With most of the business being done using the internet, there has been a huge demand for website creation and hosting services. Most websites these days are made on WordPress and if you are looking for the perfect place to host them then nothing beats the SiteGround.
SiteGround Hosting Reviews & Ratings
SiteGround is one of the most popular web hosting companies that are available currently. It is said that it has raised a new bar of standards with high-performance web hosting and WordPress hosting services.
With several plans available and excellent reviews provided by a myriad of clients worldwide, it is time to test whether SiteGround is as good as is claimed by people or not.
Despite the presence of several pros and a few cons, SiteGround has managed to beat its closest competitors fair and square. If security and site loading speed matter more than add on bonuses and price, then SiteGround should be your preferred web hosting platform.
However, before we begin to delve deeper into the pros and cons of web hosting, let us learn a bit more about it.
1] What is SiteGround?
There are several millions of users who wish to turn an entrepreneur thanks to an innovative idea, brilliant product, and spectacular marketing skills. However, to do this you need to set up a website that connects you to your customers. If you do not have the skills to prepare a website, there are professionals to help you.
Similarly, you can also seek the assistance of a website hosting platform to not just host your website but also manage them. Since the website is your dream and your source of earning, you need your host to provide not just immaculate service but also excellent support.
If the website has any technical glitches it can affect the user’s experience and thereby your income. Thus, excellent hosting service is important.
Founded in 2004, SiteGround offers a range of hosting services (shared hosting, cloud hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated servers, and enterprise hosting). Since it is the official partner of WordPress.org, all its plans come with managed WordPress hosting.
SiteGround comes highly recommended by not only WordPress but also Joomla and Drupal. Their servers are powered by Google Cloud, PHP7, HTTP/2 and NGINX+ caching.
2] What makes SiteGround popular than its contemporaries?
WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems in the world on which most websites and blogs are built.
Despite the presence of several web hosts, most WordPress Hosting (a closed Facebook group with nearly 7,000 members) prefer to use SiteGround. Some of the main features of this web hosting platform which set them apart from other web hosting platforms include.
1) Site speed
The popularity of any website depends on the traffic it generates. People love to go on a website that gives them faster loading and processing speed. The speed of any website makes it user-friendly and SiteGround offers a considerably faster loading website.
You will be surprised to know that the site loading speed decreased considerably in switching to SiteGround hosting. This was tested using different tools that measure time to first byte (TTFB). Site speed matters immensely as people navigate to a different site if loading takes more time.
For SiteGround, site speed is a serious matter and their developers continue to work on new technology to improve site loading time. Google Cloud powered infrastructure of SiteGround also offers free SSD drives for storage and ultra-fast network.
NGINX web server technology also adds to loading time for static content on the website. The SuperCacher is their web caching mechanism which relies on NGINX reverse proxy and plays an important role in loading dynamic content from the website. Regular updates to their technology ensure that the sites they host do not suffer.
2) Security
One of the primary concerns of people regarding websites is the security of the site. Security breaches are one of the major concerns not just of individuals but organizations too. Both corporations and government groups have felt the brunt of an online security breach. In fact, security is a major concern for anyone who owns a website.
SiteGround offers one of the most reliable security that makes your site safe. The security features which make them unique include site isolation that guarantees that despite security breach on any other site on the server, your site will not be negatively impacted.
Thus, the hosting site acts as a firewall that protects you and your site from hackers. The servers support HTTP/2 technology that is the most secure option available.
Additionally, SiteGround also offers its clients the benefit of a web application firewall (WAF) which is updated regularly and protects against any security breach. Moreover, in case any threat emerges, all the clients receive proactive patches.
Regular virus and malware scan also ensure that your site remains secure always. SiteGround has successfully stopped 7 million brute-force, mitigated 186 DDOS attacks, wrote 250 new custom firewall rules and added 125 live-patch kernel modules.
3) Customer support
If only excellent site speed and state-of-the-art security were the major concerns, there would be several hosting sites that could boast of an impressive clientele. However, without excellent customer support to go with all the technology, it is of no use.
This is because things are bound to go wrong, and they eventually will. Without the aid of exceptional client support, they will fall flat. SiteGround boasts of admirable client support where the customer is the priority. A testimony to their service can be seen through several customer reviews and ratings.
You will be surprised to know that SiteGround beats its competitors fair and square. While the average response time of SiteGround is around 8 minutes, their competitors clock an average response time of 44 minutes!
There are three ways to reach the customer support of SiteGround. These include a live chat system that provides an immediate reply and is available 24 hours a day. Another method to contact their customer support is by dialing their helpline number.
The phone support is staffed throughout the entire day and will provide you with an instant solution to your problem. Alternatively, you could also submit a ticket. This ensures that you get a reply within 10 minutes. They also offer priority service and if you have paid for that, the response time is even less than that!
If you are worried about any problem with your site, you can trust SiteGround to provide you with a timely response. Thus, they ensure that your business and as a result, you never suffer.
