This post of SiteGround Alternatives brings you a list of hosting services that can be used as an alternative to SiteGround. Based on performance, pricing, support, and personal experience, I have made this list of alternatives to SiteGround.
As SiteGround’s reputation continues to suffer due to issues like multiple price hikes, decreased performance, and limited support, an increasing number of website owners are seeking alternative hosting solutions.
If you are interested in buying an alternative hosting to SiteGround, check out the below recommended options.
Contents
Best SiteGround Alternatives
1. Cloudways
In my opinion, Cloudways is the best alternative to SiteGround. If you prefer SiteGround’s unlimited website plan, Cloudways provides the same service with improved speed and reasonable pricing.
Cloudways is a managed hosting service that uses various cloud hosting providers like Digital Ocean, Linode, Vultr, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud. You can easily purchase plans from these providers on the Cloudways website and set up your website within minutes.
According to our data on the Fastest WordPress hosting, Cloudways has been demonstrated to be twice as fast as SiteGround. Cloudways consistently outperformed SiteGround in various testing scenarios, including server response time, different levels of load testing, Core Web Vitals, and global server response time tests.
Even when SiteGround achieved a response time of 660 milliseconds, Cloudways only took 309 milliseconds to load web pages. (The smaller the value, the faster the server is.)
In simple load testing, SiteGround took 45 ms to handle 1000 requests in a minute, while it took just 10 ms for Cloudways to handle the same load.
In an advanced load test where the client load will be present throughout the test period, SiteGround took 2929 ms to handle 1000 users, where it took just 268 ms for Cloudways to process the request.
If you have a site audience from multiple countries, probably in the United States and Europe, I have calculated the TTFB of Cloudways and SiteGround. Based on the data, Cloudways beats SiteGround in every single location.
Overall, Cloudways is superior to SiteGround and a great alternative service for you to get started when it comes to performance.
Coming to the features, both SiteGround and Cloudways use custom control panel and has got a lot of similarities like
- Automatic backups & restore
- Free automatic site migrations
- Both hosts offer a caching plugin
- Free SSL, Staging sites & security.
- Team Management
Cloudways is affordable when compared to SiteGround pricing. While SiteGround Startup starts at $6.99/mo, it renews at $14.99/mo, and the pricing is applicable only if you pay for 12 months in advance. If you buy monthly billing, the plan will be $14.99/month, where Cloudways cost $10 per month. The Growbig and GoGeeks equivalent plan of Cloudways is also affordable and allows you to host unlimited websites.
I have moved many sites from SiteGround to Cloudways. Here is my Amazon affiliate site hosted on SiteGround for four years and I moved to Cloudways. You can see how the server response time has improved after moving to Cloudways.
My Core Web Vitals score also improved which you can confirm from the time frame on both the images. There is no optimization made, just the hosting along is changed.
If you are an existing customer of SiteGround, you know how they made it difficult to contact their support. Now, SiteGround only supports their hosting infrastructure, control panel, and everything related to their services. They dropped the support for WordPress, which means you need to take care of your WordPress site-related issues. On the other hand, Cloudways offers 24/7 support via live chat and tickets.
Pros of Cloudways
- Fastest performance yet affordable pricing
- Unlimited website hosting on all plans
- Managed security and automated backups
- Innovative control panel
- Choice of five cloud providers
Cons of Cloudways
- 24/7/365 customer service is good but not the great
- CDN is available as addon, although affordable
2. GreenGeeks
GreenGeeks is the Cpanel alternative hosting to SiteGround. GreenGeeks, founded in 2008, offers you the fastest shared hosting service based on our tests. GreenGeeks comes with powerful tech stacks of LiteSpeed Web Server and cache, SSD Storage, MariaDB, HTTP/3, and much more software and hardware optimizations.
First, let’s compare the performance of this host with SiteGround. The average response time of GreenGeeks recorded through our tool is 291 ms, while for SiteGround, it is 660 ms.
That means GreenGeeks servers work two times faster than SiteGround. This data monitors both the demo sites hosted on each server and tested 10,100 times in a month.
