Could this be at the top of its game as far as web hosting services go? Is it the one to beat? I reveal all the detail in this SiteGround Web Hosting Review. Let’s dive straight in!
OVERVIEW
SiteGround is a renowned web hosting company established in 2004, with headquarters located in Bulgaria. The company provides high-quality hosting services throughout the world, ranging from Linux hosting to cloud hosting.
SiteGround Web Hosting is among the fastest growing hosting companies and is being highly preferred by many companies across the globe. Recently, the company became a recommended host featured on WordPress.org’s hosting page – a page that only features three other hosting companies.
SiteGround Web Hosting Review
- Name: SiteGround Web Hosting
- Type: Privately Held Hosting Company
- Website: www.siteground.com
- Price: Starting at $3.95/mo (renews at $11.95/mo)
- Founders: Tenko Nikolov, Reneta Tsankova and Nikolay Todorov
- Overall Ranking: 78 out of 100 (3.9/5)
Who is SiteGround for?
Contents
SiteGround is suitable for various individuals and businesses needing hosting solutions, including:
- Startups, beginner bloggers, SMEs and WordPress users will do well on the lower package (shared hosting/WordPress hosting plans) and can extend or upgrade to the higher package at any point in time.
- Large businesses will find the cloud and dedicated hosting plans quite suitable for their specific needs.
- Developers will benefit from the reseller hosting option since it is intended for developers who maintain their customers’ websites on a regular basis.
Verdict: Legitimate
History of SiteGround
SiteGround was founded in 2004 in Sofia, Bulgaria by a few university friends, namely Tenko Nikolov, Reneta Tsankova and Nikolay Todorov. Starting as a small web hosting company with quite a few employees, SiteGround has gradually become popular and now hosts over a million domains all across the globe. The hosting company also processes over 1500 support tickets, 1000 phone calls, and 3000 chat requests per day. The company’s headcount have also grown through the years and currently they have a little over 500 employees.
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The independent web-hosting company offers web hosting and WordPress services such as shared hosting, dedicated servers, cloud hosting, enterprise hosting, reseller hosting, WordPress hosting, WordPress tutorials, and WordPress themes. With Data Centres in the USA, UK, Amsterdam and Singapore, SiteGround is positioned as a “well-crafted” hosting solution that is quite active in the community events.
Signing Up
Signing up with SiteGround is a very easy and straightforward process. It can be done by paying with your credit card. If you prefer to pay via PayPal, you need to contact support. You will be told to go ahead and submit the order form with blank billing information. A special link will be given to make your PayPal payment.
After completing the Signup process, a welcome email will be sent with your login information and link to your SiteGround customer account area which contains all the pertinent information on your account settings. You can start navigating via the tabs to obtain support, access billing information, plus get additional services and resources.
SiteGround Best Hosting Features
High Uptime – SiteGround has a superb uptime of 99.99%, and that’s even across their cheapest shared hosting plans. They also offer an uptime guarantee and you’ll be compensated for the time that your site spends offline that extends beyond the 99.9%.
Fast Loading Speeds – SiteGround has some of the fastest loading speeds out there, averaging at 700ms.
Rock Solid Hosting – WordPress professionals will be managing your account and will handle things like optimizing for speed, security, support, keeping things up to date, and more. These experts will take care of all the technical tasks related to hosting your WordPress site including website-related tasks like updating the WordPress core and any plugins, plus regularly backing up your site. With more free time, you can focus on actually growing your website.
Beyond the managed hosting features you will have access to a powerful suite of features. If you are a developer you can take advantage of high-level features like WP-CLI, GIT, staging areas and more.
Great Security Features – Security is serious business at SiteGround. Apart from the very high-level protocols in place to protect the physical data centres where their servers are located, there are also a variety of security tools, included spam protection tools, firewalls, an AI bot protection, as well as a suite of other security tools and applications. The CloudFlare CDN can also be activated on any hosting plan, which does not only improve website performance, but protect your site from DDoS and other attacks.
Free SSL certificate with every hosting plan – Regardless of the level of your chosen hosting plan, you get a free SSL certificate that will encrypt any traffic that passes between your server and your visitor’s web browser.
