Siteground Review – Most Reliable Web Hosting in 2023

With its popularity rising in the web hosting sphere, Siteground has wowed its clients with its commitment to reliable service and effective customer support.

But is this the best option for you in 2023?

We’ll be talking more about these features since I’ll be doing a deep dive into Siteground to give you a concise review covering all the main aspects. Hopefully, I can give you an idea if their service will meet your needs.

Let's get into it.

Siteground Overview

Founded in 2004, Siteground has grown to be a much-loved hosting provider, hosting over 2 million sites and employing over 600 employees in 2023.

Based in Bulgaria, this hosting provider offers its services globally, with servers in different continents to support sites around the world.

Siteground Review

For a complete review, we’ll look at:

• Pros and cons

• Uptime and performance

• Product and features

• Security

• Customer Support

• Pricing and packages

• Reviews

Let’s now talk about these things in detail. 

Siteground Pros

These are the pros to Siteground:

• 99.99% uptime commitment

• Excellent customer service

• Beginner-friendly plans

99.99% Uptime Commitment

Siteground offers some of the best uptime in the industry, guaranteeing 99.99% uptime. 

To prove that they always deliver, they even offer free service if at any time their uptime is below 99.99%.

This means your site will almost never experience downtime. In turn, this will satisfy your users at all times, improving not only visitor retention but SEO as well.

Take note, however, that this is just a commitment, meaning that SiteGround will always strive to reach a 99.99% uptime. However, their real uptime can change from time to time, with an average of 100% (August 2023). 

I guess the fact that SiteGround uses Google Cloud helps in preventing reliability issues.

Excellent Customer Service

Siteground is known to have some of the most knowledgeable and efficient customer services in the hosting industry.

Complex issues are solved quickly so you won't have to face any problems that affect your users’ experience for long. 

Their 24/7 phone, live chat, and email ticketing service give a sense of comfort for those who experience issues in the very early hours of the morning. 

And if you want to fix the issue on your own, you’ll be glad to find tutorials in the form of videos and photos available in its knowledge base. You can even set up your own website by just following the tutorials available. 

Check out this tutorial video:

Beginner-Friendly Plans

Siteground is known as one of the best options for beginners due to its easy-to-use tools and simple site management process.

This, coupled with fast customer support, ensures that newbies get all the extra help they need to create a site from scratch on their own.

One example of its user-friendly features is the automatic updates for WordPress sites. All plans have this feature and if you chose to use WordPress, the updates are readily available for you. 

Siteground Cons

These are the cons to Siteground:

• Pricey
• No free domain
• Limited storage (in basic plan)

Pricey 

Considering the investment they've made in their customer service, Siteground is a bit pricey when compared to other hosting providers available.

The cheapest Siteground plan starts from $3.99 a month and that’s if you pay a year in advance. Although this includes a lot of freebies - CDN, SSL, and an email account. 

No Free Domain 

Unlike other hosting providers out there, Siteground doesn't provide a free domain in its basic plan.

This means in addition to the steep monthly fee, you'll have to pay an additional annual domain fee that can cost upwards of $16 (if you purchase a domain from them). 

Limited Storage

Siteground's basic package is limited when it comes to storage space, only providing 10GB. This can be a bit constraining, especially if you're looking to host video and image content.

This means the basic package is only suitable for a small blog or site. For more storage, you will have to select a higher package, which costs more. 

Uptime and Performance

As detailed above, SiteGround ranks highly when it comes to reliability, guaranteeing 99.99% uptime.

When it comes to speed, Siteground has great speeds at 352 ms (August 2023). Sure, other hosting providers offer much faster speeds, but Siteground’s is still fast enough. 

So while Siteground may load a bit slower than its competitors, it will most likely satisfy the average user’s speed needs.

Both these factors help your site perform better when it comes to ranking #1 on Google and boosting your online presence.

Product and Features

In Siteground's basic package, you'll get unlimited transfer and email with 10GB of SSD storage space.

Free CDN also ensures that you'll get faster load speeds that lower your bounce rate.

