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SiteGround Review

Introduction

In this SiteGround review post, we will check out a hosting provider that is attracting a lot of attention. This attention is largely due to its quality service, and especially due to their fantastically managed WordPress hosting.

We will start the SiteGround review by introducing you to SiteGround. We’ll take some time explaining why we think this provider is unique, not only when it comes to service, but their contribution to the community too.

Then, we will move to their plans. We’ll cover their major strengths, helping you decide which one is best for your business.

Lastly, we will discuss the quality of their support, as well as some other features they offer such as free migrations and 30-day money back guarantees.

By the time you finish reading our in-depth SiteGround hosting review, you will have all the necessary information that will help you decide if SiteGround is the right hosting solution for your site and your business needs. Let’s go!

SiteGround History

SiteGround is independent, and it’s not a part of a major hosting conglomerate like HostGator and BlueHost are. This automatically makes it very appealing to users. A smaller company means more in-house employees and better quality support.

Also, unlike multinational giants, smaller companies like SiteGround have to keep their reputation, and their services at the highest level, all of which you can really feel with this host.

The result is apparent, as SiteGround is steadily getting more customers, every single year.

15 Years Of Experience

Although independent, SiteGround is not a new name in hosting. SiteGround was founded in 2004, in Sofia, Bulgaria. Today, they have data centers on three continents. Two are in Europe, in London and Amsterdam, one is in Chicago, and the fourth one is in Singapore.

What makes SiteGround unique is complete transparency. They give open server information even before you sign up for their services, which you can check here.

That way, you know they have nothing to hide. You can expect 99.9+ percent uptime, most of the times even better, and numerous independent tests witness to that.

Caring About The Community

Lastly, SiteGround does a great job offering support to open web communities, especially WordPress and Joomla.

They organize events and are willing to participate in those other organizations have, really giving back to the community. They just don’t seem like most other money-hungry hosting giants.

SiteGround Hosting Options

SiteGround has very flexible plans and affordable prices. Performance is excellent on all, but in our opinion, their managed WordPress hosting provides the best value for money, and not only among their other plans but overall, in the hosting industry. We warmly recommend it.

First, if you already have a working site, SiteGround will offer free migration (on most plans), and do it for you, setting up everything with zero downtime.

If you don’t have a site yet, you can use WordPress or Weebly builders to speed up the building process, with minimal coding. They have one-click installations for many popular services, which means that you will get everything up and running in no time at all.

Outstanding security

SiteGround also has top of the line security, as they monitor your websites at server-level. Furthermore, you will get a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate for your site. That’s important not only for the safety of your users’ information but also for SEO purposes, as Google prefers secure websites.

Their DevOps are so skilled that they’ve written their own Linux Containers, and Linux Kernel patches, that are now a part of the official Linux Kernel Code. We all know how closely inspected that is, which all means your site is in the hands of top professionals.

SiteGround pioneered Secure Account Isolation in 2008 and their systems are still top of the line, ensuring your site stays safe even on shared hosting. Now, every quality host offers this technology, but SiteGround was the one to start the whole trend.

SiteGround also has their own anti-bot AI, custom-made to prevent brute force attacks, which are wreaking havoc across the Web. It stops everything at server level before it even reaches your site.

To make sure everything remains in perfect order, SiteGround runs daily backups, just in case you forget to do it yourself. If something goes wrong, you can always restore your site in one click. Of course, you can create backups yourself.

Excellent Speed

Also, SiteGround has SSD storage on their servers. SSD storage significantly contributes to site speed, user experience, and is a SEO factor. Their servers run on the latest PHP 7, and also have OpCache, and you can expect top performance. Lastly, SiteGround uses CDN, which guarantees maximal speed.

SiteGround has even went as far as as creating their own plugin to boost performance. Check out the short video below for more information.

Web Hosting Plans (Shared Hosting)

Shared hosting is the most commonly used and affordable type of hosting. Your site is on a server with a number of other sites, sharing resources, which lowers the price. The issue is that sometimes a sudden traffic spike of one site affects the performance of all other sites that share the server.

