Leave Flywheel WordPress Hosting

Flywheel was built for agencies. Modern frameworks are built for the web.

Start Migration

Why People Leave Flywheel

Common frustrations that drive users to look for alternatives.

Now owned by WP Engine — pricing has increased and features overlap with parent company

Starting at $13/month for a single site with limited visits (5K/month on Tiny plan)

WordPress-only platform — no flexibility if you outgrow WordPress

Local by Flywheel development tool is useful but locks you into the WordPress workflow

SFTP-only access (no SSH) limits server-side debugging and customization

What You Gain by Leaving

The benefits of migrating to a modern deployment platform.

Save $156-600/year vs. Flywheel pricing

No visit-based limits — serve unlimited traffic on free tiers

Full SSH and deployment control — not just SFTP

Better performance with static site generation

Freedom to use any framework, not just WordPress

How to Migrate Away from Flywheel

Follow these steps to move your WordPress site to a modern platform.

Pull a fresh copy locally with Local by Flywheel (push/pull from your Flywheel dashboard), or take a Flywheel backup snapshot, then run LeaveWP against the production URL

Download /wp-content/uploads/ via Flywheel SFTP credentials (Dashboard → site → Advanced → SFTP), or use Local's Pull Site feature

Generate your new project with LeaveWP and customize the design

Deploy to Vercel or Netlify

Update DNS at your registrar — Flywheel provides nameserver targets but doesn't register domains

Verify the migration is complete

Cancel from Flywheel Dashboard → Billing → Sites — monthly billing, but no prorated refund on cancellation

Recommended Alternatives

Modern platforms that replace Flywheel with better performance and lower costs.

Vercel

The modern replacement for managed WordPress hosting. Better DX, better performance.

Free tier, Pro at $20/monthBest for: Agencies moving to modern frameworks

Netlify

Great for agencies — team collaboration, deploy previews, and branch deploys.

Free tier, Pro at $19/monthBest for: Agency workflows and client sites

Cloudflare Pages

Global performance with unlimited bandwidth.

Free tier, unlimited bandwidthBest for: High-traffic sites

Railway

If you need database-backed applications beyond static sites.

Usage-based from $5/monthBest for: Full-stack applications

Related Migration Guides

Migrate WordPress → Next.js Migrate WordPress → Astro

Frequently Asked Questions

I use Local by Flywheel for development — what replaces it?

For Next.js/Astro development, just run `npm run dev` in your terminal. No special tool needed. Your local dev server is faster and more flexible than Local by Flywheel.

Flywheel is great for client handoffs — what's the alternative?

Vercel and Netlify both support team members and roles. Give clients access to a CMS like Sanity or Payload for content editing, and deploy changes automatically when they publish.

Is this worth it for agency sites?

Absolutely. Agencies managing 10+ client sites on Flywheel can save thousands per year while delivering faster sites. The per-site cost on Vercel/Netlify free tiers is $0.

Flywheel was acquired by WP Engine — does that affect my account?

Day-to-day not much, but feature investment has slowed since the 2019 acquisition and pricing has crept up. Many long-time Flywheel users feel the platform stagnated post-acquisition.

My Flywheel Tiny plan has a 5K visit limit — how do free tiers compare?

Vercel's Hobby tier and Cloudflare Pages have no visit limits, just bandwidth budgets (100GB/month free on Vercel). For most sites under 100K monthly visitors, the free tier is genuinely free.

What about Flywheel's Genesis Framework integration?

Genesis is a WordPress theme framework — it only runs inside WordPress. After migrating, you replace Genesis layouts with React components or Astro components. Most agencies find the new workflow cleaner.