Siteground hosting advertises itself as a premium shared hosting provider, that also supplies superior cloud and dedicated servers. I decided to test Siteground to host some of my websites out after hearing about them from many review sites (they are often voted top in the top 3 by hosting users) and through personal recommendations. I wanted to know what all the fuss was about.
To make the review comprehensive, I’ve set up this site hosting with Siteground, that way we can test speed and gain insight into just how good it is. I chose the GoGeek plan, since it was streets ahead of their other offers, yet still very affordable.
Quick Overview – What Can Siteground Offer?
> Siteground has 3 data centers based in the USA, Europe, and Asia. You can choose either locations to base your server in.
> Boast superb security; by using account isolation servers, Siteground can easily contain threats on websites on the same server as you. They also claim to fix software vulnerabilities keeping your website safe.
> Use a CDN, an inhouse advanced caching service for WordPress and Joomla, and use super fast SSD drives (note, SSD only with the GoGeek plan). This means your website will be pretty quick.
> 24/7 amazing support.
> One click Google PageSpeed Activation.
> Daily Backups of your site are included. One click recovery of a hacked site.
> Over 99.999% uptime.
> Free domain (for one year) with a share hosting plan.
> Premium backup and restore service with the GoGeek plan
> Free SSL certificate for one year.
That’s not all: check out the other siteground hosting features here
Speed – Is Siteground Web Hosting Fast?
SiteGround has a CDN and it’s own in house advanced caching system. However, on a pingdom speed test, SmarterMarketingOnline.com doesn’t load particularly quickly:
Ok, 2.4 seconds is pretty good for shared hosting, BUT, this test was performed on a website that had literally NO content on it whatsoever, and simply had installed a premium theme by Mythemeshop. The were only 18 requests, not a single blog post or image.
Siteground might be faster than you’re average budget host, but there’s no way you get premium speed.
Siteground says their caching system is compatible with other caching plugins, so I installed WP Super Cache by Automatic, the guys behind WordPress. It’s a free plugin.
The website is instantly faster, unfortunately, this shows you how much better Siteground’s caching plugin could be.
Support:
Do SiteGround Offer Reliable Hosting Support?
Siteground has three main support networks, Live Chat, Ticket Support and a manned telephone line.
From my experience, Siteground’s live chat system is the best I’ve ever encountered and I have never waited more than 2 minutes to be connected to a technician and I’ve had countless conversations with the support teams.
Before you even begin the live chat, they are already directing you to the right people (as shown below). You rarely get this with online chat services and the teams are really tuned into your needs from the moment you connect. There’s no time wasting and it’s a highly effective way of dealing with clients; Siteground are definitely well organised.
What else is immediately obvious, is that the staff really know what they’re doing, they rarely follow scripts and have a great network in place if they cannot answer your questions. For example, if you are unsatisfied with a support staff member, no matter which department, there’s an option to immediately transfer the chat to that person’s manager with just one click. I haven’t ever had to use this, but, having it there just gives you so much confidence that if you do need to escalate the situation, you can do so without frustration or wasting your time.
Ticketing Support System:
The ticketing system is not as good as the live chat option, and is typically used for complicated database support or advanced queries. However, I found it to be an average of two days for the support to get back to me when I had an issue with a website database. With my previous experience with other ”premium” hosts such as MediaTemple, I’ve had replies back within a couple of hours. That said, most hosting providers don’t have the quality phone and chat support, so it is totally up to you whether this bothers you or not.
Telephone Support:
If you’re the type of person who can only have a resolution with someone on the phone, I found Siteground’s phone support team to be just as courteous, polite and effective as their ticketing support and live chat services. They also offer this support toll free, so you won’t even be faced with a hefty phone bill if something goes wrong.
Furthermore, the telephone lines are answered IMMEDIATELY. It is incredible.
Other Support Services:
However, I found Siteground’s ‘premium transfer service’ to be awful. The free included transfer is only for websites of up to 1GB worth of data, so if you’ve got actually got a substantial website in terms of content and images then it’s utterly useless. Given this is so heavily promoted, I’m unsure who Siteground are targeting through this promotion – perhaps brand new websites whose owners change their minds about hosting?
Uptime And Security– Does Siteground do it well?
I have not experienced a single minute of downtime with Siteground. Their official uptime logs are currently measured at an incredibly impressive “99.999%”, (source: Siteground.com) they also boast a “99.996%” yearly average uptime. Given how volatile shared hosting can be, this is no small feat and far surpasses the industry standards.
Most likely, their superior uptime statistics are down to their intelligent isolation prevention software. This software detects attacks or vulnerable websites across the entire server. If one site goes down, they immediately isolate it and prevent it from spreading to other client websites. Siteground claim they were the first shared hosting company to do this, and is incredibly effective and useful software for the price.
Furthermore, Siteground claim to use only the most up to date software to prevent any security issues, and also claim of other hosts that “a disturbing number of them using outdated software”. They also offer a site security scanning service at a extra cost to the user – it’s not really needed though.
Cost – How much do you pay for Siteground Hosting?
Siteground pretty much have a permanent sale on at 50% off, but you can lock this in for as many years as you want, so long as you pay upfront. So if you just pay for the year, the next year you’ll pay the full wack.
Siteground is more expensive than your typical budget hosting such as Godaddy and Bluehost. Their basic ‘StartUp’ plan is very cheap indeed, but has huge restrictions; infact, you can only have one site on their StartUp plan, it doesn’t come with speed increases and you don’t get priority support. Simply put, most people don’t opt for the basic plan.
With the GrowBig plan, priced around $7.95 a month (at 50% discount) you get better speed, and support, and most importantly can host unlimited websites. Even at the full cost per month, this is still good value hosting.
The GoGeek plan is really the best option to go for in my opinion, simply because the website is hosted on SSD drives, making the website far faster than if it were on the other plans. They keep this quiet and don’t advertise it obviously, which is unusual. It’s simply listed as advanced hardware, which doesn’t mean much. With some digging, you can finally see a full spec comparison on their website which displays what this ‘advanced hardware’ is:
You also have to share you space with less other clients, which is always a positive. At $14.95 per month with the 50% discount, it certainly isn’t cheap, but is still far more affordable than dedicated or cloud based hosting. Considering that this is still shared hosting at the end of the day, the fact that the GoGeek plan is so high spec definitely gives you value for money.
Conclusion
So, Siteground may not be the most affordable shared hosting, but for those who aren’t yet ready for advanced hosting and need more than a budget solution, Siteground plays the middle ground extremely well.
The security for a shared environment is right up there with the best in the industry and they have the hardware and software in place to make sure your site loads fast, in theory. However, I found that Siteground is still in the early stages on developing it’s caching system, the foundation for a fast website is in place.
As a final thought, with premium shared hosting companies such as Siteground, what you’re really paying for is for reassurance, for guarantees and for the support of experts in their field who are only a call away.
This, in itself, is worth its weight in gold. Whether you’re a freelancer, designer, web entrepreneur or even a food blogger, you don’t have the time nor do you want the stress of trying to figure out why your website has crashed, and how you can recover your lost files, hard work and time.
Given that Siteground offer a month money back guarantee to check out their services, there really is no excuse to try them out yourself.