SiteGround openly admits that on occasion sites can handle more visits than the limit shows, which prevents them from breaking, but limits the performance of their “roommates.” Kudos to the company for openly admitting something that we all know happens, even when hosting providers try to hide it.

Plans:

SiteGround has three shared hosting plans. All plans have unmetered bandwidth, and the above-mentioned features all SiteGround plans share.

You can choose your data center, which is an excellent feature, not every provider has.

Unfortunately, there are no month-to-month payment options. You can only sign up for one or two-year contracts. But, there is a 30 day trial period which is enough to test things out.

Here’s what separates the shared plans (prices are promotional when paid annually):

1. StartUp – $3.95/mo – one website, up to 10 000 monthly visitors, 10 GB storage, Level-one caching, no free restorations, no free backups on demand (only automatic), no free migrations, no priority support, no staging and other advanced options. You will get essential server, database, and email configuration.
   
   
2. GrowBig – $5.95/mo – unlimited number of websites, up to 25 000 visitors, 20 GB space, all levels of caching, free backup restoration (but no free on-demand backups), no staging and other advanced options such as pre-installed Git, PCI servers, and other. GrowBig has premium server, database, and email configuration, giving you more resources.
   
   
3. GoGeek – $11.95/mo – the all-inclusive shared plan. Up to 100k monthly visitors on unlimited websites, with 30 GB of storage. All of the advanced features are unlocked, plus you get “geeky” level of resources for servers, databases, and emails.

Managed WordPress Hosting (Our Recommendation!)

During our SiteGround review process it became clear what our recommendation would be. SiteGround has top of the line WordPress hosting at an incredible price. This type of hosting really separates them from the competition.

Managed WordPress means that hosting provider takes care of the updates and upgrades, keeping your site safe and running, even if you don’t do it yourself. Having the latest versions of the WP core, themes and plugins is vital, especially for preventing hacks.

SiteGround has a unique Migrator plugin that will let you transfer it to their servers in seconds. And if you haven’t created your site yet, SiteGround has you covered with WP being pre-installed on their plans.

You will also have WordPress Starter, that will speed you through the setup process. There you will find many templates, but also a box of the most used site features such as contact forms, online portfolio or store. This way, you will create a fully working website in minutes.

Here is a short video about how easily you can setup your WordPress site on SiteGround.

SiteGround uses a custom firewall that will block attacks at the server level, constantly updating rules and making sure you stay protected even against the latest threats. Their team works proactively, creating patches and rules even before the official WordPress realizes the issues exist.

SiteGround uses special, WordPress optimized infrastructure on their WordPress managed plans. You can expect maximal performance on your site all the time. Some of the features that skyrocket speeds are server level caching, image optimization, but also the latest PHP and HTTPS setup, GZIP compression and app optimizations. All of that is monitored by dedicated WordPress experts. Because of this you can breathe easy knowing your site is in good hands at SiteGround.

Plans

SiteGround has three managed WordPress hosting plans. The prices and features are the same as in their regular shared plans (which you can see in the section above). The key difference is that they are tailor-made for WordPress. In a nutshell:

1. StartUp – $3.95 /mo – up to 10k visitors, 10 GB storage, one website, no advanced features, no priority support.
   
   
2. GrowBig – $5.95 /mo- up to 25k monthly visitors, 20 GB storage, unlimited websites, some advanced features but no free backups, priority support.
   
   
3. GoGeek – $11.95 /mo – up to 100k visitors, 30 GB storage, unlimited websites, all advanced features, priority support.

Cloud Hosting

SiteGround used to have VPS hosting, but they’ve switched this with Cloud Hosting, the latest technology in the hosting industry.

Cloud hosting is fully customizable, tailored to your needs. It gives you the most freedom to set up a solution that fits your business needs perfectly.

All cloud servers are fully managed, and you don’t have to worry about a thing, as SiteGround takes care of everything for you. They perform daily backups, keeping them off-site, and you can restore to one up to seven days old.