Dozens of eCommerce Installations – SiteGround has your eCommerce site covered by offering 18 different eCommerce applications to choose from. The one-click installer will help to ensure that the eCommerce application you choose is set up the right way. Beyond eCommerce solutions like Magento, OpenCart and PrestaShop, you can also opt to use the combination of WordPress and WooCommerce to run your eCommerce store.
Free Website Transfers – SiteGround does not only transfer your website to their servers entirely free, but it will be done within 24 hours. This website transfer, however, only applies to users who sign up for the GrowBig or GoGeek services. A free migration tool is available for users of the basic Start-up plan. Plus, you always have the option to migrate your site manually.
Caters to the Global Market – SiteGround is oriented to serve the global market. This feature allows you to purchase hosting in multiple different currencies like EUR, AUD, GBP and of course USD. Small business websites can also get a local toll-free line, along with a country specific domain name. You can choose a data centre closest to the location of the majority of your visitors to help improve your loading speed and performance.
Independent and Transparent Company – SiteGround takes extra effort to be transparent with their hosting practices, and support their customers in whatever way they can. Each hosting package is provided with details about the true limits. There is also a detailed breakdown of their data centre locations and the components that make up their individual servers. You can also check out the IP address of their data centres to enable you to run tests to get server speeds all on your own. There is also a section that shows their reported uptime, how it stands currently, as well as on a yearly and monthly basis.
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Customer Support System
SiteGround prides itself in having some of the best support in the business by offering 24/7 support via phone, chat or ticket system. The friendly team responds to tickets in less than 10 minutes.
In addition, SiteGround provides free migration from your current host to their platform and without any hassles, taking away the fear of transferring your data from your current host to SiteGround. All you need to do is open a ticket for free migration once you subscribe to any plan of your choice.
Siteground Hosting Packages and Pricing
There are a wide variety of different hosting types and packages available at SiteGround to ensure there is a kind of hosting to suit most website owners.
Shared Web Hosting – This low-cost web hosting plan allows several websites to share the computing power of a single server, thus lowering the overall cost. It means your site’s performance could be negatively impacted if another bunkmate has a huge traffic surge from a Reddit hit (and vice versa).
There is no month-to-month shared hosting option, instead a one-month trial is available for you to try before buying a suitable hosting plan. After expiration, you sign up for one-, two- or three-year contracts with discounts available during the sign-up period. You can choose which data centre you want to host your website: United States, Europe, Asia-Pacific or United Kingdom.
SiteGround offers three different shared WordPress hosting plans:
- StartUp – The cheapest plan that starts at $3.95 per month, StartUp is the ideal choice for beginners, those with low budget, and those who do not want to host more than one site. Included in the package is one website, unlimited emails, 10 GB webspace, ~10,000 monthly visits, free WordPress install, free SSL, 4 server locations, and unlimited MySQL database.
- GrowBig – This plan starts at $5.95 per month and is more suitable for larger and popular websites with heavy-traffic or multiple average-size sites. It includes multiple websites, 20GB web space, ~25,000 monthly visits, free WordPress transfer, priority support, free back-up, WordPress SuperCacher, along with all the features StartUp comes with. GrowBig is designed to host unlimited websites with server resources almost 2X the StartUp which results in higher speed and blazing load times. This is usually a good option for users who prefer to host all their websites in a single account.
- GoGeek – Also referred to as semi-dedicated hosting server, this plan is about 4X faster than other packages. It starts at $11.95 per month for unlimited websites, 30GB web space, 1-click WordPress staging facility, free backups on request, PCI compliant servers, eCommerce features including free 1-year wildcard SSL, ~100,000 monthly visits, and all the features offered at StartUp and GrowBig plans.
Cloud Hosting Service – This cloud hosting service is mainly for websites with huge traffic or sites that require large scale of resources to allow super-fast loading. This plan comes with two CPU and 4GB RAM so you can enjoy high-speed uptimes and high-level of security.
Dedicated Web Hosting – With dedicated servers, you have a choice of a variety of CPU, RAM, RAID and storage configurations. A server can be configured with up to two 960GB solid-state drives, 64GB of RAM, and 10TB of monthly data transfers. Unfortunately, Siteground only offers Linux-based dedicated servers, but all packages come with a free, one-year SSL certificate.
