SiteGround Review 2020 Good, Great, or Simply the Best

SiteGround Review 2020 Good, Great, or Simply the Best .elementor-19992 .elementor-element.elementor-element-19992{text-align:center}Last Updated on March 16, 2020If everyone else uses SiteGround, should you use it, too?Probably not, until you learn as much as you can about the host so that you can reach a decision you most likely won’t regret. Disclosure As an independent review site, we get compensated if you purchase through the referral links or coupon codes on this page â€" at no additional cost to you. Dismiss alert SiteGround is one of the most popular web hosts out there. Founded by a group of university friends in 2004, today SiteGround has over over one million domains around the world. Not as many as what other top hosting companies have but still quite a lot.In the hosting space, they go toe to toe with their competitors, offering reliable hosting solutions such as shared, WordPress, reseller, dedicated, and cloud hosting.That said, is SiteGround popular because it’s good? Or is it just popular because it’s well marke ted?I spent 12 months analyzing every aspect of the company’s web hosting service. This is a 100% honest and impartial SiteGround hosting review. You’ll get the complete picture of their services, prices, and whether or not this is the platform for you.Our #1 web hosting pick:Get top rated hosting for as little as$2.64 per Month Claim your discount now! SiteGround web hosting reviews: pros consPROSCONSEverything on SiteGround: our conclusionThe big picture review of SiteGroundWho cares if tons of other people like SiteGround? You need a web host that works for your website. Join the FREE TrainingDo You Want To Learn How To Build 6 Figures Authority Sites?Join This Free Training To...Finally have a proven method to finding profitable nichesGet access to a foolproof keyword research methodLearn how to outsource quality contentLearn how to build white hat links to your site without headaches Well, the reason SiteGround is so popular seems to be because the platform is custom izable and easy to use. There’s a broad appeal to their hosting service. So, in this case, the quality of the product is more than just marketing hype.SiteGround isn’t popular because they have a few unique features which they do really well. Instead, they excel at not doing anything really wrong. Their hosting service is fast, secure, and reliable. Plus, their customer service is absolutely top notch.At the end of the day, you want a hosting service which will keep your website online and free from troubles.Of course, there’s always room for improvementâ€"that’s true for any web hosting service. But overall I give the service 4.5 out of 5 stars. Visit Siteground.com What Does SiteGround Offer? Big picture: They’re a web hosting service. If you run a website, you’ll need a web hosting service to store your site so the world-at-large can access it.SiteGround has shared, dedicated, WordPress, reseller, and cloud hosting, among other hosting solutions. Signup is very e asy, too. The entire signup process is one page with quick account activation.1. Shared Hosting PlansHere’s a quick overview of SiteGround’s three pricing plans:StartUp PlanSpecial Price: $3.95 a month, regular price: $11.95 a monthOne website with 10GB of storageUp to 10,000 visitors a monthUnlimited emailsCloudFlare support and securityGrowBigSpecial Price: $5.95 a month, regular Price: $19.95 a monthMultiple websites with 20GB storage limitUp to 25,000 visitors a monthUnlimited emailsCloudFlare support and securitySSL certificate free for one year30 backupsGoGeekSpecial price: $11.95 a month, regular: $34.95 a monthMultiple large websites with 30GB storage limitUp to 100,000 visitors each monthUnlimited emailsCloudFare, Git repository and one year of SSL certificationPCI assessment30 backupsPlease note that SiteGround bills yearly and that the heavily discounted special rates are just introductory prices that may last up to 3 years. After that, the regular price will set in.S iteGround offers new users a one-month trial period. That’s a one-time cost of $24.95. After that, you’ll need to sign up for an annual contract. Two- and three-year options are also available. Click here for current Sitegroung pricing Shared hosting features Data centersAll users can select their preferred data center. The options are:Illinois (for U.S. based websites)Amsterdam (for European sites)Singapore (for Asian-Pacific based sites)Usually, most people simply select the location where most of their customers are located. However, you can choose whatever data center you want. For instance, if you’re concerned about U.S. data privacy laws, the European data center might be your best option.cPanelSiteGround servers use CentOs Linux, and this explains why their shared hosting plans come complete with the industry standard cPanel. Besides being the most popular website management tool, the cPanel is easier to use and more functional than many website control panels.Web