This package is great if you have a site that'll attract less than 10k page views a month. But for a more established site, the package won't be enough to host your content and face the monthly traffic your site gets.

This is where Siteground’s other shared hosting packages come in. The higher packages provide great storage space going up to 40GB, which is acceptable for larger sites.

All packages come with an easy-to-use interface with 1-click WordPress and plugin installs.

Moreover, you’ll get the traditional cPanel. This is perfect if you’re migrating from another host with the same good old dashboard interface that houses all-important site management functions.

Speaking of migration, SiteGround offers free WordPress migration services. This seamlessly transfers your site onto their hosting service with their automatic plug-in.

They also offer professional site migration that they’ll manage for $30 per site.

What’s more, Siteground is sustainable as they’re powered by the Google Cloud, which runs on 100% renewable energy. You'll be able to market your website as eco-friendly. 

Security

Siteground offers free SSL certificates in all its packages to give you and your users security and trust.

DDoS protection is also provided with firewall and bot protection to stop malicious attacks before they can take down your site.

A great inclusion is automatic daily backups on all Siteground packages. This ensures your files remain safe, secure, and accessible if you suffer any data loss.

Plus, their servers are monitored 24/7 for data protection, while backup power systems ensure your site remains online in the event of a power outage.

Customer Support

Siteground excels when it comes to customer support. 

They offer 24/7 access to their experienced customer service reps through live chat, phone, and email.

They're known to be exceptionally quick to respond, often in less than 5 minutes, and help solve complex issues ASAP to keep your site running optimally.

Their knowledge hub is also filled with informational articles and guides to help you throughout the site creation process, which allows you to solve small issues by yourself. 

Pricing and Packages

Sadly, Siteground isn’t the best when it comes to pricing, with basic plans that can cost a couple of dollars more than its competitors.

Their WooCommerce hosting plan, priced the same as the basic plan, makes the process of setting up a business site to sell products online much easier, especially for beginners.

Also, for the high price, scalability isn’t readily available here, lacking VPS and dedicated servers that you may need if your site demands more power due to increased traffic.

Cloud hosting, which is the most expensive, can be an alternative to dedicated servers, but no middle-sized package exists to compete with a VPS server.

Still, Siteground’s Cloud hosting does provide some flexibility, allowing you to adjust your plan to your needs, with certain limitations of course.

What Do Customers Say?

Siteground clients appreciate the level of customer support offered, along with the stellar uptime that ensures their site is rarely offline.

Here’s one review praising Siteground’s customer service:

Source - Wpbeginner 

Siteground FAQs

Why is Siteground so expensive?

Siteground's high prices can be explained by the exceptional customer service and reliability they provide.

Guaranteeing 99.99% uptime means they invested significantly in their servers to keep things running smoothly at all times.

And their customer support is knowledgeable and experienced to give you all the info you need quickly and conveniently.

So you can think of the extra cost as providing for the exceptional reliability and after-sale services you'll get here.

Can I pay monthly for Siteground hosting?

Yes.

However, you'll have to pay a one-time activation fee of $15-25, depending on the plan selected.

You should also expect even more steep prices, with the basic plan costing $19.99 per month.

If you're planning a short project and aren't likely to keep the site for long, this may be a feasible option, but anything longer and these monthly costs can start to add up.

For the long term, it will be better to subscribe for a year for lower monthly prices (as mentioned in the pricing chart).

Does SiteGround have a free domain?

No. 

SiteGround doesn’t have a free domain regardless of the plan you’ll get. However, they do offer domain registrations and purchases. 

If you want to purchase a domain, you have to pay at least $16 a month. 

You can also opt to buy a domain from a third party for more affordable prices. Prices range from $10-$15. 

Wrap Up

While Siteground may not be the cheapest option available, it is a great choice if you're looking for excellent web hosting that emphasizes reliability and customer service.

So if you've got the extra cash and don't have a lot of experience when it comes to web hosting, this hosting provider can be the perfect solution for small businesses and individuals alike. 

Have we missed anything out?

Comment your thoughts down below.

And good luck with hosting your site!