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SiteGround is one of the most popular and highest rated hosting provider in the WordPress community. They provide unique in-house WordPress speed and security solutions to make your site as fast and secure as possible. They are known for the best 24/7 support in the industry. This is also why we use SiteGround for hosting the WPBeginner website. SiteGround features include automatic upgrades, daily backups built-in WP caching, free CDN, free SSL, one-click staging and GIT version control. They are also one of the few companies offering location specific hosting with 6 data centers in USA, Europe, Asia, and Australia. On top of all this, they have а special 63% discount for WPBeginner readers.

Pros:

  • Fast servers powered by Google Cloud
  • Great customer support
  • Officially Recommended by WordPress
  • 1-click WordPress install
  • Free Domain, SSL, CDN, and Website Backups
  • Easy Staging Tools
  • Free Website Migration

Cons:

  • Slightly more expensive

WPBeginner users get an exclusive 70% off discount and free SSL!

Visit SiteGround

(this discount will be applied automatically)

SiteGround Review from Our Experts

Editorial Note: We earn a commission from partner links on WPBeginner. Commissions do not affect our editors' opinions or evaluations. Learn more about Editorial Process.

Siteground is one of the most recommended WordPress hosting companies. They are known for their top-notch customer support, reliable, and fast hosting plans. Their WordPress optimized hosting includes everything you’ll need to create and grow a successful website or blog. Read our complete SiteGround review to find out if SiteGround is the right host for you.

In this detailed SiteGround review, we’ll put their promises to test. These are the areas we will look into:

  • Performance: Speed is crucial for the success of any website. How fast will your website load with SiteGround?
  • Reliability: Will your website be available 24/7/365 without facing any downtime?
  • Customer Support: Can you count on their customer support?
  • Features: Do they offer all the features and tools you’ll need to build your website?
  • Pricing: How much would it cost you? Are there any SiteGround deals that can save you money?

This is a comprehensive SiteGround review with a detailed analysis of SiteGround’s hosting service. If you don’t want to read the full hosting review, here is the quick scorecard with our verdict right below it.

SiteGround Review Summary
Performance gradeA+
Average load time397 ms
Average response time123 ms
Free domainYes
Free SSLYes
1-click WordPressYes
SupportPhone / Live Chat / Knowledge base
Start with SiteGround

Bottom line: We found SiteGround to be noticeably faster and extremely reliable. Their hosting plans are flexible, and their customer support is one of the best in the industry.

That’s why we’ve chosen to recommend SiteGround as one of the best WordPress hosting companies.

Now let’s dive into our detailed SiteGround review so that you can see how we reached that conclusion and decide for yourself.

About SiteGround

Siteground was founded in 2004, and since then, it has grown into one of the most well-known hosting companies.

SiteGround is a holding of companies registered in the USA, UK, Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Spain, with data centers on three continents. Today, the company has over 500 employees and hosts over 2,000,000 domains.

SiteGround website

Pros and Cons of SiteGround

Each hosting company has its pros and cons. Some advantages can overshadow the disadvantages, but some cons can be a total deal-breaker for your needs.

Before making a decision, you may want to review these SiteGround pros and cons.

Pros

Here are some advantages that make SiteGround one of the top-rated hosting companies in the world.

  • Super fast servers: All SiteGround servers are highly optimized for speed. They use the Google Cloud platform for all new customers, which is one of the fastest platforms on the market.
  • Top Notch Customer Support: Their customer support is amazing, to say the least. They offer 24/7 phone support, live chat, and ticket-based support.
  • Free CDN and SSL They offer an instant setup of Cloudflare’s free CDN and free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt.
  • Multiple Server Locations They have data centers on three continents. You can choose the location you prefer during signup.

Cons

As we mentioned earlier, there are some downsides to every hosting company. The following are some disadvantages of choosing SiteGround as your host.

  • Limited Storage: Their plans come with fixed storage. However, this storage is quite large, and if you are just starting out, you will most likely never need extra storage.
  • Higher fee for monthly billing: The hosting service gets expensive if you choose monthly billing. But if you sign up for a longer billing period, then you’ll get a bigger discount and a lower rate. They offer a 30-day money-back guarantee anyway, so it’s a good idea to choose a longer billing period when you sign up.

SiteGround Performance

While price often plays a significant role when choosing a web host, you cannot compromise on performance.

This is why we decided to run our own tests to thoroughly review SiteGround’s performance.

SiteGround Speed Test Results

Speed is one of the most important performance metrics that you should look for. A faster website offers a good user experience and boosts your SEO at the same time.

In fact, a single-second delay can cause a 7% decrease in conversions, 11% fewer page views, and a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction.

