SiteGround Review - is this the Best Web host in India?

  • Average response time ~125 ms 
  • Uptime 99.99%
  • 24/7 chat, tickets, and calls
  • Officially recommended by WordPress

Starts at $3.95/mo

SiteGround is a popular web hosting provider founded by Ivo Tzenov in 2004 based in Sofia, Bulgaria. SiteGround is known for its easy website management with over two million domains hosted under its belt.


SiteGround has some excellent features including free CDN, daily backups built-in WP caching, automatic upgrades and GIT version control. They also offer location specific hosting with six data centers in Australia, USA, Asia and Europe.


Siteground is ideal for India. ‘Why?’, you ask? In the context of web hosting, if you have the need for speed, need for reliability, and the need for extraordinary value(not short-term buck saving).


SiteGround is recommended by Wordpress. And we won’t hesitate for a second recommending it. Our why? Well, here’s our full review:

Overview

Our ratings

A++ | 5/5

Average response time

~125 ms

Avg. response times in top-targeted countries

US: under 50 ms | India: 60 ms

Uptime

100% (guarantees 99.99%)

Support

24/7 chat, tickets, and calls

Site transfer

Depends on the plan of choice

Introductory Pricing

Starts at $3.95/mo

Top features

High-quality SSD storage, Unmetered bandwidth, free emails, free SSL, free CDN

SiteGround review

Why Siteground is the ideal Web Host?

1. It’s the fastest!

Superfast Siteground


We as humans have evolved to be this “instant gratification” wanting creatures. We appreciate the speed, especially in something like websites which we tend to open thousands of times.


Research by Google shows 53% of people leave the website if it doesn’t load under three seconds. Another significant change seen during the same study is in the bounce rate.


If the load time increases from

  • 1 to 3 seconds, the bounce probability increase by 32%
  • 1 to 5 seconds, the bounce probability increase by 90%
  • 1 to 6 seconds, the bounce probability increase by 106%
  • 1 to 10 seconds, the bounce probability increase by 123%

This means website load time also affects your SEO. And John Mueller of Google is with us on this.

Long story short, speed is crucial.


And one of the prime factors that directly affect the speed is the hosting provider.


In hosting too, there are numerous factors for speed optimization: The technology they use, the hardware they allocate, the software they optimize, the protocols they support, and whether or not they use a content delivery network(CDN).


Siteground has considered all these factors for a top-notch performance⁠— in fact, in our experience with several of the top of the line hosting providers, Siteground has proved to be fastest. And there are a few reasons behind that, including:

  • They use high-speed SSDs (for each plan) to store the site’s data. Meaning, the read and write speed are impeccable.  
  • Their software is always optimized for the latest and greatest. Currently, they run the newest PHP version to ensure compatibility.
  • The protocol of the user’s choice also influences the speed. Siteground has got it covered in this department, too, by adding generally used as well as not-much-used protocols such as HTTP/2, TLS 1.3, OCSP Stapling, and QUIC.
  • They use an in-house caching solution, Supercacher, which ensures the user gets the frequently requested pages even faster.
  • For Wordpress sites, they have got the SG Optimizer plugin to boost site speed even more.
  • And last but not least, each plan comes with a free Cloudflare CDN, which we will discuss in this article.

To wrap up this point, Siteground is fast— Superfast.


2. The server response time is exceptional.

SiteGround Server Response Time


Server response time, for those of you who don’t know, is the amount of time a web server takes to respond to a request from a browser.


Google recommends having this number under 200ms because if it takes more time, the person searching will notice a lag and possibly bounce off.


Now, granted, there’s nothing you can do to improve this number. It entirely depends on the server optimization by your hosting provider and the location of their datacenter.


But, if that hosting provider happens to be Siteground, you’ve got it sorted.


With an average response time of approx. 125ms, Siteground has got one of the fastest server response times in the business. And if your business’s audience is in the US, that number goes significantly lower to under 50ms. Also, as we discussed in our “Best hosting in India” article, it’s astonishing at around 60ms.


