Unbiased SiteGround Review 2021 – Is it the Best web hosting Company (Our Personal Experience)

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Honest SiteGround Review 2021- Pros and Cons including Personal experience

It seems SiteGround is on your watchlist and you are looking to read an unbiased SiteGround Review that will help you take an informed decision on if you should go with SiteGround.

SiteGround is a web hosting company that I came across a few years back due to its consistently increasingly popularity and positive reviews.

This company took over the market with a surprise because of its incredible customer support, speed and reliability. And quickly became one of the most recommended.

Still today SiteGround maintain its reputation for being one of the best hosting providers in the industry because the reasons mentioned above.

Personally speaking, because of everyone recommending SiteGround we decided to invest in SiteGround and in this review we are going to share the good, the bad and the ugly about this hosting company.

Also, we will familiarize you with the features of SiteGround so that you know what you can expect.

In case you are already familiar with what SiteGround has to offer and are just looking for our honest opinion then the answer is YES, we highly recommend going with SiteGround because the praises that you hear about their service and support is absolutely true.

And if you are looking to buy then using our SPECIAL LINK you can get a 63% discount.

What is SiteGround

SiteGround is one of the most popular and very highly rated web hosting company that was started by a group of friends in 2004.

It was started from a University dorm room in Sofia, Bulgaria and since then it has grown tremendously.

As of today SiteGround has over 500 employees with offices in 4 countries

• USA
• UK
• Bulgaria
• Spain

And datacenters in 4 continents

• Iowa (USA)
• London (UK)
• Eemshaven (NL)
• Frankfurt (DE)
• Singapore (SG)
• Sydney (AU)

Being one of the market leaders in the web hosting space, SiteGround currently hosts over 2 million domains.

And on top of that, it is on the recommended list of hosting providers by WordPress.org.

SiteGround Review- Its Pros and Cons

You may heard of a saying that there is no one size that fits all. And this quote fits perfectly here because every hosting company be it SiteGround or any of its competitors have their own set of pros and cons.

While you can ignore certain aspects like not getting a free domain name with your plan or having prices slightly higher that the competitors.

However, you cannot compromise on aspects such as speed, security, support and more as it can lead to loss of revenue and reputation.

All in all, you need to maximize value for your money and the best possible service.

Keeping this in mind, below we have shared some of the features of SiteGround followed by some drawbacks.

SiteGround Pro

When it comes to features offered by SiteGround, the list is long and extensive. And in this review we will be discussing some of the important ones that you should be looking at when buying hosting from SiteGround.

Google Cloud Infrastructure

Hosting a website essentially means storing the files of your site on a space that you rent on a server from a from a web hosting company like SiteGround.

Now, when a user visits your site from any location across the globe and using any source, a request is generated which is sent to the server where files are stored and the server completes the request by showing the user the requested page.

It is important to know for an server to complete the request quickly, the infrastructure has to be top notch or else the site will load slowly resulting in loss of revenue and reputation.

To understand this lets take a real life example of editing images using a software like Photoshop.

In case the hardware of the machine that your are using is not up to the mark then the chances are very high that you won’t be able to edit the images as the software will keep stopping or in some cases the program won’t even start leaving you frustrated.

On the other hand, if you have a system that fulfills all the requirements the editing the images will be painless.

Same is the story with the web hosting infrastructure.

Having said that,

In February of 2020, SiteGround released an official announcement stating its move to Google Cloud. The first of its Google Cloud locations were

• Iowa (USA)
• Eemshaven (NL)
• London (UK)
• Singapore (SG)

The announcement also, mentioned that all the new SiteGround users will get activated in these locations and the existing ones were being migrated.

This means if you get an account with SiteGround then your site will be hosted on Google Cloud making it naturally fast.

Also, it is important to know there are plenty of advantages of hosting your site on Google Cloud such as

Resource management and Scaling

With your site hosted on Google Cloud, the resource management and scaling is easier which means the consistent growth of the companies user base will not impact the existing users as the infrastructure is built upon virtual machines.

And because of this it is much easier to scale resources such as CPU, RAM and storage.

High Data Redundancy

One of the benefits of cloud infrastructure is the distributed storage which means your data is not stored on a single physical machine.

And in case of a malfunction, the data remains safe and secure.

Also, it is important to know, in cloud infrastructure the hosting server rarely fails and if on a rare occasion this happens then a new hosting node can be created and the storage can be attached to it easily saving time.

State of the art Network

Google is a household name. Whenever we think about searching something, the go to search engine in most cases is Google.

Keeping this in mind, Google is known for its well maintained and powerful network.

