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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Tamsin Cooke says
I have just had the most wonderful experience. My website was down and I was in full blown panic mode. But your tech support was so calm and helpful. Within minutes Mladen M. had worked out the problem and sorted it. I am so thankful I am with SiteGround.
Joe says
It’s amazing how some people cross that extra mile to help another, this is not support, that is a personal touch , thank you Radoslav .T
Frank says
Great support and a fix to our site courtesy of Daniel at Siteground. Why would you bother going anywhere else with 24/7 support like that?
David Ellenbogen says
SiteGround is excellent. Their technical backup is fast and extremely helpful.
Alejandro Carmona says
Excellent tech support, five stars.
Ernie Tomkiewicz says
Most excellent service. It’s always a pleasure dealing with your staff.
Jack says
I have been a client since 2014 and the team at Site Ground has not only helped be grow but helped me through the growing pains!!! They truly do care about their clients and that is hard to find in todays age!
Nicola Freeman says
I love Siteground. They are incredible. They have been lifesavers for me.
Louise Reiss-James says
I have just been assisted by Kostadin T. at SiteGround.
He proved to be very very helpful in assisting me to create and organise my CNAMES for my email etc.
He totally got that I am not a computer geek and was as confused as anything in trying to work it out myself.
Kostadin took the time to listen, feedback and action what I needed to do and then gave me step by step instructions should I need to do this again.
Lisa says
Konstantin was extremely helpful. He had the best customer service. I couldn’t have asked for anyone more accommodating and kind. Thank you.
Linda K says
I chose Siteground to host my website, after taking a course that used them. I am glad I did. They provide the best service possible.
Lee says
Customer service with Siteground is always beyond excellent. very happy customer here!
nick says
Great service as always. Was my fault as always! lol However, she was patient and stayed with me until problem was solved.
Saad says
Filip has helped me solve all my issues. Excellent support provided by him.
Surendra jadli says
Customer support of siteground is awsome. They helped me out in every step to build my site.
Edwin says
I’m Berry happy of the assistance this guy have vive to mee. He IS verry patient and professionnal . Thank you verry much !
Edwin
Marcel Cunnington says
Great, patient support: Not everything was running perfectly, but in dealing with issues the support assistant was both knowledgeable and helpful, going out of his way to work around issues as well as showcase how siteground can give real perks.
I went from fuming at being frustrated to happy-to-wait on tech while chuffed at the site tools. That’s pretty good going!
Edwin says
Hi,
I was helped by Momchil B who gava a great customer service and followed up on my VAT problem.
As promised I was contacted by the sales department that will solve the VAT issue.
Great customer value & I’m happy I choose Siteground!!
Keep up the good work!
Chris says
The people at Siteground are always very nice and helpful.
Tehillah Hessler says
Iliya provided me with quick, efficient and friendly customer service!
Thank you so much!
Sany Ahmed says
In one line, best in the business.
Eduardo Zimbron says
Very good service. Quick response and excelent recomendations. Support guy was very kind and wise.
Alison Pate says
Awesome help from you once again. I’m bowled over with your level of knowledge and your eagerness to help and get things sorted for me. Outstanding service, as always!
Sunni Sukumar says
Deylan did all the heavy lifting to get my website switched over to a new domain, with a new SSL certificate. There were glitches along the way (none of which were his fault), yet he persisted through them all to get the result. Thank you!
Ahmed Haiba says
I had a very difficult problem that caused my website to crash for 2 days. but all the thanks to Emannuel B. he was really patient and helped me to fix the problem. Really amazing
Ben says
Sitegrounds support is always prompt and spot on! I can’t even think of a single improvement to suggest! Best hosting service out there!
Ben
Krsity Hartmann says
super service, very happy
thank you for all the help
greetings
Kristy
Chris says
Quick support and all of them are helpful.
Niyas says
Thank you Iliya for your help today!
Bryan Falchuk says
I’ve been a LONG time customer of another, bigger provider. After over a decade with them, I woke up to how expensive they are, how slow they serve up WordPress sites, and how much of a hassle they are to deal with (always upsetting me when I’m just trying to get tech help). I found several people talking about SiteGround, and decided to give them a go. Honestly, I’m blown away by them with every interaction. Not only are my sites consistently up and running and quick to load, but their service is amazing. Super responsive, super helpful, and really tech savvy. I am seriously impressed. Excellent value, too!
Really happy I found SiteGround.
Bill says
On a Sunday, I learned that my web site was kicking out a security error message to visitors. I poked around in my CPanel, and then decided to do a chat session. The tech person quickly diagnosed and resolved the problem.
Very grateful for the quick and easy access to getting help. SiteGround has been the best experience I’ve had with a web site host (I’ve used others before). Top notch.
Tereza says
Excellent customer care and attention!
AHMED SALAH says
If the technical support service continues at this excellent level, I will definitely transfer all my clients and all my work on SITEGROUND.
Thanks a lot SITEGROUND TEAM.
Andrew says
Preslav did a great job. Sorted the problem out in 5 min. Thanks
Sam Yonane says
Best customer service ever
michael deluca says
just want to say thank you to Dobrin. Great work. Fast and efficient. Knew exactly what my issue was and handled it like a professional!
I am still smiling with gratitude! thank you.
Diamond okoh says
This is the best hosting platfrom for me. You guys, I got customer service to fix my problems over the phone all the way from Nigeria! Best, ever
They are swift, so helpful and I just love them.
Robin says
I was very happy to get connected to Dobromir N this evening. He was perfectly professional, obviously knew exactly what he was doing and was very very patient. Just right! Thank you!
soufiane boutahlil says
Thank you for support
Tom Murphy says
This is my first day at SiteGround… but if this is any indication, I will be very happy here. All has gone very well on my first day. Thank you.
Alison Brown De Moreno says
Hands down one of the best customer service experiences I have ever had. Every time I need to contact them they are on point, quick and helpful.
Mo Ahmed says
Really, beautifully support
Michelle Hall says
Excellent attentive service. Thank you!!!
Igor says
A really great support!
Ged Hickey says
Their online chat support is absolutely brilliant! They are quick to respond and have sorted every query I’ve had. I would actually say this facility is the best I’ve used across all sectors not just web hosting.
John says
i had a critical problem and she managed to pull out a good deal for upgrade and provide solution fast. all while i was on my mobile and driving thanks to the help of voice text recognition
Dan Fry says
SiteGorund is incredible. I’ve now been using them for a number of years and the team are always ready to chat and help. You are never waiting on their live chat service, always straight through to someone with excellent knowledge. The quality of their hosting and the quality of their support team are what set SiteGound apart from the rest. 5 Stars from me & not for the first time!
Jase Farrar says
Working with the tech support at SiteGround is like running through a field of clouds in heaven, they made the hell of slogging through tech support at Go Daddy bearable as we worked the solution, the difference is night and day, good vs. evil, I could go on and on, but you get the point.
lily says
viktor did a good job!i am really happy!thanks for his great help!
Terry B. says
Not only did Lilia figure out very quickly what the server issue was but she repaired it within moment and was also very good at understanding further issues I was experiencing. Her guidance was expert level and easy to understand. Siteground really does have the very best most amazing support team you could wish for. Thank you 10-10-2019 Terry B.