Templ.io Review 2024: why I Use Templ for My sites?

If you are looking to buy Templ hosting for your WordPress sites, our expert review will help you determine whether Templ is the right choice.

In this expert review of Templ, you’ll learn about

• Overview of Templ
• Templ Tech Stacks
• Performance reports
• Features & Support
• Good and Bad of Templ
• Pricing & User Reviews

What is Templ?

Templ is a managed WordPress hosting platform powered by Google Cloud. Templ has features like auto-scaling, server-based cache, on-demand and manual backups, and security, all bundled inside an easy-to-use control panel. With pricing starting at $15 per month, Templ offers one of the industry’s most affordable managed WordPress hosting. 

Templ Pricing

Templ offers five different WordPress hosting plans. They are

• Micro: $15 per month, 5 GB SSD Storage, 10 GB Bandwidth
• Small: $29 per month, 10 GB SSD, 20 GB Bandwidth
• Small Plus: $54 per month, 18 GB SSD, 40 GB Bandwidth
• Medium: $79 per month, 25 GB SSD, 80 GB Bandwidth
• Large: $149 per month, 50 GB SSD, 160 GB Bandwidth

Managed WordPress Hosting: This is the major offering, and they place a lot of emphasis on their premium support. Plans start from $15 per month, strategically priced lower than Kinsta and WP Engine, which offer similar services at some high prices. At Hostingstep, I’m going to test their cheapest plan.

Managed WooCommerce Hosting: Similar to their WordPress plans, explains the uniqueness of hosting WooCommerce on Templ.

WordPress Hosting For Agencies: Suitable for agencies that manage many client sites. If you like the performance of Templ WordPress hosting, then it’s an excellent choice to get started.

Templ also provides custom WordPress hosting plans, which you can check out from their control panel. You can also try them for free without spending any dollars.

Templ Tech Stacks

• Ubuntu, Nginx, MariaDB
• PHP 7.4, Let’s Encrypt SSL
• Google Cloud + Google CDN + DNS
• Brotli compression 
• Redis object caching

Templ Performance Test

At Hostingstep, we focus on performance to find the best Managed WordPress hosting. I chose the Templ $15 per month plan and did the following performance tests.

• Server Response Time
• Core Web Vitals
• Load Testing
• WordPress Benchmark Test
• Uptime
• Global TTFB

Server Response Time

Last year, the Templ site recorded an average response time of 313 ms. To measure it, I deployed a test site on their Templ and started monitoring the response time from 20+ USA locations through Pingdom.

In the last 12 months, the average speed of Templ hosting:

• September 2024 average TTFB: 360 ms
• August 2024 average TTFB: 363 ms
• July 2024 average TTFB: 368 ms
• June 2024 average TTFB: 343 ms
• May 2024 average TTFB: 339 ms
• April 2024 average TTFB: 325 ms
• March 2024 average TTFB: 340 ms
• February 2024 average TTFB: 371 ms
• January 2024 average TTFB: 357 ms
• December 2023 average TTFB: 356 ms
• November 2023 average TTFB: 362 ms

The lower the response time, the faster your server is. The response time of Templ (313 ms) is faster than Kinsta and WP Engine, although Templ hosting is available at half of their price.

Uptime

Templ sites recorded 100% uptime over the entire period of testing.

Last 12 months average uptime of Templ:

• September 2024 average uptime: 100%
• August 2024 average uptime: 100%
• July 2024 average uptime: 100%
• June 2024 average uptime: 100%
• May 2024 average uptime: 100%
• April 2024 average uptime: 100%
• March 2024 average uptime: 100%
• February 2024 average uptime: 100%
• January 2024 average uptime: 100%
• December 2023 average uptime: 100%
• November 2023 average uptime: 100%

Core Web Vitals

With Core Web Vitals going to be a ranking factor, you can’t simply ignore it. In fact, Hostingstep is the first site to report those metrics of hosting companies. The Core Web Vitals scores of Templ are 

Load Testing

Through load testing, I sent 500 concurrent visitors to the site for 1 minute. This test ensures how well the server responds to viral traffic.

The site recorded an average response time of 294 ms and offered consistent performance throughout the testing period. You can see there are no 4xx/5xx errors, which means all the 409959 requests are successfully processed without any issues. The test is done using the Micro plan of $15 per month. 

If your site has visitors from multiple countries, then this Global TTFB is an excellent test for you to make a final decision. This tool checks the TTFB from 10 global locations. Templ rocked with sub-243 ms low TTFB in six out of ten international locations. The scores are absolutely better than those of Kinsta and WP Engine.

Global TTFB

Summary: The overall performance of Templ hosting is impressive and reliable. 

Templ Pros

Power of Google Cloud + Google CDN

Templ is the only managed WordPress host that uses Google Cloud and Google CDN. What is special about Google CDN? It’s the fastest CDN on the globe, beating Cloudflare, AWS Cloudfront, etc.

In fact, Google claims, these CDN locations are the same as they use to run Gmail, Youtube, and all other Google Properties. 

