A Comprehensive SiteGround Review

SiteGround is known to be a fierce competitor in the web hosting industry. It is one of the best service providers for all web hosting solutions currently present in the market. We have compiled this detailed review to test out these claims about SiteGround.

To reach a verdict about whether or not SiteGround is the right choice for you, we conducted thorough research. We checked out all the features that SiteGround offers and even got in touch with their customer support. Our findings have been neatly compiled in this review. We are sure that this review will answer all the questions you have and help you make an informed decision.

Before moving towards the finer details, it would be wise to inform you that SiteGround houses excellent security and core hosting features. They remain unbeaten when it comes to speed and performance as well. Although SiteGround charges more for its services than most web hosting services, it is still a small price to pay if these features are essential for you.

One of the most important things to keep in mind while setting up a website is to select a reliable web hosting service. A good website, be it business-related or otherwise, needs to have consistent backend service. This is to ensure that your customers do not face technical problems while browsing through your site. Technical glitches and sites shutting down randomly never seem reliable to people. In such scenarios, you tend to lose money rather than make any.

Founded in 2004, SiteGround has its headquarters located in Sofia, Bulgaria. They provide a wide range of web hosting services such as :

SiteGround is an official WordPress.org partner, making it one of the best hosting services to start and maintain a WordPress blog. All of their shared hosting plans come with free SSD drives. Every customer gets a free SSL certificate along with Cloudflare CDN. SiteGround’s superior speed comes from their servers powered by Google Cloud, Ultrafast PHP, HTTP/2, and NGINX+caching. To top it all off, they honor their 30-day money-back guarantee.

Overall, SiteGround shapes your interaction with the internet majorly. Through its interface and services, you get a different outlook into online business and blogging.

With the basic overview in mind, let us start inspecting features that help SiteGround retain its spot as one of the best web hosting companies. Four features give SiteGround the edge that they enjoy: server speed, security, customer support, and dedicated WordPress hosting.  These allow SiteGround to get glowing recommendations from customers and top sites such as Joomla, WordPress, and Drupal.

Without further ado, let us begin.

If you want your website to be user-friendly, speed is one thing you cannot compromise. Even if your interface were very interactive, it would not make any positive impact if visitors keep on waiting for long periods. SiteGround is known to provide faster loading speed for its customer’s websites. User reviews have confirmed this claim. Customers have noticed how their websites started loading faster the minute they made the switch to SiteGround.

Let us be honest, if your site takes time to load, the chances are that they will not rise to the top in their respective category/niche. While this might seem like a whimsical statement to make, various studies have found that even a delay of one second while loading a webpage on a mobile device leads to conversion rates being heavily impacted. If you are baffled by this figure, take some time to think about how long you yourself wait for a page to open on a browser before giving up on it. Even if you were to be patient individually, that is not the overwhelming quality found in most people surfing the internet. Three seconds and people are already searching for something else that is faster. People moving away from your page due to delay on the part of your servers heavily dampens the traffic flow of your page.

SiteGround prioritizes speed over everything else. Their team of expert developers continuously works to improve the time taken for a site to load. SiteGround relies on heavy technology to ensure that you do not lose out on customers due to speed. Take a look at them:

These are the necessary checks in place so that you, the customer, never have complaints regarding speed. SiteGround does not stop at this juncture; they conduct regular reviews to provide updates ensuring that no program is outdated. They want to make sure that you do not have to face problems because of a lack of effort or complacency.

Running a website on the internet comes with its own set of threats. You and your website are both prone to getting hacked. There are multiple security breaches happening every day on the internet. From individuals and corporations to government organizations, anyone can be hacked. The danger here is the misappropriation of the data. This means that not only you but even the customers and visitors of your sites are under constant threat.

SiteGround ensures that customers have access to the most reliable and up-to-date security features. While they do not absolve you of your own responsibilities, these will make life easier for you. Take a look:

SiteGround is very efficient with routine malware and virus scans on all websites that are on their servers. The results of these routine tests are compiled and sent to the respective owners. If you choose to sign up with SiteGround, you will have a comprehensive idea of your website’s security conditions.

