SiteGround Uses Censorship To Hide Problems With Their Cache Plugin, DNS, CPU Limits, TTFB + LCP, Declined Service

Take my word: move your sites away from SiteGround.

I was one of SiteGround’s first super affiliates and referred about 3,000 people to them. After their service declined, I’ve seen them cover up bad reviews by taking over Facebook groups, sending cease and desist letters, and blaming Google/Amazon for 2M sites getting deindexed.

An underlying issue is how SiteGround develops inferior products and claims they’re better (or equivalent) to established products like cPanel, Cloudflare APO, and premium cache plugins. These are false claims since Cloudflare’s network, dashboard, and APO are much more robust. SiteGround Optimizer also does a poor job with core web vitals, specifically with optimizing LCP.

People often get lured in from all the “glowing reviews” which for the most part, are from affiliates or aggressive efforts to hide bad reviews. But once those 1 year renewals hit, many customers end up paying $500/yr for shared hosting and inferior products. It gets even more expensive when you run into CPU limits and are forced to upgrade to $100/mo cloud hosting. Which by the way, only has 4 CPU cores + 8GM RAM. By then, you’ll be paying around $1200/yr (or closer to $1400+/yr with their paid CDN and a premium cache plugin). This is exactly what happened to me and when I did move, both my load times/hosting costs cut in half. Save your time/money and get a LiteSpeed host or cloud hosting that offers more value than SiteGround.

 

1. Specs

Most SiteGround plans are shared hosting with slower SATA SSDs, Memcached, and MySQL. Other hosts use LiteSpeed servers, NVMe SSDs, Redis, and MariaDB (these are a faster setup).

The LiteSpeed setup is both faster/cheaper. Litespeed servers outperform Apache + Nginx, LiteSpeed Cache does a better job with core web vitals, and QUIC.cloud’s CDN has similar features as SiteGround’s with dynamic caching, Anycast smart routing, and load balancing. NameHero + ChemiCloud also clearly list the number of cores/RAM with less major incidents.

If you’re already paying over $25/mo, Rocket.net with their free Cloudflare Enterprise will run circles around any of these which I’ve seen lead to a 452% LCP improvement and is who I use. Cloudways Vultr High Frequency has some downsides but are still much faster than SiteGround.

	SiteGround GrowBig	ChemiCloud WordPress Turbo	NameHero WordPress Turbo	Cloudways Vultr HF (2GB)	Rocket.net Starter Plan
Type	Shared	Shared	Shared	Cloud	Private cloud
Server	Apache + Nginx	LiteSpeed	LiteSpeed	Apache + Nginx	Apache + Nginx
Cores/RAM	Not listed	3 cores/3GB (scalable to 6/6)	3 cores/3GB	1 core/2GB	32 cores/128GB
Storage	20GB SATA	40GB NVMe	Unlimited NVMe	64GB NVMe	10GB NVMe
Object cache	Memcached	Memcached	Redis	Redis Pro	Redis
PHP processor	FastCGI	LiteSpeed	LiteSpeed	FPM	LiteSpeed
PHP workers	CPU limits + suspensions	Resource limits	Resource limits	Unlimited	Unlimited
Database	MySQL	MariaDB	MariaDB	MariaDB	MariaDB
CDN	SiteGround CDN ($14.99/mo)	QUIC.cloud ($.02-.08/GB)	QUIC.cloud ($.02-.08/GB)	$5/mo Cloudflare Enterprise	Free Cloudflare Enterprise
CDN locations	176	80	80	285	285
Full page caching	✓	✓	✓	x	✓
Smart routing	Anycast	Anycast	Anycast	Argo/Tiered Cache	Argo/Tiered Cache
Optimize images	Very limited	QUIC	Mirage/Polish	Mirage/Polish	Mirage/Polish
Mobile image resizing (for LCP)	x	x	x	✓	✓
DNS	Blocked by Google for 4 days	Use QUIC’s DNS	Use QUIC’s DNS	DNS Made Easy (use Cloudflare)	Cloudflare
Cache plugin	SG Optimizer	LiteSpeed Cache	LiteSpeed Cache	Use FlyingPress	Use FlyingPress
Data centers	10	11	US + EU only	44	Served from Cloudflare edge
Bandwidth or monthly visits	100k	Unlimited*	50k	2TB	50GB + 250k
Control panel	Site Tools	cPanel	cPanel	Complex	Easy to learn
Email storage	10GB	Unlimited	Unlimited	x	x
Major incidents	TTFB, DNS, CPU issues (denies it)	None	2011 node outage	None	None
Support	C	B	B	C	A
Migrations	$30/site	10-200 free	1 free	1 free + $25/site	Unlimited free
TrustPilot rating	4.6/5	4.9/5	4.6/5	4.5/5	4.9/5
Monthly price	$3.99 (1 year)	$6.98 (3 years)	$9.98 (3 years)	$30 (monthly)	$25 (1 year)
Renewals	$24.99/mo (1 year)	$19.95/mo (1 year)	$19.95/mo (1 year)	$30/mo	$25/mo

 

2. SiteGround Optimizer Does A Poor Job With Core Web Vitals

It also has ongoing compatibility issues.

