During his talk at WordCamp Europe 2018, Noel Tock, from Human Mades, well highlighted that “one click install or access to cPanel dashboard are not enough anymore.” In 2019, if they want to survive, hosting providers have to reinvent themselves and offer “fully integrated solutions” or what we also call “DXP, Digital Experience Platforms”.
This reminded me of my hosting provider, thecore.io which recently made what I think is a move towards that direction. Indeed, it went from the “one click WordPress install” hosting platform to this specialized WooCommerce + SAAS + Hosting solution. Curious, I asked Aleksandar Savkovic and Marianna Siouti to answer some of my questions.
Me: What does thecore.io do that other hosting don’t?
Alex: thecore.io is not a mere storage place or hosting server. It focuses more on features like Health Checks that are checking if your Woo Pages are functioning correctly and Push to Live/Pull to Dev procedures. Thus, we built a fully integrated app where you can host, maintain and track every important aspect of your website. Additionally, you can install already localized Woo with one click. I mean not only localized language but also payment and shipping options. In fact, thecore.io offers a hassle-free platform for Freelancers and Agencies.
Me: thecore.io is “the first WooCommerce Management Platform” but is it the only one of its kind?
Marianna: Traditional providers have started offering Woocommerce hosting among their standard plans which shows the increasing interest, but there is no other hosting & management platform especially customized and 100% focused on Woo.
Me: What are thecore.io best features in your opinion?
Aleks: There are two features that I really like and they are Health Checks since they are not working like an uptime monitor checking for HTTP response 200 but they are checking if the Woo pages are fully functional, and of course, one click pull to dev and push to live feature.
Me: I don’t have a WooCommerce site, can I still choose thecore.io and why would I do that?
Aleks: Of course you can host a WordPress website on theCore.io and of course, install it with one click. As a matter of fact, you can also ask us to migrate it to our infrastructure for free. You won’t get Health Checks since they are only designed for Woo at the moment, but we will implement HomePage health check for WordPress websites soon.
That’s a good news for me because I don’t have a Woo nor I am thinking of getting one. However I do want to keep on using thecore.io because I am happy with it. It is fast, the support is great and the interface is easy to use. So even if you don’t have a WooCommerce site, I can only recommend to use thecore.io.
A little bit more about thecore.io and Enartia:
thecore.io is a product of Enartia Group. Enartia’s flagship at the moment is Papaki.com, the biggest domain registrar and hosting in Greece with over 50% of the market share. Top.Host and MagicPress are two other Enartia platforms focusing mainly on WordPress. More than 40% of Enartia customers are using WordPress.
More about Marianna Siouti: Marianna is the Head of Product at Enartia, currently working on thecore.io
More about Aleksandar Savkovic: Aleks is thecore.io product ambassador and scrum master. He also is the Western Balkan manager for Enartia.
If you are around WordCamps a lot, sure you’ll run into one of them!