Launched in 2004 and home to over 2 million domains, SiteGround is one of the biggest web hosting 
companies around. With its three hosting plans, this provider will cater to most websites’ needs unless you’re running something really big.
Often recommended for serious projects, SiteGround has a reputation for good, reliable service. If you expect your site to grow with time and require more performance, this provider makes it quite easy to scale up your plan.
In this complete SiteGround review, you’ll discover why SiteGround is a good choice for web hosting, its main features, hosting plans, and prices to help you decide if this is a good choice for your online business.
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Top Three Reasons To Choose SiteGround
SiteGround is a top-notch web hosting provider. Although not the cheapest there is on the market, they offer good value for money. They are known in the industry for quality and innovation.
If you’re just starting out and you’re on a tight budget, a better choice would be our #1 web hosting pick Bluehost. To find out why it’s our #1 pick, read our full Bluehost review now.
Guaranteed Uptime
Server downtime is one of the worst things that can happen to a website. Your website going down, even for as little as 10 minutes, can cost you both existing and potential clients. It could even drop your SEO rankings.
SiteGround guarantees 99.99% uptime and has consistently delivered on that guarantee over the years. And in the very unlikely event that they fail to provide you with the 99.99% uptime, you are entitled to compensation.
Decent Customer Service
Many web hosting providers promise excellent customer care and then fail to deliver. SiteGround’s customer reps actually sound like they know what they are talking about and won’t keep you waiting while they search for answers.
There is a huge knowledge base available if you want to do a quick search. There is a multitude of articles offering quick fixes for commonly faced issues here. If you can’t find your answers here, you can get in touch with the customer care team.
You have the option to call over the phone or use their live chat, which is available 24-7. Their customer care reps are very responsive and efficient. If you have a complex issue that requires a specialist’s attention, they will quickly escalate it to the tech team and get it fixed.
Strong Server Security
There is nothing worse than having your website compromised. Sensitive information breaches can cost you all your business and even land you a lawsuit. SiteGround uses sophisticated proprietary systems to continuously scan for and block malware and viruses.
In April 2017, SiteGround launched an AI platform to block malicious bots that use brute force attacks that utilize massive amounts of server resources to sabotage a website. It also has an isolation system. If a website on any given server is compromised, this system prevents other websites from being hacked.
SiteGround Hosting Features
Designed to cater to beginners and more advanced users alike, SiteGround offers a good mix of features spaced across three shared hosting plans. Each plan is carefully tailored, and it’s possible to get some custom options too.
No Monthly Data Transfer Cap
SiteGround offers unlimited monthly data transfer on all of its plans, even the cheapest one. You can also have as many FTP accounts as you need. SFTP and SSH connections are also not a problem.
Several Data Centers
Using a web hosting provider with multiple server locations can be useful in improving site loading speeds. Choosing a server location closer to your customers can speed up their surfing experience on your website.
SiteGround’s data centers are scattered across four different continents. The individual locations are Singapore, Sydney, London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and Iowa. It gives more opportunities for your customers to access your site faster.
Managed WordPress Hosting
Recommended by wordpress.org itself, SiteGround offers excellent management for the popular WordPress platform. If you already have a WordPress website elsewhere, you can get it easily transferred for free using the SiteGround migrator plugin. You can also get a professional transfer done by their in-house experts, although at a cost.
They also offer automated WordPress installation, and you can create your own functional WordPress site in a few minutes using the WordPress starter. SiteGround optimizes the performance of WordPress and manages security and updates as well.
Free Weebly Sitebuilder
Weebly is popular with the web hosting industry for its ease of use. The interface is intuitive, and the drag-and-drop editor makes it simple for anyone, regardless of experience, to quickly build a functional site.
There are many design layouts to choose from, and all the functionality a site may need, such as contact forms and shops, is included. SiteGround offers a free version of Weebly on all its plans.
Free SSL Certificate and CDN
SiteGround offers free SSL certificates on all its plans. SSL is not really optional these days, as Google Chrome has started actively warning users if the website they’re trying to load doesn’t have an active SSL certificate. The reasoning behind this is the users’ security. SSL helps to protect information sent between the website and the user’s device from hackers.
CDN (Content Delivery Network) is also offered for free on all SiteGround plans. CDN can help speed up loading times for visitors to your site, as it stores large files like images and videos on various servers scattered around the world.
Comprehensive Site Migration
This only comes free for one website with the GrowBig plan and upwards but is available for anyone that needs the service at a nominal fee of $30. Handled by professionals, you can expect the transfer to go smooth and risk-free, regardless of how big or complex your website is.
