SiteGround is one of the most recommended WordPress hosting companies. They are known for their top-notch customer support, reliable and fast hosting plans, and WordPress-optimized hosting, which includes everything you’ll need to create and grow a successful website or blog. Read our complete SiteGround review to find out if it is the right host for you.
In this detailed SiteGround review, we’ll put their promises to the test. These are the areas we will look into:
- Performance: Speed is crucial for the success of any website. How fast will your website load with SiteGround?
- Reliability: Will your website be available 24/7/365 without facing any downtime?
- Customer Support: Can you count on their customer support?
- Features: Do they offer all the features and tools you’ll need to build your website?
- Pricing: How much will it cost you? Are there any SiteGround deals that can save you money?
This is a comprehensive SiteGround review with a detailed analysis of SiteGround’s hosting service. If you don’t want to read the full hosting review, here is the quick scorecard with our verdict right below it.
SiteGround Review Summary | |
---|---|
Performance grade | A+ |
Average load time | 397 ms |
Average response time | 123 ms |
Free domain | Yes |
Free SSL | Yes |
1-click WordPress | Yes |
Support | Phone / Live Chat / Knowledge base |
Start with SiteGround |
Bottom line: We found SiteGround to be noticeably faster and extremely reliable. Their hosting plans are flexible, and their customer support is one of the best in the industry.
That’s why we’ve chosen to recommend SiteGround as one of the best WordPress hosting companies.
Now, let’s dive into our detailed SiteGround review so that you can see how we reached that conclusion and decide for yourself.
About SiteGround
Siteground was founded in 2004 and has grown into one of the most well-known hosting companies.
SiteGround is a holding of companies registered in the USA, UK, Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Spain, with data centers on three continents. Today, the company has over 500 employees and hosts over 2,000,000 domains.
![SiteGround website SiteGround website](https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/siteground-website-1.png)
Pros and Cons of SiteGround
Each hosting company has its pros and cons. Some advantages can overshadow the disadvantages, but some cons can be a total deal-breaker for your needs.
Before making a decision, you may want to review these SiteGround pros and cons.
Pros
Here are some advantages that make SiteGround one of the top-rated hosting companies in the world:
- Super fast servers: All SiteGround servers are highly optimized for speed. They use the Google Cloud platform, which is one of the fastest platforms on the market.
- Top Notch Customer Support: Their customer support is amazing, to say the least. They offer 24/7 phone support, live chat, and ticket-based support.
- Free CDN and SSL They offer an instant setup of Cloudflare’s free CDN and free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt.
- Multiple Server Locations They have data centers on three continents. During signup, you can choose the location you prefer.
Cons
As we mentioned earlier, every hosting company has some downsides. The following are some disadvantages of choosing SiteGround as your host:
- Limited Storage: Their plans come with fixed storage. However, this storage is quite ample, and if you are starting, you will most likely never need extra storage.
- Higher fee for monthly billing: The hosting service gets expensive if you choose monthly billing. But if you sign up for a longer billing period, then you’ll get a more significant discount and a lower rate. They offer a 30-day money-back guarantee anyway, so it’s a good idea to choose a longer billing period when you sign up.
SiteGround Performance Tests
While price often plays a significant role when choosing a web host, you cannot compromise on performance.
This is why we decided to run our tests to review SiteGround’s performance thoroughly.
SiteGround Speed Test Results
Speed is one of the most important performance metrics to look for. A faster website offers a good user experience and boosts your SEO.
In fact, a single-second delay can cause a 7% decrease in conversions, 11% fewer page views, and a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction.
![Strangeloop performance case study Strangeloop performance case study](https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/strangeloops-speed-study.jpg)
We created a WordPress-powered test site on SiteGround and filled it with dummy content for theme development with images.
After that, we used Pingdom’s website speed test tool to run our tests. These were the results we got:
![SiteGround speed test results SiteGround speed test results](https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/siteground-speed-test-mar2024.png)
As you can see, our test site loaded in less than a second (397 ms, to be precise) with a performance score of 95.
This is incredible, but this website had almost no traffic, so the Pingdom test alone is insufficient.
SiteGround Stress Test Results
We used K6, a stress testing tool by Grafana Labs, to test how SiteGround servers would respond to increased traffic.
This tool gradually sends up to 50 users to see how the server would respond to increased traffic from multiple connections.
You can see the results in the chart below:
![SiteGround stress test results SiteGround stress test results](https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/siteground-stress-test-mar2024.png)
The gray line is the number of active virtual users on the site, and the green line is the server response time. SiteGround performed consistently throughout the test without any hiccups.