Strangeloop performance case study

We created a WordPress-powered test site on SiteGround and filled it with dummy content for theme development with images.

After that, we used Pingdom’s website speed test tool to run our tests. These were the results we got:

SiteGround speed test results

As you can see, our test site loaded in less than a second (417 ms to be precise) with a performance score of 95.

This is incredible, but this website had almost no traffic, so the Pingdom test alone is insufficient.

To test how SiteGround servers would respond to increased traffic, we used a stress testing tool called K6 by Grafana Labs.

This tool gradually sends up to 50 users to see how the server would respond to increased traffic from multiple connections.

You can see the results in the chart below:

SiteGround stress testing results

The purple line is the number of active virtual users on the site, and the light blue line is the server response time. SiteGround performed consistently throughout the test without any hiccups.

This test shows that if you are looking for a really fast website, then SiteGround can be a perfect choice for you.

One of the reasons why SiteGround performed exceptionally well in these performance tests is because of the recent innovations they’ve added.

Almost all SiteGround servers are now hosted on the Google Cloud Platform. They’ve also added UltraFast PHP and created a custom WordPress plugin for optimization (SG Optimizer), which really puts them in a premium web hosting category.

Typically, websites hosted on shared hosting accounts slow down during top traffic hours. That’s because your site is sharing resources with other websites on that server.

Most shared hosting companies automatically kill the server process if your site is taking too many resources. This causes downtime on your website.

We tested our SiteGround site for the downtime and got 100% uptime result.

SiteGround uptime results

SiteGround Server Response Time

Your website’s content has a huge impact on page load time. For example, if you have high-resolution images on a page, then it will significantly increase the overall page load time.

This means that speed test results may not accurately reflect how fast your hosting server really is.

Instead of analyzing page load time alone, we decided to test the actual server response time as well.

To do this, we used a tool called Bitcatcha. It ignores page content and only tests the response time of the server.

Bitcatcha also gives you average loading speed from different global locations. The speed for each location is measured three separate times, and then the results are averaged.

Take a look at the results in the screenshot below.

SiteGround response time

As you can see, SiteGround is a great choice if your target audience is mostly located in the United States. The server responded in a fraction of a second in the United States.

It responded within less than a second for all locations.

SiteGround also allows you to change your server location and you can choose a data center closer to your target audience for even better response times in that particular region.

SiteGround Hosting Plans and Features

SiteGround offers shared hosting, WordPress hosting, cloud hosting, and dedicated hosting plans. If you are just starting out, then their shared hosting plans would be a perfect fit for your needs. However, your site will eventually grow, and you want to make sure that they have other plans that you can upgrade to.

Let’s check out SiteGround’s hosting plans and their features.

  • Shared hosting: Shared hosting is recommended for new websites, bloggers, small business website,s or a startup online store. It is suitable for low-traffic websites as you will be sharing resources with other websites hosted on the server.
  • WordPress hosting: This plan is WordPress optimized version of their shared hosting plan. It comes with SiteGround’s in-house WordPress optimizations to improve the performance of your website. See SiteGround WordPress hosting.
  • WooCommerce hosting: This plan is a WooCommerce optimized version of their shared hosting plan. It includes SiteGround’s optimizations, which greatly improve the performance of your online store. See SiteGround WooCommerce hosting.
  • Cloud hosting: Cloud hosting plans provide a flexible upgrade to a shared hosting solution. It allows you to use resources of cloud architecture, including multiple cores CPU and bandwidth. It is suitable for growing websites, popular blogs, or businesses. It can also be an upgrade over VPS and traditional dedicated servers. See SiteGround Cloud hosting.

WPBeginner website is hosted on SiteGround’s Enterprise hosting infrastructure which is an enhanced version of their Cloud platform for large sites.

Breakdown of SiteGround’s Shared Hosting Plans

SiteGround’s shared hosting options are the best way to build a new website. Their shared hosting packages are available in three levels to match different budgets.

  • Startup: This plan is limited to hosting one website. It includes 10 GB disk space and is suitable for hosting a website with 10,000 monthly visitors. You’ll also get all essential features like a 1-click WordPress install, free setup, website transfer, daily backups, built-in caching (SuperCacher), free CDN, free SSL, and more.
  • GrowBig: The GrowBig plan lets you host unlimited websites. It comes with 20 GB of disk space and is suitable for hosting websites with 25,000 monthly visits. You’ll get all the features of the Startup plan, plus you’ll get premium features like ultrafast PHP for even faster speed, on-demand backups, an easy staging tool, and the option to add collaborators to your sites.
  • GoGeek: GoGeek plan is suitable for eCommerce websites. It can handle websites having 100,000 monthly visitors. In addition to all GrowBig’s features, you’ll get access to priority support, more server resources, advanced features like one-click git repo creation, and the option to manage white-label clients on your sites.

