SiteGround is one of the most popular and highest rated hosting provider and recommended WordPress hosting companies. They are known for their top notch customer support and fast reliable hosting plans. 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 which is why they’re an official ‘WordPress’ recommended hosting provider. This is also why we use SiteGround for hosting the WPBeginner website. SiteGround features include automatic upgrades, built-in WP caching, CDN, one-click staging and GIT version control. They are also one of the few companies offering location specific hosting with 3 data centers in USA, Europe, and Asia. On top of all this, they have а special 70% discount for WPBeginner readers.
About SiteGround
SiteGround was founded in 2004, and since then it has grown into one of the most well known hosting companies.
It is headquartered in Sofia, Bulgaria with offices in 6 locations and data centers in three continents. Today, the company has more than 400 employees and hosts more than 500,000 domains.
Pros and Cons
Each hosting company has its own pros and cons. Some advantages can overshadow the disadvantages, but some cons can be a total deal breaker for your individual needs.
Before making a decision, you may want to review these SiteGround pros and cons.
Pros
Here are some of the 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 are equipped with latest hardware like SSD drives and custom software to make sure that your site is super fast.
Top Notch Customer Support Their customer support is amazing to say the least. They offer 24/7 phone, live chat, and ticket based support.
Free CDN and SSL They offer instant setup of Cloudflare’s free CDN and free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt.
Multiple Server Locations They have data centers in three continents. You can choose the location you prefer during signup.
Cons
As we mentioned earlier, there are some downsides with every hosting company. These 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, then you will most likely never need extra storage.
- Setup fee for monthly billing: There is a $14.95 setup fee if you choose monthly billing. But if you sign up for a longer billing period, then you’ll get bigger discount and no setup fee. 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.
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.
Speed Test Results
Speed is one of the most important performance metric that you should look for. A faster website offers good user experience and boosts your SEO at the same time.
In fact, a single second delay can cause 7% decrease in conversions, 11% fewer page views, and 16% decrease in customer satisfaction.
SiteGround site for the downtime and got 100% uptime result.
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 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 fraction of a second in the United States.
It responded within less than a second for all locations, except Japan. If your target audience is mostly located in Japan, then you can ask SiteGround to move your site to their Asia-Pacific data center.
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 and beginners. 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 performance of your website.
- Cloud hosting: Cloud hosting is a flexible upgrade to shared hosting. It allows you to use resources of multiple servers on a cloud architecture. It is suitable for growing websites, popular blogs, or businesses.
- Dedicated servers: Dedicated servers give you a complete server for your website. It is more expensive but gives you a lot more power. The downside is that you will have to manage the server yourself.
- Enterprise hosting: This plan is for large businesses and high traffic sites with challenging server requirements. Get in touch with SiteGround team and they will create a tailor-made plan to suit your needs.
Breakdown of SiteGround’s Shared Hosting Plans
SiteGround’s shared hosting is the best way to start a new website. Their shared plans 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 having 10,000 monthly visitors. You’ll also get all essential features like 1-click WordPress install, free setup, website transfer, daily backups, and more.
- GrowBig: The GrowBig plan lets you host unlimited websites. It comes with 20 GB disk space and is suitable for hosting websites having 25,000 monthly visitors. You’ll get all the features of the Startup plan, plus you’ll get premium features like Super Cacher, 1-year free wildcard SSL, and more.
- GoGeek: GoGeek plan is suiteable for small eCommerce websites. It can handle websites having 100,000 monthly visitors. In addition to all GrowBig’s features, you’ll get access to more advanced features like one-click git repo creation, WordPress and Joomla staging, and more.
Support and Customer Service
You will see high praise for SiteGround’s customer support service everywhere. They are 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’s get first response within less than 10 minutes.
For users who prefer to fix things on their own, SiteGround offers a large collection of knowledge base articles with screenshots, videos, tutorials, and guides.
Conclusion
After reading detailed SiteGround review, you might be wondering if SiteGround is the right choice for your website?
If you want fast and reliable web hosting service with great customer support, then SiteGround is perfect for you. They have hosting plans for every budget and each plan comes with great set of features.
All their shared hosting plans include SSD storage, easy setup of Let’s Encrypt free SSL and Cloudflare CDN service, 1-click WordPress installer, and free migration.
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.
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