Another reason to choose Siteground for an excellent server response time is its data center option. SG has five fast, secure, and redundant data centers, i.e., Chicago, Amsterdam, London,  Milan, and Singapore. This spread across three continents is part of the reason it’s successful worldwide.


Just make sure to select a nearby(to your target audience) datacenter while setting your Siteground account and forget the worries about higher response time.


3. Uptime? Always up.


In their SLA (Service Level Agreement), Siteground guarantees network uptime of 99.9% on an annual basis. If they fail to keep their promise, they compensate by giving an additional month of free hosting for every 1% of uptime lost.


In our experience with Siteground, the uptime has been 100%, and chances are if you opt for SG, you will get similar results. The reason? Thanks to some of the 500 experts we talked about earlier, Siteground uses tailor-made solutions to predict and avoid downtime. Some being:

  • Linux Containers: Back in 2015, Siteground added auto-scalable cloud on Linux containers technology. It is an efficient, faster, and, most importantly, easily scalable implementation. This means your server won’t go down if & when traffic surges.
  • AI anti-bot against malicious traffic: With their AI bot, Siteground manages to block bot traffic, which can be a reason for server load and, eventually, downtime.
  • Isolation Technology: Siteground was the first to implement chroot account isolation. This isolation means each account works in its instance; meaning, the instability issues that used to happen in shared hosting are eliminated.
  • Real-time server health checks: The cherry on the top? Their monitoring system checks the server status every 0.5 seconds, detecting and trying to solve any problem in real-time. 

There must be many more underlying optimizations & technologies used in there, but the thing you should know is, your server, perhaps, won’t go down ever, if you choose Siteground.


4. Ideal for Wordpress CMS

wordpress logo


Wordpress is the largest global Content Management Systems out there. And Siteground is Wordpress’s one of the three officially recommended hosting providers, the other two being Bluehost and DreamHost.


Being is such a rare list ensures quality— speed, security, support, and overall reliability. Additionally, exclusive functionalities come with this feat, such as:

  • Fast Launch: With their automated Wordpress installation, you can get your site up and running within minutes.
  • Free Transfer: Again, for their emphasis on Wordpress, they have created a free Siteground Migration plugin. Their support team can also help you in the process, of which we’ll discuss further.
  • Top-rated support: Being on the list also ensures the support team’s expertise. So, if you’ve any problem on your Siteground-hosted Wordpress site, just contact and consider the problem solved.
  • WP-CLI Enabled: Wordpress’s UI is indeed an easy-to-use interface to perform any admin work. However, if you want to grow your geek-ego, you can perform & access every functionality like publishing, upgrading, taking backups, etc. through a few commands.
  • Other: Benefits like one-click staging, the convenience of choosing git platform of your choice, etc. make its managed Wordpress hosting an excellent choice.

Overall, if you are using Wordpress or planning to, Siteground is the perfect hosting choice


5. Free Backups, Site migration, CDN, SSL, and more.


The services Siteground give for free are unbelievable. All these “free” services combined might cost as much as the hosting itself if you choose some other hosting providers.


Siteground provides:

  • Free daily backups: Siteground takes auto-backups of your site daily, and you can keep up to 30 copies. Moreover, you are provided an on-demand backup option as well. And the icing on the cake is, for their GrowBig and GoGeek plans, there’s a free one-click restore option too. 
  • Free site migration: As mentioned earlier, they have their own plugin for migrating sites to their hosting. But more importantly, you can just ask for a free migration if you are opting for GrowBig or GoGeek plan. Just give them your previous hosting’s login, password, and they will do all the work.
  • Free SSL: To create an encrypted channel between the client and the server, one needs to install an SSL certificate. It prevents eavesdroppers from stealing any critical information such as phone no. or credit card details. Generally, such certificates cost tens of dollars, but with Siteground, you get them pre-installed for free.
  • Free Cloudflare CDN: To keep it short, the Content Distribution Network distributes your site’s content to the user’s nearby server. This makes accessing web pages easy and fast. This is one of the reasons why the Siteground is faster than most of its competitors.    
  • Free Email: You get free professional emails with Siteground. You know, those name@websitename.com ones. 

