SiteGround Review 2024

Updated


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SiteGround has been one of the leading web hosting providers for years, and it is easy to see why. The company goes a long way to ensure you get industry-leading hosting technologies and the support and services to achieve your desired results.

Who should choose SiteGround?  E-commerce website owners, small agencies and web developers, those who run personal websites, local and regional small businesses, and hobbyists.

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Hostinger

The easiest option

Starts at $2.99 per month

  • Fail-proof setup
  • Great for beginners
  • Free AI tools

Bluehost

For new WordPress sites

Starts at $2.95 per month

  • Guided onboarding
  • Recommended by WordPress
  • 24/7 support

HostGator

Best security and scalability

Starts at $3.75 per month

  • All types of hosting
  • Enhanced security tools
  • Affordable as you grow

What we like about SiteGround

  • Extremely steady: SiteGround always puts reliability above everything else. Testing confirms the servers are up far more than 99.9%, the amount most hosting companies guarantee. This is due to premium quality servers, redundant power and data circuits, and more.
  • Over 18 years of experience: SiteGround has been in business for almost 20 years and has earned an exceptional reputation. The company is trustworthy, with more than 2.8 million domains running on its servers.
  • Excellent for WordPress hosting: If you are one of the millions of businesses that use WordPress to build your website, you will likely love SiteGround. You can install WordPress with one click (for free) and use hosting packages configured specifically for this type of site, making it run faster and more reliably.
  • Premium support for small businesses: SiteGround offers wonderful support to all its customers, including small businesses. The company is staffed 24/7 and understands that a business website needs immediate attention since it can directly impact your bottom line.
  • Easy-to-use admin interface and features: SiteGround has done an impressive job of designing the back end of its hosting interface. The admin panel has all the options you usually need in one convenient place. You can set up a custom backup schedule in minutes without any experience or install WordPress or other applications with a few clicks.
  • CDN included on all hosting packages: A CDN improves a site’s loading times. This technology distributes the larger files (like pictures, videos, and more) from a website onto many servers hosted in data centers worldwide. When visitors access your site, larger files are loaded from the closest location. SiteGround offers a solid CDN service to all its web hosting customers, regardless of their package. This makes your site more responsive, so visitors will be happy to stay. At other hosting companies, this feature is often either unavailable or comes with added costs.

What fell flat

  • No dedicated servers or virtual private servers (VPS): While SiteGround has many excellent hosting options, it does not offer any dedicated servers or even VPS. If your site gets a lot of traffic, you cannot upgrade to these higher-end options. The provider has excellent cloud-based hosting options that can handle much traffic. Most small businesses, entrepreneurs, individuals, and others will never require a VPS or dedicated server, so this won’t be a big obstacle in most cases.
  • Limited disk space on some packages: The entry-level hosting package offers just 10 GB of space, good for most sites. But maybe not if you are running an e-commerce page and loading many pictures or videos of your products. Most hosting companies offer unlimited disk space, so it would be nice to see SiteGround move in that direction, though this isn’t an issue for many users.
  • Monthly prices are a little high: Though the prices are reasonable compared to many other companies, you will pay a couple of dollars more even for entry-level hosting. SiteGround never claims to be a discount hosting company; in most cases, the extra cost is well worth it.

Digital.com’s Editorial Review

SiteGround offers competitive pricing, industry-leading features, quality security, notable support, and a focus on continuous improvement. This very trustworthy hosting company will help make your website a success today and long into the future.

See how we review web hosting providers.

Plans & Pricing

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  • Startup–$2.99 per month
  • GrowBig–$4.99 per month
  • GoGeek–$7.99 per month
  • Cloud hosting–$100+ per month
  • 30-day money-back guarantee

Features

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  • Automatic WordPress installation
  • Free email hosting
  • Email migrator tool
  • Daily backups
  • Easy-to-use, customized cPanel
  • Simple service management
  • Multiple options for creating your site

Performance & Uptime

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  • 99.9% uptime guarantee
  • 99.989% actual uptime
  • Average response time: 622 ms
  • Out-of-the-box caching
  • Google-backed servers

Security

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  • Advanced security tools
  • Live human monitoring
  • Latest PHP versions
  • Bot and attack blocker
  • Free SSL certificates

Support

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I contacted SiteGround’s support team several times. I got a quick responses and every rep I talked to was knowledgeable. I called and used live chat, with a positive experience each time.

  • Live chat
  • Phone
  • Email

Improvements

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SiteGround is always updating and improving its services. This includes adding features, entering data center facilities, and providing more services.

SiteGround Plans and Pricing

SiteGround offers three shared hosting plans and several cloud hosting plans, depending on what you need. Unfortunately the company doesn’t offer VPS or dedicated plans, but its cloud plans are usually more than enough for most.