The year 2019 yielded great results for SiteGround’s security services. They responded well to threats. Here is a small overview:

SiteGround stands tall on its claim of providing quality security services towards client websites. You will not be disappointed by the kind of vigilance and support they provide in matters related to website security.

Any company that solely functions on providing services for paying customers cannot shy away from strengthening their customer support team. Similarly, for a hosting service, simply relying on top-of-the-line technology and great security features will not suffice. If customers cannot make good use of these lucrative adages, then there is no point. Which is why they too need to invest in fortifying customer relations and support.

SiteGround has one of the best customer support services in the web hosting industry. Assisting their customers is a top priority for them. One look at their customer base will allay all concerns about the quality of service provided. With a response time of 8 minutes, SiteGround leaves all competition behind in this particular area.

There are three major ways to access help –

Before using these solutions, you could also try out –

Timely responses are not an issue with SiteGround. You can depend on them for providing quick and crisp responses to all your queries. Do not worry, the same benefits can be passed on to the users of your site as well. Overall, you can be assured that SiteGround will help you as quickly as possible so that there is no loss of business on your end.

WordPress is the best Content Management Site in the world. Currently, they are responsible for more than half of the content available on the internet. It is a known fact that nearly all the top content available is created on and powered by WordPress.

All hosting plans offered by SiteGround include managed WordPress hosting as well. Take a look at the features that come along with this –

Take a look at some of SiteGround’s top of the line WordPress-related features:

The SuperCacher plug-in included with your SiteGround subscription will help you to increase the number of hits for your website. You will have a site that loads faster even when you see overwhelming site traffic. While selecting a plan, remember that Startup is equipped with static caching whereas GrowBig and GoGeek are equipped with static, dynamism and Memcached caching.

It is important to note that while SiteGround chooses to make WordPress its primary focus due to the dominating presence, they are also suitable for Joomla and Drupal. Both Joomla and Drupal are famous Content Management Systems. While the features listed above have been tagged under WordPress, they are still favourites for other synonymous services as well.

Individuals and companies want fast loading sites, quality uptime, top class security, and brilliant customer services.

We have covered the main features that SiteGround provides to its web hosting clients in the last section. Let us now take a look at what they have to offer in terms of real life service and experience. We want you to read this section carefully, because it will give you an honest opinion about the company from a user’s perspective.

Do not be surprised when you see that the pros for SiteGround are more in number than their cons. This is bound to happen when a company is dedicated to provide excellent service to their customers. Let us take a look at both sides of the coin.

Here is a detailed list of pros –

Uptime percentages are an important factor to judge web hosting companies. This method of judgement is applicable for newcomers and experienced players alike. The uptime percentage of any hosting company will clearly indicate the average time for which you can expect your website to be unavailable.

No hosting service in the world can guarantee a 100% uptime. If anyone wishes to tell you otherwise, it would be prudent to take their word with a pinch of salt. It is impossible to provide zero downtime because hosting a website on the internet includes too many variables spread across the world.

SiteGround guarantees a solid 99.996% uptime overall. With the help of advanced monitoring software, they are able to quickly pinpoint issues and work on them. A team of software engineers are always ready to make a move whenever there are technical difficulties.

A 99.99% uptime essentially means that there is a possibility of your website being down for around 4 hours in the span of 6 months. Their monthly average uptime is around 99.99%. We have to admit that these are impressive figures.

The reasons that allow SiteGround to provide such uptime are –

If you are a SiteGround customer, you will rarely have to worry about your website not being available

You remember how we told you that most of us barely give any time for a website to load? Three seconds is not a lot of time. To deliver this experience on your website, your hosting partner needs to be capable. We checked a lot of sites hosted on the SiteGround servers to test this capacity. We found out that such sites have an average load time of around 1.3 seconds.That is even higher than the basic metric of 3 seconds.  This speaks volumes about the company’s capacity and dedication to provide solid quality hosting to its customers.

