SiteGround Reviews

Siteground is one of the most recommended WordPress hosting companies. They are known for their top-notch customer support team, fast hosting plans, and reliable uptime. 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 it would 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 review, here is the quick scorecard with our verdict right below it.

SiteGround Review Summary
Performance grade	A+
Average load time	491 ms
Average response time	137 ms
Free domain	No
Free SSL	Yes
1-click WordPress	Yes
Support	Phone / 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 tech support staff 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 in to 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.

It is headquartered in Sofia, Bulgaria with offices in 4 locations and data centers in three continents. Today, the company has more than 500 employees and hosts more than 2,000,000 domains.

Pros and Cons of SiteGround

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

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

Pros

Here are some of the 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 Google Cloud platform for all 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, live chat, and ticket based support.
• Free CDN and SSL – They offer instant setup of Cloudflare’s free CDN and free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt.
• Multiple Server Locations – They have data centers in three continents. You can choose the location you prefer during signup.
• Unmetered Bandwidth – This allows you to have unlimited bandwidth (aka data transfer).
• Daily Backup & Site Migrator – SiteGround offer automatic daily website backups, and free site tools for migration.

Cons

As we mentioned earlier, there are some downsides with 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, then 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 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 metric that you should look for. A faster website offers 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.

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:

As you can see, our test site loaded in less than a second (491 ms to be precise) with a performance score of 94.

This is incredible, but this website had almost no traffic so the Pingdom test alone is not sufficient.

To test how SiteGround servers would respond to increased traffic, we used a tool called K6 (formerly LaodImpact).

This tool gradually sends up to 100 users to see how the server would respond to increased traffic from multiple connections.

You can see the results in the chart below:

The green line is the number of active virtual users on the site, and the 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 WordPress site, then SiteGround can be a perfect choice for you.

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

All SiteGround servers are now hosted on 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 account slow down a bit 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 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.

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 datacenter closer to your target audience for even better response times in that particular region.

SiteGround Hosting Plans and Features

SiteGround offers shared hosting, managed WordPress hosting, cloud hosting (VPS), 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 and beginners. It is suitable for low traffic websites as you will be sharing resources with other websites hosted on the server.
• Managed WordPress hosting: This plan is WordPress optimized version of their shared hosting plan. It comes with SiteGround’s in-house WordPress optimizations (SG Optimizer) to improve performance of your website. See SiteGround WordPress hosting.
• WooCommerce hosting: This plan is 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.
• Managed Cloud hosting: Cloud hosting is a flexible upgrade to shared hosting. It allows you to use resources of multiple dedicated servers on a cloud architecture. It is suitable for growing websites, popular bloggers, or businesses. See SiteGround Cloud hosting.

Breakdown of SiteGround’s Shared Hosting Plans

SiteGround’s shared hosting is the best way to build a new website for small businesses. Their shared plans 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 having 10,000 monthly visitors. You’ll also get all essential features like 1-click WordPress install, free setup, website transfer, daily backups, built-in caching (SuperCacher), managed WordPress updates, free CDN, free SSL, and more.
• GrowBig: The GrowBig plan lets you host unlimited websites. It comes with 20 GB disk space and is suitable for hosting websites having 25,000 monthly visitors. 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, easy Staging tool, and 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 option to manage white-label clients which is a great for reseller hosting plans that developers can offer to clients.

SiteGround Support and Customer Service

You’ll see high praise for SiteGround’s customer support service everywhere especially from WordPress users. They are 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 a large collection of knowledge base articles with screenshots, videos, tutorials, and guides.

Conclusion: Is SiteGround the Right Choice for You?

After reading our detailed SiteGround hosting review, you might be wondering if SiteGround is the right choice for your website?

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

All their hosting packages include SSD storage, easy setup of Let’s Encrypt free SSL and Cloudflare CDN service, 1-click WordPress installer, free email accounts, and free migration.

This is why we use SiteGround to host many of our own WordPress websites including WPBeginner.

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% off 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.

Where are SiteGround servers located?

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

Why choose SiteGround for WordPress hosting?

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

You can easily set up a website with their 1-click WordPress installation. They also have an easy to use interface to manage your website from your hosting control panel.

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.

Does SiteGround offer free domain name?

No, SiteGround does not offer free domain name. However, you can register a new domain name during sign up or you can use a domain name you already own. You can also buy a domain name from another registrar and point it to your SiteGround account.

Does SiteGround offer a website builder?

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

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

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

Does SiteGround offer cPanel hosting?

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

Is SiteGround better than Bluehost?

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

When it comes to overall performance, technology infrastructure, and support quality, SiteGround is better than Bluehost.

However, with all this innovation, SiteGround did have to increase their prices by 2x.

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

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

How does SiteGround compare with other hosting providers?

Readers often ask us how does SiteGround compares with GoDaddy, HostGator, a2 hosting, GreenGeeks, DreamHost, and other web hosting providers.

They all used to provide similar functionality, CPU resources, and hosting options, 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.

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.

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.