SiteGround Review

SiteGround is a popular web host that is well-known in the business. We are also very fond of their service.

Now hold on, before you begin to come to any vague conclusions; let me tell you, we are not employed by SiteGround, and we certainly don’t get regular monthly sponsor cheques to promote them.

The only reason we are so fond of SiteGround is their straightforward features. After testing them on various features, we found they have come on top of the chart, leaving their competitors far behind.

Except for their major competitor, A2 Hosting, and we haven’t found a single company that could match them.

They have been in this business for over a decade, and currently, they have more than 2,000,000 active domains that they supervise. We have seen SiteGround evolve from being mediocre to top-notch.

SiteGround have various data centres across the globe; North America, Asia and Europe, they have climbed up the charts in an incredible amount of time, and you’ll learn about the reasons for it soon.

In this review, we will discuss the multiple reasons we find SiteGround one of the best in the market. We will also share details of the various tests that we have conducted.

By the end of this article, you will be able to decide if this web hosting provider is the right choice for you.

SiteGround offers excellent customer support and performance. As a customer, you can signup with them at an economical price. However, the renewal prices we find are a tad higher when compared to their competitors.

We have also read a couple of mixed reviews, and some customers are absolutely in love with their service while others not so much.

We have found that each one has its share of satisfied and dissatisfied customers with every successful business. Unless you’re a cold pint of beer, you can’t make them all happy!

SiteGround is one of the fastest-growing companies in the business; a while ago, every social media post mentioned their name. The big question; what to expect from each plan?

SiteGround is a shared web hosting service provider. They have three different plans for their customers. We have noticed that most of the time, they have matched the users’ requirements – unless the user is a big website. All the plans have similar features like the ones mentioned below;

• They offer 24×7 chat, email and phone support.
• They also provide unlimited emails and a database.
• You are guaranteed a full refund in 30 days.
• Your website will not be restricted from incoming traffic. There is no limit set on it. However, if you notice your monthly visitors’ count exceeds 100,000, then your shared hosting will not suffice.
• They have their own caching and SSD.

But, all their plans are not the same. Let’s take a look at the significant difference.

Start-up Plan

The start-up is apt for businesses that want to have a small or medium-sized site, and the space they require is below 10 GB.

This plan also comes with a cache service that is beneficial for dynamic and static content.

It will boost the website, making it faster. Staging is not added to this package. It is made available as a part of the advanced package.

GrowBig Plan

This plan comes with a space of 20 GB, and you can also have unlimited websites. They permit you the staging site tools along with the on-demand backups.

The site allows you to use PHP that’s ultra. You can also use caching for dynamic and static content.

GoGeek Plan

There is no limit on the number of sites you can host with 40 GB of space. They have Git repositories pre-installed and servers that are better performing.

Most agencies appreciate the White Label Support that it offers.

Uses of SiteGround Hosting

With complete confidence, we recommend SiteGround to users due to its unbeatable service. It is suitable for projects that will need an increase in performance as and when they grow.

You can, with much ease, upgrade to their premium plans, either dedicated or cloud. I recommend it especially for:

• E-commerce stores
• WordPress enabled websites
• Professional bloggers
• Huge corporate websites
• Businesses in search of SSH access, Git repositories and staging
• Designers and developers in search of good customer support and quality
• To sum it, anything that needs high-performance solutions

When to Avoid

We have seen SiteGround is very accommodative and can adapt to various profiles. However, there are a few exceptions, SiteGround could not be apt for situations like;

• If you’re in search of web hosting provider, that’s cheap.
• If you need a server that’s Windows-based (take a look at A2 Hosting or InMotion Hosting).
• If you are on a very tight budget but also in need of plenty of webspace.

What SiteGround Offers;

• WordPress and Shared Hosting
• Cloud Hosting

SiteGround WordPress Hosting and Shared Hosting

Bang for your buck, this is what WordPress Hosting offers its customers. SiteGround is all set to take up the challenge.

We have discussed the shared hosting packages they have; GoGeek, GrowBig and StartUp; you will find them in the WordPress Hosting.

