WEB TECH TALKS: SiteGround Web Hosting Review (Updated for 2021)

Do I recommend it? Yes! SiteGround is a great web host for websites of all sizes.

SiteGround is one of the most popular web hosting services out there—and for very good reason.

They offer hosting options and plans suitable for a wide range of websites and businesses. Small personal websites, business websites, and large ecommerce sites alike can all use SiteGround.

That’s why more than 2 million websites trust SiteGround for their hosting needs.

If you’re just starting out, I can’t recommend SiteGround enough.

Visit Siteground

Normally $14.99/month
Free SSL, email, CDN, & backups
Recommended by WordPress
30-day money-back guarantee

Get a 63% discount

It’s also a great choice for anyone who wants to switch hosting providers. They offer a great WP Migrator plugin. This is a free plugin that makes the transfer of WordPress sites very easy.

Let’s dive into the plans, types of hosting, and top benefits offered by SiteGround. Use this guide to make an informed decision to determine if SiteGround is the best web hosting plan for your needs.

Benefits of Using SiteGround Web Hosting

There is plenty of upside to using SiteGround as a web hosting service. Below are the biggest benefits I think you’ll find from SiteGround.

High uptimes

When it comes to measuring how good a web host is, uptime is the ultimate metric. This is the amount of time that a server stays up and running.

A recent study shows that SiteGround has exceptionally high uptimes, on average, over a twelve-month stretch.

Siteground Uptimes

In 2018, SiteGround ranked fourth compared to other web hosts judging by average uptime. As you can see, they were just barely beat out for the third place spot by a one-thousandth percentage point.

Overall, the average uptime for the 32 shared web hosting services in the study was 99.59%. SiteGround was significantly higher than the average and near the top of the list.

High uptimes ensure that your site will nearly always be up and running around the clock. That’s why you’ll want a good host like SiteGround that’ll help ensure your site stays up — and making you money.

Fast load times

Just because your site is up, it doesn’t always mean that it will be fast. Luckily, that’s not an issue with SiteGround.

In fact, take a look at the response time for this SiteGround test website that was set up by Hosting Facts.

We already talked about the great uptime, but now you can refer to the response time column.

The average response time for these months in 2021 was 653 ms. That’s phenomenal. In addition to using a good web host, you should also know the other top principles that boost website loading times.

Great customer support

Hopefully, you don’t have any issues with SiteGround.

But in the event that you run into a problem, have a question, or need some assistance, it’s nice to know that they provide excellent customer support.

You can access phone support as well as live chat 24/7. As I mentioned earlier, you’ll have priority support if you have a GoGeek plan. This means that you’ll be connected with the most experienced SiteGround technicians whenever you need help.

Free features

Web hosts like to hit you with upcharges when you go to check out. SiteGround throws in some great features but at no extra charge.

Your membership comes with one free site migration. This can be done with their migrator plugin, which we talked about earlier.

SiteGround plans also come with a free CDN and free SSL certificate.

Cloudflare CDN keeps images, videos, and other large files off of your server. As a result, your server is always fast. Since SiteGround users servers all over the globe, the CDN makes sure that files are stored closer to website visitors for fast delivery.

The SSL certificate is required for all websites. It protects private information being transmitted between devices and websites. SiteGround throwing this in for free is a nice touch since you’d need to get one regardless.

Flexible

SiteGround is great whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned pro.

You don’t need to be too tech-savvy to understand how the platform works and get your site hosted. But on the other hand, if you like to be more hands-on with the server and take advantage of certain features, SiteGround has plans with you in mind.

There are also enough options on SiteGround to accommodate different web hosting needs, such as shared hosting and cloud hosting.

They have plans suitable for a wide range of average site traffic as well. So as your website scales, you can always upgrade to a plan that will meet your needs.

Money back guarantee

SiteGround offers a 30-day money back guarantee for their shared hosting plans. This shows that they stand behind the services that are offered.

Dedicated servers and cloud hosting plans have a 14-day money back guarantee, which is still enough time to tell if you’re happy with your service.

SiteGround will also refund you if they fail to meet a 99.9% uptime rate. This is clearly written in their terms of service.

TOS

This relates back to what we talked about earlier, in terms of their high uptime rates. There’s a reason why it’s so high: SiteGround has a promise to stand behind.

Other considerations

While SiteGround is great, there are a few downsides that you should be made aware of before you proceed.

Note: We don’t believe that they’re dealbreakers by any means — but they should definitely be kept in mind when making a decision.

Renewal rates

At first glance, SiteGround’s pricing is very attractive. But those are only promotional rates.

When you renew, your rates will jump as follows:

$3.95 to $11.95 per month
$5.95 to $19.95 per month
$11.95 to $34.95 per month

The cost essentially triples across the board. So I’d recommend locking in the longest contract possible when you first sign up, which is 36 months. This will guarantee you a low rate for a while before you’re forced to renew.

Limited budget plan

For those of looking for the best cheap web hosting service, SiteGround’s StartUp plan for $6.99 per month is definitely attention-grabbing.