	SG Optimizer	WP Rocket	FlyingPress	LiteSpeed Cache
Server-side caching	✓	x	x	✓
Object cache integration	✓	x	x	✓
Delay JavaScript	x	✓	✓	✓
Remove unused CSS	x	Inline	Separate file	Separate file
Critical CSS	x	✓	✓	✓
Preload critical images	x	x	✓	x
Exclude above the fold images	By class/type	By URL/class	Automatic	Automatic
Lazy load background images	x	Inline HTML	lazy-bg class	x
Add missing image dimensions	x	✓	✓	✓
Lazy load iframes	x	✓	✓	✓
YouTube iframe preview image	x	✓	✓	✓
Self-host YouTube placeholder	x	x	✓	x
Host fonts locally	x	x	✓	✓
Font-display: swap	x	✓	✓	✓
Preload links	x	✓	✓	✓
Bloat removal (beyond Heartbeat)	x	x	✓ (see details)	x
Lazy render HTML elements	x	x	✓	✓
Guest Mode	x	x	x	✓
Advanced cache control	x	x	x	✓
Gravatar cache	x	x	x	✓
Limit post revisions	Delete all	Delete all	Delete all	Keep some
CDN image optimization	x	x	✓	✓
CDN image resizing for mobile	x	x	x	✓
Documented APO compatibility	x	x	✓	x
Documentation	Not detailed	Good	Not detailed	Good
New features	Infrequent	Infrequent	Frequent	Frequent
Facebook group	Join	Join	Join	Join
CDN price	$14.99/mo	$8.99/mo	$.03/GB	$.02-.08/GB
Plugin price	Free	$59/year	$60/year	Free
Renewal price	Free	$59/year	$42/year	Free
	View tutorial	View tutorial	View tutorial	View tutorial

 
This is why so many people use WP Rocket instead. However, FlyingPress outperforms both these. Which means an “ideal setup” on SiteGround would be using SiteGround Optimizer mainly for dynamic caching and Memcached, then FlyingPress (and possibly Optimole) for everything else. Just make sure file-based caching is only enabled in 1 plugin as well as other duplicate features. Perfmatters also addresses most lacking features in SiteGround Optimizer.

LCP Issues

If you view the 4 parts of LCP, you’ll realize why many SiteGround users have LCP issues. SiteGround Optimizer can’t preload viewport images or remove unused CSS, their free CDN doesn’t use dynamic caching to improve TTFB, and SiteGround has a history of TTFB issues.

 

3. SiteGround’s CDN Is Inferior To Cloudflare APO

Even after version 2.0, SiteGround’s CDN is an inferior product to APO. However, they discontinued Cloudflare in hopes of paying SiteGround $14.99/mo instead of $5/mo for APO.

Cloudflare’s network has 100+ more data centers (285 instead of 176 on Google Cloud), 192 Tbps transfer speeds, a plethora of features, over 3,000 employees, and decades of experience with high performance/reliability on cdnperf.com. This is what you get with SiteGround’s CDN:

There are already complaints and you have to use SiteGround’s unreliable DNS for their CDN.

 

4. CPU Limits Suspend Your Account Until You Upgrade

If you’ve been with SiteGround long enough, you’ve probably run into CPU limits.

It certainly appears something is fishy considering countless people who originally had CPU limits on SiteGround moved away and they were fixed instantly (including myself). You can find SiteGround’s CPU limits on their hosting page when you hover over the “server resources” tab.

Most hosts throttle your bandwidth which makes your site slow and can cause 503 errors. But on SiteGround, you have to upgrade (to add resources) or they will send you an email warning and eventually take down your website. You can wait it out, try to fix it, upgrade plans, or leave.

• Wait it out – your website will continue to be down until your CPU seconds are reset.
• Fix it – follow my guide on reducing CPU, but there’s no guarantee you can actually fix it and SiteGround will never blame it on their own service. They’ll probably tell you it’s an issue with caching, scripts, bots, cron jobs, or plugins. Make sure you check error logs too.
• Upgrade – upgrading to GrowBig/GoGeek may fix it, but never upgrade to SiteGround’s cloud hosting. It’s been seen time and time again that people who upgrade to their cloud hosting still face CPU issues. When you get warnings on GoGeek, it’s 100% time to move.
• Leave – Vultr HF, LiteSpeed, and Rocket.net are all great options to reduce CPU. Vultr HF and Rocket.net use NVMe storage (and only about 10% of traffic actually hits your origin on Rocket who offloads most of it to Cloudflare). LiteSpeed is more efficient than Apache and NGINX. Many hosts use Redis which uses memory more efficiently than Memcached.

