SiteGround Review 2019

After 12 months of live testing in 2019, let’s package up all the SiteGround test results and find out how they’ve performed so far…

SiteGround Review – Testing Method

  • Prior to testing, I have setup identical content on all 6 Live Test Sites
  • Each week over 60,000 speed & uptime tests are run using independent tools, GTmetrix & Pingdom
GTmetrix Logo 50Pingdom Logo 50
  • Test results below are from 07 Jan 2019 to 04 Jan 2020

Test #1: Speed

The GTmetrix Speed Test checks how long it takes for a website to fully load using a desktop internet browser. This test is then repeated every hour throughout the week (1,080 times).

  • SiteGround’s speed started off very poorly, recording the slowest speed of all our hosts across the first 5 weeks of testing. The good news, however, was they were able to totally turn that around once WP Rocket was installed. They charged to 3rd during this time, outpacing 2 premium hosts in the process. A similar trend occurred across Weeks 11-50, with slow speeds initially then significant improvement with WP Rocket on board.
  • SiteGround is currently ranked 6th in our Speed Rankings.
2019 SiteGround Speed Table - Overall

2019 Results – USA Server

2019 SiteGround Speed Chart - USA Server
2019 SiteGround Speed Table - USA Server

2019 Results – Canada Server

2019 SiteGround Speed Chart - Canada Server
2019 SiteGround Speed Table - Canada Server

2019 Results – UK Server

2019 SiteGround Speed Chart - UK Server
2019 SiteGround Speed Table - UK Server

2019 Results – INDIA Server

2019 SiteGround Speed Chart - India Server
2019 SiteGround Speed Table - India Server

2019 Results – Australia Server

2019 SiteGround Speed Chart - Australia Server
2019 SiteGround Speed Table - Australia Server

Test #2: Uptime

The Pingdom Uptime Test confirms that the website is actually accessible to visitors. This test is then repeated every minute throughout the week (60,480 times).

  • The uptime results for SiteGround have been very impressive across the 1st 30 weeks of testing. The last 20 weeks have seen a bit of an increase in downtime. But having only recorded 58 minutes of downtime places them above some premium hosts and well above their budget host competitor in Lightning Base.
  • SiteGround is currently ranked 3rd in our Uptime Rankings.
SiteGround 2019 Uptime Test Results

SiteGround Review – Overall ranking

The Overall Ranking accumulates the results from the speed & uptime tests to determine the #1 Host.

  • SiteGround’s uptime performance has been impressive, while some improvement is needed to their speed to move up the rankings. They are ahead of Lightning Base in the preferred budget host category, and not far off the performance of some of the premium hosts, especially when their speed with WP Rocket results are isolated. 
  • SiteGround is sitting in 4th in our Overall Rankings.
2019 SiteGround Overall Rank

How does SiteGround compare to our 5 other Hosts?