Server response time is a metric to calculate the amount of time required for a server to deliver and present all the elements that make your website to that of the user’s browser. SiteGround does an excellent job in this area. They provide super fast server response times.

Over a period of six months, SiteGround server load time averages around 190 milliseconds. It can deliver both static and dynamic data from your website to your user’s computer instantly. It does not matter where your data is currently located.

This alleviates user experience by a mile. SiteGround thus fares pretty well against its competitors simply because it delivers on the promise of catering quality service to the user. When users have to deal with the least amount of hassle while exploring a website, not only do they come back regularly, but they also get new people to try the site out. Using SiteGround to cater to your users is a brilliant idea.

It is SiteGround’s prudent planning that allows its servers to be this fast. SiteGround clients have access to numerous data centers, strategically located across different locations in the world. On signing up with SiteGround you get to choose a server location according to your preference.

Focus towards server locations is important because even with technological advancements, the geographical distance between the user and server may impact the time taken for a website to load. SiteGround has data centers in:

Websites are nothing but data. Everything that you have to showcase and sell, at least on your site, is present in the form of data. Information of and about those who visit your site is also data. So, if you do not backup the data on your website, you are putting yourself, your site, as well as your visitor’s personal information at risk. Your choice to not back up data endangers both dynamic and static data. You should know that damage caused will be irreplaceable.

SiteGround ensures that your site has access to a backup system in place. It will regularly ensure that your information is secure in the event of a mishap. In case your own backup has not been successful due to technical discrepancies, you have SiteGround backup to remove your worries.

Daily backups are performed on all client websites. The moment your own backup fails, you can easily get in touch with the customer service and get your data back within minutes. For the StartUp plan, SiteGround offers one free backup per day, and backup and  restoration services along with 30 backups when you are on the GrowBig or GoGeek Plans.

Think of backups like insurance for your websites. Errors made by users, hackings efforts, lost files, and erroneous updates are problems that can be solved in an instant with the backup restore facility.

All of this can be done easily via the 1-click backup restore tool present in your cPanel.

If you are purchasing something from a vendor or a company, it is important to have all the details about the product as well as the company itself. This becomes top priority when your relationship with the company is to be a long standing one. You entrust your personal data and content with the hosting company of your choice. Which is why you must have complete knowledge about the functioning of the company.

SiteGround can boast of a great record when it comes to being transparent. Their web page displays both the monthly uptime percentage as well as the yearly uptime percentage for the benefit of the customers.

SiteGround provides IP addresses for all the data centers they use, free of cost. Once you have the IP addresses, you can manually test the loading speed of your site in all the data centers. You can choose the data center of your choice to provide a seamless experience for your users.There are no hidden prices included in any of the SiteGround plans. You get exactly what you pay for.

One quick look at the top hosting companies currently in the market will be enough to tell you that the industry centres itself around the United States of America. This often becomes a roadblock for those who live in other countries. SiteGround is based out of Bulgaria. Adopting a global outlook is what makes SiteGround highly accessible to companies and individuals all around the world.

They accept multiple currencies, some of them are:

SiteGround offers country-specific domain names. This is a desirable feature for local companies so that they can paint their website in a very familiar light to their customers. For example, SiteGround has a spanish language page for their spanish customers. They also have multiple toll-free numbers for customer care located in different parts of the world. However, SiteGround is not offering a free domain name on signing up anymore.

Your website on SiteGround will be protected by state-of-the-art security features and tools. Like we discussed earlier, you do not have to worry about your website’s security with SiteGround.

Apart from the built-in security features we have discussed, there are a lot of other services and tools you can make good use of. These will provide additional security for your website as well as your users. Take a look at them –

SiteGround is very serious about maintaining their security standards. They make it a point to keep up with new and updated systems security software.If your website houses an e-commerce store, or depends on collecting information from users with consent, this outlook towards security will be of major help.

For those who have been dabbling with websites for some time, custom support is not exactly the top priority. For everyone else, it is one of the things that tops the list of priorities. Without good customer support there is very little chance that newcomers can excel in the website development game.