 

5. Their Cloud Hosting Isn’t Worth $100/mo

I’ve used it.

It’s overpriced, slow, and doesn’t fix CPU limits. I even added more CPU/RAM and was still getting CPU issues (plus my site wasn’t crazy fast after doing it). There are way better cloud hosting options than SiteGround. So once you outgrow GoGeek, I would leave immediately.

 

6. Google Blocked SiteGround’s DNS For 4 Days

Below is SiteGround’s response when their DNS was blocked from Googlebot for 4 days.

In classic SiteGround fashion, they claimed no responsibility by saying “there is no blocking on our end.” But then 2 days later, they came out with a fix. SiteGround never advised customers to move to an external DNS. Many websites dropped in rankings or even disappeared from Google completely, resulting in a lot of lost time/money for customers. Feel free to look it up on Twitter. And to use SiteGround’s new CDN, you have to use their DNS. Is that a risk you’re willing to take?

 

7. History Of TTFB Issues

Backlinko’s 2019 TTFB test showed SiteGround had the slowest TTFB of all hosts tested.

When SiteGround moved to Google Cloud, they originally used one of Google’s lowest tier machine families (N1). Yet on their blog, they said “using [Google’s] service will result in high speed for our clients’ websites.” Another false claim since their TTFB actually got much slower.

SiteGround later moved to N2 in 2020 and is still using this machine family to date. While N2 is an improvement, it’s still a “balanced” machine family and isn’t as fast as the C2 machine family used on Kinsta and Elementor’s Cloud websites (although I don’t recommend those either for other reasons). SiteGround will deny their TTFB is slow, but independent people say otherwise:

 

8. Controls Facebook Groups And Makes Legal Threats

The WordPress Hosting, WordPress Speed Up, WP Beginner, and WP Rocket Users Facebook Groups are all run by SiteGround’s employees or brand ambassadors. Hristo is even an admin for the WordPress Speed Up group. This is the only reason SiteGround is promoted everywhere.

You’ll also see admins banning people and removing comments when other hosts are recommended, or if you speak negatively about SiteGround. They order other hosting companies to “disclose your relationship” yet the same admins pretend to be “SiteGround customers” by recommending them everywhere and acting like support agents, all while not disclosing their own relationship. Please, join the WP Speed Matters Facebook group instead.

Hristo got grilled at his AMA especially when they tagged @everyone.

 

9. Renewals Are 6-7x After 1 Year

In the old days, you got the cheaper intro price for 3 years, plus they included a free migration.

They raised prices twice (once in 2018 and in 2020). Now you only get the intro price for 1 year and migrations cost $30. Prices got higher and the value of their service dropped significantly.

Upon renewal, monthly pricing increases from $6.99 to $14.99 (StartUp), $9.99 to $24.99 (GrowBig), and $14.99 to $39.99 (GoGeek). Yearly, that’s $179.88, $299.98, and $539.98. So if you’re on SiteGround’s hosting now, expect a large bill once your renewal prices come into play.

In case you can’t read it, it says:

Here was my bill for their cloud hosting (can’t believe I was paying this):

 

10. Harder To Move Away From Site Tools

Whether you like Site Tools or not, it ain’t cPanel. And if you decide to leave SiteGround, your new host may charge you to migrate everything from Site Tools.

It was released weeks after cPanel increased prices and there were many complaints of bugs and missing features. It also didn’t roll out to some clients until over a year later.  SiteGround is quick to replace something when they increase prices – but expect you to stay when they do it.

 

11. Declined Support

I laughed when I noticed SiteGround’s support was some of their top Autocomplete results because they’ve made it overly difficult to find. Can’t even find their phone # on their website.

SiteGround’s support has gotten worse because:

• It’s more difficult to reach.
• Unwillingness to help fix CPU limit issues.
• They added a long “scope of support” disclaimer.
• They previously disabled live chat for people who use it too much.
• They cut off entire countries from support when they got too busy.

 

12. Attempted To Limit # Of Websites

In another attempt to increase their bottom line, SiteGround limited the number of websites you can host on each plan. This backfired and made a lot of people leave them. Although they eventually reversed this, it’s just another sneaky thing they tried to get customers to pay more.

 

13. Removed Service In Unprofitable Countries

Good business decision or bad ethics?

SiteGround suspended accounts from many Asian areas: India, New Zealand, Singapore, Philippines, and others.