They all provide their customers with vital features that are used for their regular functioning like; site tools to the custom dashboard (an alternate to cPanel), unmetered traffic, email accounts that are free, no-cost site transfer, White-Label hosting, six data centres, a caching solution that is created in-house, collaboration tools, restore functionalities.

They also have daily backups, free CDN, free SSL, you can host on Google’s powerful processor and much more.

WordPress Hosting and Shared Hosting accounts have a 24×7 customer support team, 30 days full refund guarantee and daily backups that are free.

If you decide to go in for the SiteGround’s Cloud plans or GoGeek plan, they will provide you with tech support on priority, backed up with a wildcard SSL that is free for a year.

Many opt for shared hosting on account of its low pricing. Non-profit organizations, small businesses find SiteGround’s shared hosting ideal along with people whose needs don’t require enterprise and cloud hosting.

SiteGround WordPress and Shared Prices

StartUp:

$6.99 per month; it includes 10 GB space, 1 Website and 10,000 visits.

GrowBig:

$9.99 per month; it contains 20 GB space and 25000 visits.

GoGeek

$14.99 per month; it includes 40 GB of space and 100,000 visits.

You can select a term to your convenience like; one month, two years, and three years all are available at different prices.

Cloud Hosting Plans

For some of you who are not aware of the web hosting plan they offer, the cloud provides a managed web hosting, and it’s a hosting that you can say is in between dedicated hosting and shared hosting.

This web hosting company is preferred by customers who need the strength of a dedicated server, and at the same time, they are not bothered by the environment of the shared server.

That means the cloud keeps the individual environment secured from the rest. This is apt for data hosting of an enterprise-level at an economical price.

Cloud hosting is suitable for businesses with a massive volume of traffic and small businesses too. This platform is customizable, reliable, fast and scalable.

They have pre-configured (four) packages that are adjustable to the needs and requirements of the user. Customers can, with much ease, set the CPU cores (number of them), SSD space and memory size.

Cloud Hosting Cost

Four pre-configured plans along with the structure of their pricing.

Jump Start

$100 per month; it includes Data transfer of 5TB, SSD Space – 40 GB, Memory – 8 GB, CPU Core – 4.

Business

$200 per month; it has Data transfer of 5TB, SSD Space – 80 GB, Memory – 12 GB, CPU Core – 8.

Business Plus

$300 per month; it includes Data transfer of 5TB, SSD Space – 120 GB, Memory – 16 GB, CPU Core – 12.

Super Power

$400 per month; it includes Data transfer of 5TB, SSD Space – 160 GB, Memory – 20 GB, CPU Core – 16.

You can customize these plans. However, the prices will be affected. They offer straightforward site tools used to configure and sliders that help control the various options. You see the costs change automatically as and when you slide up and down.

SiteGround’s Promotions and Coupon Codes

Like any other business, SiteGround often comes up with various promotions and offers to get new clients. We always try to stay updated with the discount coupons.

As I write this article, I see SiteGround offering their initial plan with 60% off. By the time you read this, not necessary it would still be up for grabs.

Introductory offers differ in length and availability. Maybe the initial offer is much better when you sign-up.

WordPress Optimization Plugins

SiteGround provides site tools and a plugin that helps to optimize websites that run on WordPress. This plugin is super effective in doing the work of four plugins at a time.

It not only manages the cache options for your website, but it also offers you various other options like;

• CSS files combination
• Loading images on the site asynchronously
• Compressing images, JavaScript and HTML
• You can optimize browser cache
• GZIP Compression

The overall results were very pleasing. Hence, we feel SiteGround is the fastest web hosting provider in the market. I would recommend it for businesses that need high speeds to host their site.

Tech Support and Customer Service

Today, you must have noticed that almost all web hosts offer 24×7 customer support team in the market, and SiteGround is not an exception. Their customers can connect through dedicated ticketing, live chat and phone.

Lately, SiteGround has announced that they have overstaffed for the convenience of their customers – no one will have to wait, and someone will always be available to help, day or night.

The customer support and help they offer go on and beyond troubleshooting. They also assist their clients with app-specific issues, templates, plugins and scripts. These are things that some companies don’t like to help with.

We were utterly impressed to see that SiteGround maintains the profiles of all their customer support executives, and they are up to date.