It’s a great choice for those of you with smaller websites, but it’s fairly limited for anyone who plans on getting more than 10,000 visitors per month. You may have to upgrade faster than you anticipated if you start with their lowest priced web hosting plan.

Compare SiteGround Web Hosting Plans

SiteGround offers three tiers for their hosting sites:

StartUp
GrowBig
GoGeek

The prices of these three plans remain the same across the board for shared hosting, WordPress hosting, and Woocommerce hosting. Cloud hosting is the only one that differs.

We’ll dive deeper into those plans later in this guide. For now, I’ll focus on the pricing and features of the three most popular plan options offered by SiteGround.

StartUp

As the name implies, the SiteGround StartUp plan is ideal for new or smaller websites (less than 10,000 monthly visits). Rates start at $6.99 per month.

You can only host one website with the StartUp plan, and it comes with 10 GB of web space. Other top features include:

Free site builder
Free SSL and HTTPS
Free email accounts
Free CloudFlare CDN

It’s a basic plan, but definitely appropriate for new websites that are starting from scratch. For those of you who want more features and better performance, you’ll need to upgrade. You’ll also outgrow the StartUp plan as your traffic increases (which is a good thing).

GrowBig

The GrowBig plan starts at $9.99 per month. This is ideal for medium-sized websites averaging up to 25,000 monthly visits. GrowBig has 20 GB of web space and can host an unlimited number of sites.

Unlike the StartUp plan, GrowBig has enhanced caching ability. The SiteGround Supercacher has three levels.

Level 1 — Static content caching
Level 2 — Dynamic data caching
Level 3 — Database queries caching

StartUp only caches at the first level, but GrowBig caches on all three levels.

If you sign up for the middle-tier plan offered by SiteGround, you’ll also get free on-demand backups, as well as a staging feature for WordPress and Joomla sites. I’d say that the GrowBig plan will be suitable for most of you who are reading this guide.

GoGeek

GoGeek can accommodate up to 100,000 monthly visits and has 40 GB of web space. Obviously, this plan is made for bigger websites with high volumes of traffic.

Rates for GoGeek start at $14.99 per month, but the plan comes with all of the bells and whistles. In addition to everything that’s available in the GrowBig plan, GoGeek offers:

Advanced priority support (expedited customer service to the most experienced agents)
White label hosting feature (also known as reseller hosting)
Git pre-installed (for creating repositories on your site)

The name for this plan was inspired by technology geeks. So it’s made for those of you who want more control of your site. If you don’t understand some of the tech lingo that’s being mentioned in the GoGeek plan, it’s probably not for you. The only other reason why you’d need to upgrade to GoGeek is if you’re getting tons of monthly site traffic.

WordPress hosting

SiteGround offers hosting options specifically designed for WordPress users. This will save you time since you won’t need to manually download, install, and configure WordPress.

With SiteGround, you can take advantage of their automated process that’s as simple as clicking a button. This plan also makes it easier for you to customize your WordPress site by choosing a theme, picking your site functionalities, and installing marketing tools.

The WordPress Starter Kit from SiteGround is a great added feature for new WordPress sites. You don’t need any technical knowledge or experience to set this up.

If you have an existing WordPress site, SiteGround offers a free WordPress transfer. The SiteGround Migrator plugin takes care of everything for you. This is a secure way to transfer your site.

Alternatively, you can get your WordPress site migrated by one of the experts at SiteGround. This is a paid feature but could be worth the price if it’s in your budget.

WooCommerce hosting

SiteGround also has hosting options for ecommerce shops using WooCommerce.

The quick install and integration with WooCommerce is an easy way for you to create a professional theme for your online store. You can get the site up and running in minutes.

Just migrate your WooCommerce site using the migrator plugin. Just like WordPress hosting, WooCommerce migrations done by a SiteGround expert is free for one website if you’re on the GrowBig or GoGeek plan. Then you’ll have to pay $30 per each additional site.

Cloud hosting

Cloud hosting is a new way to host websites. The process uses multiple remote servers and is a great option for those of you who have websites that have outgrown the shared hosting plans.

With cloud hosting, SiteGround gives you guaranteed resources to meet your needs. Your own RAM and CPU won’t be shared with any other websites.

It’s also easy for you to scale your website with this type of web hosting.

You can upgrade your RAM, CPU, and disk space on-demand at any time. You don’t need to get approval to do this, and it happens without any website downtime.

Rather than always doing this manually, you can set up automatic scaling with SiteGround. It will adjust your CPU and RAM to meet the needs of unexpected traffic surges, but you still have control of all the parameters.

There are four plans for SiteGround Cloud hosting. As you can see from the image above, the plans range from $80 to $240 per month. So there’s definitely plenty of options to choose from.

I’d say that the business plan will likely be a suitable choice for most of you who are using a cloud hosting service for the first time.

Conclusion

Bottom line: I definitely recommend SiteGround for web hosting.

They have hosting plans for any size business. It doesn’t matter if you’re a startup or if you’re an established company. SiteGround stacks up well compared to its competitors in terms of features and performance.

While the hosting service it’s perfect, it still gets the nod from us here at Quick Sprout. I’m confident that it will fulfill your web hosting needs.