SiteGround web hosting review 2022: facts only

Let’s make this review about SiteGround based on facts alone. I think nobody wants to read the philosophy behind SiteGround. You are reading this because you are looking for a web hosting service which will work with no issues, at all. And, personally, I am really fussy about the money/quality balance.

Shopping experience with service ‘WEB HOSTING’

This web hosting has everything you need for running your website. Part of the service deal are: Site Tools & SSH Access, free setup & transfer for people who have an already existing website, daily backup, and what I appreciate is free Cloudflare CDN. But let’s now forget about CDN because it is a service by a third party company.

This service ‘WEB HOSTING’ is an SSD-based shared hosting solution (an easy explanation of SSD is: very fast hard drive disk with super-fast reading files).

Ordering experience is clear and simple.

Web hosting is set up within one minute. The Order confirmation email is clear with all necessary “How to…” information (which I don’t need to read because I am a web designer and developer, of course).
Also my test domain name became alive with default landing page.

Close look at Site Tools

From ‘My account’, tab Websites, I opened Site Tools. It is an administration area where you can manage everything. It’s easy to setup FTP account, request a SSL certificate, or install entire WordPress with WooCommerce with a few clicks.

Do you have already WordPress website? Migration is simple. Transfer WordPress sites in just a few clicks with the WordPress Migrator. To start the process, simply generate a migration token and install their plugin.

The Site Tools are totally simple.

1-click WordPress installation

You can set the domain name. Type in the fields new WP administrator username and password. Then click on button Install. After clicking on ‘Install’ everything is automatic, including the database creation. The process shows the percentage.

I can tell you, this has very comfortable and fast WordPress installation. And a nice side benefit is a free SSL certificate.

Old school WordPress installation

Site Tools has a few icons with heading for different functions. In tab Site are File Manager, FTP accounts, MySQL and PostgreSQL. You might like also PHP Manager and SSH Keys Manager in tab Devs.

Time for FTP account and uploading files

So I set everything manually, because I like it that way. I’m deleting the default.html file and loading all WordPress + theme files. The upload speed from Prague to Singapore is quite acceptable. I selected location Singapore manually, but I assume you will have location closer to you.

Time to run my testing domain. In the internet browser a standard installation page will appear. I will put necessary details like database name, username password and so on. OK, WordPress is installed.

Speed test

Let’s do the speed test now with a clean WordPress installation which is on the Singapore servers. To check the speed I will be using gtmetrix.com and webpagetest.org

Page is fully loaded in 2 seconds. Hold on! Because…

Time to do real speed test with real content!

How fast is SiteGround with real content in WordPress? Nobody will be using clean WordPress, wouldn’t you agree? I install my favourite WordPress theme Enfold. It is the theme, which has a professional look, modern features and great support. After the theme has been activated and loaded with demo content full of text and images, there is also installed WooCommerce (eshop) and BBpress (discussion forum). Now we have a real website done. Also I do a speed test with Autoptimize plugin, which minimizes CSS and JS files, so loading is much faster. The results are impressive.

Please note I do the speed test repeatedly because of time zones. Nobody cares about traffic at 3AM.

Outstanding support

I was in touch with SiteGround Support a few times. They are always available, 24/7. If you will need help, you appreciate they are polite, effective, providing fast solution. I would say support quality and availability is the most important key to be satisfied.

Final words: I can recommend SiteGround

I didn’t like their cPanel in the past. 3D buttons and shadows were popular 10 years ago. I’m glad we can enjoy simple Site Tools these days.

One-click WordPress installation with SiteGround is super simple for people who don’t care about tech stuff.

Yes, I can recommend SiteGround to my clients. I like my speed test results which positively surprised me. I really didn’t expect to have a page fully loaded in Prague from Singapore in London in 2.2 seconds, or in Sydney in 1.7 seconds.

Anyway, if you would like to get 84% off from the price (Black Friday 2022), check out this article: SiteGround Web Hosting Black Friday 2022