The hosting review industry is filled with a lot of BS. My SiteGround GrowBig review isn’t BS. I actually host all my sites on the GrowBig plan at SiteGround and I have the proof:
I’ve been a customer on the GrowBig plan since November 2016, which should give you an idea that this SiteGround GrowBig review is probably going to be a positive one (if I weren’t happy, I would’ve switched already!).
I really don’t have many complaints, so it is going to be a bit cheerlead’y. But by the end of this post, I hope you come away with a better understanding of why I’ve been happily hosting all my sites on SiteGround GrowBig for about two years now.
And yes – this post includes some affiliate links, which means I get paid a commission if you sign up. No – this did not affect my recommendation. Like I said – I truly do host all my sites there.
My Site Loads Wicked Fast On SiteGround – Consistently Under 1 Second
I’m a bit of a speed freak who’s always looking for ways to make WordPress load faster. A fast website has all kinds of benefits:
- Happier visitors
- More conversions (if you’re selling something)
- Maybe better search rankings
And it’s just plain fun to always chase that next speed increase.
Well, this site loads wicked fast on SiteGround – look at the proof:
762 ms for a real siteain’t too shabby, is it? I mean, that’s the number you usually see when people use a blank test site.
Now, I also do other stuff to speed my site up like using the GeneratePress theme and putting in place my own page speed optimizations. But the fact remains – you don’t get sub-1 second load times unless your host is doing something right.
SiteGround Support Is Always Available (And Fixes The Problem!)
In the ~two years that I’ve been hosting my site on the SiteGround GrowBig plan, I haven’t run into a ton of issues that required me to talk to support. But I have hit a couple snags – mainly with respect to my email (I should probably just move to Google G Suite anyway).
Whenever I have run into issues, though, I’ve:
- Been able to instantly talk to a human person on live chat. Seriously – I don’t mean wait a few minutes and then start chatting – I mean I get a real person “on the chat” within a few seconds of starting the chat.
- More importantly, actually had them fix my issue every single team.
I’ve never personally used the phone support (I live in Vietnam, so it’s just not convenient). But I can wholeheartedly attest to the fact that the live chat support is stellar.
SiteGround Offers Rock-Solid Uptime – 100% For Me
Every second that your site is down means lost potential. Even something as seemingly insignificant as the difference between 99% uptime and 99.9% uptime makes a big difference.
I’ve been tracking my site’s uptime with Uptime Robot since almost the beginning of hosting with SiteGround and I’m happy to say that I don’t have to worry about the difference between 99% and 99.9%.
Know why? Because it doesn’t get any better than 100%, does it?
SiteGround Keeps Pushing Forward With Making Your Life Easier
Another thing that I love about SiteGround is that they aren’t just sitting around twiddling their thumbs – they’re constantly pushing out new features that make it easier to effectively host your site.
Let me give you a few examples…
First off, SiteGround has always been on the forefront of making it easy for casual users to get a free SSL/TLS certificate (if you’re not sure what that means – it gets you the green padlock in people’s browsers and is super important for securing your site).
They were one of the first to offer easy one-click Let’s Encrypt certificates. And they make it easy to keep up with free SSL with automatic renewals.
But making SSL certificates available wasn’t enough – they also saw how casual users found it difficult to move from HTTP to HTTPS. So then they went ahead and gave people a beginner-friendly way to move to HTTPS via their SG Optimizer plugin!
Easy and free SSL certificates not doing it for you?
How about this one – you know how most hosts might give you one free site migration, but after that they’ll throw you to the wolves? Well, SiteGround just released their brand new SiteGround Migrator tool that lets people on the GrowBig plan and above have unlimited migrations!
So here’s the deal:
My point here isn’t just that these features are helpful – although they are.
My point is that SiteGround keeps releasing new features like these – they keep making things better.
And that means you’re going to keep getting even more value from your plan in the future.
SiteGround GrowBig Review Wrap Up: I’m Not The Only One That Likes It
Ok, so from the above text, you learned that I, Colin Newcomer, am a pretty big fan of SiteGround.
But here’s the thing:
I’m not the only one – my experience isn’t even close to unique.
I write about WordPress full-time for a living, so I’m pretty tuned in to the WordPress community.
SiteGround always does well in anything involving a community poll from real humans.
For example, here’s this big survey from the WordPress Hosting Group on Facebook – look at who’s #1!
CodeinWP, one of my clients, also ran a huge survey of WordPress hosting users. SiteGround consistently ranks in the top among user rating. In fact, the only host with a higher rating is Kinsta. And while I love Kinsta (they’re another client!), Kinsta is in a whole other price range, starting at $30 per month for a single site:
If you look at similarly priced hosts, SiteGround blows everyone else out of the water in that survey.
Another example – if you look at the support ratings in that survey – again SiteGround is up at the top. The only two hosts that beat it are managed WordPress hosts that cost $30+ per month for a single site:
SiteGround Reviews On Reddit
Guess what – people on Reddit love SiteGround, too!
Look at all these happy WordPress Redditors:
And these Redditors are also riding the SiteGround train:
Take It From One Happy SiteGround User To Another
For the money that I pay, I have not found a better host than SiteGround.
I’ll be honest – if I were a millionaire, I would host all my sites at Kinsta. But I’m not – at least not yet! And if you want to get:
- Fast page load times
- Quick support response times
- Great uptime
- A host that’s going to keep pushing out helpful new features
I don’t think you’ll find anyone better than SiteGround for the money.
If you want to get started, you can click below to head to SiteGround. Yes – this is an affiliate link, which means I will receive a commission if you sign up. No – it did not affect my opinion in any way. This SiteGround GrowBig review isn’t BS, and I really do host my sites there. Go run my site through WhoIsHostingThis if you don’t believe me.
Colin Newcomer is a freelance writer for hire with a background in SEO and affiliate marketing. He helps clients grow their web visibility by writing primarily about digital marketing, WordPress, and B2B topics.