This test shows that SiteGround is a perfect choice if you are looking for a really fast website.
One of the reasons why SiteGround performed exceptionally well in these performance tests is because of the recent innovations they’ve added.
SiteGround servers are hosted on the Google Cloud Platform. They’ve also added UltraFast PHP and created a custom WordPress plugin for optimization (SG Optimizer), which really puts them in a premium web hosting category.
SiteGround Uptime Test Results
Typically, websites hosted on shared hosting accounts slow down during top traffic hours. That’s because your site is sharing resources with other websites on that server.
Most shared hosting companies automatically kill the server process if your site is taking too many resources. This causes downtime on your website.
We tested our SiteGround site for downtime and got a 99.98% uptime result.
![SiteGround uptime test result SiteGround uptime test result](https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/siteground-uptime-test-result-mar2024.png)
SiteGround Server Response Time
Your website’s content has a huge impact on page load time. For example, if you have high-resolution images on a page, then it will significantly increase the overall page load time.
This means that speed test results may not accurately reflect how fast your hosting server really is.
Instead of analyzing page load time alone, we decided to test the actual server response time as well.
To do this, we used a tool called Bitcatcha. It ignores page content and only tests the server’s response time.
Bitcatcha also gives you average loading speed from different global locations. The speed for each location is measured three separate times, and then the results are averaged.
Take a look at the results in the screenshot below.
![SiteGround response time test results SiteGround response time test results](https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/siteground-response-time-mar2024.png)
As you can see, SiteGround is a great choice if your target audience is mostly located in the United States. The server responded in a fraction of a second in the United States.
It responded within less than a second for all locations.
SiteGround also allows you to change your server location. You can choose a data center closer to your target audience for even better response times in that particular region.
SiteGround Hosting Plans and Features
SiteGround offers shared hosting, WordPress hosting, cloud hosting, and dedicated hosting plans. If you are starting a new site, their shared hosting plans would be a perfect fit. However, your site will eventually grow, and you want to make sure that they have other plans that you can upgrade to.
Let’s check out SiteGround’s hosting plans and their features:
- Shared hosting: Shared hosting is recommended for new websites, bloggers, small business websites, or a startup online store. It is suitable for low-traffic websites as you will be sharing resources with other websites hosted on the server.
- WordPress hosting: This plan is the WordPress-optimized version of their shared hosting plan. It comes with SiteGround’s in-house WordPress optimizations to improve your website performance. See SiteGround WordPress hosting.
- WooCommerce hosting: This plan is a WooCommerce-optimized version of their shared hosting plan. It includes SiteGround’s optimizations, which greatly improve the performance of your online store. See SiteGround WooCommerce hosting.
- Cloud hosting: Cloud hosting plans provide a flexible upgrade to a shared hosting solution. They allow you to use resources of cloud architecture, including multi-core CPUs and bandwidth. Cloud hosting is suitable for growing websites, popular blogs, or businesses. It can also be an upgrade over VPS and traditional dedicated servers. See SiteGround Cloud hosting.
WPBeginner website is hosted on SiteGround’s Enterprise hosting infrastructure, which is an enhanced version of their Cloud platform for large sites.
Breakdown of SiteGround’s Shared Hosting Plans
SiteGround’s shared hosting options are the best way to build a new website. Their shared hosting packages are available in three levels to match different budgets:
- Startup: This plan is limited to hosting one website. It includes 10 GB disk space and is suitable for hosting a website with 10,000 monthly visitors. You’ll also get all essential features like a 1-click WordPress install, free setup, website transfer, daily backups, built-in caching (SuperCacher), free CDN, free SSL, and more.
- GrowBig: The GrowBig plan lets you host unlimited websites. It comes with 20 GB of disk space and is suitable for websites with 100,000 monthly visits. You’ll get all the features of the Startup plan, plus premium features like ultrafast PHP for even faster speed, on-demand backups, an easy staging tool, and the option to add collaborators to your sites.
- GoGeek: GoGeek plan is suitable for eCommerce websites. It includes 40 GB of storage and can handle websites with 400,000 monthly visitors. In addition to all GrowBig’s features, you’ll get access to priority support, more server resources, advanced features like one-click git repo creation, and the option to manage white-label clients on your sites.
Each Siteground plan includes faster disk storage, email accounts, support for the Cloudflare free content delivery network, and a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate.
They also include several popular WordPress plugins like WPForms, OptinMonster, and All in One SEO to help you improve your website rankings.
