Any website can crash under traffic spikes. Traditional hosting solutions can fail when you need them, whether that’s a viral blog post, successful marketing campaign, or simply steady business growth. This Autoscale by 20i review could show you an answer to the drawbacks of standard hosting. It looks to promise enterprise-grade performance at a straightforward price point.

I’m going to see whether the promises of autoscaling, high-frequency performance, and reliability is deliverable with a full Autoscale by 20i review. It could answer the questions you ask about your current host.

Meet Autoscale: Cloud Hosting That Actually Scales

Most hosting solutions fall into two camps: shared hosting that can’t handle growth, or premium managed hosts with pricing that makes you wince. Of course, there are other options too, but many sites can’t consider them.

Autoscale by 20i represents cloud hosting that meets the demands of modern web applications and high-traffic WordPress sites. Typical hosts allocate fixed resources, whereas Autoscale adjusts your server resources in real-time based on your site’s needs.

The Autoscale by 20i homepage.

The platform centers around three principles: autoscaling without bottlenecks, high-frequency computing for speed, and high-availability architecture that eliminates single points of failure. The technology stack includes powerful CPUs, load balancers, and redundant infrastructure across web, database, Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), and mail servers.

Rather than simply providing servers, 20i has a full ecosystem that includes the My20i control panel, WordPress management tools, and security functionality. This approach means you get enterprise-level functionality without the complexity you associate with high-performance hosting.

The Core Benefits That Matter

A web host that autoscales its resources has a lot of value for almost all types of sites. For starters, I’ve tested hosts that claim to offer “unlimited” resources, but there are often limitations hiding away that will pop up during traffic spikes.

Autoscale’s approach differs because it monitors your site’s performance and provisions CPU, memory, bandwidth, and PHP workers when there’s an increase in demand. This means your site will maintain its performance regardless of the traffic count.

Consider an e-commerce store, for example. Your checkout processes can remain functional during Black Friday sales or product launches: times when traditional hosting will often crack under pressure.

This works through the platform distributing its resources across multiple servers with load balancers and failover capabilities. It extends to every component: web servers, databases, SFTP services, and email systems. If your business loses revenue based on downtime, this is a critical level of reliability.

While I’m not going to get into the deep specifications, know that Autoscale uses arguably more powerful CPU nodes than the competition. For you, this leads to faster page load times, quicker database queries, and reduced latency for dynamic content. Combined with autoscaling ‘PHP workers’, the result is a site can handle complexities without performance degradation.

The Edge Caching functionality within Autoscale.

Through Autoscale’s Content Delivery Network (CDN) with edge pre-caching, you can leverage all of this at a global level. Autoscale by 20i pre-caches your entire site across global nodes so visitors get location-agnostic fast load times.

Autoscale by 20i Review: Functionality That Sets the Host Apart

I’ll take you through a walkthrough of setting up Autoscale by 20i shortly. Before that, I want to showcase some of the functionality you get from the platform.

At its core, you get a whole host of security protections that will be standard: DDoS protection, a Web Application Firewall (WAF), malware scanning, a free SSL certificate, and login security features such as Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). These always run to provide protection that might need multiple premium services with another host.

The Autoscale security panel.

The Autoscale dashboard gives you access to file management, database administration, email configuration, DNS control, and the security settings. If you have to manage multiple client sites, the bulk actions and team collaboration tools can streamline those time-consuming routine tasks.

The main Autoscale dashboard.

It’s a lot like a cPanel dashboard, which means it’s intuitive and easy to navigate. However, the developer tells me this is a custom dashboard – I think they’ve done a fantastic job with it!

A common sight with other hosts is a WordPress plugin that handles aspects such as image and code optimization at the server level. Autoscale includes this, so there’s no need for a plugin. Its dedicated WordPress Tools includes staging environments, one-click updates, and theme management across multiple sites without further overhead from plugins.

The WordPress Tools panel within Autoscale.

Finally, for developers, you get Git integration and SSH access, which enables you to manage sites from the command line. Much like many other hosts, the platform includes WP-CLI for the best experience.

Autoscale by 20i Review: Pricing That Makes Sense

Autoscale’s pricing strategy pleases me because it’s simple to understand. There’s a danger with hosting providers, where they offer so many plans and configurations that it’s hard to know which one to choose.

Here, you get the same core features across each tier: dynamic autoscaling, high-frequency compute, CDN with edge pre-caching, SSL certificates, security suite, daily backups, migrations, and round-the-clock support.

The Autoscale pricing page.

The only difference between tiers is how much you can host:

  • Plan 1 ($30 per month). One website, 10GB storage, 50GB bandwidth, and ten mailboxes. Note that for all plans, each mailbox is 10GB.
  • Plan 2 ($60 per month). Three websites, 20GB storage, 100GB bandwidth, and 50 mailboxes.
  • Plan 3 ($100 per month). Ten websites, 40GB storage, 300GB bandwidth, and 100 mailboxes.
  • Plan 4 ($200 per month). 25 websites, 50GB storage, 500GB bandwidth, and 250 mailboxes
  • Plan 5 ($400 per month). 50 websites, 100GB storage, 1TB bandwidth, and 500 mailboxes.