Overall, you will get most of the things you will ever need for free.


6. Secure


Siteground is secure, period. Like yours, it’s their top priority too.

  • Their servers are always running on the latest PHP version with up-to-date security fixes.
  • For intrusion detection & prevention, sophisticated IDS/IPS systems are in place.
  • For their shared hosting options, they have ModSecurity installed.
  • Wordpress core updates and plugins are auto-updated on each site for the best and secure experience.

Overall, everything’s super-secure with the latest security patches. And just in case somebody is able to break the security, they can block all the access and restore from those free daily backups.


7. Incredible Customer Support


Siteground’s support page says: “Our Support: The #1 reason our client love us!” And we attest to that.


The 500+ experts team they have includes some competent customer support people. They undergo intensive training, a long mentorship period, and get frequent feedback and evaluations of their work to keep their expertise at its best.


If there’s any help you need, there are multiple channels to get one:

  • You can either check their knowledge base or chat with their smart-bot.
  • If you still don’t find answers, there’s a 24/7 live chat option, phone support, and Helpdesk tickets. Through any of these ways, you will either get a reply instantly or within 10-15 minutes of calling or submitting the ticket.

All in all, the support is incredibly fast. 


And from what we’ve experienced and heard, these individuals know the ins and outs of anything and everything you ask for.


We believe their support team is one of the primary reasons why Wordpress recommends it.


8. Awesome Introductory Prices


For what it offers— speed, response time, uptime, support, and much more, their introductory prices are a steal deal.


Depending on the requirement for your personal/professional use, you can choose from three plans, starting at $3.95/mo.

  1. 1
    Startup: For an introductory price of $3.95 per month, you can host one website and store up to 10 GB on the server. If your website traffic is less than 10,000/month, this plan is fantastic. However, we would recommend GrowBig or GrowGeek plans for the additional features it brings on the table.
  2. 2
    GrowBig: At $5.95/mo, you can host unlimited websites and store a total of up to 20 GB of data on the server. This plan is suitable for up to 25,000 monthly visitors.
  3. 3
    GoGeek: With additional geeky features such as one-click git repo creation, this plan costs just $11.95. For the money, you can host unlimited websites and store up to 30GB of data. This plan is ideal for about 100,000 monthly visitors.
SiteGround Plans and Prices

Overall, these introductory prices are competitive, but for the sheer value SG provides, the cost is unbelievable. However, there’s a catch. What’s that catch? Well, let’s look at it in the “Con” section.

2 mildly-infuriating things that can be improved about Siteground


1. Renewal packages are pricey


The catch is: The renewal packages are pricey, especially compared to the introductory ones.

The Startup plan goes straight from $3.95/mo to $11.95/mo. Similarly, GrowBig and GoGeek ones see hike from $5.95/mo to $19.95/mo and $11.95/mo to $34.95/mo respectively.


But...But…


For the functionality it gives and the perfect performance it provides, even renewal prices seem reasonable.


There’s no doubt it’s still a value-for-money deal, but our advice would be to purchase a 3-year plan at the introductory price and saving on renewal fees. 


2. Not for big-need sites


Another downside of buying Siteground hosting is big-traffic sites can’t enjoy their managed Wordpress or web hosting plans.


Of course, for most 100,000 visitors/month is a dream come true, and for those, even their GrowBig plan may suffice.


However, if you are aiming for traffic in millions, neither of these plans will be sufficient. Our recommendation, in that case, would be to check out their cloud offering.


Nonetheless, if you want to host for a limited traffic site, Siteground is excellent. We can go as far as saying it’s the best out there.


