SiteGround Web Hosting Review

About SiteGround Hosting

Year Founded: 2004

BBB rating: A-

Websites Hosted: 1,800,000

Server Locations: Chicago, London, Amsterdam, Singapore

Services Offered: Shared Hosting, WordPress and WooCommerce Managed Hosting, Cloud Hosting, Enterprise Hosting, Dedicated Hosting, Reseller Hosting

SiteGround Plans

Siteground offers many different types of hosting plans based on different needs, and price points.  From standard shared hosting, and managed hosting for WordPress and WooCommerce, to more scaleable solutions like Cloud Hosting.  They also offer dedicated servers, enterprise hosting, and reseller hosting.

Shared Web Hosting, Managed WordPress and WooCommerce Hosting

The basics of SiteGrounds shared hosting and managed hosting for WordPress and WooCommerce look to be the same.  They have the same three tier system to allow for organizations from startups to larger companies.

Pricing is a bit higher than some competitors, but you get a return on that investment with their superior customer service.  For all price points they will assist you with installation of a variety of Content Management Systems, including but not limited to, WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, and many more.  This is a major bonus for those not so technically inclined people.

Some Details

Startup plan – Along with these basic features you get a free SSL, website builder, email account, cloudflare CDN, and 24/7 customer support.  That’s a pretty good list of things to get with an initial starter package.

GrowBig plan – Additional benefits include free site transfers, priority technical support, SuperCacher (which helps to improve web site speed), and free backup restores.

GoGeek – Additional benefits include PCI compliant servers, with fewer accounts on the server.  They also allow for WordPress and Joomla staging, and free backups whenever you need them.

What is Managed WordPress & WooCommerce Hosting

Not only will SiteGround help you install these CMS, but also will manage them for you.  That means they will take care of automatic updates and manage the security of your site at the application level.

If you have an existing site hosted at another provider, SiteGround will transfer you over for free with their GrowBig and GoGeek plans.

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Cloud Web Hosting

If your site gets too large for a shared hosting solution, Siteground offers different tiers of cloud web hosting as well.  Cloud hosting is when resources are used from different servers in the “cloud” allowing for higher volume sites to balance that workload across these different servers.  This is typically more cost effective, and less technically demanding than using dedicated hosting.

*Note: SiteGround also has plans for dedicate hosting, enterprise hosting, and reseller hosting.  Details can be found on their website at SiteGround.com

SiteGround Pros and Cons

SiteGround has at times been dinged for limiting the amount of storage and disk space in their plans.  But most web hosts that offer unlimited storage have fine print that essentially makes their plans similar to SiteGround.  They actually get credit for being transparent about how much storage you have so you can accurately decide on the right plan.

SiteGround Additional Features and Benefits

Control Panel Features

SiteGround uses cPanel for their control panel which is one of the easier solutions for users to master.  For those that are beginners, it still has a learning curve, but there are plenty of resources through SiteGround, as well as the general web to assist with most questions.

Uptime

SiteGround boasts of a 99.9% uptime, and based on our own experience, they deliver on that promise.  This number is also confirmed by other external parties who test their speed and uptime on a regular basis.  This consistency is one of the main reasons SiteGround sits so highly on our list.  Uptime is absolutely critical to maximizing your ROI’s in the online world.

WordPress Official Host

Out of all the hosts in the world, SiteGround is one of the very few that are officially recommended by WordPress.org on their site.  That’s as a good a recommendation as you’re going to get.

Privacy and Security

SiteGround provides a Let’s Encrypt SSL to all clients who host a domain with them for free.  This ensures that all the communication going between a browser and your web server is encrypted.

Website builder

While it’s easy to install some of the most popular CMS with SiteGround, some customers are looking for more basic sites.  Because of this, SiteGround has partnered with Weebly to provide a drag & drop website builder.  This functionality allows people with no technical skills to create professional looking websites.

Support

SiteGround provides 24/7 support for Phone, chat, and tickets submitted online.  We can attest to speed with which SiteGround responds to customer service requests.  If you are looking for more validation, just look at pretty much any comment around the web, and you will find that SiteGround is known for their amazing support.

SiteGround Compared to other Hosting Providers

When comparing the top web hosting providers, Siteground performs very well across the board.  Considering all the hosts on this list hold their own, SiteGrounds #3 ranking shows how strong they are in every category.  Their especially strong #1 ranking in the support bucket should have you thinking heavily about using them if you may need more than average assistance with technical issues.