SiteGround definitely has one of the best customer supports in the market. You can easily get in touch with them via their chat support and over the telephone 24/7. Waiting time is minimal and you will be notified about the number of people ahead of you, waiting for their problems to be solved. You can also raise a support ticket on the SiteGround Website. Your problem will be efficiently handled.

SiteGround manages to take care of problems quickly because of their service representatives. They have a group of dedicated individuals who work tirelessly, around the clock, so that issues are resolved at lightning speed. These service representatives are extremely helpful and patient. They are the perfect group to work with especially when you are starting out in the internet business game.

One of the major problems you might face while switching web hosts is that of migrating your website.SiteGround has a perfect solution to your migration problems. They offer a free WordPress site migration service. However, if you do not run your site on WordPress, and want to migrate more than 1 website, you can avail SiteGround’s services for $30 to have the site transferred. In this scenario, the money that you are paying is for professionals to migrate your site without any data loss. SiteGround offers these services for all Content Management Systems such as Drupal and Joomla. They are also applicable for static HTML websites and single websites as well.

The transfer service is inclusive of transferring one website of any size along with transferring unlimited email accounts you might have, FTP accounts, and add-on domains for all accounts managed via the cPanel control panel.

To make use of this process you will have to fill a website migration form. They will get back to you promptly. Your WordPress site will be transferred to your SiteGround account within 24 to 48 hours. Now, that is some impressive speed.

You can also make good use of the SiteGround Migrator plugin. This will help you transfer your WordPress website from another hosting service to Siteground seamlessly. Install the SiteGround Migrator plugin on your WordPress website. Select the migration option on the plug in. Input a destination domain as well as a destination folder. After this, the SiteGround Migrator plugin will complete the entire process on its own.

SiteGround offers a free subscription of CloudFlare CDN with all their plans. You can simply activate it in a click from the cPanel. WordPress, the leading name in CMS, recommends the use of CloudFlare CDN for optimizing the speed of your website. This is so that users can have a great experience on your sites.

Once you activate your CloudFlare subscription, the CDN will move to cache the content on your website. It will then distribute it to multiple data centers located all across the world. Simply move to the settings tab, under the cache management option, set CloudFlare caching level to aggressive. Now under the section marked as speed, switch Javascript, CSS, and HTML on, in Auto Minify(speed optimization). Turn the Railgun option on under the same option. This will speed up the connection between CloudFlare and the hosting server. Your site will become extremely fast and do wonders for your load time. Your users will be able to access your site efficiently.

While the pros for SiteGround are plenty, it is equally important to be aware of the cons as well. In order to make the correct decision for yourself, consider these downsides carefully.

One of the major drawbacks of SiteGround is their limited storage capacity. This means that the amount of data you can keep on your site is pretty average. The rationale used by SiteGround here is that there should be no compromise on the speed of the websites they host. Load times are directly proportional to the amount of data being stored on SiteGround’s shared hosting servers.

This might be a major problem for those who have image and video heavy websites.
The minimum storage capacity provided by SiteGround is 10 GB and the maximum they provide is 40 GB. These ranges are great to host text-based sites.

You have to make a good guess about the requirements for your website. Calculate the amount of storage you will need for your site to function. After you have an estimate in mind, see which plan suits your data and storage limits. They have three plans to offer –

SiteGround has a monthly allowance of ‘CPU seconds per account’ limit set. This restricts the amount of resources that your site is free to use every month. If you go over the given limit regularly, SiteGround has the wherewithal to place your website on hold till the time your monthly allowance is restored. This can become a formidable roadblock to overcome.

Take a look at their monthly resource limits –

Even with the GoGeek plan, there is a possibility that your account might be frozen even below 100,000 site visits. If you think your website will attract over 3000 visitors per day, it is entirely probable that the GoGeek plan might not be suitable for the kind of vision you might have.

If you see your website getting more than 3000 visitors per day, it is advisable that you do not opt for shared hosting at all. Any cloud hosting plan, or even a VPS plan would be a perfect fit considering that they offer more resources and data limits as well.

