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Siteground Review (April 2024) Is It Still As Good As Used To Be?

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February 3, 2023

It’s not a hidden fact that web hosting plays an important role in blogging success. In fact, hosting is one of the main reasons that restrict your blogging potential.

I believe in “first time right“. But I made a mistake when I started my blogging journey with cheap VPS hosting. That turned out to be a big mistake. I switched to Siteground. And…Voila. It was just amazing.

I had hosted a couple of sites on Siteground in the past and was really happy with their service. But lately, they started degrading their service, support went from best to worst, and I had to move out of Siteground.

Recently they announced a couple of exciting features in their web hosting plan and you might have heard that the old Siteground is back.

Is it so? Is It Still As Good As Used To Be? Let’s find out the answer in this Siteground Review.

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Siteground Hosting Overview

Siteground was founded by a couple of University students back in 2004. It started its operation with an office in Sofia ( Bulgaria) and later expanded to most parts of the world.

Currently, Siteground has offices in the USA, the UK, and Spain, in addition to Bulgaria. However, they have data centers in a couple of other countries too.

Currently Siteground hosts over 2000000 websites. SiteGround was one of the most prominent and highly-ranked web hosts in 2021.

Although all plans are a bit costly, people don’t mind spending for the best.

SiteGround Business Portfolio

Siteground is very popular for its Shared Hosting / WordPress Hosting. Although both shared hosting and WordPress hosting are marketed as two different offerings, basically both are the same. The name is different just for marketing purposes.

SiteGround also deals in Cloud Hosting for high-traffic websites. SiteGround cloud hosting is similar to VPS hosting where you will get dedicated resources.

Siteground also provides domain registration or transfer services. So if you want to buy a new domain or you want to transfer your old domain, you can do it with SiteGround itself.

One of the best things about SiteGround is that they have a very limited plan and they don’t offer a wide array of services.

Due to that, they can concentrate more on a single product to improve it and deliver the best.

Siteground Hosting Features

Here are some of the key features of Siteground Hosting shared hosting plans.

1. Google Cloud Platform

The Siteground web hosting infrastructure is placed on the Google Cloud Platform. Google Cloud is known for its speed and security.

This is the same platform where Gmail, Google Drive, YouTube, or other Google Products are hosted. So you can imagine the kind of speed that you may get.

On top of that, since SiteGround WordPress hosting is cloud-based, there is very little chance of downtime.

We all know that in cloud hosting, your website files are stored on multiple cloud servers. So in case of any physical server breakdown, the content can be served from any other cloud server location

2. NVM e SSD storage

When you buy hosting from Siteground, all your files will be stored in NVMe SSD storage which is much faster than SATA SSDs that other hosting company offers. SSD storage is almost 10 times faster than regular hard drive storage.

On top of that, there is very little chance of mechanical failure as SSDs do not have any mechanical moving parts. So you can expect very little downtime or server failure.

3. Ultra Fast Servers With NGNIX Reverse Proxy

SiteGround uses a specially configured Linux container with Apache as a Web Server and NGNIX as a reverse proxy.

The NGNIX reverse proxy is known as NGNIX Content Delivery or NGNIX Caching in SiteGround

The benefit of NGNIX caching is that for repeated visitors, files are served by NGNIX instead of Apache. So less load on the web server. This leads to faster response times for repeat visitors.

All Siteground servers are HTTP/3 (QUIC) enabled, and have Memcached and PHP optimization through the OPCache extension.

HTTP/3 is the fastest internet protocol that is available now and SiteGround is one of the first web hosts to offer support for HTTP/3 (QUIC)

4. SG Optimizer: Siteground’s own free cache plugin

SG Optimizer is the real trump card for SiteGround. SiteGround is one of the few hosts that has its own in-house cache plugin.

SP Optimizer enhances the speed to the next level. Since SG-Optimizer is developed and maintained by SiteGround, they can tweak it the way they want to give users the optimum speed.

SG Optimizer has all the features that other reputed cache plugins like WP Rocket have.

It perfectly blends with NG direct delivery, has a code optimization option, Image optimization, WebP image conversion, and the list just goes on. Here is the list of key features that SG optimizer offers.

5. Built-In Security

Website security is the prime concern for many hosts. But with Siteground you can have complete peace of mind.

Siteground is considered one of the most secure host. Here are security mechanism is in place if you decide to host in Siteground.

6. WordPress Migrator Plugin

Siteground is one of the few companies that provides a dedicated tool to migrate your website from other hosts to Sieground.

Traditionally, you need to raise a ticket to transfer your website or do it yourself by using the WPVivid plugin.

With Siteground, you just need to install the SiteGround Migrator plugin in WordPress while you are still with the old host and follow the simple instruction.

Within 30 minutes, your website will be transferred without any ticket or any other tools. That shows that SiteGround is constantly developing new tools so that customers are more satisfied.

