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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

5,020 SiteGround User ReviewsLeave a Review

  1. Syed Balkhi says

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
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  2. Celina Baginski says

    As always, my customer service experience was great! I pay more for your service, but the support is always so awesome and is well worth the cost. Thank you! – Celina

  3. Matt Simpson says

    Dude was nothing short of excellent. Gave me the inside scoop, solid perspective, transparency, the solution to my situation, and a handful of tricks to optimize and be totally happy! Thank you!

  4. Andy says

    Petar was very helpful and clear and gave me very good instructions on how to solve my issue. Very happy with the help I got today and the service overall. Thanks.

  5. Brian Browne says

    Another very positive interaction with Siteground support – all questions answered and I wasn’t made to feel inferior, which is a lot more than I can say for some hosting providers.

  6. Bernad says

    Outstanding customer support when it comes to resolving my problems with DNS and SSL.
    Silvia was very kind and professional, 20+ minutes and the issue was resolved.

    Just A+, keep up the the good work Siteground!

  7. Sierra says

    Elian is a gem! I was so frazzled and his quick resolution and friendly tone helped me relax. You can’t train that. Thanks again!

  8. Sanaz says

    Absolutely professional, knowledgeable and patient agent. Very pleased with your service today. Thank you so much.

  9. Louis Borrego says

    The greatest service in the hosting and domain world hands down. The chat is one of the greatest resources and their phone support is the best without a doubt. Saving lives one call at a time. No joke.

  10. Renata Leo says

    Luca was very helpful and kind. I was stressed and needed help with my account and he took care of everything!

  11. Zach Sykes says

    Martin was excellent help and replied quickly. I tried to leave 5 stars but noticed that I may have accidentally clicked 3 when moving quickly. I certainly hope it lists 5 stars instead of 3, he was great! Thanks, Martin.

  12. Calvin Chen says

    Always supportive and instrumental, we are building a new site, constantly new issue arise, they always patient and guide us through the trekking

  13. robin Ye says

    SG, Always offer awesome Customer service, very happy with, will do business again. high recommended!!!!

  14. Taralee says

    Diana was amazing. She answered all my questions she stayed on the chat while I was checking things out on your website! She was great! She needs a raise. Thank you Diana !!

  15. Scott Bales says

    Nayden T was a great help and I thank him. He advised me on managing my account and billing with honesty and integrity.

  16. Sharon says

    As always, the tech support at SiteGround has been fabulous. Prompt responses, techs stay with me till the end, they don’t bash me for not understanding, and probably the most important thing is that they fix problems…on the spot. HUZZAH!

  17. Jd says

    Filip was quick to resolve my problem by identifying the root and showing me how to correct appreciate your customer service.

  18. Ahmed Mkhalfi says

    Siteground is so fantastic and has excellent customers and chat service. They don’t let you until you are satisfied.

  19. Zane says

    Kristian at Siteground is amazing and sorted my issue out in minutes. You are brilliant in what you do! SiteGround has an amazing tech support team, far superior to other hosting companies with extensive knowledge.

    Keep up the great work everyone!

  20. Michelle Canton says

    Gabriel knew right away what my issue was and quickly provided and easy to follow tutorial on how to fix it. I wish all IT people understood issues as easily as he does. Excellent service!

  21. Kim Garnett says

    Siteground has the BEST customer service. Seriously! I’ve hosted my websites with every major competitor over the last 20 years and once I found Siteground I never looked back.

  22. Pete Rankine says

    It’s such a relief when expert help is at hand when you need it! I was locked out of access to my email server and (due to my own neglect) to my SiteGround portal – but 17 mins of online support from Bozhidar has turned around my fortunes! Thank you. Your service and support is excellent.