One feature separates cloud plans from regular hosting—speed. Cloud servers are spread across multiple locations, showing the user the closest copy of your site, guaranteeing maximal speeds. This is enhanced by free CDN that you also get in all plans.

The second thing is scalability. If your site encounters massive traffic spikes, you can easily up the resources in one click, without any reboots or downtime. That way you will know everything will work at 100%, all the time.

Also, all cloud servers give you access to 24/7 VIP support, guaranteeing maximum satisfaction.

There are four Cloud Hosting Plans:

1. Entry – $80.00 /mo – 2 Cores, 4 GB RAM, 40 GB SSD, 5 TB bandwidth
   
   
2. Business – Price $120.00 /mo – 3 Cores, 6 GB RAM, 60 GB SSD, 5 TB bandwidth
   
   
3. Business Plus – $160.00 /mo – 4 Cores, 8 GB RAM, 80 GB SSD, 5 TB bandwidth
   
   
4. Super Power – $240.00 /mo – 8 Cores, 10 GB RAM, 120 GB SSD, 5 TB bandwidth

Dedicated servers

For those of you who are having massive websites, and need something more than the above mentioned hosting solutions, SiteGround has dedicated servers.

Here, there are no sharing resources with others. You get the full power of an extremely potent server just for yourself.

All dedicated servers on SiteGround are custom-made, using only the latest hardware, guaranteeing the highest performance, but also maximal stability. Servers are fully managed, and you don’t have to worry about a thing, as the best experts SiteGround has taken care of your business. Of course, with the premium price comes the best support, and you can get SG team 24/7.

Plans

1. Entry Server – $269.00 /mo – Intel Xeon E3-1230 SSD, 3.2 Ghz, 4 Cores, 8 Threads, 8 MB Cache, 16 GB DDR3, 480 GB SSD, 10 TB bandwidth
   
   
2. Power Server – $349.00 /mo – Intel Xeon E3-1270 SSD, 3.5 Ghz, 4 Cores, 8 Threads, 8 MB Cache, 32 GB DDR3, 960 GB SSD, 10 TB bandwidth
   
   
3. Super Power Server – $729.00 /mo – 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2630 SSD, 2.00 GHz, 2x 6 Cores, 2x 12 Threads, 15 MB Cache, 64 GB DDR3, 2×960 GB RAID1 SSD, 10 GB bandwidth

Enterprise and Reseller Hosting

For those of you looking to get reseller or custom hosting offers, SiteGround has you covered. You just need to contact them, state your needs, and they will get you a custom enterprise offer.

SiteGround Speed and Uptime

What good would a SiteGround review be if we didn’t talk about the speed and uptime?

SiteGround has some of the best website speeds that we’ve tested. All of our tests are done with a basic WordPress install on a brand new site. This allows us to be sure to create as equal of an environment for all of the hosts that we test as possible.

Our SiteGround speed tests resulted in an average speed of 489ms. This is easily one of the best results we’ve had when testing WordPress hosting plans. To learn more about these results please check out our full WordPress hosting comparison article.

I was actually able to get this website with lots of articles and images down to 0.7 seconds when testing it out as you can see below.

As for uptime SiteGround also came out as one of the best overall hosting companies. It averaged an uptime of 99.99% during the time that we spent testing it. This is about as good as it gets within the hosting industry.

Both of these tests show that SiteGround is one of the best in the business. We’ll get into more pros and cons later in the article, but for now you can see some of the things we really like.

Free Transfers

We’ve mentioned that SiteGround offers free transfers, but we have to highlight it here as a separate category.

While migrations are nothing new in the hosting industry, as many providers include this perk, SIteGround stands out.

First, transferring your site is free for most plans, apart from the cheapest shared one. You won’t be forced to pay extra if you don’t know how to transfer the site on your own.

However, the speed is what makes SiteGround different. Most hosting providers can take a while to transfer your website. Transfers can take as long as 30 days, and they often are followed with site downtime. But not with SiteGround. These guys really do a great job, as they transfer your site in 24 hours!

