Features and Pricing
Pantheon has four main Drupal hosting plans: Personal, Professional, Business, Elite. Unlike most providers, Pantheon charges fees per site due to their use of container-based architecture (more on that later). This could be useful for experienced users who know exactly what resources they need and want to skip out on bloated plans; however, it does make for a narrower scope than the promise of unlimited websites and resources that you typically get from other providers.
3rd Place9.5 out of 10The good news is that Pantheon bundles a great array of services with its hosting program. Not all of these services are available for every plan, though. Here’s a quick overview of their Drupal hosting plans’ pricing and key differences:
| Feature | Personal | Professional | Business | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $25 | $100 | $400 | Custom |
| Storage | 5 GB | 20 GB | 30 GB | 100+ GB |
| HTTPS | No | $30/mo | $30/mo | Yes |
| Application cache | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Site Monitoring | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Multidev Cloud Environments | No | No | Up to 5 | Up to 10 |
| Dev Tools for Teams | No | No | No | Yes |
| Support | Tickets only | Tickets only | Priority tickets, limited phone | Priority tickets, 24/7 phone |
| SLA Coverage | No | No | No | Yes |
Pantheon’s Perks
Pantheon prides itself on having an overall system and platform design that sets them apart from the rest of the Drupal-hosting crowd. Many aspects of Pantheon are optimized for top Drupal and WordPress site performance, and that starts with the configuration of their system itself.
Speed and Scale: Container-Based Cloud Architecture
Unlike other providers that offer different discrete server types, Pantheon works using a Linux container system anchored on cloud architecture. This means you don’t have to worry about shared, VPS, or dedicated server hosting: rather than having you choose between distinct types of boats, Pantheon gives all its users the same container ship, with a number of loaded containers determined by how many resources each user needs. This means Pantheon delivers lightning-fast performance for everyone across the board, and it frees you from worries like upgrading RAM or using SSDs to maximize site speed. The only difference between users is how many site visits you ask Pantheon to handle for you.
Add to that Pantheon’s use of high-performance edge caches, plus Redis object caching for higher-priced plans, and you’ve got a system designed to accelerate websites and cut down on loading times.
What’s more, Pantheon’s container-based system gives you tons of flexibility in terms of scaling. Did your website go viral? Are you experiencing a rapid and sustained growth in traffic? Just ask Pantheon to allocate more containers for you. This eliminates the hassle of migration from shared to VPS or dedicated servers, allowing for seamless growth and scaling for your website.
Platform-wide Managed Security
For best performance, Pantheon also keeps your website up-to-date with one-click core Drupal updates. This also shields you from any security vulnerabilities of older versions.
Aside from automatic core updates, Pantheon also employs an array of system-wide security measures that guarantee an airtight account and website for you. With all plans, you get industry-leading DDoS Protection through the ISO-certified Rackspace and CloudFlare. On top of Rackspace’s own network protocols, Pantheon also adds antivirus protection and a x.509-based public key infrastructure to protect you from network intrusions. Pingdom monitors all of Pantheon’s websites, so you have up-to-the-minute aggregated reports on current and historical uptime.
All plans enjoy end-to-end site traffic encryption, plus encrypted end-point connections for any cloud-based dev environments they use. Elite plans get additional development team security features, like SAML/Okta/OneLogin two-factor authentication and role-based permissions.
Automated DevOps
Pantheon takes the drudgery out of owning a website. For every plan, typical maintenance tasks like configuration, monitoring, and deployment are automated. You’ll also get automatic daily and weekly site backups; depending on your plan, Pantheon might include automatic site monitoring as well.
Speaking of monitoring, all of Pantheon’s plans also include a New Relic APM Pro plan. This puts the power of advanced analytics at your fingertips, letting you drill down and track site performance down to code-level.
The Elite Advantage
The Elite plan is Pantheon’s flagship Drupal hosting package. Naturally, it comes with some great additional features beyond the standard bundles. For one thing, your application memory limit goes up to 1 GB, and you’ll get free SSL certificates and a dedicated IP address. Automated daily and weekly backups are retained for years, so you’ll never have to worry about losing data. Meanwhile, managed scaling using PHP workers gives you smooth execution of multiple simultaneous site requests, and you get better load distribution thanks to a second replica database meant to handle read-only site queries.
Development Tools for Teams
More than those perks, though, the value of Pantheon’s Elite plans lies in its development tools. Pantheon includes a host of features that make it easy to develop collaboratively with multiple teams.
For one thing, you can implement custom upstreams and distributions for one-click installation and updates across multiple sites. Pantheon’s Multidev feature lets you set up separate Git-based cloud development environments. This means you can easily have version-controlled, collaborative development on multiple feature branches. Secure integration features let you link up to other resources or applications, like Slack, for a smoother workflow overall. And to ensure security, you can set varying degrees of access to these tools and environments for trusted users.
Contract Terms
Pantheon’s plans are all billed on monthly cycles, except for Elite plans, which are billed annually. There’s no money-back guarantee, but Pantheon does offer unlimited use of its development features if you register for a free account. In that case, Pantheon will only start billing you once your website goes live.
Customer Support
As noted above, Pantheon’s customer support accessibility is staggered across plans. All plans can open support tickets, but only Business and Elite subscribers get unlimited tickets and priority support. There’s also phone-based support available to Business and Elite users, but only Elite users can count on its availability 24/7/365.
Aside from this, Pantheon also maintains a library of essential guide articles, documentation, and tutorials.
What's the Verdict on Pantheon?
Pantheon Drupal Hosting Review – Conclusion
If you’re an experienced Drupal user looking for blazing-fast performance and a top-notch system, then Pantheon is the provider for you. The company’s use of Linux container-based cloud architecture gives you speed, reliability, and flexibility for your website’s long-term growth. Meanwhile, various tools like a robust development environment give you all the tools you need to craft the best website possible. Limits like restricted SLA coverage and resource caps, plus the comparatively higher prices, are notable drawbacks, but Pantheon gives you unlimited time to judge its services through their free dev accounts. Give them a try today!
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