ap plicationsWeb applications give you the opportunity to easily upgrade the functionality and performance of your website. SiteGround makes this possible through addition of the Softaculous auto-installer, which lets you install hundreds of web applications such as e-commerce, blogs, content management systems (like Joomla and WordPress), social networking, and so on.Bandwidth and storageAll of SiteGround’s shared plans let you enjoy unmetered bandwidth. Remember the set maximum number of visitors allocated to each plan? That’s how the company measures site use.It should be easier for you to figure what plan is right for your website based on that. What’s even better is that SiteGround’s technical support team can help you maximize the available resources in your plan.If you plan to host heavy files on your website, say, multimedia content, that could easily get you beyond the acceptable use limits set by them. Thus, it would better if you considered the more powerful SiteGrou nd plans.As for storage, you have a cap too, the minimum being 10GB and the maximum set at 30GB.Free content delivery network (CDN)In all their shared hosting plans, SiteGround has included the CloudFlare CDN. Copies of your website(s) across the world can be stored on this platform. This will enable people who are far away from the base web server to still experience great page load speeds. Even if you are hosting multiple websites, you can still use the platform.A website builderIf you are not a pro but would still wish to create a website from scratch, SiteGround has a drag-and-drop website builder in their GrowBig and GoGeek plans, designed exclusively for you. It’s provided by Weebly and comes complete with e-commerce features.Note that opting to use the website builder on an old account would delete any content you’ve made outside it. So, if you are not ready to lose the data on your old account, it would be safer if you activate the builder on a new account.Free secure so cket layer (SSL) certificatesMost web hosts, SIteGround included, nowadays include SSL certificates in all their shared hosting plans. In addition to winning the trust of users, SSL certificates will also make your website Google friendly.Other features included in the three SiteGround hosting plans include:SSH accessâ€"a necessity whether you plan to do the development yourself or enlist the help of a professionalUnlimited databasesA 30-day money-back guarantee Visit Siteground.com 2. SiteGround WordPress ReviewPHP 7 a server-side scripting language that’s also able to boost speedHTTP/2 a network protocol that contributes to higher page load speeds.Great customer serviceMost web hosts aren’t known for responsive, timely customer support. So I wasn’t expecting much. Turns out, I ended up being quite pleasantly surprised.SiteGround fields over 1,500 online tickets, 800 calls, and 2,000 instant chats each day. Every time I reached out for help, I connected with a SiteGround rep in less than a minute. That seems impossible, but it happened half a dozen times. Each rep was friendly and knowledgeable, too.Another thing is, they are responsive, supportive, and transparent across all their support channels, i..e phone, chat, and tickets.Above all that, they have a resourceful knowledge base where customers share comments and knowledge about a variety of hosting-related issues. SiteGround also monitors the responses and shares key information where it’s needed.Solid securitySiteGround has a full kit of security tools that include:SpamAssassinSpamExpertsIP address blocklistsFree SSLHotlink protectionAlso, for just a dollar a month, you can sign up for HackAlert Monitoring. This service checks your website daily for signs of hacking. If any are found, you’ll be instantly notified.Another premium security feature they offer is the SG Site Scanner, which lets you know in case your site is under attack. It works in collaboration with SiteCheck, an automatic software scanning tool that scans your website for malware.I can’t forget to mention their artificial intelligence platform, which stops brute force login attempts on all SiteGround servers.WordPress integrationTo date, WordPress remains one of the best content management systems for website creation. So if you’re using WordPress, you’re not alone. There’s a big advantage to this popularity: most major web hosting platforms cater directly to WordPress users.Perhaps none go further than SiteGround. If you built your site using WordPress, SiteGround will automatically:Close security holesPerform server-level maintenanceBack-up monthlyRecover after multiple plug-in conflictUse SuperCacher and CDN with 34 locations (for improved load times)Hotlink protectionAre you a WordPress superstar? SiteGround has staging environments, Git and WP-CLI. Don’t understand what any of that is? No problem. SiteGround doesn’t force you to learn a bunch of technical stuff if you don’t want to .WordPress users of all skill levels will love the one-click installation and $0 transfer fee. Move