StartUp–$2.99 per month

  • Good for: Beginners and new websites

GrowBig–$4.99 per month

  • Good for: Startups

GoGeek–$7.99 per month

  • Good for: Small and midsize businesses

Cloud–Starts at $100 per month

  • Good for: Hosting multiple sites, high-traffic sites, enhanced security

All of SiteGround’s shared hosting plans come with at least 10 GB of space and 10,000+ monthly visits, along with unmetered traffic and freebies including an SSL certificate, CDN, daily backup, WP installation and migrator, email, and more. SiteGround offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Features

SiteGround notably costs more than its competitors, especially when it comes time to renew. However, it offers a wide range of helpful features, which helps justify the slightly higher price tag.

Automatic WordPress installation and updates

SiteGround will provide you with the tools you need to automatically install WordPress and keep it updated. This feature is available on all its packages, including WordPress-specific hosting packages.

Free email hosting

One of the biggest ways SiteGround stands out from other hosting companies is that it offers great email hosting on all packages. Get your email set up and running quickly and easily with this hosting company.

Domain-specific email addresses

Email hosting is an important feature for many site owners, especially businesses. This allows you to create email addresses that end in your domain name, which gives you a professional look. Many hosting companies charge for this feature, but not SiteGround.

You can create as many email accounts as you need without any extra charge through your cPanel. Also, you can set up spam filters, email forwarders, and other related features quickly and easily.

Email migrator tool

Each hosting plan includes a free email migrator tool so you can transfer your emails to SiteGround and have everything hosted in one place. The tool requires only a few clicks, and I found the interface simple.

Out-of-the-box caching

SiteGround offers simple caching solutions on all its hosting accounts. Caching helps a website to load more quickly for people who have been to the site in the past. Having frequent visitors to your site is very important, so this can be a useful feature.

30-day money-back guarantee

SiteGround wants to make sure that all of its customers are happy, allowing you to try the services for a full 30 days. If you don’t love your experience, you can get a full refund.

Daily backups

All hosting packages from SiteGround can enable daily backups. Note you can set up your custom backup schedule if daily is not the right option for you.

Easy-to-use, customized cPanel

SiteGround has customized its version of cPanel to make it easier to use. The company ensures all your most frequently accessed tools will be found at the top of the page so you can access them whenever needed. This intuitive setup makes running a website simpler than ever.

Simple service management

You can manage your whole site from one SiteGround login, but it is where you deal with everything for the servers only. If you install a content management system (CMS) like WordPress, you may create a separate login for that side while creating and administering your website, email, and other services from your cPanel page.

Multiple options for creating your site

No matter which hosting package you sign up for, you can choose from various CMS, including WordPress — likely selecting one of the WordPress-specific options from SiteGround. Even if you are custom coding your website, you can upload those files through either the secured FTP option or the built-in file manager tools.

Choose from WordPress, WooCommerce, and the Weebly sitebuilder when creating a new website in SiteGround

99.9% uptime guarantee

SiteGround offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, on par with the industry average. My experience testing SiteGround revealed even greater uptime. It has one of the most reliable hosting environments in the industry.

Technology to support fast page load times

SiteGround knows site loading speeds are one of the most important things for its customers, so this is always a priority. Customers who choose SiteGround will get access to SSD, CDNs, and other excellent technologies that help optimize the speed of your site. It even has hosting servers specifically configured for WordPress, WooCommerce, and other popular types of sites to get the best possible performance.

Free Google CDN integration to speed up your site

SiteGround has partnered with Google for CDN and other features. As Google expands its cloud services, SiteGround will use it for customers. Google has data centers worldwide, so no matter where your site’s visitors are from, they will get the speed boost made possible by this premium CDN.

Advanced security options

SiteGround goes above and beyond with security features. A dedicated team is always looking for ways to improve the security of the servers in general and each site it hosts. Some of the great features and tools that will help to secure your site include:

  • Smart firewall configuration
  • AI-powered anti-bot filtering
  • 24/7 active server monitoring
  • Distributed backups
  • Advanced WordPress security features
  • Free SSL certificate

Free SSL certificate

No matter which hosting package you sign up for at SiteGround you will be given an SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt SSL, a leader in shared certificates. Having this certificate in place will not only help secure your site but boost your rankings with the search engines.

Performance and Uptime

With a 99.9% uptime guarantee, websites that run on Google-backed servers tend to load very quickly and stay up and stable all the time. The same is true for sites hosted with SiteGround because of its partnership with Google.

Graph that shows SiteGround's uptime over the last 30 days

According to our tests, SiteGround servers had an average uptime of 99.989% over the past 30 days, which is quite impressive.

Site response times

Many things will impact a site’s response time; the way a site is actually made is one of the most important. The servers and overall configuration of the web host, however, will also have a big impact. SiteGround does an excellent job of ensuring its servers respond as quickly as possible to every request.

When I ran the tests on SiteGround, the average response time was an extremely impressive 622ms. This is just a measurement of how quickly the servers respond to a request, though, so do your best to create your site in a way that ensures it can load quickly.