7. Free SSL certificate

Free SSL certificate is common across all web hosting companies. But the pain is in the implementation. Often people face the issue of SSL certificate implementation in their websites.

With Siteground, SSL certificate implementation is just one click away. Yes, you heard it right. If the name servers are pointing to Siteground, then with one click you can install the let’s encrypt SSL certificate for your website. Is it not cool?

8. Managed WordPress

This feature is very useful for new bloggers who do not have much knowledge about how to manage WordPress.

Trust me, go to any web host in the same price range, and ask them any WordPress-related questions.

They will simply deny giving any support for WordPress. Siteground, they are eager to support and I showed the proof below.

Personally, there are many settings that I choose Siteground to manage. Because no matter how experienced we are, a WordPress expert knows better.

Also to get the best out of WordPress, you need someone who knows in and out of it. Siteground is your that kind of friend. Trust me.

9. Highly Intuitive website management dashboard

Bored with the same CPanel dashboard everywhere? It’s time to get rid of this boring interface and switch to Siteground to get an eye-candy interface.

Siteground website management dashboard is based on C Panel but they redesigned the interface completely to make it look much better.

Unlike the C panel where all options are scattered, the Siteground interface has everything laid out perfectly.

All options can be navigated from the sidebar and those are easily customizable. SiteGround dashboard is one of the best web hosting dashboards that I have seen recently.

10. Email Management system

You might be wondering why I mentioned an email management system as a key feature here when every host offers a free email management system.

Well, there is a trick. All web hosts offer email management but hardly anyone offers email security and spam filter. Spamming and security are the biggest threat to email management.

Siteground has an inbuilt spam protection mechanism so that your emails go to your inbox and not to the SPAM folder.

The best part is that you don’t need to do anything. The spam filter is pre-activated for all accounts.

I still remember, that with my old host, I had to raise many requests for SPF and the DKIM value of my email server.

Even they were not sure what does that mean. With Siteground, those values are already integrated into the DNS zone editor.

11. Cloudflare CDN

Again, you might be asking why I included Cloudflare CDN here when it is offered by all the hosts. The reason I added it here is that, with Siteground, Cloudflare CDN is managed in the Siteground dashboard itself.

You don’t need to go to cloudflare.com and manage your settings. Most of the settings of Cloudflare can be managed in the Siteground dashboard itself.

Siteground also offers Railgun as a free feature for all their customers but in the case of the Cloudflare free plan, Railgun is not a free feature.

So with Siteground, you are getting a premium Cloudflare feature for free.

12. Staging Tool

This feature is useful when you try to do a lot of experiments with your website and don’t want your website to go down because of that.

For example, you want to install any plugin to check if that works or not. For that, you can copy your website into the staging environment and try the new plugin.

If you are ok with the outcome of the staging website, then you can deploy the changes in the production environment.

SiteGround has an inbuilt staging area where you can do this activity. However, this feature is not available in the starter plan.

13. Ultra Fast PHP

Siteground is the only web host that deploys the latest PHP versions on its servers. As of December 2020, when other web hosts did not even move to PHP 7, Siteground has already moved to PHP 8.

Not only that, Siteground is offering a feature called Ultrafast PHP which is the tweaked version of PHP 8 to suit SiteGround servers. Hats off to Siteground for this feature.

14. Daily Back-Up & One-Click Restore

Siteground offers daily backups of all your websites. In case of any issues, you can always restore your website.

On top of that the backup and restore interface is very easy to use and intuitive. You no longer need any support to restore your website. However, Siteground support is always ready to help.

15. World-Class Support

Yes, you heard it right. World-class support! Siteground support is the best. No matter what problem you have, either small or big, Siteground customer support is always ready to assist.

They have ticket-based support and chat support also. Unlike other web hosts, chat support is always available. Even they reply to your emails within 4 hours.

On top of that, Sitegrund has many helpful articles in their blog that you can refer to solve your problems. Even they are very active in the WordPress community.

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Siteground Hosting Plans

Now we have a broad idea about what features Siteground web hosting offers, let us focus on what plans Siteground has in its bucket.

Let me tell you that Siteground has very basic shared hosting to enterprise-level hosting. Now it’s up to you which one to choose based on your business requirement.

Siteground Review [ Performance & Test Results]

We have tested a demo website on Siteground to check the capability and the result is not that good. However, there is plenty of room for improvement.

1. Speed Test

The speed test shows pretty decent results in both GT Metrix and Google Page Insights. However, the score could have been better.

2. Server Speed Test

We tested our site on BitCacha to check the server response time and the response was very good as shown.

You can see that the Bitcacha tool rated the Siteground server as A+ which is really great.

3. Uptime Test

It is really great that you will get almost 100% uptime with Siteground. Below is the proof of one of my blogs ( Hosted on Siteground) which shows 100% uptime.