In Simple load testing, GreenGeeks took 25 ms to handle 1000 requests in a minute, while SiteGround took 45 ms to complete the test.
In advanced load testing, I’ve sent constant 500 users to the site for 1 minute; SiteGround took 201 ms to complete, whereas GreenGeeks just took 35 ms to complete the response.
We also tested the global TTFB test, where the sites are tested from multiple locations. These results will be beneficial for site owners who get traffic from multiple countries. Based on the report, GreenGeeks scored 354.37 ms, while for SiteGround, it is 861.03 ms.
Overall, the performance of GreenGeeks is top-notch compared to SiteGround. The impressive thing is GreenGeeks costs just $2.49 per month, where the starter plan of SiteGround costs $6.99/month.
GreenGeeks is a Cpanel powered shared hosting that has got the following features:
- LiteSpeed, LSCache, MariaDB, HTTP/3,etc.
- Built-in scalability
- Advanced WAF security
- 24/7 Expert support
- Free site migrations, SSL & CDN
- Scalable Computing Resources.
If you need a shared hosting similar to SiteGround with the presence of cPanel, then GreenGeeks is the only hosting provider I can recommend. Here is a simple comparison of the pricing of both hosts.
- GreenGeeks Lite: $2.49/month, renews at $10.95/mo
- SiteGround Startup: $6.99/month, renews at $14.99/mo
- GreenGeeks Pro: $4.95/month, renews at $15.95/mo.
- SiteGround Growbig: $9.99/month, renews at $24.99/mo.
- GreenGeeks Premium: $8.95/month, renews at $25.95/mo
- SiteGround GoGeek: $14.99/month, renews at $39.99/mo
GreenGeeks also has a free domain for the first year and a dedicated IP in a premium plan even with such affordable pricing. There is also a 30-days money-back guarantee; you can try GreenGeeks at the lowest price (no coupon required).
Pros of GreenGeeks
- Fastest performance among all our test
- Comes pre-configured and installed with LiteSpeed
- Email hosting & free dedicated IP on Premium plan.
- Scalable computing resources
- 30-day money back guarantee.
- 100% USA Based support.
Cons of GreenGeeks
- It’s shared hosting, so there is no auto-scaling.
3. Templ
Templ hosting is the fastest hosting alternative to SiteGround. Templ hosting comes with the industry’s best hosting architecture powered by Google Cloud, CDN, and DNS. Templ plan starts at $15 per month with $30 free credits to get started.
Let’s compare the performance of SiteGround with Templ. In the server response time test, Templ secured 309 ms while SiteGround got 660 ms, and it shows Templ host is 2x faster than SiteGround.
In the simple load test, both Templ and Kinsta recorded 33 ms and 45 ms, respectively. However, in the high load client test, Templ secured 71 ms while SiteGround took 2929 ms to complete the test.
The interesting thing is that both the hosts are using Google Cloud, and I strategically hosted my demo sites in the same data center location (IOWA) to get accurate results. Even the pricing is similar to SiteGround Startup ($14.99/month) and Templ Micro ($15/month), but the performance of Templ is impressive to say.
Through this test, one can understand Templ host handles load without any issues. So, if you host high traffic sites on SiteGround that frequently hit high CPU Usage, then this host should be your ultimate choice.
Some of the impressive features of Templ are
- Google Cloud + DNS + CDN
- Redis object cache, Quic
- Brotli compression
- Nginx and MariaDB
- Auto-scalable and server-based cache.
Templ includes everything you need, and there are no upsells when you sign up. Both the hosts use Google Cloud but Templ provides you service from all 24 data center locations whereas SiteGround only uses 5 data centers. Thus, Templ host gives you the freedom to host your site closer to your target audience.
Templ might not be a good choice if you need to host unlimited sites as Templ hosts is not a shared hosting like SiteGround. Coming to support, the Templ team is available 24/7 through live chat within the dashboard. Apart from $30 credits to get started, there is also a free trial for 10 days to try their services.
