Siteground is one of the most widely used web hosting platforms by businesses. Popular for its ease in website management and expense downsizing capabilities; this affordable managed hosting for WordPress is used by over 2.8 million domains. In addition to usual web hosting services, it offers additional tools and services to build a full-fledged website, WordPress migration, and much more.
Preface to Siteground || Siteground Review
Siteground is considered one of the best WordPress shared hosts across the world. It is a very powerful tool that comes recommended by WordPress and the likes of WooCommerce and Yoast SEO. At the time of writing this review, there are only three web hosts that are recommended by WordPress, and SiteGround is one of them. The reasons for this could probably be how dedicated SiteGround is to manage your WordPress website.
It also helps to have a WordPress tool that is very easy to scale. SiteGround offers a very unique and flexible hosting system that includes hostings like:
- Web hosting
- WordPress hosting
- WooCommerce hosting
- Cloud hosting
- Reseller hosting
We will go into detail about these further ahead in this review.
But why do customers prefer SiteGround?
In broad terms, SiteGround offers just about everything to host and maintain their website on WordPress.
SiteGround offers a variety of features that helps both large and small website owners to manage as per their needs and abilities. Even if you are a newcomer with no experience in running a website. You can still grow your website with SiteGround. It offers ample beginner help and scaling over time with flexible plans, excellent customer support.
What SiteGround offers? : Feature Overview || SiteGround Review
SiteGround Web Hosting
SiteGround’s web hosting is secure and quick on foot. Whatever the type of website you are running, WordPress is optimized for content management systems, including popular ones such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and many more.
The domain registration process in Siteground is also quick and affordable. It gives you the convenience of administering both your domain and site from a single platform.
You can build and launch your website(s) quickly with their full website solution. You can also select the website builder of your choice, as it offers WordPress and Weebly builder. If you are running an online store, you can install a shopping cart of your choice for free. Currently, it offers carts from WooCommerce, Prestashop, OpenCart. These carts are built with features such as daily backups, SSL certificates, etc. It’s all covered under your siteGround plan and very easy to use.
With SiteGround, you will have access to an unlimited number of email accounts when you create your domain. You can use it to perfectly manage different areas of your business by assigning them appropriately.
In case you have an already existing website, you can simply transfer the information automatically with its WordPress Migrator plugin. In addition to that, you can also seek help from SiteGround’s migration experts.
SiteGround WooCommerce Hosting
In a long line of convenient features offered by SiteGround, there is WooCommerce hosting. Its core function is to offer key assistance for better and more online sales. Designed primarily for users looking to create a powerful shopping website, this hosting plan comes with a pre-installed WooCommerce plugin letting you directly upload store details and products.
The reason why SiteGround solely focuses on WooCommerce is because of its versatility. WooCommerce allows you to sell any type of product or service online. In addition to these, you are given a unique AI anti-bot system, custom web application firewall (WAF), and already installed SSL. Features such as these make sure that your e-commerce grows and stays safe.
SiteGround also offers a free Content Delivery Network (CDN) powered by Cloudflare to ensure a super fast loading time for your customers across different geographical locations.
SiteGround WordPress Hosting
As mentioned before, SiteGround is one of the three hosting options that are recommended officially for WordPress. So before going further you get the idea that SiteGround’s credibility is higher than most other WordPress hosting services.
With SiteGround, you are not required to download and install WordPress manually. Rather, the whole process is automated through a simple click using the “WordPress Launch” feature.
In case you are new to this entire “running a website” business, you can rely on SiteGround to help. It offers plenty of free tutorials for users to read and get started with. Plus, SiteGround gives hands-on support for new users too.
Once you have logged into your website, you will see the prompts for setting up your site easily and instantly through SiteGround’s “WordPress Started Kit.” IT takes only a couple of minutes to set up, despite your skill level.
SiteGround’s intelligent design covers all requirements for your WordPress-based website too. It automatically updates and patches your WordPress website against all kinds of cyber threats through its server firewall. You also get an all-in-one “SiteGround Security Plugin.” Like other things in SiteGround, it is pre-installed. It works as your one-stop solution to tackle regular hacks, data leaks, brute-force attacks, ransomware attacks, etc.
To run a website successfully you need access to real-time information regarding how your website is performing on different fronts. SiteGround’s Optimizer Plugin provides such information. It gives a comprehensive overview of WordPress performance and speeds up your sites tremendously. Optimizer plugin is built on the Google Cloud Platform and includes the aforementioned Cloudflare-powered free CDN. It helps in powerful caching, PHP version control, image and front-end optimizations, etc.
One of the most popular features of SiteGround WordPress hosting is top-notch data migration of websites. The migration is done through a plugin called “SiteGround Migrator Plugin.” This feature allows pre-existing websites to transfer data to SiteGround within the span of a few clicks, and if you are not sure how to do it by yourself, SiteGround offers you expert help.