Siteground Hosting Plans and Features

Although we emphasized mostly on their value plans, Siteground has a few more varieties that, altogether, are suitable for business of almost any size.


Whether you need higher performance, more memory, a setup less prone to downtime, or an experience optimized for a specific task like e-commerce, Siteground has it for you with their Web Hosting, Managed Wordpress Hosting, Managed Woo solutions, Cloud hosting, or Enterprise hosting plans.


Just pick the one for your needs, and you’re all set. But, which one’s ideal & better value for you? Let’s find out.

1. Web Hosting:

We covered Siteground’s web hosting plans extensively throughout the review, but let’s summarize it from your needs standpoint.


As of writing this review, Siteground offers three web hosting plans, namely Startup, GrowBig, and GoGeek.

  • The startup plan is ideal for someone who’s, well, starting up. This is a low-performance plan in which only one website can be hosted. 10GB high-quality SSD, that’s included in the plan, is more than sufficient for any startup or beginner blogger. Moreover, it can handle approx. 10,000 monthly visitors. Meaning, if you’re expecting higher traffic or frequent real-time ups, this plan might not serve the purpose.
  • Their GrowBig plan, which is crafted for your web growth, will fulfill the needs the startup plan won’t. With the option to host Unlimited websites and store a total of up to 20GB data on the server, this is a better performance option. This plan can handle about 25,000 monthly visitors. Moreover, additional perks such as SuperCacher for better speed, on-demand backup, etc. makes for an excellent value deal.
  • If, still, your needs are bigger, but you want to stick to low-priced shared plans, the GoGeek plan is your ultimate option. With better resource allocation and some premium as well as Geeky features, this plan of theirs can manage up to 100,000 monthly visitors. In short, if you are not burning cash on marketing/advertising, this plan will be ideal for most big needs.

2. Wordpress Hosting:

Siteground’s Managed Wordpress hosting plans are nothing but their web hosting plan, right from naming them to performance capacities and features. The only difference being, these plans are crafted for Wordpress-based sites.


In fact, any Managed Wordpress hosting’s underlying architecture is based on some or the other form of hosting, which in this case is Shared’s.


The pluses you get if you choose Managed Wordpress over Shared hosting comes in the form of:

  • Customer Support: Individuals assigned by Siteground for this plan’s customer are well-versed with everything Wordpress.
  • Features: Exclusive features such as free Wp install, auto-updates, Wp migration, 1-click Wordpress staging, Wp CLI and SSH, etc. are provided.

All in all, if you’re planning to build a Wordpress site, and there are plenty of reasons to make this decision, Siteground’s Managed Wordpress plans are perfect.

3. Woocommerce hosting:

Again, the plans are almost the same as Managed Wordpress.


Woocommerce, for those of you who don’t know, is an open source Wordpress plugin for building e-commerce stores.


To keep it brief, if you’re planning to start a Woocommerce-based e-commerce store, Siteground’s woocommerce hosting plans are one of the finest. With these plans, apart from performance capabilities, you benefit in:

  • Customer support: Again, the same award-winning team full of Wordpress expertise is assigned for you.
  • Free CDN and smart caching: For ultra-fast customer experience.
  • Security: Afterall, people will be entering their credit card details for purchasing. Thus, security is the priority.
  • Store Migration: You can bring over your existing store from other providers free of cost. Professional help is also provided in GrowBig and GoGeek plans.

4. Cloud Hosting:

Now for the big league guys.


In cloud hosting, your site is powered by a network of servers instead of a single server. Moreover, and at least in the case of Siteground’s plans, you can expect top-notch everything- speed, uptimes, security, and the overall performance. Additionally, you can scale up/down your resources whenever needed.