Pros of Templ
- Provides fastest managed WordPress hosting service
- Powered by Google Cloud, DNS and CDN
- Includes the high-performance Google CDN for free
- Automated backups and restore
- 24/7 WordPress expert support
Cons of Templ
- Limited disk space due to high pricing of Google Cloud
- No Email hosting.
4. Liquid Web Cloud Dedicated
Liquid Web Cloud Dedicated Servers is my recommendation to use instead of SiteGround Managed Cloud hosting. Liquid Web is the top-notch 100% USA-based company running since 1997. I already wrote a post here about Managed WordPress hosting alternatives. As said, Managed WordPress hosting is good for the most part, but if you’re an agency handling multiple sites, then you need to spend a lot more money on the service.
Liquid Web offers multiple plans, but I particularly recommend you to try their Cloud Dedicated Servers. This is very similar to SiteGround’s Managed Cloud hosting. The Liquid Web Managed Cloud hosting comes with 100% scalability and 0% sharing.
Now, I’ll be comparing the SiteGround plans with Liquid Web to give you a clear vision.
- SiteGround Entry: $100/mo, 4 CPU Cores, 8 GB RAM, 40GB SSD, 5 TB data transfer
- Liquid Web 3.6 GHz: $149/mo, 4 CPU Cores, 16GB RAM, 452 SSD, 5 TB data transfer
- SiteGround Business: $200/mo, 8 CPU Cores, 12 GB RAM, 80 GB SSD, 5 TB data transfer
- Intel Xeon E3 3.9 Ghz: $189/mo, 4 CPU Cores, 32 GB RAM, 452 GB SSD, 5 TB data transfer
- SiteGround Business Plus: $300/mo, 12 CPU Cores, 16 GB RAM, 120 GB SSD, 5 TB data transfer
- Intel Xeon 3.5 GHz: $299/mo, 6 CPU Cores, 16 GB RAM, 1489 GB NVMe SSD, 5 TB data transfer
- SiteGround Super Power: $400/mo, 16 CPU Cores, 20 GB RAM, 160 GB SSD, 5 TB data transfer
- Intel Dual Xeon 2.1 GHz: $399/mo, 2 CPU 16 cores, 62 GB RAM, 1775 GB SSD, 5 TB data transfer
- Intel Xeon 3.8 GHz: $399/mo, 6 CPU Cores, 32 GB RAM, 3576 NVMe SSD, 5 TB data transfer
This is an insane offering from Liquid Web. The above pricing is inclusive of all charges, including cPanel or Interworx control panel. Liquid Web operates its own data center, so its resources are enormous. Apart from that, Liquid Web offers 100% network and power uptime SLA.
They are also the only hosting provider to offer 60-seconds SLA for live chat support. Some of the exciting features of this plan are
- Up to 3.8 GHz High-Frequency Intel processors
- NVMe SSD RAID1 storage
- 100% uptime guaranteed.
- DDoS Attack Protection
- Server Secure advanced security
- 60-seconds guaranteed live chat support.
I’ve analyzed the entire market, and I found no other alternative to SiteGround Cloud hosting apart from Liquid Web Managed Cloud hosting.
Pros of Liquid Web
- The only 100% uptime guaranteed hosting
- 60-seconds live chat SLA support
- High-frequency 3.9 GHz processors
- cPanel powered host.
- Automatic backups and restore
- Free site migrations.
Cons of Liquid Web
- Since it’s cpanel, there is no auto-scalability
5. WP Engine
WP Engine is our last alternative recommendation for SiteGround. WP Engine is the industry leader in the managed WordPress hosting segment, and the company was founded in 2010. I recommend WP Engine due to the low tier pricing of the Growth and Scale plan. We can discuss more on this later.
Comparing the performance data of WP Engine and SiteGround, the WP Engine is always better in most terms. In the server response time TTFB test, WP Engine secured 374 ms, where SiteGround secured 660 ms.
This proves WP Engine is nearly two times faster than SiteGround. In load testing, I’ve sent 1000 users to the site for a minute. In the test, WP Engine recorded 40 ms while SiteGround took 45 ms to complete the test.