Each Siteground plan comes with faster disk storage, email accounts, support for the Cloudflare free content delivery network, and Let’s Encrypt free SSL certificate.

They also include several popular WordPress plugins like WPForms, OptinMonster, and All in One SEO to help you improve your website rankings.

SiteGround pricing plans

SiteGround Support and Customer Service

You’ll see high praise for SiteGround’s customer support service everywhere. Their support team is remarkably good at offering quick, helpful, and knowledgeable support to their customers.

Their customer support includes 24/7 phone, live chat, and ticket-based email support. Their phone and live chat response times are almost instant. Email-based tickets get the first response within less than 10 minutes.

For users who prefer to fix things on their own, SiteGround offers an instant AI assistant. Built on top of ChatGPT, this AI is trained to answer SiteGround customer questions.

SiteGround AI support assistant

The helo resource center also includes a massive collection of knowledge base articles.

This includes step-by-step tutorials and troubleshooting guides with screenshots and videos.

SiteGround support

Since we use SiteGround to host several of our websites, we can say with confidence that their support staff is very knowledgeable.

Conclusion: Is SiteGround the Right Choice for You?

After reading our detailed SiteGround review, you might be wondering if SiteGround is the best web hosting company for your website.

If you want a fast and reliable web hosting provider with excellent customer support, then SiteGround is perfect for you. They have hosting plans for every budget, and each plan comes with a great set of features.

All their shared hosting plans include SSD storage, site tools, easy setup of Let’s Encrypt free SSL and Cloudflare CDN service, 1-click WordPress installer, and free migration. Built-in security features protect your website against malware, and you can add additional protection by turning on Cloudflare CDN functionality.

If you are just starting a website for the first time, then you will certainly appreciate SiteGround’s customer support.

Ready to get started with SiteGround? Click here to choose your hosting plan today.

SiteGround Coupon

WPBeginner users get an exclusive 70% discount and free SSL with our SiteGround coupon code.

All you have to do is click on this link to purchase. The discount will be applied automatically.

Frequently Asked Questions about SiteGround Hosting

In this detailed SiteGround review, we looked at all aspects of their hosting services. The following are some of the most frequently asked questions about SiteGround that we are asked by our users.

1. Where are SiteGround servers located?

SiteGround servers are located in the United States, Europe, and Singapore. You can choose the server location during sign up.

2. Why choose SiteGround for WordPress hosting?

SiteGround offers a highly optimized WordPress hosting platform. Each plan includes its own in-house security features and WordPress tweaks that boost your WordPress site speed and performance.

You can easily set up a WordPress website with their 1-click WordPress installation. You can also move existing WordPress websites using the SiteGround Migrator plugin.

This is why SiteGround is an officially recommended hosting provider for WordPress users.

3. Does SiteGround support WooCommerce?

SiteGround specializes in WordPress and WooCommerce hosting. If you are building a WooCommerce store, then you can rely on SiteGround’s optimizations for consistent performance and reliability.

They are one of the top WooCommerce hosting providers and make it super easy to start an online store without any special technical skills.

4. Does SiteGround offer a website builder?

No, SiteGround does not offer its own site builder. That’s because they want users to have the option to pick the best website builder for their needs.

This is why they allow you to easily install WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, Weebly, and many other site builder platforms.

On the SiteGround platform, you can also create unlimited web pages without any restrictions.

5. Does SiteGround offer cPanel hosting?

No, SiteGround no longer offers cPanel hosting. Once cPanel raised its licensing fees, SiteGround decided to remove cPanel hosting and instead built a far superior web hosting control panel for both beginners and advanced users. This allows them to offer managed WordPress hosting-like features without the high costs.

6. Is SiteGround better than Bluehost?

SiteGround and Bluehost used to offer the same features, but with recent innovations, SiteGround has significantly improved its hosting technology.

Regarding overall performance, technology infrastructure, and support quality, SiteGround is better than Bluehost. However, with all this innovation, SiteGround pricing is significantly higher.

So, when it comes to pricing, Bluehost is better than SiteGround because not only is it 50% cheaper, but it also offers a free domain name with each account.

For more details, see our honest comparison of SiteGround vs. Bluehost vs. WP Engine.

7. How does SiteGround compare with other hosting providers?

Readers often ask us how SiteGround compares with GoDaddy, Hostinger, HostGator, GreenGeeks, DreamHost, A2 Hosting, and other web hosting services.