So, when you connect with the customer support team, you will see the executive’s profile; you know who you’re communicating with.

After seeing the trouble SiteGround would go through only to ensure that our details are handled by trustworthy and well-trained staff, it increases my confidence in them. 

So what makes them so special? Keep reading

Our Experience

SiteGround is a brand that we first noticed in 2013.

Currently, we run a test site using SiteGround hosting only for review purposes. Over the years, we have collected every possible information on SiteGround that includes; uptime record, users feedback, latency test and live chats.

Looking for a candid review? You can expect just that

More about SiteGround

• It was founded in 2004 when a group of friends from university came together.
• As I write, SiteGround claims to be hosting over 2,000,000 active domains.
• Multiple services like; Shared hosting, Cloud Hosting, Dedicated Hosting, Managed WooCommerce and Managed WP.
• They have set offices in five countries like; United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and Bulgaria.

Essential Updates

Price Hike to SiteGround Shared Packages

SiteGround revised the pricing in June 2020. On signup, their shared hosting package begins at a monthly fee of $6.99, $9.99 and $14.99. And their monthly renewal fee is $14.99, $24.99, $39.99. Previously these plans were available at a monthly cost of $3.95, $5.95 and $11.95.

These new prices have been effective since June 2020, applicable to only shared plans. If the above prices don’t fit your budget and you are looking for a cheaper web host, I recommend Hostinger.

Their plans start at $0.99, or you can try GreenGeeks for a month of $2.49, and finally, we have one more option for you – TMD hosting; you can get a monthly plan for just $2.95. Now, I’ve given you a couple of options, but I do hope you try SiteGround.

SiteGround Service – Not in all countries

Suppose you are reading this article from any one of these countries. In that case, I’m sorry their services are not available for you – Saudi Arabi, Pakistan, Malaysia, Japan, Egypt, Bangladesh, India and many more.

It is heartbreaking that the company doesn’t do business with multiple countries. I honestly don’t know why they haven’t made an official announcement of it.

Many reasons for us to love them – Pros

Very Fast and Reliable

I must tell you, and it is important to us to have a high-speed and reliable web host. If your site slows down or begins to face downtime, let me tell you this can have some severe consequences for your business and also go on to damage your ROI.

This is why SiteGround has earned my respect and confidence as we have watched them offer us an uptime of 100% for months together.

The load time is also very impressive.

High Performance

For those of you who are not aware, let me enlighten you with this fact; our reviews are based on their performance that we keep tracking on various sites that we have set up on every web host.

We have a sister host, and we also conduct tests independently too.

I will like to share the speed results of the test sites. These tests were conducted in January and February 2021.

On an avg the site loaded in 200 ms. This speed was monitored every 12 hours from 8 different locations. Take a look at the response time;

US (E)	US (W)	Singapore	London
46 ms	71 ms	252 ms	117 ms
Canada	Sydney	Japan	Bangalore
41 ms	211 ms	171 ms	258 ms

These tests only prove that SiteGround is above average when it comes to fast loading speeds. The repose times were all way below 260 ms from different locations.

Recent Uptimes

We have had very few concerns with SiteGround, and this is the most important reason we really love them. The strongest key feature that SiteGround has is the reliability of the server.

We had recorded the uptimes for our sites in January and February 2021. The servers have had the most impressive performance that we have ever seen.

We have data that tracks their performance back to 2016 that records a consistent uptime of 99.99%.

In January 2021, we have seen an uptime of 99.95%, and in February, we have seen an uptime of 100%.

Jun 2020	Jul 2019	Mar 2019	Jul 2018	Mar 2018	Sep 2017	Jun 2017	Jan 2017	Oct 2016
100%	100%	100%	99.95%	99.9%	100%	99.9%	99.9%	100%

These results are the main reasons we are so fond of SiteGround.

Site Migrations

For every new GoGeek and GrowBig web hosting account, you will get a free transfer to a professional website. They have a well-trained customer support team that transfers your site to the SiteGround server.

If you have the starter package, then this service is chargeable at a nominal fee of $30.

Request for Free Site Migration:

It’s a very simple process to request for site migration;

‘Login to User Area’, then select ‘support’, click on ‘Request Assistant’, and choose ‘Transfer Website’.