Here is the historic uptime data for Siteground.

4. Time To First Byte Test ( TTFB)

Here is the time to first byte data for Siteground. The result is good but not impressive as in the US region it is showing a poor TTFB of about one second

How To Host A Blog On SiteGround

Here are the steps that you should follow to host a blog on Siteground.

Hosting a website on Siteground is a very straightforward task. First of all, you need to click on the Exclusive link to go to the Siteground portal to buy a plan as per your requirements.

Choose a plan by clicking on Hosting-> Web Hosting-> Select A plan

Next, you have to choose a domain name. In case you already have a domain name, you need to select “I already have a domain”. Enter the domain name and click on “Proceed“.

Please note that Siteground offers a free domain for the first year with all shared hosting plans.

On this page, you need to enter your account information and payment information. You also need to select a plan, select the data center, and the plan period.

Once everything is filled in, click on “Pay Now”. You will get the login details once your payment is successful.

Once you have the login information, please log in to your dashboard and the dashboard will look like this. You need to click on ” Website” to install a website. You can also explore other options as all options are self-explanatory.

On the “My Website” page, click on the “New Website” symbol to create a new site.

Here you have to select whether you want to buy a new domain or want to use your existing domain. Since I am going to use my existing domain, so I selected the “Existing Domain” option.

On this page, you will get three options. You need to choose how you want to set up your website.

Start New website: It will create a website having WordPress pre-installed

Migrate Website: This will give an authorization code that you need to enter in the migrator plugin for transfer when you are still with the old host.

Skip and create an empty site: This will just create an empty site without WordPress. you need to dump your file later.

Once you select either ” Start New Website” or ” Skip & Create Empty site”, it will create a site for you. You need to click the “Set Up” option to go to the site setting.

Siteground Hosting Positives And Negatives

Key Facts About Siteground

SiteGround Is Recommended By Experts

Here is a screenshot of what industry experts are saying about Siteground.

Excellent Customer Reviews

Here is the customer review about Siteground on TrustPilot

Siteground is recommended by WordPress

Siteground is one of the few web hosts recommended by WordPress. So you can imagine the kind of services Siteground offers.

Conclusion: SiteGround Review

So here is the deal. If you want a managed WordPress host that offers a decent speed and comes with all bells and whistles, go for Siteground.

Siteground is a managed WordPress host in the true sense. So if you feel that you want to dump all your hosting hassles on Siteground, then that would be the best decision.

One more good thing about Siteground is that they keep on investing in innovation. Every now and then, they come up with a new plugin to make your hosting experience better.

You can’t go wrong with Siteground if you are a newbie or a hobby blogger. However, if your site gets decent traffic, the story would be very different as Siteground has that popular CPU throttle limit.

Siteground alternatives

If you feel that the negatives of SiteGround hosting are bothering you, then you may look for the below web hosts. Both Cloudways and Rocket.net outperforms Siteground in every department and both are better host than Siteground.

Cloudways

Cloudways is a cloud hosting platform where you can choose from different cloud service providers to host your blog. It is different from shared hosting in the sense that, you will be allotted dedicated resources.

In Cloudways, you can choose from Digital Ocean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, and Google Cloud as your cloud service provider. All these providers are equally good and very popular.

You can start your journey with Cloudways for as low as $10 per month. You can host multiple blogs, you will get ample SSD space and bandwidth.

You will also get Cloudway’s in-house developed cache plugin called Breeze. Redis cache is available on all servers and for security, they have Malware security.

When you host your blog with Cloudways, you will definitely get a speed boost. I am using Cloudways for a long time, and I must say that Cloudways is one of the best and most cost-effective web hosting solutions out there.

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Rocket.Net

Rocket.net is fairly a new company established in 2020. Like Siteground, Rocket.net also uses the NGNIX web server, but the real trump card is the Cloudflare Enterprise Plan.

All Rocket.net customer gets the Cloudflare Enterprise plan for free. On top of that, you will get Sectigo Premium SSL for free which will save almost $700 per year.

Apart from that, Rocket.net uses an edge cloud that is much faster than the traditional cloud.

I recently reviewed Rocket.net and I am simply blown away by the speed. The support of the Rocket.net team is also awesome.

The pricing is a little high. But your money won’t be wasted if you switch to Rocket.net. You can try any of the rocket.net plans by paying just $1 for the first month.

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FAQ | Siteground Review

Siteground Hosting

Siteground is one of the best and most reputed web hosts offering Managed WordPress Hosting and Cloud Hosting. They are known for their great servers, excellent speed, truly managed service, and great customer support.

Price: 2.99

Price Currency: USD

Operating System: Linux

Application Category: WordPress Hosting

Editor's Rating:
4.8

Siteground Review (April 2024) Is It Still As Good As Used To Be?

$2.99 $14.99

GET THE DEAL