Have you ever experienced slowness with Gmail or YouTube? I bet the answer will be NO. That’s the power of Google CDN. In fact, Cloudflare has more CDN locations than Google, but it lags behind Google regarding speed.

The cache-to-hit ratio is the major factor in CDN. This shows how many requests are passed through CDN and how many requests are missed. Whenever Cloudflare misses the Cache, the initial response time will be higher, thus affecting the Core Web Vitals score.

Google uses the Cache Fill feature, through which if one CDN location misses the cache, it will try to cache HIT from the nearest location; thus, the Cache-to-Hit Ratio is always higher. This is one of many interesting features of Google CDN for ultimate performance.

Friendly Customer Support

Templ provides live chat support, and it just takes 2-3 minutes for them to respond back. Their speed optimization is a top-notch service where they will do a series of optimizations to improve your site performance for free. Some of the major optimizations are

• WordPress Configuration
• Plugins Audit
• Database Optimization
• Server log issues
• Image Optimization
• Before and after optimization report

I use them to host a few of my sites, and here are samples of my chat. I moved my first site, and they did the speed optimization. They shared the before-and-after optimization reports. The speed has been improved by nearly 50%.

They also cleaned up the databases, removing unwanted plugins that have speed issues. They also came up with further suggestions to improve performance. I asked them about the PHP worker limit, and Templ replied that there is no fixed limit for PHP workers, and it scales when needed. I’m sold here, and that’s when I started moving a few more sites to Templ.

The chat below is during my next site transfer. They’ve changed the database engine from MyISAM to InnoDB for faster processing, deleted post revisions, and optimized all the images. After all the optimizations, the database size went down from 337MB to 64MB. Remember, this service comes free of charge when you migrate to Templ.

Since Templ offers access to all Google data centers, I requested a data center transfer, and the change was done free of charge. You can see they responded well to all my queries and did everything possible to satisfy the customers.

Overall, Templ offers the best support for WordPress and WooCommerce.

Affordable Pricing

The Templ plan starts at $15 per month. If you look around other hosts, they charge based on visits, but Templ uses the Bandwidth limit, and they offer enormous bandwidth limits for each plan. The overage bandwidth charges are also economical at just $0.20/GB. So you won’t get shocking bills at the end of the month.

Templ also has an auto-scaling feature, so your site can handle additional real-time users with no issues. Though Google CDN is powerful, as we discussed above, it is also the most expensive CDN on the market. So most hosts use Cloudflare or other CDNs for savings, but Templ manages to provide Google CDN for free, which is a significant game changer. There is also a 10-day free trial to test Templ before starting.

Powerful Performance

This is an excerpt from Performance testing reports. Templ secured 100% uptime throughout all months and recorded an average response time of 313 ms. 

Their Core Web Vitals scores are excellent, and there is a great chance for your sites to get a “Pass” score in the search console (remember, it’s a ranking factor by May 2021). In fact, one of our sites got a “Pass” score after moving to them. I tried a different set of combinations, but nothing worked. After moving my site to Templ, the site has really passed Core Web Vitals, even though I’m using heavy page builders.

The site handles 1000 concurrent visitors without any issues, with an average response time of 71 ms. The WordPress benchmarking recorded 6.8 out of 10, which is not great but good.

Overall, Templ offers the best-in-class performance, solid support, enormous resources, and a great tech stack, all at affordable prices.

Templ Cons

Control Panel Improvements

Templ comes with a neat control panel, with most features available in just 2-3 clicks. However, it lacks a few advanced features compared to WP Engine and Kinsta. There is no direct option to enable CDN from the dashboard or WordPress backend. Although the support team is active all the time and activates CDN in seconds, an option would be great.

There is no option to access log files from the dashboard. We need to use SFTP to access the log files. With more people getting into Technical SEO, this feature will greatly add to the dashboard.

No Email Hosting

This is not a new trend in the hosting industry. While keeping emails away from the server is better, I see agencies or small businesses still hunting for managed WP hosts with email hosting. If you’re in such a scenario, Templ is not for you. 

Templ Features

Managed WordPress Hosting Control Panel

Templ comes with its own control panel, and it’s simple and easy to use. The primary dashboard displays fast access to each site’s dashboard and the bandwidth usage for the month. There is also an invoice area and a listing of Templ Blog Posts.

The site dashboard has six sections: Overview, Backups, Staging, Plan, Import, and Tools.

Overview—This shows a glance at site details, IP address, and storage space. Next to it is the one-click access to the WordPress Admin dashboard and the SFTP/SSH. Database details are included. 

There is an “Edit Website Details” button where you can change the site name or change it from a temporary domain name to a production domain. You can also change WordPress details and enable/disable HTTP authentication and SSH/SFTP access. When you return, you have two options: restart or delete the sites.

Backups help create manual backups or restore an existing backup. Templ stores the daily backups in a remote server and doesn’t count toward your plan’s disk space. With a single click, you can enter a backup file name and start taking manual backups at remote servers.