  23. Nicolaas says

    Very well helped by Stanimir on server response and FCP/CP issues. Gave some valuable tips as well for further wen] optimization

  24. Hank Becker says

    SiteGround’s help system is very good. My experience today was roughly comparable to others on that site–always resulting in a perfect solution. I was attempting to install various features of SG Optimizer while listening to their webinar on the topic. But I am a novice and ended up crashing my whole website. Although the support person did not fully grasp my particular situation and the initial suggestions to fix my problem seemed more trouble than they were worth, in the end my idea to simply use the backup and restore that they now provide for free was perfect. Took about 15 minutes of waiting and the site came back up perfectly.

  25. Dominique Jeanneret says

    Thank you a lot to Silvia who cared greatly, told me right what to do and did things automatically as I did not know. Short time with her but very efficient ! Thank you a lot !

  26. Franklin Jones says

    Denis S. provided excellent support in answering all of my questions. We lost connection, on my end, before I had a chance to make my last response to him.

  27. Rune Lillevang says

    I don’t normally write reviews but Toni M. was probably the most friendly and informative sales representative I have had the pleasure of talking with.

    Amazing support :-)

  28. David Bass says

    Just had my first contact with support and they were very quick to respond then resolve my minor issue. Boris D. was the shining light for this magic moment.
    Thanks Boris, nice work Siteground! Sensational nicely padded modular layout backed up by a comprehensive set of site tools.
    Great bang for your buck!

  29. george says

    George, my last rep, was great as all of the service reps with Siteground. I’m new to the domain game and need a lot of hand holding to work my way thought to success. i’m glad a friend of mine suggested i use this hosting site

  30. Laila says

    Doncho D. is the man!!! My site was experiencing a lot of caching issues and the first chat operator was friendly but not too eager to help (sending me blogs – not a fan of that). But Doncho offered to go into my site to fix things. There were some other issues after that and he went in again to fix it and consulted me on best practices in the future.

    That is REAL customer support. Somebody give this guy a trophy. He was extremely helpful because this was an issue for the last four days that no amount of googling could solve. Thanks Donchdo D.!!!

  31. Dani Thompson says

    Doncho was extremely helpful and so polite. Probably the nicest chat person I’ve ever had, and that’s saying something since most everyone here is so nice. He helped me update my billing status to a month to month status since I love Siteground but can’t afford a lump sum payment right now. The customer service here is unmatched!! I can’t say enough good things about it. Thank you!!

  32. Dominique says

    My chat person today was very helpful and calm and helped me immensely. He turned a very frustrating situation into a good experience. Well done and thank you again, I will definitely recommend following this particular service

  33. K. Robinson says

    This goes out to all of the newbies: I have “been around the block” with web hosts. I am a novice, seriously a novice. But, out of a sense of “I can do this because there are templates”, I volunteered to make websites for 2 fledgling companies that didn’t want to spend money to get a website (2 family members). Well, I have become intimately acquainted with Host Gator, Blue Host, GoDaddy, Dreamhost, and SiteGround. Let me assure you: you will NOT find a better host for novices. Believe me when you are building a website you will encounter problems. Period. But if you have a host that is available lickety split 24 hours a day, you will get through it without aging 5 years. SiteGround BLOWS the competition away in customer service. They are truly all competent (I have worked with around 20 of them), so pleasant, and I never have to wait. Seriously, within seconds I get a rep. And I just have the Managed WordPress package so it’s not because I am some stellar customer. I cannot tell you novices more strongly CHOOSE SITEGROUND.

  34. Ann-Marie says

    Diana K was extremely professional and very patient with me while I tried to figure out what to do regarding moving all of my websites over to one place, via the chat function. She gave me all the options available to me and I didn’t feel pressured in any way. I’m very happy with the service I received. 5 Stars!

  35. Ana Maria Cano says

    I had the best SUPPORT possible with Siteground through an angel guy names Eliyah!!! I was so desperate when I saw that my mobile homepage was a disaster, with my Divi builder not working and everything messed up… and this was when I was going to give a client my URL…
    Eliyah contacted me as fast as a minute and solved the problem almost immediately!!! There are no words to express how grateful I am.
    THANK YOU A MILLION OF TIMES!
    Ana Cano

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