Collaboration Tools
SiteGround offers an efficient set of tools to help you and your clients manage their websites if you are an agency or designer. With the GrowBig and GoGeek plans, you can add collaborators to your website. Each collaborator gets an individual login to the site tools and can build and maintain the site for you, as well as contact support.
It is also possible to build a website and transfer it from your account to a different SiteGround account. With the GoGeek plan, you can register clients as users on your SiteGround account and give them white-label access to their website tools. SiteGround’s logo won’t show up anywhere in there.
Storage and Backups
Unlike some of its competitors, SiteGround doesn’t offer unlimited web space. What they do offer is still reasonable, though. The Startup plan comes with 10GB, and the GrowBig and GoGeek have 20GB and 40GB, respectively.
SiteGround also makes daily backups of your website. In the event of a problem, you can ask them to restore any one of the last 30 backups. GrowBig and GoGeek also offer some options to create and access your own backups.
Good Server Speeds and Loading Times
Operating on Google Cloud enables SiteGround to provide one of the fastest hosting services available. They use distributed storage running on SSD disks to optimize the speed further and offer a high level of redundancy. The GrowBig and GoGeek plans have a caching system for dynamic site content, which further improves the speeds.
This web hosting company has also consistently placed among the top 10 every year when it comes to loading speeds. Their loading tie of 673ms may not be the fastest on the market, but it’s well above average. Couple with their reliability and 99.99% server uptime, it makes for a solid deal.
Wide Range of Applications
Weebly is included free in every hosting plan with SiteGround, but you also get good integrations with WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. Installation is quick and hassle-free, so you don’t need a developer to help you out if you have a nice theme and want to DIY.
SiteGround also offers some features that will appeal to developers. The bigger plans have Git pre-installed, and there are multiple versions of PHP available, as well as multi-level caching. You also get access to staging environments so you can test new features before deploying.
30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
All shared hosting plans on SiteGround come with a full 30-day money-back guarantee. It applies to the hosting plans themselves and doesn’t include any extras like domain name fees. Also, be aware that this guarantee extends only to new customers and does not apply to renewals.
Just for comparison, SiteGround’s VPS, cloud, and dedicated hosting plans come with a 15-day guarantee.
Unlimited Email Accounts
All of SiteGround’s hosting plans offer unlimited email accounts. You also have the option to connect your email to other mail services such as Google. Emai storage space is limited to 2GB, 4GB, and 6 GB, respectively, on the StartUp, GrowBig, and GoGeek plans.
Pros and Cons of SiteGround Web Hosting
SiteGround consistently rates among the top 10 web hosting companies worldwide and has a lot going for it such as:
Consistently excellent server uptime, almost 100%
Good collaboration features for agencies and designers
Unlimited site traffic
Reliable, efficient customer support
Good advanced features like Git repositories, staging and own caching
Free CDN and SSL certificates
Easy-to-use, intuitive interface
Cons of SiteGround Hosting
On the expensive side, although it does offer good value for the money
Set-up fee on monthly plans, forcing you to sign up for a long contract to avoid it
Limited email storage space
Limited web storage space
SiteGround Hosting Plans and Pricing
SiteGround offers three web hosting plans for you to choose from:
With the basic start-up hosting plan priced at $6.99 per month, this makes it a more expensive choice than the equivalent plan with Bluehost, which is just $2.95 per month. So if you’re a beginner, Bluehost is a better choice.
For more advanced users, Siteground’s GrowBig plan at $9.99 per month is worth considering. In addition to the hosting features above, the GrowBig plan also includes on-demand backup copies, speed-boosting caching, staging for WordPress sites and you’ll be able to add collaborators – additional users who can access your account with their own individual logins.
Siteground’s GoGeek hosting plan at $14.99 is probably too expensive for most and only really suitable for larger companies such as marketing agencies. It has all of the features of the GrowBig plan but has a White Label option for clients to access the web hosting account. It also includes access to more server features as well as priority support.
SiteGround Review – Wrap Up
With its excellent values for money, guaranteed uptime, good customer service, easy-to-use interfaces, SiteGround is a very good choice for web hosting. Especially for medium to large companies who need collaboration features.
SiteGround’s GrowBig web hosting plan at only $9.99 per month is our recommendation. Click here now to get started with SiteGround’s GrowBig plan.
For beginners, particularly new bloggers just starting out, SiteGround’s Start-Up plan would be a decent choice for sure. However, the price is on the expensive side, almost double that of Bluehost for the same features. Bluehost is also endorsed by WordPress so it’s perfect for beginners, and at just $2.95 per month, it’s our best recommendation.
You can get a more complete picture in our comprehensive Bluehost review here.