![SiteGround pricing SiteGround pricing](https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/siteground-pricing-3.png)
SiteGround Support and Customer Service
You’ll see high praise for SiteGround’s customer support service everywhere. Their support team is remarkably good at offering quick, helpful, and knowledgeable support to their customers.
Their customer support includes 24/7 phone, live chat, and ticket-based email support. Response times for phone and live chat are almost instant, and for email-based tickets, the first response is within less than 10 minutes.
SiteGround offers an instant AI assistant for users who prefer to fix things themselves. Built on top of ChatGPT, this AI is trained to answer SiteGround customer questions.
![SiteGround AI support assistant SiteGround AI support assistant](https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/siteground-ai-support.png)
The helo resource center also includes a massive collection of knowledge base articles.
This includes step-by-step tutorials and troubleshooting guides with screenshots and videos.
![SiteGround support website SiteGround support website](https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/siteground-support-website.png)
Since we use SiteGround to host several of our websites, we can confidently say that their support staff is very knowledgeable.
Conclusion: Is SiteGround the Right Choice for You?
After reading our detailed SiteGround review, you might be wondering if SiteGround is the best web hosting company for your website.
If you want a fast and reliable web hosting provider with excellent customer support, SiteGround is perfect for you. They have hosting plans for every budget, and each plan offers a great set of features.
All their shared hosting plans include SSD storage, site tools, easy setup of Let’s Encrypt free SSL and Cloudflare CDN service, 1-click WordPress installer, and free migration.
Built-in security features protect your website against malware, and you can add additional protection by turning on Cloudflare CDN functionality.
If you are just starting a website for the first time, then you will certainly appreciate SiteGround’s customer support.
Ready to get started with SiteGround? Click here to choose your hosting plan today.
SiteGround Coupon
WPBeginner users get an exclusive 83% discount and free SSL with our SiteGround coupon code.
All you have to do is click on this link to purchase. The discount will be applied automatically.
Frequently Asked Questions about SiteGround Hosting
In this detailed SiteGround review, we looked at all aspects of their hosting services. The following are some of the most frequently asked questions about SiteGround by our users.
1. Where are SiteGround servers located?
SiteGround servers are located in the United States, Europe, and Singapore. You can choose the server location when signing up.
2. Why choose SiteGround for WordPress hosting?
SiteGround offers a highly optimized WordPress hosting platform. Each plan includes its own in-house security features and WordPress tweaks that boost your WordPress site speed and performance.
You can easily set up a WordPress website with their 1-click WordPress installation. You can also move existing WordPress websites using the SiteGround Migrator plugin.
3. Does SiteGround support WooCommerce?
SiteGround specializes in WordPress and WooCommerce hosting. If you are building a WooCommerce store, then you can rely on SiteGround’s optimizations for consistent performance and reliability.
They are one of the top WooCommerce hosting providers and make it super easy to start an online store without any special technical skills.
4. Does SiteGround offer a website builder?
No, SiteGround does not offer its own site builder. That’s because they want users to have the option to pick the best website builder for their needs.
This is why they allow you to easily install WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, Weebly, and many other site builder platforms.
On the SiteGround platform, you can also create unlimited web pages without any restrictions.
5. Does SiteGround offer cPanel hosting?
No, SiteGround no longer offers cPanel hosting. Once cPanel raised its licensing fees, SiteGround decided to remove cPanel hosting and instead built a far superior web hosting control panel for both beginners and advanced users. This allows them to offer managed WordPress hosting-like features without the high costs.
6. Is SiteGround better than Bluehost?
SiteGround and Bluehost used to offer the same features, but with recent innovations, SiteGround has significantly improved its hosting technology.
SiteGround is better than Bluehost in terms of overall performance, technology infrastructure, and support quality. However, with all this innovation, SiteGround pricing is significantly higher.
So, when it comes to pricing, Bluehost is better than SiteGround because not only is it cheaper, but it also offers a free domain name with each account.
For more details, see our honest comparison of SiteGround vs. Bluehost vs. WP Engine.
7. How does SiteGround compare with other hosting providers?
Readers often ask us how SiteGround compares with GoDaddy, Hostinger, HostGator, GreenGeeks, DreamHost, A2 Hosting, and other web hosting services.
They all used to provide similar features and technology, but over the last year, SiteGround has really stepped up its innovation.
With all the managed WordPress hosting features, Google Cloud infrastructure, and custom performance optimization, SiteGround is now in a class of its own with its premium hosting.
