A lot of people ask me about WordPress hosting, but this post it not about that.  I was given two t-shirts from WordPress hosting companies at SXSW this year.  I intend to compare these two freebies in a highly scientific shoot-out full of truthiness*.

Color

WP Engine uses one color, but on two sides (2 screens).  Pagely’s design is one-sided, but three colors (3 screens). More screens = more caring: Pagely +1

Distribution

Pagely sent a box of shirts to my office after bumping into Josh at an event.  WP-Engine’s shirts were in one of several piles (not as cool) on a stage (kind of cool).  Pagely +1

Tag

Pagely’s tee had a thoughtful tag printed up that instructs the user to take a photo in the tee and add it to their Flickr pool.  WP-Engine had no custom-printed tag. Pagely +1

Sizes

WP Engine had a full array of sizes available for the taking.  I’m talking, small, large, XL and even the difficult to find ‘medium’.  Pagely only sent L, and XL.  Point: WP-Engine

Blanks

WP engine used a nice Fruit of the Loom Beefy Tee (100% cotton), which is a nice blank.  Pagely went for the American Apparel 50/50 which is very soft and the cut of American Apparel fits me much better (if it were in my size). For the higher-quality blank: Pagely +1

Conclusions

So, there you have it.  The free Pagely shirt is exactly four times better than the free WP-Engine shirt.  There may be something you could read into this about how their model of distribution could reflect properties of their datacenters.  Or, perhaps the lack of smaller sizes indicates one service has more smaller clients.  Those topics will have to be covered in an entirely different post that is not about tee shirts.

* Full Disclosure

I have some sites with Pagely and have actually used their product.  Additionally, I am a Texan and WP Engine is also in Texas.