Migrator:

SiteGround has a WordPress plugin specially designed for auto transfer to SiteGround Hosting Account from your WordPress sites.

You will find an option – DIY migration, especially for WP users called SiteGround Migrator. As you install it and enter all the required details, you can initiate the auto transfer.

Server Locations

SiteGround have multiple locations;

• Iowa – USA
• Chicago – USA
• Amsterdam – Netherland
• Eemshaven – Netherland
• London – UK
• Singapore – Asia

Like many things, physical constraint contributes to the limitations of data transmission. You can expect your users to enjoy high loading speeds, and then you need to ensure that your site is hosted near your users. This is because the user request and the data have to travel a short distance.

Your user experience will be pleasant if the site loads faster. Remember, if the loading speed is high, chances are there will be a higher conversion of visitors to customers.

Today, online visitors don’t have the time or the patience to wait for a site to load. I know I am like that; if a page takes too long, I’m out of there.

Many-a-times I have taken my business elsewhere, never to return to the slow as a snail site.

Well, that’s the facts, face it, the online business is cutthroat and ruthless, and you need to stay on top of your game at all times. On signup, you get an option to select a data centre as per your preference.

United Kingdom Latency Test

Web Host	Response Time	Server Location	Speed Ranking
	WordPress	Bitcatcha
SiteGround	351 ms	34 ms	London	A+
eUK Host	634 ms	34 ms	Nottingham, Maidenhead, Wakefield	A+
Tso Host	582 ms	48 ms	Maidenhead	A
Fasthosts	109 ms	59 ms	Gloucester	A
Hosting UK	272 ms	41 ms	Nottingham, Maidenhead, London	A
HeartInternet	126 ms	37 ms	Leads	B+
PickAWeb	104 ms	35 ms	Enfield	A
FastComet	161 ms	20 ms	London	A+

Latency Test  –  Singapore and Malaysia

Web Host	Response Time	Server Location	Speed Ranking
	WordPress	Bitcatcha
SiteGround	585 ms	9 ms	Singapore	A
IPServerone	215 ms	12 ms	Malaysia	B+
Vodien	107 ms	7 ms	Singapore	A
Exabytes	174 ms	19ms	Singapore, Malaysia	A
Hostinger	191 ms	8 ms	Malaysia	A+
A2 Hosting	1795 ms	12 ms	Singapore	A

Official Recommendation

If your site is created on Drupal or WordPress, then SiteGround is the perfect fit as it is officially recommended by Drupal.org and WordPress.org.

“Just like flowers need the right environment to grow, WordPress works best when it’s in a rich hosting environment.” – WordPress.org.

SSL Support Encryption – Straightforward updates and installs

Security is vital for any online business, and it protects your website from malware and hacker. It also assures your customer that their sensitive information is safe and secure on your site.

SiteGround provides all its users with free Wild Card SSL and Let’s Encrypt upon signup, and it is very simple to install on to any domain name.

Install and Let’s Encrypt SSL

Once you get a personal account, you can log in and reach the user dashboard of SiteGround. Let’s Encrypt SSL is absolutely free with web hosting accounts.

To all SiteGround domains, they can be auto-installed. In order to check the same, login to cPanel, go to ‘Security’, select ‘SSL/TLS Manager’ and choose the ‘(CRT) Certificate’. It’s that simple!

Wildcard SSL Support

Beginning from March 2018, every SiteGround user gets a Wildcard SSL for free, making the setup of the subdomain very easy. Installing Wildcard SSL is simple; Log in to cPanel, go to ‘Security’, and select ‘Let’s Encrypt’.

Wildcard SSL vs Let’s Encrypt SSL

The users of Let’s Encrypt need to install a domain certificate for every subdomain – this is due to the standard FOC.

With Wildcard, they can be secured with a certificate. Select ‘Get Wildcard’ and activate it for free.

Purchase and Installation of Private SSL

You can get a Wildcard SSL and Premium EV via GlobalSign for customers who require them. You can buy a Private SSL by simply logging in and selecting ‘Add Services’.

The monthly price for a Premium Wildcard SSL is approximately $90++, and EV SSL is $499++.