8. Does SiteGround offer a free domain name?
No, SiteGround does not offer a free domain name. You can buy a domain name from another registrar and point it to your SiteGround account or buy one from SiteGround during signup at an additional cost.
9. Can I cancel my SiteGround account and get a refund?
SiteGround offers a 30-day money-back guarantee with all its shared plans. During this period, you can try out its services. If you cancel your account during this period, you are eligible for a refund. However, domain name registrations are non-refundable.
10. Which SiteGround plan is best for me?
Each SiteGround plan has different server resources. However, if you are just starting out, then their Startup plan would be perfect for that. You can upgrade at any time if you need more resources. Choose your SiteGround plan to get started.
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Celina Baginski says
As always, my customer service experience was great! I pay more for your service, but the support is always so awesome and is well worth the cost. Thank you! – Celina
Matt Simpson says
Dude was nothing short of excellent. Gave me the inside scoop, solid perspective, transparency, the solution to my situation, and a handful of tricks to optimize and be totally happy! Thank you!
Cuong Nguyen says
They always provide great supports.
Melissa says
Amazing service as usual.
Henry Rock says
Darin was most helpful.
Andy says
Petar was very helpful and clear and gave me very good instructions on how to solve my issue. Very happy with the help I got today and the service overall. Thanks.
Brian Browne says
Another very positive interaction with Siteground support – all questions answered and I wasn’t made to feel inferior, which is a lot more than I can say for some hosting providers.
Gaetano says
amazing straight forward support
David Chandler says
Extremely helpful, concise, on point. I felt welcomed.
Bernad says
Outstanding customer support when it comes to resolving my problems with DNS and SSL.
Silvia was very kind and professional, 20+ minutes and the issue was resolved.
Just A+, keep up the the good work Siteground!
Sierra says
Elian is a gem! I was so frazzled and his quick resolution and friendly tone helped me relax. You can’t train that. Thanks again!
Sanaz says
Absolutely professional, knowledgeable and patient agent. Very pleased with your service today. Thank you so much.
simon coelho says
patient and helpful
Louis Borrego says
The greatest service in the hosting and domain world hands down. The chat is one of the greatest resources and their phone support is the best without a doubt. Saving lives one call at a time. No joke.
Renata Leo says
Luca was very helpful and kind. I was stressed and needed help with my account and he took care of everything!
Garry Grant says
Super fast response and just very helpful.
Zach Sykes says
Martin was excellent help and replied quickly. I tried to leave 5 stars but noticed that I may have accidentally clicked 3 when moving quickly. I certainly hope it lists 5 stars instead of 3, he was great! Thanks, Martin.
Debraj Sarkar says
Great Service! I am really pleased. SiteGround awesome!
Calvin Chen says
Always supportive and instrumental, we are building a new site, constantly new issue arise, they always patient and guide us through the trekking
robin Ye says
SG, Always offer awesome Customer service, very happy with, will do business again. high recommended!!!!
Taralee says
Diana was amazing. She answered all my questions she stayed on the chat while I was checking things out on your website! She was great! She needs a raise. Thank you Diana !!
Federica says
Thank you for your expertise and valuable support!
Scott Bales says
Nayden T was a great help and I thank him. He advised me on managing my account and billing with honesty and integrity.
Bob says
Great customer service – knowledgable CSR and great support
Sharon says
As always, the tech support at SiteGround has been fabulous. Prompt responses, techs stay with me till the end, they don’t bash me for not understanding, and probably the most important thing is that they fix problems…on the spot. HUZZAH!
Jd says
Filip was quick to resolve my problem by identifying the root and showing me how to correct appreciate your customer service.
Ahmed Mkhalfi says
Siteground is so fantastic and has excellent customers and chat service. They don’t let you until you are satisfied.
Zane says
Kristian at Siteground is amazing and sorted my issue out in minutes. You are brilliant in what you do! SiteGround has an amazing tech support team, far superior to other hosting companies with extensive knowledge.
Keep up the great work everyone!
Michelle Canton says
Gabriel knew right away what my issue was and quickly provided and easy to follow tutorial on how to fix it. I wish all IT people understood issues as easily as he does. Excellent service!
Kim Garnett says
Siteground has the BEST customer service. Seriously! I’ve hosted my websites with every major competitor over the last 20 years and once I found Siteground I never looked back.
Pete Rankine says
It’s such a relief when expert help is at hand when you need it! I was locked out of access to my email server and (due to my own neglect) to my SiteGround portal – but 17 mins of online support from Bozhidar has turned around my fortunes! Thank you. Your service and support is excellent.