Enterprise Hosting – A unique program across the industry, this custom-made hosting package focuses on the individual customer’s needs. Instead of buying the already existing hosting plans, a customer may request for a custom solution that fits their business needs. SiteGround offers unlimited support on this custom solution, which can be a single instance setup or a public or private cloud configuration.
Specific Apps Hosting – There are also specific hosting packages focused on different content management systems that include:
- WordPress Hosting
- Joomla Hosting
- Magento Hosting
- Drupal Hosting
- PrestaShop Hosting
- WooCommerce Hosting
Particularly with WordPress Hosting, SiteGround oversees your installation with optimized managed WordPress hosting, a service that grants your website enhanced security, automated daily backups, page caching, staging, and automatic content management system updates.
It features one-click installation and a free account transfer. In the absence of a free domain name, a substantial discount for registration is offered. Your options are to sign up for one-, two-, or three-year contracts. Once you are logged into SiteGround’s WordPress setup, you can start creating posts, pages and galleries.
Reseller Web Hosting – This package is geared towards those looking to get into the web hosting business, but do not want to deal with infrastructure matters. It is designed to help web designers and developers to host and maintain their clients’ websites. This hosting plan allows web designers and developers to take advantage of the robust SiteGround hosting infrastructure in order to provide reliable hosting services to their day to day web design customers.
It offers sales and commission reports and credit card processing. The servers boast 10GB of storage, unmetered monthly data transfers, unlimited MySQL databases, and free backups and email. SiteGround allows you to apply your own branding to the rented servers with 24/7 tech support.
The hosting package starts at $42 per year. The packages are at discounted prices and will depend on the volume of purchased accounts. Higher discounts apply to more accounts purchased. The web designers and developers have the freedom to determine their resale price.
Key Features Overview
| Features | Details |
| Price | Starts at $5.95/month (GrowBig Plan) |
| Number of Websites | unlimited |
| Instant DNS Setup | Free domain name |
| Hosting Speed | The speed technology makes use of HTTP/2, SSDs, PHP7 and NGINX |
| Website Space | 20 GB |
| Bandwidth Included | Suitable for 25,000 monthly visits |
| SSL Certificates | Free Let’s Encrypt SSL with all hosting accounts |
| Site Builder Included | Weebly |
| Staging Environment | One-click staging – lets you test out changes before making them on your live site with easy one-click staging (for GoGeek plan only) |
| Full Redundancy | Yes |
| Enterprise Security | Yes |
| Daily Website Backups | 30 times daily backups and free backup restores – keeps your data safe with automatic backups and 30-day backup storage |
| 24/7 Access to Server Admins | Yes |
| Email Accounts | Yes |
| BotNet Security | Artificial Intelligence Anti-Bot System |
| Site Health and Performance Tracking | Daily |
| Site Comments | – |
| Website Feedback | – |
| Community Access | – |
| 1 on 1 Marketing Mentorship | – |
| Site Manager | Yes |
SiteGround’s Advantages
- Great discounted prices
- 99.9% uptime guarantee
- Free site migration for 1 website
- Auto WordPress install
- 24/7 Support (live chat or ticket)
- 30 days money back guarantee
- Free eCommerce installation
- Includes free SSL certificate
- Free website builder
- Free auto daily back-ups
- Free Cloudfare CDN
- Unlimited MySQL DB
- Free Site Migration for 1 Website
- Beginner-to-Advanced Features Available
- 100 percent transparency in all terms and conditions
- PHP 7.3 hosting
- SSD Hosting
A Few Disadvantages
- No month-to-month shared hosting plans
- No Windows server options
- Higher Renewal Rates
- $14.95 “Setup Fee” for Monthly Billing
- Limited “Cheap” Plan
- No Free Domain Name
- Data storage is limited (20GB, 30GB)
- The free migration applies only with the higher-level hosting plans
Final Opinion
SiteGround delivers solid uptime that guarantees you will probably never have any major downtime issues. The site’s speed is worth commending, thanks partly to their servers spread out in over three continents.
