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 grade | A+ |
Average load time | 397 ms |
Average response time | 123 ms |
Free domain | Yes |
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 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.
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.
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 (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:
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 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 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 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.
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.
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.
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Brian says
Excellent service, thank you very much
Tony Darbyshire says
I’ve just had an excellent experience with the SiteGround.com support team. Extremely helpful. Though they weren’t able to sort the problem with my wordpress website in my chat, they’ve now escalated the support to their heavyweight techs. so it should be resolved in due course.
Since moving to this hosting company I have nothing but praise for their support. First class!
ANJA RIEMANN says
The SiteGround Assistance is excellent and available even on Sundays!
Ellie says
The best hosting provider out there – highly recommended with top customer service and technical support every time.
Iain says
Very helpful. I have been extremely impressed with your support both by email, and chat! Well done – I highly recommend. PS As a Bulgarian based business your English is faultless!
Graeme Smith says
Support was bloody brilliant.
Thanks
Graeme
Melbourne
Joanetta Hendel says
I have had nothing but positive experiences with SiteGround. Their customer service is the best ever!
Analia Sanchez says
This company has the best support staff. Several problems fixed in 10 minutes.
Julean Thorpe says
Very helpful. Answered all my questions and assisted me with choosing the right plan.
A customer says
Great service!!! This customer rep is the best!!!!!
Antonio says
I have been with Siteground Web Hosting for a few years and am a current client with about 50 domains/websites on their servers right now. I like their support, it has been 5 Star except for the backup tools for websites is a total FAIL every time I use it, or I pay them $39.95 to do it form me, it FAILS.
It fails, then they play it off to a cache issue, then they can not restore it to the date it says on the dashboard calendar highlighted as a backup. This has been a repeating issue and I have to keep downloaded backups as I can not trust them to keep a good backup everyday like they advertise. The public can not do anything about this unethical practice as they are located outside the U.S. in Bulgaria.
SiteGround says
Hi Antonio,
We appreciate you have been our customer for several years and the high evaluation of the quality of our support that gave you the confidence to host so many websites with us.
We were sorry to hear using the backup option with our service has not been up to the same high standard and has caused you inconvenience.
We offer several backup options and we are not sure which one has failed in your case. We would like to review in details your process to create a backup and check why it is not working as expected.
Unfortunately, we were not able to locate your account and investigate further the issues you have experienced. Please send additional information about your account (domain name, email and ticket IDs related to the backup issue) to reviews at siteground dot com and we will escalate it to our support supervisors. They will do their best to find a solution and help you use the backup feature full capabilities available with your plan.
Regards,
SiteGround team
moumita says
Thank you so much for assisting me over an hour
Dave Trussell says
My experience with SiteGround chat services and support has been nothing less than stellar. My question was answered and my problem was taken care of all within 20 minutes.
Mariana says
Amazing customer service! Thanks for the quick help and education.
Margot Sprenkels says
Satisfied with contact, very polite and correct. Not satisfied with result.
Timothy Michel says
This was a simple problem, but the help was fast and to the point.
Martin Chemnitz says
Siteground is fast and professional in its support. I can only recommend them as a host. Surely among the best on the market.
Rocco Balsamo says
Their support was extremely knowledgable and helped me fix an issue within 10 minutes. At this point I highly recommend.
Gordon Joyner says
Support was extremely helpful and was very patient. look forward to come aboard
Mark S says
Support staff helped me with several questions on a tricky domain transfer. We struggle so much to get good customer service with theme makers, plugin makers, third party sites. With Siteground and techs support always get the quality help we need, right away. Thank you! Seriously. Thank you!
Elton says
siteground still lack 2FA enable in cPanel for shared hosting plan user. No plan to switch here until such basic security are made available for cPanel login.
Harry Whittaker says
Support walked me through cancelling my SiteGround account easily. They are an asset to the company.
Christian Petrou says
Please train staff on the difference in 500 and 400 error codes with SiteGround hosted email.
How to instruct customers on using SpamExperts when emails are sent to quarantine.
Most importantly, how to listen to and dermine what the customer is explaining.
Jay Wilhite says
Generally, everything at SiteGround just works. But when those occasions arise where something goes sideways, their tech support is the BEST! I’ve always had a positive experience.
Adam says
Very helpful with my questions and had no issues with the support team. Thank you
Rodrigo says
Support staff handles patience, good sense of humor and kindness. The best formula for the best customer support.
They convinced me after 10 minutes chatting and led me every single step of the way through out my new website and transfer experience.