They all used to provide similar features and technology, but over the last year, SiteGround has really stepped up its innovation.

With all the managed WordPress hosting features, Google Cloud infrastructure, and custom performance optimization, SiteGround is now in a class of its own with its premium hosting.

8. Does SiteGround offer a free domain name?

No, SiteGround does not offer a free domain name. You can buy a domain name from another registrar and point it to your SiteGround account or buy one from SiteGround during signup at an additional cost.

9. Can I cancel my SiteGround account and get a refund?

SiteGround offers a 30-day money-back guarantee with all their shared plans. You can try out their services during this period. You are eligible for a refund if you cancel your account during this period. However, domain name registrations are non-refundable.

10. Which SiteGround plan is best for me?

Each SiteGround plan has different server resources. However, if you are just starting out, then their Startup plan would be perfect for that. You can upgrade at any time if you need more resources. Choose your SiteGround plan to get started.

WPBeginner users get an exclusive 70% off discount and free SSL!

Reader Interactions

5,023 SiteGround User ReviewsLeave a Review

  1. Syed Balkhi says

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    Every month, our top blog commenters will win HUGE rewards, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes.
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  2. fakhirah hinna says

    Boom!! they sorted my site, was really really patient and went through each thing… thanks a million

  3. Trey says

    Excellent help from Adriana Z. this evening. I posed a technical pre-sale question and she was most efficient and effective in getting right to the point with the relevant details I needed. Awesome service.

  4. nicoletta says

    I got a real support, I am not an expert in computer but the help was prompt and easy enabling me to understand,

  5. Gariele says

    Excellent tech support. My questions have been answered within minutes and with a tremendous amount of knowledge and care. I’m impressed!

  6. Steve Gariepy says

    In the process of DUMPING GODADDY. So far, Siteground has been a pleasure to deal with. Support is quick and to the point, unlike GD. Thanks!

  7. Ray says

    I appreciate the fast and accurate answers to my questions and the extra unasked for help provided.

  8. Ahmed Hashish says

    Every time you ask for support you get what you want …… excellent support
    i’m happy

  9. GM Johll says

    Time after time SiteGround’s support ROCKS!

    They are responsive and practically all my questions are answered in MINUTES!

    I’ve been in the business of doing web site/applications since 1995 and have not had better hosting support.

  10. Shriji says

    The BEST Hosting Provider ever! Superb technical support by chat or telephone. They are true professionals. Always ready to help with a smile!
    Recommend them to everyone !

  11. Smitha says

    Siteground is the best solution to hosting. Any technical issue or any issue for that matter is solved as soon as possible. Any level of technical person or fresh layman can start an online business or blog with siteground and can stay with no worries of hosting side

  12. Daniel says

    The best hosting service provider so far. The support is really amazing, seriously no waiting time and know what they doing. Very recommended 10/10.

  13. Caryl says

    SiteGround has possibly the BEST support team I have ever encountered. They have helped me time and again when no one else would or could, and they do a great job. I love those people!

  14. Tony Shaw says

    This is a good way to get quick information. I will use this service again I am sure. Thanks Siteground!

  15. Patrice Adams says

    Wow! Incredible, fast, friendly service! It’s been a long long time since I’ve had good service from a web hosting provider! Thank you, SiteGround!

  16. Mustafa AL-gabal says

    Hi everyone, I want to share my opinion about SiteGround. To be honest, it’s great web with geat service. As I’m a new member on this website, they were really fast at helping me. the reason people provide live chat is because they want to have 24hur support and that’s what SiteGround did actually. In my other point that this web his reasonable price for its great service, so to say it actually deserve to be number 1 and that’s what I saw from my research about this website. cheap in pricing, good services and easy to understand. all I can say is Thank you SiteGround

  17. Rosie Taylor says

    As always SiteGround support has been able to provide superior support with no hassle and thorough solutions. They answer your questions giving you the step by step explanations and no pressure to buy additional products like other Hosting Providers. Love this host!

  18. Gerhard says

    I am astounded by the quick and professional service… I only have a Startup account, but SiteGround came through on many levels that should go beyond Startup. For example, I mucked about with setting up an SSH account on a 3rd party product that went south, causing all 4 my websites files to be deleted. Luckily I use UpdraftPlus (free account) on all my sites with regular backups.

    Not a problem for SiteGround; they asked me to upload the backups to the server after which they promptly restored my sites.

    Kudo’s for SiteGround!

  19. mark says

    good job resolving my expired domain. had no idea. but maybe notification it was coming due would have been helpful. surprises like seeing my website ‘cannot be found’….are not good for my health, mental or physical!