Pricing is good when availed in the long term. It is recommended to buy two or three years of hosting at the introductory rate if you are serious about hosting with them; otherwise you can be hit with high renewal rates plus another fee for a domain name.
Alternative Hosting Services
If affordable managed hosting is what you are looking for, then SiteGround may not deliver. Here is a comparison with another world class leader in the field of managed hosting called Wealthy Affiliate, and is ideal for managing web-based business straight from the hosting platform itself. Monthly plans are also a feature.
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This post was very in depth. You gave a very complete review. I personally never used SiteGround. But there prices look very competitive. Are you using them now? I think I would give them a try in the future if I needed hosting. I have heard good things about them.
Hello Jon! I no longer use this platform because it made more sence to have all of my sites in one place and I actually prefer the WA managed hosting platform for this reason. I don’t pay any extra for having multiple sites there either.
Overall, SiteGround I think is a great web hosting company, because I used the virtual host service provided by them in 2019, their host performance is stable, excellent uptime, daily backup and SSL certificate, Operators can focus on operating the website; however, the cheapest plan on SiteGround can only bind a domain name, which is very bad. In addition, if they provide a monthly payment plan, I believe that more people will become their customers.
Hiya! Very glad to have your comments so thanks for taking the time! Yes I think also that if they had a monthly plan option more people would use the platform.
I really enjoyed reading your website. Very professionally made. It was very informative and it gives you a lot of options if you are starting an online business. I see you are from New Zealand. You must be native. I am native also.
I am aware that there are many niches to choose from for starting a web based business but there are few hosting platforms that support web based business and make it a core feature of their hosting. I know that Wealthy Affiliate is one such platform and see that you already have provided a comprehensive review about Wealthy Affiliate.
Getting back to SiteGround, I think it is probably a reasonably good platform, but there are better ones out there especially for web based business.
regards
goldsmithh
Hi there Tom! Thanks for taking the time to call around and for your comments! I also think that SiteGround is respectfully a decent web hosting platform, but I like you agree that Wealthy Affiliate have an edge and therefore the better of the two. Business owners who host with Wealthy Affiliate will experience a first-class platform designed specifically for online affiliate business.
Hello Rina
Thank you for this SiteGround review. I was wondering if you could tell me more about Weebly since this is the site builder that’s listed in the Key Features Overview in this review, or could you recommend something else?
I’m looking to start a web-based blog and monetizing it to eventually earn a living from and quit my job. Can Siteground help me or should I continue my research?
Any information you can provide me with will be much appreciated.
Hiya Feji!
Great to have your comments and questions and glad to help. So, Weebly is a website building tool as it suggest but what you may want is something more.
Have you heard of managed hosting? This is a hosting service that provides a easier experience and a higher level of support and is ideal for web-based business and blogging sites.
Let’s look at some of the main benefits here.
A managed plan means you have fewer maintenance tasks to worry about.Important aspects such as security and updates are largely taken care of for you.You’ll get access to lots of dedicated support, which can answer your questions and help you solve problems.
This lets you get on with concentrating on the blogging and content creation which you need to earn the income.
Wealthy Affiliate is a managed hosting service but their support goes even further. They also provide training and one on one coaching for anyone looking to start a web-based business such as blogging in your case but also online affiliate marketing. So, click through to my Wealthy Affiliate Hosting Review which explains things in much more detail.
Wishing you all the best Feji!
Rina 🙂
wow, Thanks for sharing such an awesome article with us and I got to learn about the site ground web hosting by you and I knew a bit of it before but love to read your articles. Your writing skills are so good, interesting and informative. I personally do affiliate marketing and have a few websites already. My question is that I may have to move to a dedicated server soon but what are your thoughts on the SiteGround price range in general?
Hiya Md Millat!
Awesome to have your comments and question today! SiteGround pricing plans are such that you will need to pay annually, bi annually (2 years) or tri annually (3 years). Monthly only applies to the $80/month plan as a trial only. If you are wanting a pay monthly hosting service as good as or better than SiteGround then I recommend you take alook at Wealthy Affiliate Hosting.