WPBeginner

Beginner's Guide for WordPress

X
☰
Beginner's Guide for WordPress / Start your WordPress Blog in minutes
SiteGround

SiteGround Reviews

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 which is why they’re an official ‘WordPress’ recommended hosting provider. SiteGround features include automatic upgrades, built-in WP caching, CDN, one-click staging and GIT version control. They are also one of the few companies offering location specific hosting with 3 data centers in USA, Europe, and Asia. On top of all this, they have а special 70% discount for WPBeginner readers.

Last seen 8 hours ago
Reviewed by: Syed Balkhi
Rating:

SiteGround Review from Our Experts

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

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

  • Performance: Speed is crucial for the success of your 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 will need to build your website?
  • Pricing: How much it would cost you? Are there any SiteGround deals that can save you money?

Bottom line: Don’t want to read all the details? Let us summarize it for you. 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.

It is headquartered in Sofia, Bulgaria with offices in 6 locations and data centers in three continents. Today, the company has more than 400 employees and hosts more than 500,000 domains.

Siteground

Pros and Cons of SiteGround

Each 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 are equipped with latest hardware like SSD drives and custom software to make sure that your site is super fast.
  • 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.

Cons

As we mentioned earlier, there are some downsides with every hosting company. These 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.
  • Setup fee for monthly billing: There is a $14.95 setup fee if you choose monthly billing. But if you sign up for a longer billing period, then you’ll get bigger discount and no setup fee. 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 7% decrease in conversions, 11% fewer page views, and 16% decrease in customer satisfaction.

Website speed study by Strangeloop

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

As you can see, our test site loaded in less than a second (649 ms to be precise) for a server in Dallas, Texas. That means our site is faster than 95% of tested sites.

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 LoadImpact.

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:

SiteGround loadimpact test results

The blue line is the number of active virtual users on the site, and the green line is the server load time. SiteGround performed almost consistently except for a spike when there were 50 users on the site. It quickly recovered and page load time remained steadily low even with more users.

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

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 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 test 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 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 server response time from multiple locations

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

It responded within less than a second for all locations, except Japan. If your target audience is mostly located in Japan, then you can ask SiteGround to move your site to their Asia-Pacific data center.

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 and beginners. 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 performance of your website.
  • Cloud hosting: Cloud hosting is a flexible upgrade to shared hosting. It allows you to use resources of multiple servers on a cloud architecture. It is suitable for growing websites, popular blogs, or businesses.
  • Dedicated servers: Dedicated servers give you a complete server for your website. It is more expensive but gives you a lot more power. The downside is that you will have to manage the server yourself.
  • Enterprise hosting: This plan is for large businesses and high traffic sites with challenging server requirements. Get in touch with SiteGround team and they will create a tailor-made plan to suit your needs.

Breakdown of SiteGround’s Shared Hosting Plans

SiteGround’s shared hosting is the best way to start a new website. 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, 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 Super Cacher, 1-year free wildcard SSL, and more.
  • GoGeek: GoGeek plan is suiteable for small eCommerce websites. It can handle websites having 100,000 monthly visitors. In addition to all GrowBig’s features, you’ll get access to more advanced features like one-click git repo creation, WordPress and Joomla staging, and more.

SiteGround shared plans

SiteGround Support and Customer Service

You will see high praise for SiteGround’s customer support service everywhere. 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’s get 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 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 shared hosting plans include SSD storage, easy setup of Let’s Encrypt free SSL and Cloudflare CDN service, 1-click WordPress installer, and free migration.

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.

3,786 SiteGround User Reviews

  4. Lionel refson says:
    Dec 12, 2019 at 8:24 am

    By far the best hosting platform and support I have ever encountered and I have several websites.

    Reply
  6. Adam says:
    Dec 11, 2019 at 11:34 pm

    Iliya was incredibly helpful and a pleasure to talk with. He was very knowledgable and clearly set out what I need to do to transfer my emails from JustHost.

    Give him a pay rise!

    Reply
  8. JJ Spelman says:
    Dec 10, 2019 at 10:53 pm

    Daniel was extremely helpful as well as patient. not easy to do both in my book. lol Great experience!

    Reply
  9. Bruce Wilson says:
    Dec 10, 2019 at 9:44 pm

    I’ve had an issue over the last six months with one of our VPS servers being overloaded at times. I put in a support ticket to the Advanced Support system and had a very thorough and lengthy reply that answered my question 95% of the way. I was very impressed with the detail in helping resolve the issue. I made a short follow up question that then had a reply with a few minutes that answered the last 5% of my question. Could not ask for better support in this issue of the VPS not being able to keep up with the load my sites are generating. On to a dedicated server now. :-)

    Reply
  10. Kam Nair says:
    Dec 10, 2019 at 6:49 pm

    SiteGround has been amazing for me! I moved away from GoDaddy for the lack of customer service and constant site load issues. I am glad I found siteground hosting! Since then I never had issues, and they support team is available in no time! I hope these guys grow well and continue to provide this amazing service! I hosted about 20 sites on siteground now! Highly recommended!

    Reply
  12. Elizabeth Acton says:
    Dec 9, 2019 at 9:11 pm

    The tech could not have been more helpful. He went above and beyond in making sure all my issues were solved. Incredibly, wonderfully helpful!