You can get one by logging into your account, go to ‘Extra Services’, select ‘Wildcard SSL Certificate’, and click on ‘Get’.

Good Server Speed with Advanced Technology

All the shared hosting from SiteGround come with;

• Servers that are HTTP/2 enabled.
• Complete SSD Storage.
• Simple implementation of Cloudflare CDN.
• Caching mechanism at various levels by using the SuperCacher from SiteGround.

With these features, you can be rest assured that the loading speed of your website is optimized. The SuperCacher helps to boost the speeds of WordPress, Drupal and Joomla websites.

You can easily activate your SuperCacher by simply logging in to the SiteGround cPanel, go to ‘Site Improvement Tools’, select ‘SuperCacher’. That’s all, your all set!

Newcomer Promo

As you signup, they offer a promo code (we got 60%, not sure what is it at the time you’re reading it). This discount is applicable on the first bill, and you could have any hosting plan.

The standard cost for SiteGround is around $14.99 per month for the StartUp package, $24.99 per month for the GrowBig package. For us receiving a 60% discount was a fantastic deal.

Post Discount Price for Shared Hosting

Post the signup discount, the shared hosting for StartUp, GrowBig, and GoGeek packages will start at a monthly fee of $6.99, 9.99 and 14.99.

Since this is an introductory offer, the prices will go back to the original price post the first term.

Positive Feedback

Thorough research is important. Hence it has always been my practice to get feedback from customers using a product that I am keen on buying. I’m sure you are a user like me; that’s why you’re here, reading up.

I remember going to various sites and reading customer reviews; it gives us a basic idea of what we are getting into.

The user may not have something good to say, and they will call it out the way it is. This gives us better clarity on what sort of challenges to expect. Our search had us reading positive feedbacks from satisfied clients.

I’m not saying it was 100% positive, but over the year, we have noticed SiteGround is taking effective steps and ensuring their customers are treated well.

Voted Top Host

SiteGround has a Facebook Closed Group, and in the years 2016 and 2017, in a poll, they were voted as the top web hosting service provider. Two consecutive years, that’s fantastic.

Again in 2017 and 2018, the customer satisfaction ranking was 97%; that’s commendable! These clients even recommended SiteGround to friends and acquaintances. The total number of client recommendations was a whopping 95%.

SiteGround used to have an annual survey to gauge the satisfaction of their clients. This was until 2018.

In 2017, the survey came back with a response of 97% customer satisfaction, and in 2018 it concluded at 98%.

Looking at the survey, we see a consistent rise in client satisfaction which means that there are many things they are doing right.

Website Updates are on Regular Basis

The main goal for hackers and other web thieves are to get into your website and exploit your client’s sensitive information. This is possible only if your themes and plugins are all outdated.

We are aware that technology is continually evolving, so the earlier iterations of your website software are open to vulnerabilities unless developers manage to patch them.

It is like the fence or the wall that is built around your house that secures your home.

Now, if for years you haven’t done any maintenance on your wall or fence, it is going to be worn out due to the rain, storm, dust, heat and other factors.

And now you know many are going to look for a chance to get within those walls and take whatever they can. It’s like letting your guards down.

At SiteGround, their team of experts takes care of all the heavy work, they would never want you to be caught with your guards down, because truth be told, when you run a busy business, things can go unseen, and they don’t want us to fall prey to the hacker. So, they set up the website for Auto-Update.

Now, you don’t need to stress about the installs with regard to software updates and the latest patches.

You can Set It and Forget It!

Amazing Customer Support

If you compare the rates that SiteGround is charging, you realize they are charging their clients premium rates. We happened to compare it to the market and found the rates to be 80 – 200% above the average market rate.

And we also noticed most of their users have a long-term commitment to them. Why?

The reason my friends is definitely their customer support team. We have never found it challenging to reach out to them.

Whether it was through their phone, email, and chat, I have always believed to be a loyal, long-term customer.

It is never the prices or the features, and there is no use of it when I hit a roadblock; I have no one to help me with it.

SiteGround has got it right; even though their charges are super high, they have plenty of long-term loyal customers. It speaks volumes about how important their customers are to them.