Security

SiteGround uses a combination of live human monitoring and various security tools to ensure its servers and your website are as safe as possible. All servers use the latest PHP version 7 with the latest security fixes and SiteGround uses systems to block bots and attackers.

Support

I was very happy with the level of support provided by SiteGround. When you are paying a little more for hosting, you expect to get help when you need it; that is just what the company provided. The customer support team is staffed 24/7 and seems genuinely interested in ensuring you have a good experience.

SiteGround offers support via phone, live chat, and email. You will also get a ticket from the internal system if the company can’t solve your problems on the first call.

Another thing to keep in mind is that SiteGround regularly publishes and updates its help page with many articles that can provide the answers to most questions you may have. A quick search will get you pointed in the right direction so you can move forward immediately.

Recent Improvements

The following are just some of the recent product improvements from SiteGround:

  • Expanding into a new Madrid-based data center
  • Improved security with the launch of new site scanner tools
  • Launch of SiteGround’s custom CDN
  • SiteGround optimizer plug-in made available for free to all WordPress customers

Compare SiteGround Alternatives

Check out all of our top web hosting picks and use the table below to compare SiteGround to its closest competitors.

Hosting Provider

Pricing + Basic Plan Features

$2.99 per month

  • 1 website
  • 10 GB storage
  • 50 GB bandwidth
  • Free SSL
  • Email hosting

$2.95 per month

  • 1 website
  • 50 GB storage
  • Custom themes
  • Free domain for a year
  • Free SSL certificate

Consider Bluehost if: You’re building a brand new WordPress website.

$2.95 per month

  • 1 website
  • SSD storage
  • Unlimited traffic
  • Free domain for a year
  • Free SSL certificate

Consider DreamHost if: Digital security is paramount for your site.

$1.99 per month

  • 1 website
  • 30 GB storage
  • 100 GB bandwidth
  • Free domain for a year
  • Free SSL certificate

Consider Hostinger if: You care most about long-term affordability.

$3.49 per month

  • 2 websites
  • 100 GB SSD storage
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • 10 free email addresses
  • Free SSL certificate

Consider InMotion if: You need extra storage space or want to host two websites for a low price.

What You Need to Know

Is SiteGround a good hosting company?

Yes. SiteGround is a highly rated and respected hosting company that runs millions of websites. As long as you don’t need VPS or dedicated servers, it is a solid option.

How do I speak to someone at SiteGround?

SiteGround can be reached by phone at (800) 828-9231. You can also contact the support team via email or live chat.

How do I create a ticket in SiteGround?

If you have an account at SiteGround, you can click on the Contact Us button from any page on its website. This will direct you to its help page with lots of information and an option to create a support ticket. You can also access this from the admin panel on your account.

How do I host a website on SiteGround?

Once you sign up for an account at SiteGround and pay, you will be sent the login information for your hosting server. From there, you can create your website using its custom interface or make an FTP account to upload the files for your pre-existing website.

Is WordPress free on SiteGround?

Yes. WordPress is 100% free to use and install on SiteGround. You can have it installed on your hosting server with just a couple of clicks. But keep in mind there are some paid add-ons and themes you may want to use, but they are not required.

Which SiteGround plan is best for WordPress?

If you run a website using WordPress, you will likely use one of the three shared hosting options designed specifically for WordPress. This will give you a great quality hosting experience at a fair price. If, however, your site will be getting many visitors at a time, you may want to upgrade to one of its cloud hosting packages. These options can run WordPress with no problem at all.

Who are the typical users of SiteGround?

SiteGround is popular with different types of people. Anyone who is looking for quality hosting may want to consider this company. Some of the most popular types of users of SiteGround include small businesses, entrepreneurs, musicians, and artists who need a website, personal bloggers, social influencers, and more.

Does SiteGround offer an API?

You can run sites and apps that include an application programming interface (API). This allows your visitors to interact with your site through programs, which can be very helpful. Since SiteGround allows .net hosting, you will have no trouble implementing an API.

Is SiteGround available in India?

Yes, SiteGround offers its full lineup of hosting options to customers located in India. The entry-level hosting is just $2.99 per month if you pay for three years at a time and you also get a 30-day money-back guarantee to ensure you are happy with the services.

How We Reviewed SiteGround

I test web hosts based on the following factors:

  • Plan value: What plans are available, and do they offer a good value?
  • Ease of use: Is the dashboard easy to navigate?
  • Support: How fast can you get help when needed, and is support genuinely helpful?
  • Features: What features does the host offer, and how do they compare to similar competitors?
  • Security: Does the host offer SSL certificates, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack protection, backup services, and scans for viruses and malware?
  • Speed and uptime: Does the provider offer a fast, stable environment for your website? How does it perform in tests, and what kind of servers does the hosting company use?
  • Recent improvements: What has the host done lately to update its technology and services?

Learn more about our review methodology.

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