{
    "title": "Managed hosting",
    "seo_title": "Managed hosting: definition, contract and WordPress",
    "h1": "Managed hosting",
    "description": "Managed hosting: what the provider takes care of, what stays your job, the contract clauses to check and what it brings to a WordPress site.",
    "lead": "Managed hosting means entrusting all or part of the management of an IT system to an outside provider: server administration, updates, monitoring, backups or security. For a website, it mostly refers to a server or hosting plan whose technical operation is handled by the host or a specialized company.",
    "language": "en",
    "locale": "en-US",
    "type": "definition",
    "url": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/managed-hosting/",
    "canonical": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/managed-hosting/",
    "markdown": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/managed-hosting/index.md",
    "json": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/managed-hosting/index.json",
    "published": "2026-10-28T08:00:00+00:00",
    "modified": "2026-10-28T20:06:37+00:00",
    "site": {
        "name": "WP Masquerade",
        "url": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/"
    },
    "translations": [
        {
            "language": "en",
            "hreflang": "en-US",
            "title": "Managed hosting",
            "url": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/managed-hosting/",
            "markdown": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/managed-hosting/index.md",
            "json": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/managed-hosting/index.json"
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        {
            "language": "fr",
            "hreflang": "fr-FR",
            "title": "Infogérance",
            "url": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/fr/definitions/infogerance/",
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            "json": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/fr/definitions/infogerance/index.json"
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        {
            "language": "es",
            "hreflang": "es-ES",
            "title": "Hosting gestionado",
            "url": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/es/glosario/hosting-gestionado/",
            "markdown": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/es/glosario/hosting-gestionado/index.md",
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            "title": "Managed Hosting",
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            "markdown": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/de/glossar/managed-hosting/index.md",
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            "title": "Hosting gestito",
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        {
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            "hreflang": "pt-BR",
            "title": "Hospedagem gerenciada",
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    "headings": [
        {
            "level": 1,
            "text": "Managed hosting"
        },
        {
            "level": 2,
            "text": "What managed hosting covers"
        },
        {
            "level": 2,
            "text": "The risks identified by ANSSI"
        },
        {
            "level": 2,
            "text": "Contract clauses to check"
        },
        {
            "level": 2,
            "text": "For WordPress"
        },
        {
            "level": 2,
            "text": "Common mistakes"
        }
    ],
    "body": "Managed hosting is a form of IT outsourcing, often called managed services. ANSSI, the French national cybersecurity agency, which published a guide on the subject back in 2010, describes companies and public bodies choosing to hand all or part of an IT activity over to a third party. In web hosting, you mostly come across two forms: the managed server, where the host administers the machine you rent, and a managed services contract with a company that runs your servers, wherever they are.\n\n## What managed hosting covers\n\n![Three-column comparison. What the managed services provider handles: operating system and server software, monitoring and alerts, server backups, response to outages. What remains your job: WordPress, themes and plugins, accounts and passwords, content and data. What the contract must specify: exact scope, response times and availability, security and access, reversibility and return of data.](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/media/2026/10/partage-infogerance-en.webp)\n\n*Managed hosting is judged by the line drawn between the provider and you, spelled out in black and white in the contract.*\n\nThe scope depends entirely on the contract. A common baseline includes installing and updating the operating system and server software (web server, PHP, database), uptime monitoring with on-call staff, backups, firewall management and incident response. Some plans add performance tuning, certificate management or updates to the application itself.\n\nOn a [VPS](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/vps/) or a [dedicated server](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/dedicated-server/), managed hosting makes up for the main drawback of these options: the administration that falls on you. An unmanaged server can, for example, apply security patches on its own (Ubuntu's unattended-upgrades package does it every day), but nobody is watching the disks, the logs or memory exhaustion.