SiteGround is a well-known web hosting provider that is a time-tested and reliable host. It is well known for its speed, rock-solid reliability, stellar support, and a set of robust features. About two million domain owners trust it. Apart from that, WordPress, a well-known hosting company, recommends it. Moreover, it integrates fully with Drupal, Joomla, Magento, PrestaShop, WooCommerce, and Weebly. Let’s get in into this Siteground review.
To conclude, if SiteGround is an ideal choice for your hosting needs, today we’ll discuss some of its essential features, what we liked, what we don’t like, and pricing in this review.
Some Of The Common Issues with Web Hosting Providers.
With many web hosts that provide different kinds of hosting setups, determining a suitable plan could confuse beginners and intermediate users. Prospective customers need to analyze many factors before coming to a final decision, like bandwidth, storage, uptime, speed, pricing, and server location.
SiteGround addresses such questions pretty well. It has different hosting plans that will befit the varying demands of users. It provides high-quality features at reasonable prices, and it’s well-known for its helpful, on-point customer service. No surprise, SiteGround usually tops surveys, like these unofficial polls accompanied by three Facebook groups. Let’s get started with the SiteGround Review.
SiteGround Review: Contains
- Key Features
- WordPress Migration
- Domain Management
- Pricing
- Different Hosting Plans
Let’s move forward to learn some of the key features of SiteGround:
SiteGround Review: Key Features
1. Easy-to-use interfaces
When you log into your SiteGround account, a unique Home page will greet you. SiteGround has renewed its interface, which we find smoother and more intuitive. It includes descriptions and shortcuts to commonly used features as well as recent blog posts. Apart from Home, you’ll see five different tabs on the top menu—Websites, Services, Billing, Referrals, and Marketplace.
2. Website Management
Go to the Websites tab, and you’ll find two subtabs here:
- Websites
- Collaboration.
Users who have subscribed to the higher GrowBig and GoGeek plans can utilize Collaboration to grant access to designers and developers.
In the Websites subtab, you discover the collection of websites you have stored under SiteGround. Each box is dedicated to one site, and each box contains three buttons:
- Site Tools,
- WordPress Kit,
- and Manage.
The Site Tools is the current equivalent of Siteground’s former cPanel. Every site-building tool is contained here, so we’ll discuss this in detail.
3. Site Tools
To access Site Tools, pick one of the listed websites, then click the Site Tools button. You will then reach the Dashboard panel.
The dashboard presents you the quick information about the chosen website. There are eight essential tabs:
- Site,
- Security,
- Speed,
- WordPress
- Domain,
- Email,
- Statistics,
- and Devs.
The Site tab can be divided into subtabs, with App Manager and MySQL worth some attention.
You can install your choice of applications Under App Manager, say, WordPress, WordPress with WooCommerce, or Weebly.
SiteGround allows unlimited database creation across its shared hosting plans. It is something you can manage under the MySQL subtab.
SiteGround also enables an unlimited number of email addresses under the Email subtab.
The Statistics subtab will present information about your site’s traffic plus other stats, as well as error and access logs. The Devs subtab includes developer tools, like:
- Git repository,
- Cron Jobs tool,
- PHP,
- and SSH keys managers.
Security, Speed, WordPress, and Domain are other subtabs that we will discuss separately in the next sections.
4. Security
SiteGround takes security quite seriously. It includes features essential to make sure your website’s integrity.
Once you’re logged in to your account, go to Websites > Websites > Site Tools > Security. You’ll find here these three vital security services such as Backups, SSL Manager, and SiteScanner.
Backups: If you forget to create the backups, don’t worry. SiteGround allows automated daily backups.
5. SiteScanner
This service permits you to check for malware and be informed of threats so you can act accordingly. However, SiteGround can’t eliminate such threats.
SiteGround has other tools that guard your website. SiteGround has an anti-bot AI solution against botnets along with an in-house server monitoring tool to check your domain’s status.
SSL Manager: Here, you can install, import, and manage your SSL certificates. SSL certificates are good for websites as they encrypt incoming traffic and protect passwords, login credentials, and other sensitive information. If you don’t own one yet, you can get free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates with any of SiteGround’s hosting plans.
6. Speed and reliability
Since no one likes a slow website, you will be happy to know that SiteGround has the most advanced speed technologies for optimized performance and fast loading speed.
Two extra speed features are content delivery network (CDN) and caching that can be accessed within your SiteGround account. Log in then go to Websites > Websites > Site Tools > Speed.
7. Cloudflare CDN
Cloudflare is one of the most famous CDN services. If your website utilizes CDN, copies of your web pages will be stored in various servers across different locations. The benefit of Cloudflare CDN is that Your visitor will be able to load your site fast from the nearest server.
8. Caching
SuperCacher is SiteGround’s robust caching solution. It can boost the number of hits that can be controlled by your website as well as enhance your site’s loading speed.
Apart from maximizing speed, SiteGround also possesses features created to maintain an almost perfect 99.9% uptime. This involves the use of cutting-edge LXC (Linux containers) technology and the secure isolation of accounts on its shared servers.
9. Customer support
As we have mentioned in the beginning that WordPress officially recommends SiteGround. We infer that this is not only for Siteground’s speed but also for its customer service. As SiteGround’s support agents are polite and prompt to assist, it makes sense as attested by many Twitter users.
SiteGround’s support staff will assist you in case of queries you encounter with your website. They’re available to answer your questions or concerns.
Also, SiteGround provides comprehensive tutorials on how to use its hosting services.
10. WordPress-specific features
As one of WordPress’s approved hosting providers, SiteGround must have high-quality WordPress-specific features. As expected, the company delivered all the features well. You can go through these features by logging in to your account and going to Websites > Websites > Site Tools > WordPress.