Vishal Gupta says
Just Amazing Mariya , I really happy with siteground Support Team !
Chris says
very good and fast service. help me fixed the problem very good.
Nicolaas says
Very well helped by Stanimir on server response and FCP/CP issues. Gave some valuable tips as well for further wen] optimization
Hank Becker says
SiteGround’s help system is very good. My experience today was roughly comparable to others on that site–always resulting in a perfect solution. I was attempting to install various features of SG Optimizer while listening to their webinar on the topic. But I am a novice and ended up crashing my whole website. Although the support person did not fully grasp my particular situation and the initial suggestions to fix my problem seemed more trouble than they were worth, in the end my idea to simply use the backup and restore that they now provide for free was perfect. Took about 15 minutes of waiting and the site came back up perfectly.
Dominique Jeanneret says
Thank you a lot to Silvia who cared greatly, told me right what to do and did things automatically as I did not know. Short time with her but very efficient ! Thank you a lot !
Franklin Jones says
Denis S. provided excellent support in answering all of my questions. We lost connection, on my end, before I had a chance to make my last response to him.
Rune Lillevang says
I don’t normally write reviews but Toni M. was probably the most friendly and informative sales representative I have had the pleasure of talking with.
Amazing support![:-)](https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/plugins/classic-smilies/img/icon_smile.gif)
David Bass says
Just had my first contact with support and they were very quick to respond then resolve my minor issue. Boris D. was the shining light for this magic moment.
Thanks Boris, nice work Siteground! Sensational nicely padded modular layout backed up by a comprehensive set of site tools.
Great bang for your buck!
george says
George, my last rep, was great as all of the service reps with Siteground. I’m new to the domain game and need a lot of hand holding to work my way thought to success. i’m glad a friend of mine suggested i use this hosting site
Laila says
Doncho D. is the man!!! My site was experiencing a lot of caching issues and the first chat operator was friendly but not too eager to help (sending me blogs – not a fan of that). But Doncho offered to go into my site to fix things. There were some other issues after that and he went in again to fix it and consulted me on best practices in the future.
That is REAL customer support. Somebody give this guy a trophy. He was extremely helpful because this was an issue for the last four days that no amount of googling could solve. Thanks Donchdo D.!!!
Dani Thompson says
Doncho was extremely helpful and so polite. Probably the nicest chat person I’ve ever had, and that’s saying something since most everyone here is so nice. He helped me update my billing status to a month to month status since I love Siteground but can’t afford a lump sum payment right now. The customer service here is unmatched!! I can’t say enough good things about it. Thank you!!
Ashish says
Great as always, knowledgeable and can be trusted
Dominique says
My chat person today was very helpful and calm and helped me immensely. He turned a very frustrating situation into a good experience. Well done and thank you again, I will definitely recommend following this particular service
Rafael Fernandez says
Excellent service.
Rod jimenez says
Fast friendly and knowledgeable support Thank you all
K. Robinson says
This goes out to all of the newbies: I have “been around the block” with web hosts. I am a novice, seriously a novice. But, out of a sense of “I can do this because there are templates”, I volunteered to make websites for 2 fledgling companies that didn’t want to spend money to get a website (2 family members). Well, I have become intimately acquainted with Host Gator, Blue Host, GoDaddy, Dreamhost, and SiteGround. Let me assure you: you will NOT find a better host for novices. Believe me when you are building a website you will encounter problems. Period. But if you have a host that is available lickety split 24 hours a day, you will get through it without aging 5 years. SiteGround BLOWS the competition away in customer service. They are truly all competent (I have worked with around 20 of them), so pleasant, and I never have to wait. Seriously, within seconds I get a rep. And I just have the Managed WordPress package so it’s not because I am some stellar customer. I cannot tell you novices more strongly CHOOSE SITEGROUND.
Ann-Marie says
Diana K was extremely professional and very patient with me while I tried to figure out what to do regarding moving all of my websites over to one place, via the chat function. She gave me all the options available to me and I didn’t feel pressured in any way. I’m very happy with the service I received. 5 Stars!
Ana Maria Cano says
I had the best SUPPORT possible with Siteground through an angel guy names Eliyah!!! I was so desperate when I saw that my mobile homepage was a disaster, with my Divi builder not working and everything messed up… and this was when I was going to give a client my URL…
Eliyah contacted me as fast as a minute and solved the problem almost immediately!!! There are no words to express how grateful I am.
THANK YOU A MILLION OF TIMES!
Ana Cano
Liz Hervatic says
Petar helped me. Understood the issue and opened a ticket.
Thank you.