

There are many online resources that enable you to help yourself.

There’s a blog with tutorials, a community forum support, and helpful articles.

And all but third-party issues can be addressed by the support team.

What is CloudTech?

CloudTech is a complete management service. Security, support, and setup are all taken care of for you. However, if your goal is to practice your programming, this is not the way to go. Not to mention, it’s quite expensive.

Luckily, if web security is not your forte, you can buy CloudTech’s “security pack” for peace of mind.

Site Migration

Finally, if you already have a website and need help moving it, you can employ the site mover.

It’s expensive, so programmers knowledgeable enough should do migration on their own. But the process is powered by people, not glitchy automation, so you can ensure everything gets moved over safely. Unfortunately, there appears to be no free, automated alternative.

Uptime Guarantee

If you purchase a VPS Hosting (DV and DV-Developer) Plan, Managed Hosting, or a Dedicated Server, your purchase comes with the 20/20 Uptime Guarantee, which gets you a service level agreement (SLA) of 99.99%.

If, however, Media Temple falls short, the company will credit you 20% of your monthly hosting fees for every 20 minutes of downtime.

Media Temple vs WP Engine

If you’re in the market for managed WordPress hosting, you might be curious as to how Media Temple compares to WP Engine.

Both companies offer managed WordPress services, but what they include is slightly different.

Media Temple comes with site migration tools, a staging environment, automatic core updates, and 30 days’ worth of backups that can be automatically restored.

WP Engine Homepage
WP Engine uses Google Cloud, except for some dedicated plans that use AWS (Amazon Web Services.)

WP Engine, however, boasts access to features like the Genesis Framework, use of CDNs and SSL certificates, and other developer/optimization tools.

If budget is your #1 concern, Media Temple’s options get you much more (resource-wise) for much less on a month-to-month basis.

If your concern is growth and scalability for the largest, most resource intensive sites, Media Temple offers managed AWS (Amazon Web Services) solutions that can auto-scale. WP Engine offers shared hosting on Google Cloud, except for some “dedicated” plans that offer AWS.

Special Media Temple Deal

Ready to give Media Temple a try? Use our link to get a discount off your first purchase of hosting services from Media Temple. Visit Media Temple now.

A Powerful Host with Technical Freedom

Media Temple provides comprehensive customer support, fast servers and a good mix of technical tools.

This makes it a good choice for those new to coding and established designers and devs looking for a solid web host for client projects.

With the special staging sites provided to WordPress users and the backups provided across all plans, one mistake doesn’t spell downtime.

And if you’re prepared for a real challenge, you could get VPS hosting and put your skills to the test. Advanced devs have all the tools they need at their disposal, whether they pick unmanaged, managed, or even shared hosting.

Does this sound good? Visit Media Temple now.

Your Media Temple Hosting Review

“Are you a current or past customer of Media Temple Hosting? Would you recommend them? Please leave your comments below and let our visitors know what you think of Media Temple’s speed, features and customer service.

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Contributing Editor: Sherrie Gossett

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