Pros
ConsThe details
SiteGround has come a long way since it was founded back in 2004 by university students.
It’s grown widely, and it currently hosts up to 2 million domains and employs more than 500 people. This comes as no surprise as their customer service relations are one of the things that company is revered for.
Speed
When looking for a suitable web host provider, one of the first things that users look for is speed. Thankfully, this is something you won’t have to worry about with SiteGround.
The platform delivers a decent speed, which averages a loading time of 716 ms. It may not be the fastest, but it’s a good performance nonetheless.
One approach that SiteGround uses to deliver fast speeds is by using SSDs in all of their servers. If this term sounds a little foreign, SSDs are hard drives designed to deliver data quite fast; up to 30% faster compared to typical HDDs.
Uptime reliability
SiteGround’s uptime performance has been close to perfect in recent months. On average, it’s rated as 99.99%, which makes it one of the most reliable hosts.
A solid uptime performance is an important trait of a web host provider. This way, clients can rest easy knowing that their websites are up and running 24/7. With this comes increased visibility online, which translates to more revenue.
SiteGround has so much confidence in their web hosting services that they offer an uptime guarantee. What this means is that if the promised network uptime of 99.9% ever goes below the threshold, you’ll be duly compensated with free months of web hosting.
Important to note though is that this pledge comes with certain conditions. Specifically, the compensation is not valid in instances where you suffer a downtime caused by your own fault.
For instance, if you surpass resources, install programs that don’t work or violate the company’s terms, then you cannot hold SiteGround accountable.
Customer support
One of SiteGround’s key strengths is the quality of customer support they offer.
The firm assigns several customer service representatives for each shift, ensuring all its clients are attended to.
So whether you’re making an inquiry via live chat, email, phone support or tickets, you’re guaranteed of getting a prompt response. In fact, it only takes about 10 minutes for a submitted ticket to receive a reply.
In addition to this, SiteGround has a broad range of tutorials and webinars that it offers customers. These contain useful information that a user needs to learn how to navigate their web hosting platforms.
On the same note, we like the “Advanced Priority Support” feature that’s made available on the GoGeek packages. Introduced back in 2019, this attribute means that your request receives priority over others. In fact, such requests are addressed by the most skilled employees from SiteGround’s support department.
Value
SiteGround offers a vast range of hosting platforms, starting from shared to VPS, dedicated servers, cloud and WordPress. Here’s an overview of their prices, and what you get for each:
Shared web hosting
Under this category, SiteGround offers three plans: StartUp, GrowBig and GoGeek.
The StartUp package currently starts at $4.99 per month, and it affords you hosting for 1 website, up to 10GB of web space, a maximum of 10,000 visits, free SSL certificate, daily data backups and more.
With GrowBig, you’ll get 20 GB web space, a maximum of 25,000 visits, support for unlimited websites, unlimited databases and site staging. This plan has been discounted and is currently going for $7.99 a month.
GoGeek, which is the highest tier, sets you back $14.99 per month. It gets you up to 100,000 visits, support for unlimited websites, and 40 GB of web space. You will also have access to priority or advanced support, white-label support and a pre-installed Git.
Cloud hosting
The starting price point for SiteGround’s cloud hosting plans is $100. Initially, this might seem a little steep.
But, it’s totally worth it as the platform employs Google Cloud infrastructure. It means that your website will be powered by cutting-edge hardware. Here’s an overview of its packages:
Jump Start plan ($100 per month)
- 4 CPU Cores
- 40 GB of SSD space
- 8 GB memory
- 5 TB data transfer
Business plan ($200 per month)
- 8 CPU Cores
- 80 GB of SSD space
- 12 GB memory
- 5 TB data transfer
Business Plus plan ($300 per month)
- 12 CPU Cores
- 120 GB of SSD space
- 16 GB memory
- 5 TB data transfer
Super Power ($400 per month)
- 16 CPU Cores
- 160 GB of SSD space
- 20 GB memory
- 5 TB data transfer
WordPress web hosting
Like the majority of its competitors, SiteGround also provides WordPress hosting. In fact, it goes as far as monitoring the installation process through an optimized WordPress hosting.
This affords your website perks, such as top-notch security, page caching, automatic daily backups and an automated process for managing your content.
Although this web host provider does not offer free domain names anymore, it gives considerable discounts for registration. Their WordPress hosting plans are priced the same as shared web hosting packages.
Safety
Security is an issue of concern for every website owner. SiteGround understands this, which is why they provide a number of security features, namely:
- Real-time monitoring – one of its best security protocols is the fact that the status of a server is checked every 0.5 seconds.
- Site isolation- this feature guarantees that your website won’t suffer any negative effects should there be a security breach on one of the other sites.
- HTTP/2 technology – all its servers have support for this technology, which is ranked as the safest option available.
- Every user gets access to the platform’s web application firewall (WAF), designed to offer protection against security breaches, and it receives regular updates.
- An AI anti-bot system – SiteGround uses this to intercept millions of threats each day.
Clients will also be thrilled to learn that their websites get backups on a daily basis. It means one can restore their website with just one click of a button. Moreover, the user gets to decide the specific data they wish to restore:
- Files only
- Databases only
- All files and databases
- Emails
Final verdict
SiteGround fares very well compared to other web hosting services. It’s particularly suitable for customers who want a stable uptime performance. With this platform, you’re guaranteed that your website will be accessible to your visitors round-the-clock.