This hurt a lot of affiliates – it was sad seeing so many members of the Bloggers Passion Facebook Group (mostly Indians) hurting financially after SiteGround canceled their affiliate accounts. Even if you don’t do affiliate marketing, consider how it affected other people’s lives.

 

14. Unsanctioned Migration To Google Cloud

A while back, SiteGround moved customers to Google Cloud without warning.

Many people were hesitant to host their websites with one of the biggest data harvesting companies in the world. But SiteGround pulled out their excuses on how they follow GDPR, their information is still protected, blah blah blah. The bottom line is they didn’t give a warning (or an option) not to use Google Cloud. This isn’t what they signed up for, but there’s no choice.

 

15. 5 LiteSpeed/Cloud Hosts That Are Better Than SiteGround

See their specs in section #1. Most of these also have a 4.9/5 star TrustPilot rating.

Rocket.net – test my site in KeyCDN since they literally average a <100ms global TTFB with awesome feedback in Facebook groups. It’s cloud hosting with NVMe, Redis, 32 cores + 128GB RAM, and LiteSpeed’s PHP. Their free Cloudflare Enterprise is a powerhouse for reducing TTFB between APO + Argo Smart Routing (plus you get Mirage/Polish which do a great job with image optimization). Since TTFB is 40% of LCP with hosting/CDN being the 2 main factors, this is what resulted in a 452% LCP improvement. They’ll likely cost more than SiteGround’s shared hosting but are significantly faster than even Cloudways/Kinsta. If you have the budget, I can assure you Rocket.net + Ben Gabler will take care of you. Their speed/support are pretty much unmatched: if moving from SiteGround to Cloudways did this, SiteGround to Rocket.net looks more like this:

LiteSpeed Hosting (NameHero, ChemiCloud, Scala) – all 3 use LiteSpeed servers. For US-based sites, look at NameHero’s WordPress Turbo plan or Scala’s Entry WP Cloud plan since both their US data centers use NVMe SSDs. ChemiCloud’s WordPress Turbo plan is similar but 9/11 of their data centers use NVMe, so there’s more flexibility there. They also have a Turbo Plus add-on which scales cores/RAM from 3/3 to 6/6. Don’t forget to configure the LiteSpeed Cache settings and ideally, use QUIC.cloud’s paid plan which unlike the free plan, uses all 80 PoPs and DDoS protection with full page caching. Hostinger + GreekGeeks also use LiteSpeed, but both have multiple scam reports and I wouldn’t trust hosting my site with either of those.

Cloudways – similar to Rocket.net between cloud hosting, NVMe, MariaDB, Cloudflare Enterprise, and they use Redis Object Cache Pro. However, their Cloudflare Enterprise costs $5/mo and doesn’t have APO, they use PHP-FPM instead of LiteSpeed’s faster PHP, support is worse, and they were acquired by DigitalOcean who raised prices. Still faster than SiteGround (including SG’s cloud hosting) and I was using the Vultr High Frequency plan before Rocket.net.

 

Bye SiteGround

Well SiteGround, we’ve made a lot of money together, but your company has gone completely downhill in so many ways and I honestly hope the near 3,000 customers I referred to you leave like I did. You’re full of shit and every person I convince to leave you brings a smile to my face :)

 

What’s Your Experience With Them?

I’m genuinely curious, leave me a comment and lmk.

If SiteGround works for you, by all means keep using them. But even if their service was good, there’s no way I would support a company who acts like the police, makes a mess, then covers up their tracks with misinformation. The hosting/affiliate marketing space is bad enough as it is.

Cheers to the truth,
Tom

 

Does SiteGround have a slow TTFB?

There have been numerous complaints about SiteGround's slow TTFB in Facebook groups, but many of these posts are deleted since many FB groups are moderated by SiteGround.

Why are SiteGround's prices so high?

SiteGround increased prices twice, once in 2018 and once in 2020. They have also made several changes to cut costs and increase their bottom line, such as disabling live chat and moving priority support to GoGeek. SiteGround is simply trying to increase their profits.

How do I fix CPU usage limits on SiteGround?

Disable WordPress heartbeat, block bad bots, looks for slow queries and error logs, configure a solid cache plugin, offload resources to CDNs, and be careful when using WooCommerce and slow page builders on shared hosting. However, many times you can't fix CPU usage on SiteGround and they tell you to upgrade while holding your site hostage.

What happened to SiteGround's good support?

SiteGround hid their support in the dashboard and added a long scope of work disclaimer to reduce the level of support compared to what they used to offer.

Is SiteGround a good choice in 2023?

My opinion is no. The company is going downhill and the amount of complaints about them in Facebook Groups has increased. They call their changes improvements, but independent forums say otherwise.