Best Live Chat

Over the years, we have tested multiple web hosting providers on various features because that’s what we do best. But the point being, I have interacted with twenty-eight web hosting providers through live chat.

SiteGround was the best of them all with regards to personal satisfaction and wait time.

While I was on a Live chat with SiteGround, I was attended to within 30 seconds, and my concerns were solved in minutes. I had detailed information about the executive who was assisting me, and I could go through their profile.

As discussed in the segment earlier, they pay close attention to their team of executives and maintain transparency with the customers as well.

I am confident my information is in safe hands. I was also aware of the executive’s name, and the human touch on a Live Chat simply enhanced my experience.

Reaching out to Customer Support

With much ease, you can reach out for help; all you need to do is log into the dashboard, go to ‘support’, select ‘Request Assistance from Our Team’, click on ‘Contact Us’, then ‘Select Your Issue’, and choose ‘Post to Chat’.

Note: In some cases, you might get redirected to the knowledge base instead.

Things they could do Better – Cons

Uptime Guarantee

We recommend taking a good look at the SLA (Service Level Agreement) with regards to uptime. In certain cases, we have seen some web host guarantees do not cover situations like natural disasters and more.

SiteGround goes a step further and doesn’t cover downtime that is caused due to DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks, attacks by hackers and similar events.

This is not common among other web hosts, and it makes me wonder- why do they have such little faith in their companies network.

I do understand that DDoS attacks can get very challenging for many web hosts, mainly for smaller companies.

This is the reason why you will notice they work with huge CDN (Content Delivery Networks) like Cloudflare that help them to handle the issue. As a result, the SLA is a tad troubling.

To top it up, SiteGround does not cover software or hardware failure and emergency maintenance, and it doesn’t take more than an hour. Adding this clause makes them outright mean to their customers.

The following are the points you will find in the SLA:

The following events do not count towards our calculation of uptime.

• Scheduled maintenance;
• Emergency maintenance, hardware and software failure remedied in under one hour;
• Downtime caused by DNS and/ or IP address changes for which you have been notified, but you failed to set your configuration;
• DDoS (Distributed Denial of Services) attacks, hacker attacks, and other similar events;
• Downtime caused by you, your own configuration, or third-party applications you use;
• Downtime caused when you reach the maximum resources allocation for your plan;
• Downtime caused by your violation of these TOS or any other policy announced on our website;
• Downtime during upgrade/ downgrade of your Cloud or Dedicated Server resources;

Shared Hosting Price Hike

Since June 2020, SiteGround has revised the rate for all their shared hosting plans. The top-level plan GoGeek is $14.99, GrowBig is $9.99, and the basic StartUp plan is $6.99; all these rates are signup, monthly prices.

Their prices are justified when compared to the services. But, most basic- start-up website owners find it out of their range like; portfolio sites, static business sites with low traffic, or personal bloggers.

If you find your site in one of these segments, then we suggest you can look for cheaper options like Hostinger – $0.99 per month, InMotion – $3.99 per month, ScalaHosting – $3.95 per month and TMD Hosting – $2.95 per month.

Strange Services

When you take a look at them, you may not notice it, but the newcomers to SiteGround, at least some of them, may find something unusual. You are asked to choose your residential country; sometimes, an error message pops up.

This depends on the country you have selected. Apparently, SiteGround has limited its services for reasons that are unknown to us.

Get this; they haven’t limited their service to two or three countries; there is a whole list of them. Countries like Malaysia, Egypt, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and more. They have even excluded India; they rank #2 for the largest population on the globe.

It’s time to take a look at SiteGround Hosting – Prices

Plans	# of Websites	SSD Storage	Free Site Transfer	Suitable for Visits Per Month	Signup Price Per Month
StartUp	1	10 GB	Yes	10,000	$6.99
GrowBig	Unlimited	20 GB	Yes	25,000	$9.99
GoGeek	Unlimited	40 GB	Yes	100,000	$14.99

VPS / Cloud Hosting Prices

Plans	CPU Cores	Memory	SSD Storage	Bandwidth	Monthly Price
Entry	2	4 GB	40 GB	5 TB	$80
Business	3	6 GB	60 GB	5 TB	$120
Business Plus	4	8 GB	80 GB	5 TB	$160

SiteGround Backend

Early on in this article, we had spoken about how SiteGround made changes to its control panel, and they moved from cPanel in 2019. The new panel is definitely an upgrade from cPanel with its modern and intuitive approach.