\n\n## The risks identified by ANSSI\n\nANSSI groups the risks of outsourcing into three areas: loss of control over the information system, remote interventions and shared hosting. In practical terms, the provider holds powerful access to your servers; you need to know who connects, from where and how. The guide recommends relying on a security assurance plan, which sets out the provider's commitments.\n\n## Contract clauses to check\n\n- **Scope**: the operating system only, or WordPress and its plugins too?\n- **Availability and response times**: quantified commitments, on-call hours, penalties; see [uptime and SLAs](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/uptime-sla/).\n- **Backups**: frequency, retention period, storage location, restore tests. A [3-2-1 backup](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/3-2-1-backup-rule/) requires at least one copy outside the provider.\n- **Personal data**: when the site handles data of people in the EU, the provider is a processor under Article 28 of the GDPR. The contract must require it to act only on your instructions, to protect the data and to delete or return it at the end of the contract. Our article on GDPR and WordPress security covers these obligations in detail.\n- **Reversibility**: how you get your data, configurations and access back if you switch providers.\n\n## For WordPress\n\nA managed server doesn't secure WordPress for you, unless the contract says so explicitly. The provider maintains PHP and the operating system, but a vulnerable plugin, a weak password or a forgotten administrator account are still your problem. Ask who applies WordPress updates, who receives security alerts and who steps in after a hack: the [procedure for cleaning up a hacked site](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/clean-hacked-wordpress-site/) requires clear coordination between you and the provider.\n\n## Common mistakes\n\nAssuming everything is included, never testing a restore, or sharing a single administrator account with the provider instead of named accounts that can be revoked. Finally, cheap managed hosting that stops at restarting services is no substitute for real operations work.\n\n## Related terms\n\n- [Dedicated server](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/dedicated-server/)\n- [VPS (virtual private server)](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/vps/)\n- [Uptime and SLA](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/uptime-sla/)\n- [3-2-1 backup rule](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/3-2-1-backup-rule/)\n- [Cloud hosting](https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/cloud-hosting/)\n\n\n## Sources\n\n- [NCSC: Choosing a cloud provider](https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/cloud/choosing-a-cloud-provider)\n- [ICO: Contracts and liabilities between controllers and processors](https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/accountability-and-governance/contracts-and-liabilities-between-controllers-and-processors-multi/)\n- [Ubuntu Server documentation: Automatic updates](https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/how-to/software/automatic-updates/)",
    "definition": "Managed hosting means entrusting all or part of the management of an IT system to an outside provider: server administration, updates, monitoring, backups or security. For a website, it mostly refers to a server or hosting plan whose technical operation is handled by the host or a specialized company.",
    "group": "Web hosting",
    "aka": [
        "managed services",
        "managed server",
        "managed VPS",
        "IT outsourcing",
        "infogérance"
    ],
    "related": [
        {
            "title": "Dedicated server",
            "url": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/dedicated-server/",
            "markdown": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/dedicated-server/index.md"
        },
        {
            "title": "VPS (virtual private server)",
            "url": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/vps/",
            "markdown": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/vps/index.md"
        },
        {
            "title": "Uptime and SLA",
            "url": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/uptime-sla/",
            "markdown": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/uptime-sla/index.md"
        },
        {
            "title": "3-2-1 backup rule",
            "url": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/3-2-1-backup-rule/",
            "markdown": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/3-2-1-backup-rule/index.md"
        },
        {
            "title": "Cloud hosting",
            "url": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/cloud-hosting/",
            "markdown": "https://www.wp-masquerade.com/glossary/cloud-hosting/index.md"
        }
    ],
    "sources": [
        {
            "title": "NCSC: Choosing a cloud provider",
            "url": "https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/cloud/choosing-a-cloud-provider"
        },
        {
            "title": "ICO: Contracts and liabilities between controllers and processors",
            "url": "https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/accountability-and-governance/contracts-and-liabilities-between-controllers-and-processors-multi/"
        },
        {
            "title": "Ubuntu Server documentation: Automatic updates",
            "url": "https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/how-to/software/automatic-updates/"
        }
    ],
    "format": "application/json"
}