Primarily, Siteground offers four cloud plans, namely:

  • Entry: At $80/mo., this plan comes with 2 CPU cores, 4 GB RAM, and 40 GB SSD space.
  • Business: For an extra $40, i.e., at $120/mo., you get 3 cores, 6GB RAM, and 60 GB storage.
  • Business Plus: Add another $40/mo. And you get twice the resources as Entry plan⁠— I.E., 4 cores, 8GB RAM, and 80 GB SSD storage.
  • Super Power: And for $240/mo., you get a mammoth-performer with 10 GB RAM, 8 cores, and 120 GB space.

Apart from these four plans, you can configure your own cloud too. For every $10 you add to the Entry plan, you can either add a CPU core, an extra gig of memory, or 20 GB SSD storage. In total, you can customize a beast computer with up to 32 cores, 128 GB RAM, and 1 TB SSD space.

5. Others:

A couple of other hosting services Siteground offers are Reseller hosting and Enterprise hosting.


The reseller hosting is for the ones who manage multiple client sites. Basically, you can purchase the GoGeek plan and share resources among others' sites. Once allocated, you can give the client’s white-label access as well. The only downside with this is, if there’s any problem with the server, all sites will go down at the same time(which might never happen if you are buying from Siteground BTW).


Enterprise hosting is for big organizations. If, by chance, you are looking for hosting for an enterprise, Siteground has some fantastic services to offer. Based on your requirements, they can build a reliable architecture, set up a server infrastructure, and provide the needed resources. Moreover, these servers are highly scalable because of their private cloud infrastructure, comprising multiple virtualized nodes. 


In a nutshell, Siteground has hosting plans for businesses of any size.

Siteground Control Panel

SiteGround Control Panel

Siteground used to offer cPanel, developed by cPanel, LLC to control web hosting. Cpanel is a great tool from a functionality standpoint, no doubt. However, the UI is cluttered, and there’s not much thought put into the UX.


Therefore, Siteground decided to gather all the pluses and remove all the minuses to build their own site management tools. Moreover, for Siteground, this is a step to becoming more independent.


As for the new control panel, it’s sleek and minimal as expected. And this simplistic design doesn’t compromise with functionality at all; if anything, it enhances the experience.


You can access the File Manager, add FTP accounts, manage MySQL databases, keep an eye on security and speed, create emails, and do much more.


Furthermore, you can interact with their service settings as well⁠:

  • You can add a hosting plan or cancel an existing one,
  • You can manage multiple plans and websites from the single panel
  • You can also give white-label access to clients and collaborators
  • And also, you can change the ownership of your account.

All in all, it’s the ultimate control panel. Both functionality-oriented individuals and people with OCD will enjoy it.

Siteground Pricing, Discounts & Coupon codes

We won’t get into numbers here because we already discussed those. However, what we will discuss is, ‘Are those numbers justifiable?’


For us, they definitely are. Siteground has managed to give the right mix of value and quality for their users. On one side, they provide incredible hardware, expert customer support, excellent uptimes, and much more; and on the other, it doesn’t cost much. Overall, they are part of a rare group of hosting companies that provides the best value for money.


And add our discounts/coupons[link] to the already great value, and you’ve got what we would like to call “a hell of a good deal”. 

Conclusion | Do We Recommend Siteground?

If you haven’t figured it out yet, we do—we absolutely, with utmost confidence, recommend Siteground.

With some of the fastest & reliable hardware in the industry, incredible server response times all over the world, guaranteed uptime, amazing customer support, and some welcome additions such as free SSL, CDN, daily backups, etc., Siteground offers everything a business might ever need. Wordpress endorsing them is proof of that.


Overall, if you are looking for a web host or a Wordpress managed host, Siteground is trustworthy and highly recommended.

  • Uptime 99,99%
  • Average response time ~125 ms 
  • 24/7 Live chat
  • Free SSL Certificate

Starts at $3.95/mo

SiteGround

Overall Uptime
99.99%

Server Performance
Excellent

Server Response Time

US

50ms

India

60ms

Average

125ms

Starts at
$3.95
per month

Recommended!