Apart from that, WP Engine offers a premium CDN powered by StackPath, which is faster than SiteGround’s free Cloudflare CDN (based on millions of tests). Even though SiteGround says unlimited websites, their plans are highly limited by CPU usage. If you host five sites and get a nominal amount of traffic, your hosting plan will be limited.
However, WP Engine doesn’t offer unlimited sites but offers high site limits in higher plans. The Growth plan at $115/month allows 10 sites, whereas the $290/month Scale plan provides 30 sites. Though their startup plan costs $30/per site, the Growth plan costs $11.5/per site, and the Scale plan costs $9.6/per site. So, If you are a small business owner or freelancer who handles between 10 – 30, then WP Engine gives you the best value for money. I recommend WP Engine ahead of SiteGround only for these two plans.
Pros of WP Engine
- Cheaper plans of Growth and Scale
- Best 24/7 customer service
- Automated site migrations
- Free Premium CDN
- Auto-scalable architecture
Cons of WP Engine
- There is no email hosting.
- Once you outgrow Scale plans, you need to order custom plans which can be expensive.
Which SiteGround Alternative is best for you?
Most sites recommend other shared hosting companies as an alternative to SiteGround. However, I have different views here. Shared hosting was introduced a decade ago, but the landscape has changed now. Migrating from SiteGround to shared hosting is not a good choice as there are many technical limitations, and Cloud/Managed WordPress hosting is the future-ready hosting plan that you should consider when moving away from SiteGround.
That’s the reason I’ve mentioned only a single shared hosting (GreenGeeks) as an alternative where the other hosts come under the Cloud/ Managed WP segment. If you need to move into shared hosting in the worst-case scenario, then GreenGeeks should be your only choice. Apart from that, each of my other recommended hosts serves a different purpose.
- Cloudways – Very similar to SiteGround. But comes with better speed and affordability. If you need to host unlimited sites just like on SiteGround, Cloudways should be your ultimate choice.
- Templ – Offers the fastest hosting service above all the hosts listed here. That’s why I use them to host five sites with them. Nothing can beat the power of Google Cloud, DNS, and CDN. If you’re a blogger affiliate marketer and need to have the best host for your sites, Templ is the only host I recommend.
- Liquid Web – Alternative to SiteGround Cloud hosting. You can host unlimited sites, and the plans of Liquid Web come with enormous resources. They’re the industry leader in managed VPS/ Dedicated server space. I recommend it if you need to host more than 50+ sites.
- WP Engine – The recommended plans are Growth and Scale, where each allows 10 and 30 sites. It’s good for someone who needs to host 10 – 30 sites and needs a custom control panel.
How to prepare for migrating away from SiteGround?
SiteGround offers their own caching plugin, SG Optimizer, and if you’re using it, you need to pick an alternative caching plugin. Cloudways offers their Breeze caching plugin, and GreenGeeks provides you with LiteSpeed caching. However, for better results, I recommend WP Rocket as it is not only a caching plugin but offers many speed optimization features. If you have more than 3 sites, choose their Infinite plan to use them on unlimited sites.
If you’re dependent on SiteGround for email hosting, then GreenGeeks, Liquid Web best suits you. Both hosts offer free email hosting, and Liquid Web offers you premium email hosting starting at $1/month. Cloudways, in association with RackSpace, offers affordable email hosting $1 per inbox, which you can sign up from inside their control panel. Apart from that, Temp, WP Engine doesn’t offer any email hosting services.
Coming to site migration, every host offers you unlimited site migration. With WP Engine and Cloudways, you can migrate the sites from SiteGround through their automated migration plugins, whereas Templ, Liquid Web, and GreenGeeks offer unlimited site migrations.
Templ hosting provides you with Google CDN for free. WP Engine (free) and Cloudways ($1/ site), where both the hosts utilize the StackPath CDN. If you’re using SiteGround free or premium CDN, it won’t work with other hosts.
FAQs on SiteGround and its alternatives
Why is SiteGround expensive?
SiteGround increased their price twice in the last 24 months which made their hosting plans to get expensive. They’ve launched a new control panel, caching plugin and started using Google Cloud. As a part of such upgrades, SiteGround increased their pricing across all hosting plans.