This means if your site is hosted on SiteGround then you are using one of the fastest services which will result in improved performance and also, the risk of downtime due to connectivity issues will be very low.

On top of all this, Google matches 100% of the energy consumed with renewable energy and maintains a commitment to carbon neutrality which is a huge plus.

Uptime

One of the factors that impact the reputation of your website is the uptime.

Think about a scenario where you have put in a lot of hard work to create a blog and then have published content on a regular basis only to find out that your site is down frequently.

What this does is, it creates a negative impression about your site in the eyes of the visitors. And you don’t want that.

It is important to know, SiteGround guarantees a network uptime of 99.9% on an annual basis and in case it falls below this level then you will be compensated with

• 99.9%- 99.00%- 1 month free hosting
• An additional month of free hosting for every 1% of uptime lost below 99.00%

Also, all of this is clearly mentioned on the SiteGround’s Terms of Service.

In our opinion, if a company is giving you a firm written commitment like this then they fully believe in proving quality service to their users.

Also, in our personal experience of using SiteGround, the blog has never been down due to any error or glitch from SiteGround’s end.

It has always been us testing various things out that may have caused a minor downtime.

On occasions when this has happened, we did reach out to the customer support and the site was up quickly.

User friendly interface

If you are creating a WordPress site then most hosting companies these days offer solutions using which you can install WordPress with just one click or it comes pre-installed.

The same is the case with SiteGround, if you are looking to start a blog or website using SiteGround then WordPress can be installed with just a few clicks.

See- How to install WordPress on SiteGround

It is as simple as installing a regular software on your system. In case you are facing difficulties then SiteGround has an extensive knowledge base that you access with just one click.

Alternative, you can contact the SiteGround support as well and they will help you with the same.

Having said that,

It is important to know, installing WordPress is the easy part but when it comes to managing a website things can get slightly confusing and overwhelming for new webmasters as most web hosting companies provide cPanel for management and its interface looks very intimidating.

Keeping this in mind, on 30^th July 2019, SiteGround released an announcement regarding the launch of new Client Area and Site Tools.

This new interface is build using React and has made the site management process much more easier.

Also, this application was designed taking into consideration the user-experience and mobile friendliness so that you can manage your site and hosting using any device easily from any device.

Site Tools is a major upgrade over the cPanel as the settings have been very systematically laid out which makes the task of managing sites much more easier for beginners.

Also, it is important to know that this new interface comes with high contrasting themes for visual accessibility.

And as you can see you get 4 options to choose from. You can select one depending on your requirements and can change it anytime.

To further improve the accessibility, both SiteGround Client Area and Site Tools are compatible with popular screen reader softwares like JAWS, NVDA and Voice over.

SuperCache and SG Optimizer

SiteGround web hosting is synonymous with speed and performance and if you have been researching then you might have already seen some rave reviews about this on various Facebook groups.

One of the reasons behind improved loading times is the state of the art network SiteGround is using which is Google Cloud.

And the second one is their proprietary server side cache solution SuperCacher and the cache plugin SG Optimizer.

SuperCacher is the technology that has been developed by SiteGround exclusively for its customers and it manages the number of hits a site can take which in-turn leads to improved site speed.

SiteGround SuperCacher provides 3 levels of caching

NGINX Direct Delivery

With the help of this caching level a copy of static resources of your site such as images, HTML, CSS and JS are stored in the cache and when a request is made these files are directly served from the cache rather than the server which leads to improved loading times.

Memcached

Memcached is a very popular caching solution used by database driven sites. What it does is, it saves the most used query results in the RAM and when a request is made, the result is fetched from the RAM rather than the database which saves time resulting in improved speed.

Dynamic Cache

Dynamic cache is very different than both NGINX Direct Delivery and Memcached and it stores a copy of the output of the web page. When the page is requested, it serves the output from the dynamic cache improving the speed.

Having said that,

These caching levels are pretty simple to configure and all you have to do is click a button to activate it.

See- How to activate SiteGround SuperCacher

Before we move forward, it is important to know to activate Dynamic Cache you need SG Optimizer which is the cache plugin by SiteGround.

Just like SuperCacher, SG Optimizer is a free cache plugin developed by SiteGround exclusively for sites hosted on SiteGround.

The plugin is available in WordPress repository and can be downloaded and installed on any site. However, it will only work on sites that are on SiteGround.

We did install and use SG Optimizer for a while on some of our sites and it did improve the loading times.

However, there is a better alternative available in the market known as WP Rocket. And this is the plugin that we use and recommend.

See- What is WP Rocket

If you want to improve the page speed drastically then you most definitely need to replace SG Optimizer with WP Rocket.