your existing WordPress site over with no traffic interruption.Great for E-StoresSiteGround lets you install a lot of e-commerce applications very easily. Magento, PrestaShop, and CS Cart all have one-click install buttons. Alternatively, you can go to Softaculous and select one of many available options, such as ZenCart, Acis, and openCart.This is pretty much all you need if you’re a small online store, or even if you just want to sell a few items from your blog.If you’re a larger, commercial organization, you’ll still have enough flexibility to customize. However, you might run into some issues with the storage limits (we’ll get into that later).Inclusion of a SSL certificate means you can also secure your e-commerce domainFree regular backupsNone of us has a level of perfection that makes us immune to making mistakes, such as deleting the wrong database. Well, if that happe ns, the process of restoring your website will be lengthy and uninspiring.SiteGround has a solution to protect you against the pain of dealing with that. They back up your databases for free on a daily basis across all their shared hosting plans.On top of that, they will monitor your site around the clock through advanced mechanisms to make sure that everything is working properly. Visit Siteground.com CONSPlan limitationsCompared to similar web hosting services, SiteGround has relatively small storage space.If you’re a small business just starting out, this likely won’t be a huge issue. As your site grows, you can upgrade to a different plan.But even GoGeek, their biggest plan, has a storage limit of 30GB.That’s…not terrible. It’s also not unlimited. For large, commercial websites and others, unlimited storage space beats limited space of any capacity.Another uncomfortable limitation is the number of visitors that can visit your site a month. Granted, SiteGround has it s reasons for doing so, probably to make their servers more reliable. The tricky part is a situation where something on your website goes viral, or you get featured on a popular site and the traffic multiplies beyond your limit.My hope is that SiteGround won’t suspend my account if that happens, because it’s likely a one-time thing.Ease of useThe cPanel and website builder aside, SiteGround seems to be more inclined towards pleasing the pro users. As you’ve probably noticed, most of the features like the staging environments under WordPress Hosting, Git integration, installation of SSL certificates, etc., sound a bit complicated for the average user.Most are no doubt excellent features, but obviously, a novice who’s in the process of creating their first website won’t be in a position to use them.Annual commitment (unless you want to spend more)Reading through SiteGround reviews you’ll see a lot of positives about the low prices. It looks like you can get started for jus t $11.95 a month! Well, as I’m sure many of you already know, that’s not really the case.Most web hosts require at least a one-year commitment. That’s $11.95 a month…for 12 months. Personally, I’m always a bit wary of any company where I’m supposed to make a big commitment before I’d have any substantial time to use the service.SiteGround does offer a one-month trial for $24.95. This makes a year-long commitment much less of a risk. For small businesses, I’d recommend first signing up for the trial, and then signing up for the StartUp plan. Let your business grow to fill the smallest plan before moving up to the next.Compared to their competitors such as InMotion, Hostgator, BlueHost, and others, SiteGround’s prices are relatively high. Nevertheless, I’d love to emphasize that this con is exclusive to the price, not the value you get. If you decide to look at both and do a comparison with other web hosts, the outcome will definitely be different. Visit Sitegrou nd.com Everything on SiteGround: our conclusionIn this Siteground.com review, we’ve taken a look at everything SiteGround does well and especially where they could improve. There’s a lot of SiteGround reviews out there which have almost nothing bad to say about the platform at all. I wanted to make sure you weren’t just buying into the hype.I signed up for an annual plan and used SiteGround to host a site for 12 months. SiteGround exceeded my every expectation. They have fast speeds, reliable service, and great customer service.Plus, they’re great with WordPress. You can transfer over easily. Even the support staff is trained to help you with WordPress-specific problems (although integration is so smooth, I doubt you’ll have any).Storage isn’t great, and pricing is in the medium to high range. But you do get a lot for your money, and the customer service if among the best in the industry.If you’re a small to medium sized business, especially one who uses WordPress, Si teGround hosting plans have a lot of offer you.But if youre looking of BEST overall deal for hostingOur #1 web hosting pick:Get top rated hosting for as little as$2.64 per Month Claim your discount now! SiteGround vs DreamHost