  20. Jean-David Gandjeto says

    Extremely pleasant customer service (fast, friendly and reliable).
    i asked for a refund and they were very quick to respect my decision and proceed with the refund, they gave a couple of recommendation on why i should stay but were not trying to make me feel bad or something they just gave their professional opinion and if i was interested in an international hosting service (i wasn’t) i would pick them 100%.
    as soon as i made up my mind on the refund they gave it immedietely and were very nice about it.
    10/10 !

  21. Jeff says

    No matter how silly, stupid the questions I have asked, these folks are always happy to help.
    I have moved into some areas of development(Magento) that I would have never been able
    to do without their support.
    Patient, thorough, and always there.

    I have been in IT for over 35 years and have dealt with MANY support groups,
    these guys rank #1 in my book!!

  22. Doc Sheldon says

    Once again, the SiteGround Customer Service group demonstrated superior knowledge and a great service attitude. I’m really wishing I had changed to SiteGround years ago… it would have saved me a lot of headaches! Thanks, Stefan!

  23. Steve says

    I cancelled my SiteGround hosting Cloud plan due to security issues (running outdated versions of cPanel and Apache). I pointed these out to SG support and they said they were aware of the issues but because of all the custom modifications they implemented for their environment upgrading to the latest versions was a huge job.

    I asked for a refund for the 3 months I had pre-paid for and had yet to use. They said “all sales are final” and refused to give me a refund.

    I cancelled anyway and went to a company that understands the inherent security risks running out dated server software entails.

    BUYER BEWARE!!

    • Di Devi says

      Which company did you switch to? Or even better, what particulars did you require for security should we ask for when choosing a hosting company? Thanks.

      • Steve says

        Hi Di,
        I switched to Lightning Base. They don’t offer phone support but otherwise their support is great!
        You need to ask if the host is running the latest versions of cPanel and Apache or Nginx or Lightspd etc.
        Steve

  24. Sharon P says

    Incredible customer services and competitive pricing. Great, responsive support whenever I need it.
    The chat response is very quick & issues get resolved.

    The sales team were willing to work with me to figure out how to make a package work. They were friendly, efficient and accommodating.

    I am very satisfied with Siteground as a host provider & highly recommend them without reservation.

  25. Giulio Vallata says

    Totally satisfied! Operators are always kind. Problems are get over whitin no more than 5 minutes! Siteground it’s the best!

  26. Robert says

    I always come away with a little something extra when I contact SiteGround support. If they see a problem, or sense I’m having difficulty, they offer to jump in and fix the issue for me. Even though my questions are probably naive in the extreme, the answers are always clear, helpful and respectful.

    I’m very happy I chose SiteGround.

  27. Graham Underwood says

    I have had two occasions to contact the support staff at SiteGround by live chat in the past two days. Both were my fault – finger trouble. On both occasions, SiteGround assistance staff was VERY prompt at initiating the chat, and on both occasions the issues were resolved in less than 8 minutes. Very impressive. I am very glad I chose this site to host my website!

  28. Bruce says

    I got fantastic help from SiteGround tech support. They explained getting my URL from GoDaddy, where’s it’s registered, to the SiteGround DNS servers. While it takes up to 72 hours for the URL propagation to take place at SiteGround, I get to work on my website so it can get up and running sooner. Very pleased with SiteGround so far.

  29. Sidney Sacchi says

    Great support and useful information and kindness provided. A great professional person. Thank you!

  30. Mark says

    I just switched to Site Ground from another web host whose has been having all sorts of server problems and other technical issues for about the past year. I’m a one-person business, so webmaster is one of the many hats I have to wear – and it admittedly is not my strong suit. The pervious host was absolutely no help when I had a problem and couldn’t figure out what was wrong. They didn’t seem to realize that not all of their customers are webmasters. After switching to S-G I ran into a problem with being unable to access my new site. Unlike my previous hosting service I was able to start a chat with tech support right away and didn’t feel as though the tech was conducting 30 different chats at the same time. I was able to start a chat with SG tech support in about 2 minutes. they were able to get the problem fixed right away and also patiently answered a few of my (what probably seemed to them like) stupid questions.
    So far I’m very impressed.

  31. David Carter says

    Brilliant chat helpdesk. Well staffed with people who know their stuff, and with a very short wait time. Other people could learn from this!

  32. Susie says

    The customer service is impeccable. I was helped by support staff. I would rate this website 10 stars if I could!

    I highly recommend them!

  33. Jen says

    Amazing support every time. Really easy to get hold of support staff via the chat and 9 times out of 10 they’re able to fix your problem there and then. Wouldn’t use anyone else!

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