You just need to contact them via chat and ask for the site transfer or request it when signing up. You can only transfer one site for free though. For the rest, you will either have to pay or use their free WP Migration tool, which is simple to use.

SiteGround Support

Our SiteGround review has many examples that witness how great SiteGround support is, and how they have a knowledgeable team, ready and willing to help, even for free.

It starts with free migrations. The fact that they contribute to open-source communities, providing free advice and patches, and organizing and taking part of worldwide events tells really a lot about their ethics and dedication. Yes, it has something to do with marketing, but still, not many other hosting providers care as much as SiteGround.

You can also see the level of quality when reading through their reviews. SiteGround  responds fast, even if you don’t have “priority” support. Cheaper plan users never lose out on these benefits. You’ll never have to wait for hours and hours before they get an answer. Of course, if you paid more for “priority” support, you can expect to get even faster service, and SiteGround delivers here too.

You can contact the support through tickets, chat, email or phone, or you can try and find solutions on your own, in their well-organized knowledge base.

SiteGround is also incredibly transparent, giving information about their server statuses, speed and ping to the worldwide audience, and not only to paid users. They never hide flaws in small text, which is rare to find in the very greedy hosting industry.

All this is probably because SiteGround is privately owned and independent, really looking to make a difference in the industry, but also in the Internet of today.

Guarantee Period

SiteGround has a 30-day money back guarantee, which is a standard in the hosting industry. This gives you enough time to see how everything looks like on your own site, risk-free. That way, you can sign up and test SiteGround for yourself, if taking our word and recommendation is not enough for you. Use the trial wisely, to try out as many features as possible, and see for yourself why we highly recommend this fantastic hosting company.

SiteGround Review: Pros And Cons Of Their Hosting

Pros

• Great value – SiteGround is cheap, but when compared with other hosting providers in the same price range, they offer much more.
  
  
• Amazing Managed WordPress Hosting – SiteGround offers managed WordPress hosting plans at an incredible price. Everything will be taken care of on your behalf by their team of WordPress experts, so you don’t have to worry about a thing.
  
  
• Supreme security and speed – SiteGround takes care of the security at the server level, ensuring hackers and bots never reach your site. The same goes for speed, as they have server caching, and CDN, and only use the latest hardware.
  
  
• Terrific support – free migrations, and excellent response times when compared to other hosting companies, even on cheaper plans without priority support.
  
  
• Community support and transparency – SiteGround gives a lot to the community. They organize events, but also answering questions and helping open-source projects. Also, their services are more transparent than those of most other providers, showing their quality and business ethics.

Cons

• Limited storage – while it is enough for most websites when compared to some competitors, SiteGround offers less storage. Still, considering the overall value of their plans, this is not a big issue.
  
  
• No monthly plans – unfortunately, you will have to sign a longer term contract, as only dedicated and cloud hosting have monthly plans.

SiteGround Coupon

I’m always trying to get our readers the best discounts available when it comes to products we review here. Because of this lengthy SiteGround review we have been given a SiteGround coupon. Feel free to use this link or the button below. It should get you the biggest discount available at this time.

SiteGround Review: Final Thoughts

After doing a very thorough SiteGround review we honestly can say that this is our favorite hosting company we’ve reviewed thus far. This could always change, so please consider checking out our full WordPress Hosting Comparison article for the most up to date list of hosting providers ranked.

What we really liked about SiteGround was their amazing support, awesome WordPress hosting, and great pricing. There are cheaper WordPress hosts out there such as Hostinger, but SiteGround just gives you a higher tier of quality in terms of what you’re getting. SiteGround’s WordPress hosting plans are honestly just better than those on other highly rated hosts such as BlueHost, especially when we get into pricing. We highly recommend checking out SiteGround for yourself.

Our final score for SiteGround is a solid 9.5 out of 10 stars.

We hope that this SiteGround review was helpful. Do you use SiteGround hosting, or have you used it in the past? If so we’d love to hear your own SiteGround review below in the comments section!

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