In scenarios where you are just starting out and on a limited budget, SG Optimizer will work just fine.

Data Center and Free CDN

Did you know, the data center location that you opt for when buying hosting plays an important role in improving speed.

If you are thinking how then let me tell you the nearer the datacenter location to users visiting your site the better will be the page speed.

To understand this lets take an example of a site that is hosted on SiteGround’s Singapore data center and visitors from Canada are trying to access it. In this scenario, it will take some time for the servers to complete the request due to the distance.

However, if a user from India visits the same website then he/ she will get a much faster response and hence the speed will be better.

Keeping this in mind, SiteGround allows you to select a data center location when buying hosting with just a click of a button.

You get the option to choose from 6 locations

• Iowa, USA
• Singapore, Asia
• Sydney, Australia
• London, UK
• Frankfurt, Germany
• Netherlands, Europe

Now, it is important to know that once you have selected the data center location and purchased the plan then to relocate your site to another data center will cost you $30.00 extra.

Here we recommend checking the location when purchasing hosting.

Now that you are familiar with SiteGround’s data center locations, selections and change, some of you may be thinking what happens to performance when you want to target multiple locations with your site.

In this scenario, SiteGround offers free Cloudflare CDN and adding it your site will ensure that visitors all across the globe will experience similar loading times.

In case you are not familiar with the term CDN then let me tell you it is known as content delivery network which is a network of servers spread across the globe.

When you integrate your site with Cloudflare, it stores a copy of your site on its network and when a request is generated it is completed from the nearest location of Cloudflare improving the speed.

To understand this lets say your site is hosted on SiteGround’s Singapore location and its is visited by a user from Canada. In this situation, the request will be completed from the nearest Cloudflare location and not the main server.

It is important to know, Cloudflare has 194 network locations worldwide and on top of that it lets you create a free account on it.

We are currently using Cloudflare CDN on our sites and recommend using it.

Account creation process on Cloudflare is as easy as it gets and you can do it in 2 ways

• Directly (recommended)
• Through SiteGround

For more information on this you can follow our tutorial on How to enable free Cloudflare CDN on SiteGround.

Free SSL certificate

When you visit a website often you may have noticed a padlock in the address bar just before the URL.

This padlock show that the website is running on a secured connection or HTTPS meaning any information you share is transferred on a secured connection.

On the contrary, very rarely you may have also come across sites that have a Red insecure badge on the address bar and in the worst case scenario these website at times flagged by the search engines as dangerous.

And when you try to visit, it shows a caution message. This happens when a site is not running on a secure connection.

In case you are wondering

• How can some sites have a padlock while others don’t
• What do you need in order to run your website over a secure connection

The answer to both the above questions is the same and that is the sites that have padlock or in other words run on a secured connection use SSL certificate.

An SSL certificate is a data file or a type of certificate that is installed on the web server. It authenticates the connection between a server and a user ensuring a secured connection.

Back in the day, only the sites that used to collect sensitive data used these certificates. However, things have changed now.

SSL has become an industry standard and more importantly it is a trust symbol that gives a signal to the users that your site is safe for browsing.

Also, if you have noticed most sites that are listed on the first few pages of the search engines use SSL certificates because search engines consider it as a ranking factor.

Keeping this in mind, SiteGround offers free SSL certificated with all its plans.

This means even if you are on a lower tier plan, you will be able to secure your site using an SSL certificate provided by SiteGround.

In case you are looking to activate it then let me tell you it can be activated in just one click.

See- How to enable Free SSL on SiteGround

Free Daily Backups

When you will create your site often you will find yourself making changes to your site. Be it cosmetic or adding new features and functionalities.

These changes at times will involve adding code fragments, plugins, changing themes and more.

It is important to know that at times things may not work as expected and you may find sections of your site broken.

And to keep yourself safe from any such problems you need to take a backup.

Many hosting companies that cater to the new webmasters or offer affordable plans do not offer daily backup functionality.

However, SiteGround provides free daily backups with all its plans.

Before we move forward, it is important to daily backups are available in every plan. But with GrowBig and GoGeek plan you get on demand backup copies as well.

Having said that,

With SiteGround you can take backups and restore with just a few clicks.

To read more on this you can follow our tutorial on How to take backups on SiteGround

Incredible Support

In this SiteGround review you might have noticed we have consistently asked you contact SiteGround support in case you face any problems.

One of the reasons behind this is SiteGround is a fully managed hosting provider which means you don’t have to do much at all in terms of managing the hosting side of things.

They will do it for you.