Also, rather than enforcing hard limits that can cause a site outage, Autoscale will continue to serve your content while applying overage fees: $1 per additional gigabyte of storage and $0.05 per gigabyte of bandwidth. Email storage operates separately from any web hosting quota.

What’s more, you can purchase any tier for only $1 for the first month. It’s a great way to test out the platform in a real-world setting across a decent time period.

My Take on Who Benefits Most From Autoscale by 20i

Although Autoscale can benefit lots of different site types, it’s going to be overkill for some. I’d consider agencies that manage multiple client sites to find the most value, especially with the free migration service. In part, this is down to the ability to handle diverse traffic patterns across numerous sites. The bulk management functionality and other tools help too.

There are a few other areas I’d suggest you want to look at Autoscale:

  • If you’re a high-traffic publisher or e-commerce store, the automatic scaling and global CDN will ensure business-critical performance at peak times. Fast page loads will always help to improve conversion rates, while scaling will handle traffic spikes during sales events.
  • Developer projects and SaaS startups will be able to grow without worrying about hosting limitations. The pay-as-you-scale model and transparent overage pricing is great to plan ahead and doesn’t deliver a future surprise bill.

Ultimately, Autoscale by 20i centers around ensuring you can keep uptime and performance high during growth phases. If you believe your business can benefit from this increase in service availability, the host might be perfect!

Autoscale by 20i Review: A Practical Walkthrough

The Autoscale setup process isn’t complex: you can have your site running within minutes. Here’s how the experience unfolds, although I’m not looking at domain purchasing or migrating a site.

The Autoscale by 20i documentation is excellent for finding out everything relating to the platform. My suggestion is to give it a read if you have a nagging question.

Creating Your First Hosting Package

After signing up for an Autoscale account, you’ll come to the My20i dashboard. There are a lot of options here to build a new cloud server and work with WordPress. However, click on the Add Package link under Manage Hosting:

The Manage Hosting option on the 20i dashboard.

The interface on the next screen walks you through creating a package: clicking the Add Your First Website button starts the wizard:

The Add Your First Website button within Autoscale.

The wizard is mainly one screen, which is a super-quick way to build a new hosting package and site:

Adding a new site into Autoscale by 20i.

There are three key choices to make here:

  • You can choose from an existing domain or type one into the text field. Regardless, this is where you register a new domain, transfer one from another provider, or search for names.
  • Next, choose a server location. While the global CDN will handle international visitors, your origin server location still has an impact on dynamic content delivery.
  • Finally, choose your site profile. WordPress profiles include the WordPress Manager Suite with staging, cloning, and optimization tools.

Note that PHP profiles will support any framework or Content Management System (CMS), which is flexible if you need it for custom applications. Regardless, once you click the Add new website button, Autoscale will get to work and complete the setup process.

A success message after setting up Autoscale hosting.

For me, this was maybe two minutes of work!

Managing Sites and Scaling

At this point, you can navigate the dashboard. There’s one aspect that saves even more time: if you click the tabs in the side panel, you can access the tools and pages from a list rather than scrolling:

A sidebar of Autoscale options.

While the platform autoscales, you still get control over optimization and management. The WordPress Tools let you perform bulk operations across multiple sites, which includes updates, backups, and security scans.

What Real Users Say About Autoscale

Hosting is nothing without its users. Poor quality environments will see low reviews and ratings. This is where I turn to Trustpilot and G2 to gauge the real-world user experience of Autoscale. There are two common threads. First, users are with the host for the long term:

…I’ve been with 20i for many years, and I can confidently say their infrastructure is the best in the industry…

— Emr Vargas

This is a good sign. After all, users wouldn’t stick around if the general service was terrible. Also, the customer support seems to be exemplary:

Amazing support from 20i. 20i are always responsive, helpful and knowledgeable. Nothing is ever too much for them. Very impressed.

— karen stiell

There are also plaudits for the usability and interfaces:

…I manage multiple websites with 20i and use their panel daily for development work. Their tools are far beyond what other providers offer…

— Brian C.

In fact, most other users seem to agree. On Trustpilot, 20i has a 4.8 rating out of five. On G2, it’s a full five out of five stars. I’d encourage you to read one- and two-star reviews also, because they can reveal aspects you may also come into contact with. However, it’s going to be hard to find poor reviews for 20i given the thousands of positive ones.

The Bottom Line: Is Autoscale Worth Your Investment?

All in all, Autoscale by 20i represents a top choice if you’re outgrowing basic hosting but don’t require the premium pricing of top-tier managed hosts. The focus on performance, reliability, and user experience creates an environment that can help you get to work rather than micro-managing your sites.

Does my Autoscale by 20i review give you food for thought regarding your own hosting provision? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below!