    Reply
  17. Brittany says:
    Dec 9, 2019 at 9:18 am

    I had questions and they were answered right away – even before I could answer them. It’s nothing like talking to a human, even more so and human from my country. I hate to say that – but my experience with other hosting providers who have outsourced their customer service departments has been horrendous to say the least. My questions were answered promptly, and I wasn’t being sold to, the representative made their suggestion but wasn’t pushing about it. In 2020, that is greatly appreciated. I’m looking forward to building my relationship with Siteground. I’ve been looking for a reliable host to being my reseller program to my clients and I happy to say I’ve found one!

    Reply
  19. Alan says:
    Dec 8, 2019 at 5:47 am

    Good siteground techinical support team! Love you guys!

    Stanimir solve my 404 pags issue with less than 4 minutes, which I tried like 2 hours in the past time.

    Thank you Stanimir！You are the best.

    Reply
  20. YASSER MOUSTAFA says:
    Dec 7, 2019 at 9:35 pm

    SUPER , UNIQUE SERVICE , I am very Glade to transfer my websites to Site ground, as they have Amazing support

    Reply
  21. Richard Matthews says:
    Dec 7, 2019 at 8:25 pm

    I have just signed up with Siteground and have yet to complete the transfer of my hosting from another provider. However, although there are a few more hurdles to clear, so far I have been very happy with the support I am receiving. I’ll give a further review when the transfer has been successful… hopefully soon!

    Reply
  22. Colby says:
    Dec 7, 2019 at 6:03 pm

    Thanks for all of the help switching over my hosting account from GoDaddy. I wanted to switch because my GoDaddy hosting was really slow. The SiteGround support team was very patient in helping me through the transfer and walking me through the use of the SiteGround products. So far your hosting has been much faster and I am happy with the switch.

    Reply
  24. Christine S says:
    Dec 7, 2019 at 12:21 pm

    Seamless hosting migration. Awesome updates thru out the process.
    Excellent tech support, highly recommend SG!

    Reply
  25. Patti says:
    Dec 7, 2019 at 12:06 am

    Doncho is terrific. Even thru just typing his great personality shines. He walked me through it and together we fixed my problem.

    Reply
  26. Andrew Logan says:
    Dec 6, 2019 at 9:40 pm

    Extremely helpful. The sales rep knew his stuff and was able to answer all my questions.

    Reply
  28. Jen says:
    Dec 5, 2019 at 4:59 pm

    I was having an issue on my site with loading media, after contacting SiteGround the lovely Diana came to my rescue and effortlessly resolved the issue and made other suggestions to assist me going forward. Thank you SiteGround for a great experience.

    Reply
  29. Helen says:
    Dec 5, 2019 at 2:35 pm

    I received very effective help from an online chat consultation today. I was not able to make the requisite changes to my site so they were quickly undertaken by Ramen. Extremely happy with the service.

    Reply
  36. Samantha Hathcock says:
    Dec 4, 2019 at 11:39 am

    The tech I spoke with via chat was extremely helpful and kind. I certainly give him 5 STARS!

    Reply
  37. Lee says:
    Dec 4, 2019 at 9:00 am

    Great support right off the bat from Siteground! I’m migrating from Bluehost to Siteground and had a question. It was answered in 2 minutes and I barely had to hold. Very happy I’m making this switch!

    Reply
  38. BGuerreschi says:
    Dec 4, 2019 at 8:21 am

    SiteGround staff resolves my problems all the time and they are extremely polite. I found myself very comfortable and they take time to help you out regardless of how little or big the problem is. I highly recommend SiteGround.

    Reply
  40. Sheila Hoffman says:
    Dec 3, 2019 at 11:56 pm

    I’ve worked with a lot of your folks over the years and they’re generally all great. I must say that Daniel has helped me twice in three days and he’s very patient and through. I enjoy working with him. Thanks. I love SG.

    Reply
  41. Nekaybaw says:
    Dec 3, 2019 at 7:18 pm

    SiteGround has some of the best support around! Anytime I have an issue or need help understanding something, I’m always able to get in contact with somebody in a matter of seconds. And, all my issues get resolved! I love the fact that they have 24/7 support because you never know when something might come up and you need to contact someone regarding your website.

    Reply
  43. Niels Gyde says:
    Dec 3, 2019 at 11:05 am

    Perfect!!! quick reaction, no wait, understood and solved the problem really quickly, and double check it was solved !!!

    Reply
  45. Berend says:
    Dec 2, 2019 at 4:17 pm

    Very nice people and very helpful! They really take the time to listen and answer your questions.

    Reply
  46. Dan says:
    Dec 2, 2019 at 11:06 am

    I received great support. She helped me find fix one problem and found solutions to other problems before I had them. Thanks!

    Reply
  48. Hemendra says:
    Dec 2, 2019 at 4:59 am

    First time user here. But the interaction was so wonderful and representative very knowledgeable that am mesmerized.
    I highly recommend Site ground.

    Reply
  49. Andrew Pienaar says:
    Nov 30, 2019 at 12:03 pm

    Dimitar P. solved all three problems within 30 seconds. He knew exactly what the problems were and provided the solutions. Excellent work. Thank very much.

    Regards

    Reply

Add Your Review

Thanks for choosing to leave a comment. Please keep in mind that all comments are moderated according to our comment policy, and your email address will NOT be published. Please Do NOT use keywords in the name field. Let's have a personal and meaningful conversation.

Featured In

Copyright © 2009 - 2019 WPBeginner LLC. All Rights Reserved. WPBeginner® is a registered trademark.

Managed by Awesome Motive | WordPress hosting by HostGator | WordPress CDN by MaxCDN | WordPress Security by Sucuri.