SiteGround has three different hosting plans for customers to choose from. Take a look at the major details of the plan –

StartUp Plan
Main Features: ●     You can host 1 website only ●     You  have a limit of 10,000 monthly site visits ●     You are allotted 10 GB of disk space	Essential Features: ●     SSD storage ●     Completely free site setup & site transfer ●     Robust 30 day money back guarantee ●     A99.9 percent uptime guarantee ●     Round the clock technical support ●     Unlimited bandwidth, email accounts, and databases ●     Free SSL & HTTP/2 ●     Free daily backups ●     Free CloudFlare CDN ●     SuperCacher static caching only PHP7 + OpCache ●     WordPress & Joomla tools cPanel & SSH access

This is a great plan for those who are entering the website hosting game. Remember that you can host only one website in this plan. The Startup plan will provide you with all the features necessary for the smooth functioning of a website.

The SiteGround GrowBig plan packs premium features along with the essential ones that have already been listed in the StartUp plan. This plan provides you with premium WordPress caching, regular backups, and premium backup and one click restore services. The GrowBig plan also offers a free one year subscription of Wildcard SSL certificate.

GrowBig Plan

Main Features: ●     You can host unlimited websites on this plan. ●     You have a limit of 25,000 monthly site visits ●     You are allotted 20 GB of disk space

Premium Features – ●     SuperCacher dynamic & memcached caching ●     30 daily backups ●     Priority customer support ●     SSD storage ●     Free 1 year Wildcard SSL certificate ●     Free Backup & restoration service ●     Get 2x server resources ●     Get 2x database resources ●     Get 2x email resources ————————————– Additional Features – On Demand Backup copies Speed-boosting Caching Staging Ability to add Collaborators

If you have a clear vision about the kind of business you want to conduct, the GrowBig plan would be suitable for you. With this plan you can host multiple websites and get two times the resources offered by the StartUp plan.

The SiteGround GoGeek plan combines all the benefits of the StartUp and GrowBig plans, while adding more features to the mix. You get easy WordPress Staging, Completely free PCI compliance,  along with 4 times the resources offered in the StartUp plan.

GoGeek Plan

Main Features: ●     You can host unlimited websites on this plan ●     The site visit limit is capped at 100,000 per month ●     You have access to 40 GB of disk space

Premium Features: ●     SuperCacher dynamic & memcached caching ●     1-click WordPress staging ●     SG-Git for repository creation ●     Pre-Installed Git ●     Free PCI compliance ●     Premium backup & restoration service ●     4x server resources ●     4x database resources ●     4x email resources ——————————————— On-demand Backup Copies Speed Boosting Caching Free Staging+Git Ability to add and manage collaborators Cater to White-Label Clients Highest Tier of Resources available Top Priority Support

This is a plan for those who already have a sizable amount following and can garner a lot of traffic. The GoGeek plan is best suited for those websites that see a lot of traffic and are inherently resource intensive.

While purchasing a hosting plan from SiteGround, there are a couple of major things to consider. Take a definitive call on your budget, make sure that you have a rough plan in mind, and keep a rough estimate of the kind of traffic your site might see.

The StartUp plan allows you to host only 1 website. Both the GrowBig and GoGeek plans allow you to host unlimited websites with them. As you could have guessed, GrowBig and GoGeek are plans that offer more server resources leading to websites loading quickly. There is priority support available for both these plans, as well as multiple daily backup options.

While the GrowBig plan offers 2 times more resources than the StartUp plan, the GoGeek plan claims to multiply server resources by 4. The GoGeek plan has premium website backup facilities and great restore services. It is also PCI compliant.

Let us take a look at the main differences between StartUp, GrowBig, and GoGeek plans that SiteGround has to offer.

We have prepared two comparisons to help you decide. The first comparison is between StartUp and GrowBig, and the second one is between GrowBig and GoGeek.  .

‘All SiteGround plans sport comfortable prices; resources are proportionate to the plan of your choice.

