SiteGround Reviews – Honest Review with Uptime & Performance Data!

Looking For The Best Web Hosting?

If you are looking for the best web hosting, we recommend InMotion Hosting. Free SSD space, 24/7/365 US based support, maximum uptime & incredible loading speed! Avail 38% discount today!

SiteGround grew a lot over the last 10 years since their humble beginning in 2004. They're now one of the few WordPress.org recommended hosts, along with BlueHost, Flywheel Hosting. I use SiteGround for a lot of my websites because of the their performance/price ratio and support. Also, as I need to host mostly WordPress-powered websites, SiteGround's WordPress specific features features come in very handy.

Discount Banner

The SiteGround review

In this SiteGround review, I'll cover a few different aspects of their shared hosting plans. It'll help you decide if SiteGround is right for you.

Host: SiteGround

Type: Shared Hosting

Performance

Uptime

Support

Price

(38% Exclusive Discount With Our Recommended Hosting - InMotion Hosting)

Performance

According to ByteCheck, my website hosted on SiteGround takes just under 200ms to respond, and loads up fully within 400ms (usually between 300-350ms) according to Pingdom. That's a regular page load time (not super impressive though) for a site hosted on a shared hosting server. You can test the page loading time of your own website using Pingdom, to get a better idea of how good or bad that speed is, compared to your current web host.

It wasn't an one-time thing either, as I've consistently experienced such great load times for sites hosted on SiteGround. Even with caching turned completely off, the site was still loading in under 500ms, which is great for a moderately-heavy WordPress site. This shouldn't be surprising, though, given how many WordPress specific features they offer that usually no other shared host does.

SiteGround themselves have made a small video showing how they go beyond the standard industry practices to improve their server performance:

Uptime

SiteGround boasts a 99.99% uptime guaranty, and that's exactly what this site experienced. While the site was not up 100% (there was just one instance of downtime lasting a few minutes), 99.99% actual uptime (not promised uptime) is unheard of in the shared hosting segment.

Technically, getting an uptime of even 100% is possible with SiteGround, just like it's possible while using your own (expensive) dedicated server. But, you shouldn't expect a 100% uptime because it's a possibility, not a guarantee.

Still, in my experience with more than a dozen shared hosts, I never consistently experienced this kind of uptime with any others. This is not just my experience, Rohit Palit from Techtage mentioned the same.

Support

SiteGround's support is truly beginner-friendly. They help you with all sorts of things, and offer concise, to-the-point solutions to you just when you need them the most.

Apart from traditional ticket-based support, they also offer 24x7 live-chat and phone support (which is industry standard). So, in urgent cases, you won't have to wait at all to get in touch with them immediately.

It doesn't matter if your question is about their own service or your CMS, as they literally reply to each and every question with detailed, helpful answers. This is one of the reasons why I regard them as one of the best hosts for beginners, especially.

They're also one of the few (if not the only) shared host to put up the personal profiles of all members of their support team. This adds an assuring feel to a user's mind.

They also offer managed WordPress hosting. All of their shared hosting plans include dedicated support for WordPress sites.

It offers a ton of WordPress specific features ranging from one-click WordPress auto-installation, auto-upgradation of plugins, site transfer, WP-CLI, Staging, etc. 

Pricing, Plans & Current Offers

SiteGround offers 3 different shared hosting plans:

The Startup plan is great for beginners who have only one websites to host. The GrowBig plan is what most people use, because it offers the ultimate balance between features and price. The GoGeek plan is strictly reserved for geeks who really need all those extra features that a normal user won't need. All of these plans come with one free domain, when you have the right coupon.

SiteGround homepage lists all the features of these 3 plans, and also the differences between them, in details. In short:

​Startup: $3.95/mo - Recommended for people with a single site.
GrowBig: $7.95/mo - Recommended for people with multiple sites.
GoGeek: $14.95/mo - Recommended for people needing advanced features.

Note: To get special discount on our recommended hosting, you need a special link  offering the discount. If you're looking for a discount link, here's a very good one:

Final Verdict

​SiteGround distinguishes itself from hundreds of other shared hosts with industry-leading features at affordable prices. While it might not be the cheapest option out there, it certainly is one of the best in the business when it comes to quality.

There are many other shared hosts you can think about. But with SiteGround’s managed WordPress hosting service and their aim to provide you with more than any other web hosting provider, you can't really go wrong with SiteGround.

Keeping in mind the discounts being offered currently, SiteGround is actually competing with far inferior hosts even on the price aspect. If you were thinking about purchasing SiteGround hosting, now is a great time to do so by visiting SiteGround.com and buying a plan at a discounted rate.

Pros & Cons of SiteGround: This Review in a Nutshell

Pros

  • Fast performance (Not impressive though)
  • Regular uptime.
  • Friendly, efficient and responsive live chat & ticket-based support.
  • Free domain, SSL, and script auto-installer.
  • Pro-active server monitoring for vulnerabilities and performance. 
  • SuperCacher, Account Isolation and Google PageSpeed module.
  • 4 different data center locations.

Cons

  • Basic plan allows you to host only one domain.
  • Though better quality-wise, mid and high tier plans are still costlier than the competition.

(We recommend InMotion Hosting over SiteGround)

SITEGROUND FACTS

SiteGround is one of the fastest-growing independent shared hosts in the world (most prominent names in the shared hosting space have been acquired by bigger companies like Endurance International Group). Though they're based in Bulgaria, they serve customers from across the world.

SiteGround offers different web hosting solutions including shared hosting, cloud hosting and dedicated hosting. In addition, SiteGround can also be seen actively participating in various events organized by WordPress, Drupal, Joomla and internet marketing communities.

(We recommend InMotion Hosting over SiteGround)

Extra Information

Discount Banner

9 thoughts on “SiteGround Reviews – Honest Review with Uptime & Performance Data!”

  1. Finally, another post after the long break.

    Would you advise purchasing a 6 month hosting plan for a niche site. I’m a newbie and I wanna start my Amazon niche site this holiday. All I can afford is below 30 dollar- very much regarding our currency exchange rate here.

  2. HI

    Just to tell, Siteground have a really bad support, and I feel like this is really a thing to notice !

    I have a client who have chosen siteground to host their site, and strange things is happen from time to time, which I haven’t seen before at other hosting companies.

    When we are contacting the live support, I have to write our problem first, which can take a long time to clear out, and then they answer it very shortly and we are 8 out of 10 times “disconnected” after that answer. Leaving us still unclear of what to do.

    We have used hours and hours of trying to get support, and the best way is to open a support ticket, which will then be answered by up to 6 different “supporters”.

    So the conclusion from my side is that, I will never recommend siteground to anybody because of the bad service. They might be good on something, But I feel that I have to sort everything out myself.

  3. This is the first time I have come to your blog and I must say that you have shaped it pretty well. Btw, I never heard such positive reviews about SiteGround. Have you used their services or this is just your personal opinion?

  4. It is really thorough researched article about SiteGround. I like the fact that you were able to find actual uptime and page load time details.

Comments are closed.