3] Additional features of SiteGround that attract various customers
Apart from this, other parameters that attract users to SiteGround include the site load time and uptime. If you are looking for a web hosting platform that offers a loading time of less than 1 second, then it is great for the industry as well as the user.
Most users are looking for a web hosting platform that gives faster site loading, uptime, and speed of the site. The overall performance of any site when hosted on SiteGround is better than the industry average of 99.79%. This performance remains consistent over a period irrespective of the month or online traffic on the hosting platform!
There are several plans that SiteGround offers for its clients and along with all of them you get managed WordPress hosting. Along with that you also get several astonishing features like.
- Free SSL Certificates: With all hosting plans you get free encryption standard and Wildcard SSL certificates. In fact, standard SSL comes preinstalled on your site.
- Daily Backups: Daily backups of your account are done with around 30 copies of it. You can also ask for an on-demand backup by simply clicking a button.
- Email Service: With SiteGround you get unlimited email accounts. You can also stop spam with the free SpamExperts service.
- Staging tool: You can easily make any changes you desire in your site with a mere click thanks to the Staging Tool option of SiteGround.
- Dev Toolkit: Various development tools like WP-CLI, SSH access, PHP version control etc. are available to make your work easy and fast.
- Collaboration Tools: Have multiple collaborators working on the same thing, SiteGround is there to help you. With it you can easily add collaborators, transfer sites to clients and provide your clients with access to their site’s Site Tools!
- 99.99% uptime reliability.
- Daily backups.
- Free SSL and CDN.
- Tools for developers and agencies.
- Great features for reseller hosting.
Moreover, you also get all WordPress updates through any of the SiteGround subscription plans. Automatic updates of WordPress plug-ins are also available. Any vulnerabilities on WordPress are taken care of through their firewall WAF updates to protect the client from any attack.
4] Different SiteGround Plans for all your hosting needs
SiteGround offers three different plans for shared hosting services. These include.
1) StartUp Plan
This is an excellent entry-level plan for beginners. Starting at $3.95 (11.95) per month, you get to host 1 website with nearly 10,000 monthly visits through this SiteGround plan.
Apart from the 10GB webspace, you also get SSD storage, free setup and site transfer, 99.9% uptime guarantee, unlimited bandwidth, emails, databases, and 30-day money-back guarantee.
Additionally, you are also provided with 24×7 technical support, free SSL & HTTP/2, daily backups, CloudFlare CDN, SuperCacher static caching only, PHP7 + OpCache, cPanel & SSH access, WordPress & Joomla tools.
2) GrowBig Plan
Just like the Startup plan, all plans of SiteGround are reasonably priced. The GrowBig plan is priced at $5.95 (19.95) per month. You can host unlimited websites with one hosting account; thus, it is more suitable for small business owners and bloggers.
You get two times more server resources and several other salient features including the use of Supercacher static, dynamic and Memcache caching technology. And You also get a free wildcard SSL certificate along with basic backup and restore services in the GrowBig plan.
You also get up to 25,000 monthly visits and premium support, 30 daily backups, 20GB web storage with this SiteGround hosting plan.
3) GoGeek Plan
Along with all the benefits of StartUp and grow Big plans, you also get several other geeky features in this plan which costs $11.95 (34.95) per month. You can host unlimited websites with more than 100,000 monthly visits and 30GB web-space.
Apart from the SuperCacher dynamic and Memcache caching, you also get 1-click WordPress staging, pre-installed, and SG-Git for repository creation.
4x server, database and email resources, premium backup and restore services and free PCI compliance are some additional features of this plan. In a nutshell, this plan is ideal for websites that get heavy traffic and heavy influx of resources.
In case you are confused about which plan to choose, keep in mind your ultimate objective for web hosting service and then decide which plan would best suit your needs.
5] Advantages and Disadvantages of using SiteGround as your web hosting platform
If you find that SiteGround is the perfect web hosting platform for you, you should go ahead and choose from the different hosting plans they offer. If, however, you are still contemplating whether to use this platform or some other, here is a list of the pros and cons of using SiteGround.
1) Pros
Among the various advantages of opting for this web hosting platform are.
- Money-back guarantee – Unless the product is good, people generally do not offer any guarantee. Thus, you can try SiteGround and if you are not satisfied with their claims, you can always have your money back.
- Several free services – If you are already using any other web hosting platform, SiteGround offers a chance for free website migration along with daily automatic backup and restore.
- WordPress services – Automatic WordPress installation and managed WordPress hosting on all its plans is something that can help your site tremendously.
- Excellent speed and security – SiteGround uses innovative technologies for speed & security of sites.
2) Cons
The disadvantages of SiteGround include its limited data storage and a strict data over-usage policy. But this could be seen also as an advantage, because that way they distribute server resources fairly and no site suffers from the excessive use of resources from another site, which guarantees better website performance to each client.
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To summarize, SiteGround is an excellent web hosting company that has slowly emerged as the most popular choice for a fast loading website.