SiteGround’s Startup plan is the cheapest available. The entry-level plan is packed with features that are great for those who are entering the internet scene. If you are looking to host a single website, be it for blogging or are looking to start a small online business, this is the one to choose. Due to its low pricing, features and resources are limited. However, these will be enough to help you reach minimal goals.

The SiteGround GrowBig plan is geared towards business owners who want to have a solid internet presence. This plan is also suitable for bloggers who use WordPress to manage their blogs. If you sign up for this plan, you get access to double server resources and a plethora of advanced features in comparison to the SiteGround StartUp plan.

With the GrowBig plan, you are not restricted to hosting a single website. You are free to host multiple websites on this plan. You can use the Supercacher static, dynamic, and memcached caching technology. The GrowBig plan will provide you with a free wildcraft SSL certificate for one year.

A few differences between StartUp and GrowBig are stark. On one hand, StartUp allows you to host only one website. Whereas, on the other, Growbig lets you host as many as you want. If it is your intention to create a larger network, make sure that you select the GrowBig plan for subscriptions. .

Although in the StartUp plan SiteGround backs up your website’s data, it has no particular provision for restoring it back to you. The GrowBig plan has basic backup and restore settings. You get to have more backup files to access. This means that there is a larger scope for experimenting with updates.

With the StartUp plan, you can only expect the standard SiteGround support, which is still pretty good.The GrowBig plan on the other hand sports a premium support for its users. You can expect to have a wholesome experience with the support team. Their friendly nature and quick solution fixes will help you sail through your website hosting problems.

Here are a list of things that you should consider if you are hoping to choose the SiteGround GrowBig plan:

The GoGeek plan offers more server resources than the GrowBig plan. Due to its comparatively steep price, here are less users to share the resources with this plan. With the GoGeek plan, your users get to enjoy very fast website loading speeds. This is the initial difference that sets the both of them apart.

SiteGround markets the GoGeek plan as geeky. It packs a lot of technical features that are of great use if you like tinkering around with your website.Take their site staging feature for an example. With this feature, you can copy your live site to test new codes, designs, and updates separately. If you think the changes are suitable, you can instantly transfer them to your live site as well. GoGeek also comes with pre-installed Git, which allows you to create repositories of your website.

SiteGround’s GoGeek plan comes with the premium backup and restore services along with free PCI compliance. All of these features come together to create a secure environment for your website online.

Take a look at the list of things that should be considered if you are going for the SiteGround GrowGeek plan:

Now that you have a detailed idea about what SiteGround web hosting plans have to offer, you are at a better place to make the call. This will obviously require you to have a clear vision about what you want to create. It is important to point out that you can upgrade to a higher plan whenever you want to.

Our recommendation for you in terms of which plan to pick:

Let us answer a few questions that frequently plague the minds of new customers when trying to look for subscriptions.

     1.  Does SiteGround have a money-back guarantee?

There is a 30-day money-back guarantee offered by SiteGround. You are free to cancel your subscription within the first 30 days and can expect a full refund. There are a couple of premium services that will obviously not warrant a return. Charges for domain name registration and cloud hosting are two such features where SiteGround does not offer refund.

    2. Can I get free website migration services with SiteGround?

SiteGround offers free website migration for WordPress users, provided that they use SiteGround’s Migrator Plugin.If you require professional help, or want to migrate a website hosted elsewhere, you will have to pay a fee of $30. All you have to do is submit a site migration request with customer support. You can expect a quick response and problem solution from their support team.

    3. What  are the payment methods supported by SiteGround?

You can use your credit cards to pay at SiteGround. They support both Visa and MasterCard.  You can also choose to make your payments via PayPal. One of the great things about SiteGround’s payment scheme is that you can make payments in advance. Either make monthly payments or pay upto three years in advance.

SiteGround is a service that we definitely recommend. It stands out from the crowd due to its premium features, great website speed, and complete transparency about operations. Their customer support is top-of-the line with sporting great communication skills and problem solving abilities.