11. Installation and management
You can easily build a new website with SiteGround’s free site builders, including WordPress. You can begin a new website under an existing hosting plan or get a new plan. Siteground will manage your WordPress installation, and you can also control your WordPress site under this Install & Manage tool.
12. Staging
If you desire to test a new code or design, but you are afraid of changes that might ruin your website, you can build a website copy in a separate staging area. If the variations work well, you can then launch the changes to your live site.
A. WordPress Migration
Relocating your website is a nuisance. SiteGround gives you two ways to shift your website from your old host to SiteGround’s platform. You can ask SiteGround’s expert help, but this is available only for GrowBig and GoGeek plan subscribers. Or you can migrate yourself with the free Migrator tool.
To use SiteGround’s migration tool, you require to download the Migrator plug-in from the WordPress.org site. While manual migration needs some work, you can move as many websites as you like.
B. Domain management
If you have not received a domain name yet, you can register for one through SiteGround as low as $15.95 per year. You can do this when you sign up for a SiteGround account. Even you can purchase extra domain names by logging in and going to Marketplaces > Domain Services.
Furthermore, you can also shift your old domain name through this page. By doing this, you can manage both your domain and website from one location.
C. SiteGround Review: Pricing
Let’s go through this Siteground review to know its pricing. If you have a moderate budget for hosting your website, shared hosting plans are the first ones you should think of. Many sites are stored on a single server on this setup, and they share that server’s resources. For a shared hosting provider, SiteGround does allow low costs but doesn’t gimp on delivering impressive speed and optimal performance.
D. Shared hosting plans
Here are SiteGround’s three shared hosting plans.
If you want to start your first website, the StartUp plan is perfect. It includes one website and has a limit of 10,000 visits per month. It has a special price of $6.99 per month (originally $14.99).
For your web growth, there’s a GrowBig plan. It covers an unlimited number of websites with a limit of 25,000 visits monthly. In this, You get premium features along with essential features. GrowBig starts at $9.99 per month (from its original price of $24.99).
Lastly, GoGeek is the best plan for real web geeks. You can get various websites, 100,000 visits every month, and all the features you require to satisfy the web geek in you. The special price runs at $14.99 per month (from its regular rate of $39.99).
Features of the shared hosting plans
All three hosting plans share the following essential features:
- Free Cloudflare CDN
- Daily backups
- Unlimited email accounts
- Unlimited MySQL
- 24/7 support
- 30 days money-back guarantee
- Free website builder
- Free SSL certificate
The GrowBig and GoGeek plans have premium features:
- Advanced on-demand backups
- Free site transfer by experts
- Priority technical support
- Free backup restores
- SuperCacher
- WordPress staging
- Collaboration
Advanced “geeky” features are only available in the GoGeek plan:
- WordPress and Joomla staging
- One-click Git repository creation
- PCI compliant servers (beneficial if you own an online store)
- More server power (fewer accounts, more speed)
SiteGround accepts payments through major credit cards.
Cloud and dedicated hosting plans
SiteGround is not only about shared hosting. It also extends cloud hosting and dedicated servers.
However, prices for these plans are too hefty for individual users and smaller businesses. SiteGround doesn’t allow the virtual private server (VPS) hosting.
What We Liked About It
There are several things to like about SiteGround. They offer
- the free SSL certificates and CDN,
- daily backups,
- 99.9% uptime,
- the 30-day money-back guarantee,
- fast loading speeds,
- unlimited email addresses and databases,
- the easy-to-use migration tool
- and auto-updates,
Their customer service is excellent. The renewed interface also looks better.
Newcomers should like the idea of being able to use easy drag-and-drop builders like Weebly. SiteGround will work seamlessly with WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and several apps. In the case of developers and more advanced users, they have something to like here. There’s Git pre-installed on higher plans with other dev tools. There’s a nifty staging tool to try new features before driving them into the actual site.
SiteGround Review: What We Don’t Like About It
First, SiteGround has tricky pricing discounts as the introductory rate is roughly 40% off the original price; the terms will have jumped to costly levels when you renew. For instance, the StartUp’s $6.99 monthly rate will go up to $14.99 during renewal. If you are getting the deals, get the most extended term so you can enjoy the discounted price.
Second, there’s my gripe on the limit of monthly visitors and limited storage capacity. Retaking the StartUp plan as an example, you can only host one site and only get 10 GB of web space to approve only 10,000 monthly visits. While smaller sites with low traffic shouldn’t worry about this problem, getting bigger sites would probably suffer.
Lastly, while other hosting companies allow a free domain name for at least a year, SiteGround doesn’t offer that. If you don’t have a domain name yet, either pay Siteground for domain registration or register with a separate registrar.
Final Thoughts
Siteground is recognized as an excellent shared hosting provider as it has solid reliability and top-notch support. Its speed is outstanding, too, courtesy of advanced speed technologies, free Cloudflare CDN, and a caching tool. The company gives free SSL certificates on all plans as well.
As WordPress officially authorizes SiteGround, the recognition is a seal of trust in SiteGround’s capability to create and manage WordPress sites. Installations are usually done with a few clicks, and the daily backups should free you from worries. If you use Joomla or Drupal, you’ll be happy to know that you won’t lose ground in SiteGround.
Introductory prices are reasonable if you intend to get the longest-term package. If not, you’ll end up spending high renewal rates at an earlier time. You are also required to get a domain name first if you don’t want to pay a registration fee. Be wary, too, if the monthly limit on visitors and the limited storage are enough for your website’s requirements. Finally, it has ample disk space, Windows-based servers, or VPS hosting that you desire; you should have better luck with other web hosting providers as well. SiteGround is a reliable choice for your web hosting needs. They provide WordPress websites and offer fewer resources than their competitors but higher reliability. Hope this Siteground review was helpful enough.
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