To restore a backup, you need to choose the backup website first, then enable Remote Backups to access Templ backups. Templ stores the last 30 days of backups compared to 14 days of other hosts. You can choose your date and start the restoration process. Depending on your site size, the restore process takes some time. 

Staging Sites help you test new themes, plugins, or designs before moving them to product sites. This staging site is included in the plan’s disk space, so you need to make sure the plan has adequate disk space. 

When you click on create, it will ask for a partial or full copy of the site. Click on continue to complete the staging site creation process. The user interface is the same for Templ staging sites, and you can easily move the staging files to the production site.

The Plan tab displays your site’s current plan, and upon clicking Change Plan, you can either upgrade or downgrade. You can also buy disk space alone instead of moving to the next higher plan, which is a great saver for sites that exceed disk space.

Import a website using a Templ backup or a Duplicate link. Simply select the Type of file or Backup link, and you’re ready to import the site.

The Tools section includes a list of tools. You can check for Vulnerabilities in WordPress core, themes, or plugins. If you have a list of banned IPs, you can clear it in a single click. Templ offers a caching plugin and a token plugin for one-click WordPress. The Fix Domain option sets the correct WordPress URL, replacing the old or temporary domain URLs.

Global Data Center Locations

Templ uses Google Cloud and provides access to all data centers. At the time of writing, Google Cloud has 24 data centers and eight future regions that are in development. The list of data centers are

1. Council Bluffs, Iowa, USA (us-central1) 
2. The Dalles, Oregon, USA (us-west1) 
3. Salt Lake City, USA (us-west3) 
4. Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (us-west4) 
5. Los Angeles, California (us-west2) 
6. Ashburn, Virginia, USA (us-east4) 
7. Moncks Corner, South Carolina, USA (us-east1) 
8. Montréal, Canada (north america-northeast1)
9. Eemshaven, Netherlands (Europe-west4)
10. São Paulo, Brazil (south america-east 1) 
11. St. Ghislain, Belgium (Europe-west1) 
12. Hamina, Finland (Europe-north1) 
13. Switzerland (Europe-west6) 
14. London, UK (Europe-west2) 
15. Frankfurt, Germany (Europe-west3) 
16. Changhua County, Taiwan (Asia-east1) 
17. Sydney, Australia (Australia-southeast1) 
18. Jurong West, Singapore (Asia-southeast1) 
19. Tokyo, Japan (asia-northeast1) 
20. Mumbai, India (asia-south1) 
21. Hong Kong (asia-east2) Zürich, 
22. Osaka, Japan (asia-northeast2) 
23. Seoul, South Korea (asia-northeast3) 
24. Jakarta, Indonesia (asia-southeast2)

Google Cloud is also expanding into Warsaw (Poland), Doha (Qatar), Toronto(Canada), Melbourne(Australia), Delhi (India), Paris(France), Milan (Italy), Santiago(Chile), and Madrid (Spain). Since Templ provides access to all locations, I expect these future locations to be included, too.

Global CDN Locations

Google Cloud CDN caches websites from 100+ locations worldwide. In some cities, they have more than one CDN POP for better delivery. 

Custom Plans

Inside the Templ dashboard, you can build your own cloud plan with the resources you need. The minimum requirements are a minimum of 1 CPU, 4GB RAM, 10 GB Disk Space, and 10 GB Monthly data transfer.

All the plans include free staging sites, automatic backups and classic Templ support.

Auto Scaling

Templ provides auto-scalable hosting. Based on your plan, Templ offers a different set of CPU cores. Whenever your site gets a high number of real-time users, Templ allocates 100% of the CPU automatically. This feature helps the site go offline during peak traffic.

If your site consistently receives high real-time traffic, you can upgrade to the next higher plan, which might include multiple CPU cores. Thus, auto-scaling will be more effective.

Managed Security

Templ provides managed security for your site. That means Templ will take care of all security features. By default, Templ disables XML-RPC, which has become a popular way for hackers to target WordPress sites. They also follow many security measures, and if your site hosted on Templ gets hacked, they will offer free help to rescue hacked websites.

How to Launch a Site in Templ?

Head over to the Websites menu and click on “Create Website.” Now give your website a name, choose a location, and select a plan. You can choose the default disk space or create a custom disk space.

Your site will be created in a few minutes. In the meantime, check the Domain Tab and enter your domain name. If you use Cloudflare or other DNS configuration, select the option of “Use External Name Servers”. If not, click on it and continue using the fastest Google DNS for your site.

Ultimately, your site will be entirely powered by Google Cloud + CDN + DNS for ultimate speed.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Templ?

Templ is a managed WordPress platform powered by Google Cloud Hosting. It allows you to host your sites in any of the Google regions around the globe. Templ also provides excellent WordPress support for all plans.

Is Templ host any good?

In our tests, Templ sites provided excellent performance and reliable uptime. Their pricing is affordable, and the support is top-notch. Thus, Templ Host gives you good value for your money.