Support staff should be appointed as one of the best profiles for customer service and rewarded for higher positions at Siteground. No dissapoints at all, I’m certain of that.
GRACIAS, from MEXICO!
Mike says
I had built up a lot of questions regarding extra services and caching. I bugged three Siteground techies this morning which too 45 minutes overall. They remained extremely supportive and always friendly. It’s impossible to have conflict with a support staff when, for example, they respond with. “I’d love to answer your question.”
sunil says
He has resolved the issue quickly. excellent service.
jerry hancock says
Great service by well informed CSR. No pressure, just good info.
Bernard says
I love these guys – Compared to Blue Host I am over the moon. Best support!
William Bowen says
I had a great conversation with Support. Support staff was a huge help in my billing process and i would be happy do do it all over again if i had to. so in conclusion hire more people like that!
Costin Botez says
Right on spot! Excellent support!
Anthony says
fast, friendly, helpful
Paul Barr says
My friend has been great in answering all my questions. And due to his immense explanation, Im gonna upgrade my package and get all the domains from google and godaddy to siteground. But please make sure to put all the websites in the individual folder inside public.html. Usually the public.html does not allow primary domain to be inside a separate folder , but can be done using .htaccess file. Still if you guys are saying that it will be then lets do this tomorrow. Plz make sure that you do not mess the contents of our site inside siteground because it is linked with google search console, google marketting, and google adwords, if one url changes, its gonna ruin my entire product sales.
Thanks! God bless you my friend!
Nikki says
Would like siteground to catch up on its ability to accomodate agencies. 1. We need to be able to pay with AMEX without it being a half hour + production 2. We are running out of email addresses to use for each client’s account login. If there could be another unique identifier as a login, that would allow us to move more clients over here.
Nick says
Brilliant support. Put me the track for a solution when I was lost for ideas.
Bennet says
Every problem/issue was quickly resolved during chat support. Great support!!!
Brad says
Absolute best support ever as always. I have been using Siteground for years and every single support agent is great. Support staff inspired me to write this review by being an exceptionally helpful rep.
Patrick Roesch says
I have been with Siteground since March 2017 and every time I need support, the support team on Livechat are fantastic and usually very quick to respond, always helpful and strive to get to the bottom of your query without fuss. Apart from the excellent support, I highly recommend the Siteground platform and hosting services to anyone. I have just upgraded from GrowBig to Cloud Hosting Entry level. Awesome Hosting Company. Cheers, Patrick
Carolina Palacios says
Really happy with the help
Julie O. says
The Grow Big is the best value I’ve encountered. Glad to see the info at the top about the first tier at the intro rates being an “entry” point.
Because the truth is, when you have a small business you will have “tech” issues. It happens, it’s normal. As a newbie, or as a seasoned developer. You will need support that makes sense for where you are at.
What I like best about SG is that their Grow Big is about helping me transition from having my own websites into being a developer. for a specific niche which is VERY NON TECH-y. The Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace peeps. In other words, I do a little more “hand holding” than most to get them away from those plans into something that makes more sense from a marketing and financial standpoint.
I could have wanted to pull my hair out a long time ago.. but the customer service at SG addressed all my questions via every step, for each of my business enterprises. The name Grow Big does fit.
For this reason, I’m telling my clients that it’s worth paying a little bit more.. but less than what they would be paying for Wix, Weebly, or Squarespace.
Richard Adarkwah says
Support staff is just an awesome support!
John Green says
Should be 7 star rating available !!!!!
Agent made it easy for me and answered quickly – what else could one want ?Thankyou
Nigel says
Excellent service!! The SiteGround staff have been charming and always very helpful and sorted out my difficulties much faster than I expected. Many thanks!
James McKenna says
Concise, easy-to-follow instructions. Very happy with the interaction.
Michael Wallace says
Not really the agents fault but the process to renew one of my domain took over 15 mins online with agent. Why can’t PayPal be integrated into your renewal system. Most every other merchant has this feature.
Thank you
Hasan Salman says
Siteground customer support is next to non! Saved us more than a few times.
Staff from customer service is a master. Thank you!
Avishai Niazov says
After a year of service from Siteground, it is always a pleasure to get their support. I have nothing to say but Thank you, as this is the most important thing in any service.
Well Done!
Diana says
Support was excellent! They were pleasant, courteous, and patient with me from beginning to end. Highly recommended!
Erik Dietrich says
Wow, that could not have been easier. My compliments and appreciation.