In case you are facing any issue you can contact them easily as they have multiple channels for it such as

• 24/7 Live chat
• Telephonic chat
• Help desk tickets

On top of that SiteGround has a quick help button pinned on top of every page that has tutorials related to the page you are on.

As you can see in the screenshot above, we are in SiteGround’s back manager and on clicking the Quick Help icon it shows all the tutorials related to it.

Apart from this SiteGround has an extensive knowledge base where you can find answers to any and every question related to hosting, WordPress, domains and more.

The knowledge base is very well organized and tutorials are easy to follow.

Before we move forward, it is important to know SiteGround also has a Smart AI chat bot and automated solutions that can solve your problems quickly by providing a ready solution that has been tried and tested before.

Having said that,

As mentioned several time before, SiteGround is known for its customer support and each year their customer satisfaction rates are close to 100% with 90% of the problems being resolved in first contact.

Speaking about our personal experience, we have been using SiteGround for a while now and most of our problems were resolved in first contact.

According to us the support staff is extremely knowledgeable, patient, helpful and also takes time to make you understand the reason behind the problem and its solution.

Free Emails

Custom emails are an important part of any online business and it allows you to effectively communicate with other related businesses and audiences by maintaining your brands identity.

Think about a scenario, where you have received an email from your favorite site and the email address associated with it from a free mailing service like Gmail or Yahoo.

In most cases what will happen is when you open the email, it will show you a warning message just like the one below.

And in the worst case scenario this email might land in the spam and chances are very rare that it will ever be opened.

To solve this problem you need a custom email address and SiteGround lets you create and manage it easily.

Before we move forward, it is important to keep in mind there are limits on the size of email account depending on the plan you have chosen.

• StartUp- 2000 MB per email account
• GrowBig- 4000 MB per email account
• GoGeek- 6000 MB per email account

According to us, these mailbox sizes are more than enough.

Also, if you are looking to create an email account then you can follow our tutorial.

As mentioned several times in this review, the features list of SiteGround is extensive and below are a few more features that are only included in GrowBig and GoGeek plans.

• Staging + Git
• On demand backup copies
• Speed boosting caching
• Highest Tier of resources
• White-label clients
• Ultrafast PHP

See the complete SiteGround feature list

SiteGround Cons

Now that you are familiar with what SiteGround has to offer, it is important that we discuss the downsides of hosting your site on it.

It is important to know every hosting company comes with its own set of pros and cons and in our opinion SiteGround has some downsides.

However, it is nothing major when you compare it with the features it offers. Below are some of them that we think you should know about.

Trial Accounts

Did you know SiteGround offers monthly trial accounts that you can buy and test their service out. Sounds good right.

But here is the catch. SiteGround trial account costs

• $19.99/mo for the Startup plan
• $29.99/mo for the GrowBig plan
• $44.99/mo for the GoGeek plan

These prices are fairly expensive if you are starting out or want to test the service. In reality these accounts cost you more than the actual price of the hosting plan.

In case this cost would have been equal to the base price of the plan we would have not included it in this list.

Keeping this in mind, we do not recommend buying trial or monthly accounts from SiteGround. Instead of this you should buy a yearly plan and if you are not satisfied then cancel it within the first month to get the full refund as every SiteGround plan comes with a 30-day money back policy.

Higher renewal rates

If you are thinking SiteGround’s pricing starts at $6.99/ mo then let me tell you it is the introductory SiteGround discount that you get on the actual price.

Almost every hosting company is guilty of doing this which means when you buy hosting you get it at a considerably lower price as compared to the original cost.

And when you renew, it feels like you are paying a huge sum as compare to before.

To tackle this problem you need to buy hosting for a longer term such as 2-3 years so that you don’t have to think about this recurring charge for a few years.

No SuperCacher for Startup plan

By now you know SiteGround is known for its speed and customer service. But if you are looking to purchase the Startup plan then let me tell you this plan does not come with the SuperCacher.

This means only users with GrowBig and GoGeek have access to that feature.

Now, in case you are wondering how will you speed up your site then let me tell you there is an easy solution available.

And that is by installing WP Rocket.

WP Rocket is a cache plugin that we have been using on our sites for a very long time and because of it we have achieved lightening fast page speed.

We highly recommend using it.

No Free Migrations

If you have been researching about web hosting companies then I’m sure you would have noticed all these companies offer extra services and functionalities in order to attract new clients.

And one of those services is Free WordPress migration. Now, you are new to the online world and have no technical background then let me tell you migrating a website from one host to another is a slightly complicated process.

That is why most web hosting companies offer free migration for 1 site.

In case you have multiple sites then the first site is migrated from free and the rest are charged extra.

