Editor's opinion
Lorienz Galarpe
I am a website designer and developer for over 7 years now, and I worked with several hosting companies in the past for each website project I handle.
First impression
Founded in 2004, Bulgaria-based web hosting provider SiteGround now describes itself as a 'holding of companies' registered in Bulgaria, USA, UK, Cyprus and Spain, and with offices and data centers around the world.
Unlike many competitors, SiteGround hasn't been bought by some shadowy mega-corporation, and it's not just a brand owned by someone else. SiteGround's founder is still CEO, and SiteGround's website says 'a considerable number' of its 500+ employees and top executives have been with the company for more than 10 years.
While some hosts don't talk about where or how it hosts your websites, SiteGround is very open. Its platform is on 'premium Google Cloud infrastructure', the website explains, for 'top reliability, security and speed.'
All SiteGround's shared web hosting packages include a free version of the popular Weebly website builder.
It's fun as a quick way to see what website builders can do. There are around 70 pre built site designs (attractive images, but nothing special design-wise), and you can customize these right away by dragging and dropping various content types onto the page: slideshows, maps, buttons, YouTube videos, contact forms and more.
They'll have a choice of website designs, pick one you like, then add any text, images, or other content you like. Editing can be as easy as dragging an image from this part of the page to another, and you can have an attractive web home ready to go with minimum effort.
Trial period
Siteground doesn't offer a free trial in any of their services though they do have a 30-day money back guarantee for all of their shared hosting plans and 14 days money back guarantee for cloud hosting plans. Their money back guarantee gives you peace of mind that their services will meet the expectations set out in the TOS.
Billing cycle
Prices start low at $3.99 a month on the annual plan, but leap to an above-average $14.99 on renewal. And there's no free domain, so factor in the price of registration (a .com domain is $17.99 at SiteGround, around $10 with some domain registrars).
In our example of Startup Plan, you can choose to pay for their hosting service with a Monthly, 12 Months and/or 24 Months billing cycle contract.
Control panel
The control panel for managing your website(s) is called Site Tools. Every client has Site Tools, where they can manage all sites they own or have access to. To manage a specific website in Site Tools, go to Websites, choose the preferred website and click on Site Tools.
Alternatively, you access Site Tools by typing tools.siteground.com in your browser and log in with the username and password of your SiteGround Client Area. You can view or change your SiteGround Client Area and Site Tools logins from the Login & Profile menu.
Limits
The Startup plan 'only' has 10GB storage, but that's enough for many (even long-standing WordPress sites often use under 1GB), and it piles on the feature elsewhere: unlimited bandwidth, automated daily backups, 1-click WordPress installs, automated WordPress migration, a free website builder, free SSL, unlimited databases, unlimited email accounts, spam filtering, and 24/7 support via live chat, telephone and ticket.
Upgrading gets you more web space, support for unlimited websites, on-demand backups, and staging, a great WordPress extra which allows you to test new website features before you put them online.
The top of the range plan gets you a greater share of server resources, accelerating your website speed, and priority support ensures your tickets or chat sessions get fast responses from the most experienced support agents. (It still only has 40GB storage, though.)
Security
As one of the best and most preferred hosting providers on the market, they know how important security is for their customers. This is why server security is one of their top priorities.
Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is an encryption protocol that provides security for online transactions and sensitive information. Every reputable online business needs to have a valid SSL certificate to safeguard their clients’ security and brand’s credibility. These days, you can even get a valid SSL certificate for free thanks to the open Certificate Authority (CA) Let’s Encrypt.
OS
SiteGround does not use Windows servers. All servers are using Linux based (Fedora 31) and they are configured to work with both Apache and Nginx. All hosting solutions use Fedora. This is applicable for our Shared and Cloud servers.
Developing smart solutions in-house and adopting the latest speed and security technologies is their passion. They put their hearts into crafting tools and interfaces that make their client experience exceptional and they never stop innovating to bring you the best service possible.
Support
SiteGround offers 24/7 support via phone, live chat, ticket and its web knowledgebase.
A comprehensive set of tutorials provides lots of useful information on getting started with the service. There's general guidance on setting up your website, managing domains, creating email accounts and more.
You can also contact the support team via phone, live chat and (apparently) ticket, although the website makes this more difficult than usual. There's a Contact Us button, but this walks you through a support wizard which works hard to direct you to a support site article or website tool. It won't even display a chat button, phone number or anything else unless it thinks you're 'deserving.'
Conclusion
Pros |
Cons |
- Low starter prices for the shared hosting;
- Data centers in USA, Europe, Australia, Singapore;
- Lots of custom low-level speedup technologies;
- Powerful cloud hosting;
- Speedy and helpful 24/7 support.
|
- Shared hosting prices shoot up after the first term;
- No cPanel or Softaculous.
|
While many hosts try to win you over with low headline prices, SiteGround is far more interested in power. Its shared and cloud hosting plans may look expensive, but they give you plenty of features and functionality for your money, and could be a high performance choice for demanding users with high traffic or business-critical sites.
FAQ:
✅What payment types does SiteGround support?
SiteGround supports payments via card only.
❔Does SiteGround offer refunds?
SiteGround offers a 30-day money-back guarantee for its shared hosting plans and servers, dropping to 14 days for cloud hosting.
The policy has the same terms for monthly-billed plans, a welcome plus (GoDaddy only has a 48-hour refund period for subscriptions of less than a year). Renewal fees are mostly covered, too, good news when some providers exclude them entirely (GreenGeeks).
Some providers have longer refund periods - InMotion Hosting offers 90 days, HostGator 45 - but SiteGround's refund policy is more generous than many, and in the area we'd expect for a quality web host.
✴️Does SiteGround have an uptime guarantee?
SiteGround has a network uptime guarantee of 99.9%, which means it shouldn't be down for any more than 43.83 minutes a month.
The company offers very generous compensation if the network is down for longer. If you only have 99.9% to 99% uptime, for instance - so maybe just 44 minutes over a month - then SiteGround promises an additional 10% of monthly hosting credits. And you get another month of free hosting for every 1% of uptime lost. 97% uptime, for example, or a total 21.92 of down time over a month, gets you three months free hosting.
There are lots of exceptions. Scheduled and emergency maintenance (when resolved in an hour) isn't covered, for instance. Fallout from hacker attacks isn't covered, either, and the company doesn't count downtime from 'events outside our control', either.
Still, this is a far better guarantee than we usually see. GoDaddy's uptime guarantee is capped at a maximum 5% of your hosting fees, for instance, so even if your site is down for 15 days in a month, you'll only be credited with 1.5 days hosting.