SiteGround Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting is a novel concept for website hosting. It is a very popular solution among businesses and websites that are medium to large in size and has the capability to grow even larger. It is very helpful and flexible to have a cloud hosting service if you do not want to be constrained by your hosting plan.
SiteGround’s cloud hosting comes with guaranteed resources to make sure that your website is up and running at all times. It provides you, your very own RAM, CPU, and disk space (which can be upgraded) of your cloud plan at any given time. There is no downtime with this process and resources can be added immediately, which works in your favor.
The cloud hosting plan also gives automated scaling options. SiteGround provides a one-of-a-kind auto-scale service that will adjust the CPU and RAM. That means no outages or site breakdown whenever there is a traffic surge or preventing slowness. The best part about this auto-scaling process is that you get to determine the scalable amount. You have all the control over the scaling criteria.
Another issue that most cloud hosting websites face is that of data loss. SiteGuard keeps 7 offsite copies and you can also create instant backups whenever you want.
Lastly, SiteGround provides a free dedicated IP within its cloud hosting plan. This saves you the headache from IP blacklisting because of any webmasters’ activities.
Reseller Hosting
Reseller Hosting is a feature that is best suited for users who provide web hosting and website management service to other clients. SiteGround helps you manage your clients easily. It gives a trusted hosting partner along with all the necessary tools you need to manage multiple on the fly.
The Reseller Hosting offers a single dashboard that lets you monitor multiple sites at the same time packed with live status details. SiteGround also makes sure that scaling resources as per business requirements is easy. It leaves powerful tools at your disposal to ensure that you can manage different types of sites, clients, and businesses seamlessly.
SiteGround: Pros and Cons || SiteGround Review
The Pros
- Best Customer Support. The SiteGround team is extremely responsive. They pick up the query at any time of the day and make sure it is resolved. They have a 24/7 support system that comes through live chat, a help desk ticketing system, and phone support. Even the most complex of issues take 15 minutes at the top.
- WordPress Recommendation. As of now, SiteGround hosts about 80% of all the domains on WordPress. With that in mind, it is a matter of no shock that they are experts at WordPress.
SiteGround carefully crafted tools for WordPress such as SG Optimizer, Site Migrator, etc. - Low Introductory Pricing. SiteGround offers some of the best prices for starters. Their solutions start from as low as $3.99 per month (billed annually). Also, these plans are very carefully designed. Instead of having plans devised in a way where customers are pushed to purchase costlier plans, SiteGround keeps it nifty. Every plan serves its purpose that it states and the most features to manage a website are included in the plan.
- Best Uptime and Site Speed. Customers hate websites that lag, and with SiteGround you will never encounter this issue.
- Website transfer. For pre-existing website operators, this is a dream come true. SiteGround offers pre-installed plugins that help you migrate data with a single click. No extra time or hours of dedication to make sure that nothing important has been left.
- Backups and More Backups. SiteGround lets you make and save backups whenever you want. It also creates seven backups and saves them on offsite locations.
- Flexible and Scalable Hosting Options. SiteGround is nothing if not for its incredible hosting capabilities. You can basically manage any kind of site and upscale it at your pace. Keep your websites updated as your business grows.
The Cons
- Renewal Prices. After the introductory period is over the price of renewing your existing plan can spike by at least three times. This could be an issue for many businesses that are running cash-strained operations.
The best way to counter this is to purchase the longest-term plan during the promotional period which extends to up to 24 to 36 months depending on the season. - No Monthly Plans. Sadly all plans in SiteGround are yearly or higher which makes the problems mentioned in the first point even more painful. Although, businesses do like to have a yearly plan as it lets them finance their operations better. But to refer to the first point again, not everyone has the money to make such hail mary attempts.
- Limited Web Space. One of the major chink in the SiteGround armor is its limited web space. WordPress, WooCommerce, and Web hosting plans offer only up to 40 GB of webspace even at the highest price plans. This can be very limiting for several reasons. This puts an upper ceiling of 40 GB for businesses that are looking to grow or currently growing their operations massively.
Even in Cloud hosting, the highest web space goes up to 160 GB which leaves the users to ask for more.
SiteGround Pricing || SiteGround Review
Prices for Web, WordPress and WooCommerce hosting are the same. It is available in three different plans:
- StartUp – $3.99 per month
- GrowBig – $6.69 per month
- GoGeek – $10.69 per month
Prices for Cloud Hosting Plans
Prices for Reseller Plan
Note that all these monthly prices are billed annually.
Conclusion || SiteGround Review
SiteGround is one of the best WordPress shared hosts and best web hosting providers out there. It has pretty much everything you need and more. It deploys cutting-edge tools to ensure smooth-sailing website management and safeguards from any incoming threat. There is not much to worry about once you start managing your website(s) with SiteGround. It takes extra measures to make sure that your IP is not blacklisted even during the worst-case scenarios.
Even after considering the shortcomings, SiteGround stands out as a website management and hosting tool. It simply checks out pretty much every box in quality and quantity except for its limited web space. Regardless, you get access to one of the smoothest and best web hosting providers. Very little to go wrong with.