You know how it gets when you are used to working with a particular thing, and sudden changes are made, you tend to get anxious.

I was also very anxious as I was so used to using cPanel. One thing I learnt early on in life, change is constant. So I went with the flow. It took me a few hours to get acquainted with the new panel.

With the new design, site tools, the dashboard enhancer, all sites are managed individually. Now every site has its own individual admin panel; this makes work easier with SiteGround, especially when I have various projects hosted, like; I don’t have to back up the entire account, I can with much ease back up a single site.  

To the admin panel, you can assign a user and give them individual roles and sites. This is a major game-changer to agencies and large teams as they can now allow access to their clients.

Backups – SiteGround’s Approach

I personally think backups, along with customer support and performance, are a vital feature for any host to have.

Of course, you can take the help of a third party to get your backups done like WordPress has UpdraftPlus.

However, in my opinion, it is getting very easy and efficient to manage when it is integrated with the host.

I took a close look at the backup that SiteGround has to offer, and I must say they are the best in terms of the price range.

We have Checked WP Engine. Also, they are better than SiteGround, but they are way costlier.

Backup – Things we Loved

• SiteGround’s backup feature is integrated with their system to perform seamlessly. So, foreign systems that could cause issues can be avoided.
• They managed the backups for every site individually, so now no need to back the entire account; simply backup only what you need.
• People pushing system or code, plugin updates find the On-demand backups option a dream. You can, for the sake of your peace, create backups.
• You can backup all the information you need, but it can get very frustrating if the process to retrieve it is complex. With SiteGround, that is not an issue at all, and their straightforward process allows you to retrieve your backups in just a few clicks.
• The on-demand option and the restore option are now available with GoGeek and GrowBig plans, and that’s absolutely free! Many web hosts charge for this feature, and that too is not as good as them.

There are a few things they could do differently;

• Each site has a limit of five backups that can be done manually. This means that if you exceed your quota limit, the old one will have to be deleted.
• You can restore your backups, but you cannot download them.

Advanced backups are available with the GoGeek plan and the GrowBig plan only. The StartUp plan offers it for 30 days only, and they don’t offer on-demand backup.

So ensure to connect with their customer support team in order to restore them.

Final Reflections

I was really amazed to see SiteGround speak of their speed, availability, their promises and customer support service. But don’t all companies make big claims about their pre and post-sales services.

We have seen web hosts make mighty claims just to hit a sale, they also offer their customers services like site migration etc., and when the time comes, they leave you in a lurch, and you have to do it all by yourself.

There have also been times when customers need urgent help with troubleshooting, but it takes eons to connect with a representative.

Today, all web hosting companies make claims, but only a few honour their word. So, I was not ready to believe all the claims they made and decided to test them, coz that’s what I do best.

I also realized there are many like me who need help with selecting the right host because, truth be told, the entire process can get very overwhelming, especially if you’re a newcomer. So the main questions- Do they match our expectations?

The tests we conducted were not just for months; we used their services for years because the tests soon made us loyal customers. We are totally in love with their amazing service.

From all the web hosts that we have ever tried, we have noted they have the best speeds to offer as a shared host.

They have an excellent team of customer support staff that are effective, friendly and fast. We noticed various web hosts didn’t do so well in this department.

If you’re someone who’s always looking for top-notch technology, then you’re going to love SiteGround, as their technology is way above average, like; Staging environment and Git.

The price range for SiteGround is anywhere between medium to high, and it is not practical for projects with a small budget.

They offer advanced backups, which is an amazing feature, and I discussed it at length earlier, but the same is unavailable for free with the basic plans, such a pity.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, pay close attention to the plans as there is a cap on the number of sites you can host. You can always try out SiteGround’s, no-obligation, 30 days trial.

I trust that this SiteGround review will help you decide if SiteGround is the host for you. Please feel free to leave your comments and questions. We would love to hear from you. You can also check our A2 Hosting review.