Having said that,

SiteGround used to offer free migration service with its plans sometimes back. But now thet charge $30/ site which is very pocket friendly but is not free.

In case you are not willing to pay for this service then you will have to use the SiteGround’s migrator plugin.

In case you are thinking that the process might be complicated then let me tell you this plugin makes the process much more easier.

However, you will need basic technical knowledge as it required you to change nameservers and editing your system’s host file.

To help you with this we have created a tutorial on How to migrate a website to SiteGround

Web hosting services offered by SiteGround

Now that you are familiar with SiteGround’s features and Pros and Cons, its time we discuss.

SiteGround is a web hosting company that has been in the market for a while now and with time, it has increased the services it offers. Below are some of the services offered.

• Fast and Secure Shared Web Hosting– SiteGround’s fast and secure shared hosting is for you if you are just starting out and not expecting a lot of traffic from the beginning.
• Managed WordPress Hosting– As the name suggests, this web hosting is best suited for WordPress sites. If you are looking to start a WordPress blog or a website then this is for you.
• Woo-Commerce Hosting– If you are looking to start an online store on WordPress then this web hosting solution by SiteGround comes pre-installed with Woo-Commerce and is optimized for it.
• Cloud Hosting– In case you have an established website or have outgrown the SiteGround shared hosting plan then this is the hosting for you.

SiteGround web hosting pricing and plans

Now that you are familiar with the various services offered by SiteGround, its time we discuss the pricing and plans.

As you can see SiteGround offers 3 web hosting plans starting with

• StartUp at $6.99/mo
• GrowBig at $9.99/mo
• GoGeek at $14.99/mo

And every plan includes

And more. See the complete feature list.

Also, if you buy hosting using our link then you can Claim Free blog setup service where we will get you started on the right path.

Which SiteGround web hosting plan is best for you

If you are starting out then looking at different pricing structures and features can be a bit overwhelming.

At times it can be difficult to choose which plan will be best for you.

To make the selection process easier, below we have briefly explained each of these plans.

• SiteGround StartUp plan

Startup plan is the most affordable web hosting plan offered by SiteGround and it is priced at $6.99/mo. This plan lets you host a single site and is best suited for sites receiving upto 10,000 monthly visits.

This plan is for you if you are looking to host just a single site and have no plans to increase the number of sites in the near future.

• SiteGround GrowBig plan

GrowBig is the mid tier plan offered by SiteGround and is priced at $9.99/mo. This plan lets you host multiple sites and is suitable for upto 25,000 monthly visits.

On top of that GrowBig plan comes with advanced web hosting features offered by SiteGround such as Staging, SuperCacher, On-Demand backups and more.

This plan is for your, if you want to host multiple site and is best suited for growing websites and blogs.

See- Blog vs Website

• SiteGround GoGeek plan

GoGeek is the top tier web hosting plan offered by SiteGround and is priced at $14.99/mo. Just like the GrowBig plan, GoGeek plan allows you to host multiple sites and includes Highest Tier of resources.

This plan is best suited for sites for upto 100,000 monthly visits and comes with advanced features such as Ultrafast PHP, Staging + Git, Priority support and more.

GoGeek plan is for you if you are looking to resell hosting or have an established site and looking for advanced features and higher server resources.

Having said that,

In our opinion, GrowBig plan by SiteGround is the best one as it offers best of both worlds without breaking the bank.

Is SiteGround worth the money

Now that you know everything about SiteGround and the types of services it offers, its time we discuss if this web hosting company really worth the money.

First things first we have used SiteGround and we will continue to use it as there are certain features offered that are better as compared to others and these are

• Performance
• Customer Support

Having said that,

There is another side to this story that may not appeal to some of you which higher prices, renewals and certain exclusive features that are not offered in the lower tier plans.

It is important to know here higher renewals and top tier plans offering more resources is the case with most web hosting companies that provide affordable hosting plans.

And you will see it everywhere.

Also, SiteGround positions itself as a Managed web hosting company which means it takes care of the technical side of running a website such as hosting, updates, backups and more.

Now, when you compare SiteGround to other managed hosting companies , you will notice the prices are much lower or in some cases comparable.

Keeping this is mind, if you are really serious about starting a website and growing it then SiteGround is the one for you as you will definitely find value in what SiteGround has to offer.

Honest SiteGround Review- FAQ

I hope you will find this SiteGround review helpful and are able to take an informed decision. If you are looking get hosting then you can follow our tutorial on How to sign up with SiteGround.

In case you have any queries regarding this feel free to contact us via the comment section. Also, don’t forget to share this article with others on social media.

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