Top 7 Best SiteGround Alternatives: For Either Better Or Cheaper WordPress Hosting?
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Searching for the best SiteGround alternatives for your website(s)? SiteGround is a much-loved shared web host and the most popular independent hosting option outside of the EIG and GoDaddy empires.
However, multiple recent price increases, a new dashboard (and a goodbye to cPanel), and some limitations on support options have recently sent a lot of users searching for SiteGround alternatives.
Thankfully, you have plenty of options, and I’ve collected them for you in this post, where I’ll share seven of what I think are the best alternatives to SiteGround:
- Three of these hosts are cheaper than SiteGround, while still offering similar quality and features.
- Three hosts offer better quality hosting than SiteGround, but at a slightly higher price.
- One host can be both cheaper and better, depending on your situation.
↪️ Note: For anyone looking specifically for high-end WordPress-optimized hosting, take a look at this other post of ours comparing The Best Managed WordPress Hosting Services.
If you’re in a rush, here’s a comparison table of my picks, along with their main pros and cons when compared with SiteGround. Keep reading for the full details…
| Host | Starting Price | Main Advantage(s) | Main Disadvantage(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| GreenGeeks | $2.95 a month | Similar performance at a lower price | Nothing major |
| DreamHost | $4.95 a month | Much cheaper and allows cheap month-to-month billing | Performance isn’t quite as good as SiteGround |
| A2 Hosting | $9.99 a month (Turbo) | Turbo plans offer comparable performance at a lower price | The cheap non-Turbo tiers won’t perform as well as SiteGround |
| Cloudways | $10 a month | Better performance at a lower price | A little more complex than SiteGround |
| WPX Hosting | $25 a month | Better performance and support | No cheap entry-level plan |
| Rocket.net | $30 a month | Much better performance and support | More expensive |
| Flywheel | $30 a month (for most sites) | Much better performance and support | More expensive and lower visit limits |
Table of Contents
Why Consider SiteGround Alternatives?
Before talking about the bad parts of SiteGround, let’s talk about what SiteGround does well, because I still think SiteGround is a great host and, in terms of shared hosting, it’s one of the better options out there:
- For shared hosting, SiteGround offers excellent performance. This is especially true on the GrowBig and GoGeek plans, which give you server-level caching. All plans also get access to the SG Optimizer plugin, which offers a lot of the same features you get in the premium WP Rocket plugin (our review).
- Despite some recent hiccups (more on that below), SiteGround still has some of the best support in the shared hosting space.
- SiteGround has done a good job of continuously improving its product. For example, moving to Google Cloud infrastructure, offering staging sites on more plans, launching a custom hosting dashboard, and so on. Whether or not you think those changes justify the price increases, you can’t say the SiteGround team is just sitting around twiddling their thumbs.
However, while there’s still a lot to like about SiteGround, there are also some downsides, which have become especially apparent as it makes a lot of changes.
Price Increase (X2)
The biggest reason to look for an alternative to SiteGround is the price. Over the past few years, SiteGround has had two big price increases.
SiteGround used to be in the same price range as other shared hosts, such as Bluehost and GoDaddy. However, SiteGround is now definitely in a tier above those hosts. So, if you loved SiteGround for its low prices, that may have you searching for alternatives.
To make things worse, SiteGround no longer lets you get the full promo price for three years if you pay for all three years upfront (which it used to allow). Now, you can only lock in the best price for a single year, which means you’ll need to pay the regular price sooner than before.
No More cPanel
As of late 2019, SiteGround moved away from cPanel to its own custom hosting dashboard. Personally, I like the new Site Tools dashboard, so I don’t see this as a con. However, I do know some users were frustrated by this switch and would rather have stuck with cPanel.
If you’re someone who prefers cPanel to the new SiteGround Site Tools dashboard, you can find some good cPanel SiteGround alternatives that cost even less.
Hard-to-Understand Resource Limits
Unlike other shared hosts, SiteGround doesn’t try to ‘massage the truth’ about offering unlimited resources. Personally, I think this is more honest because there really is no such thing as ‘unlimited’ hosting.
However, it’s still tough to understand SiteGround’s limits because SiteGround uses some really technical concepts to limit you, such as CPU seconds. If you’re a casual user, it can be hard to understand what the heck those limits mean or how to reduce your CPU seconds (SiteGround has some tips here).
Additionally, there are a lot of frustrated SiteGround users who keep getting told their ‘CPU usage is too high’ (along with a suggestion to upgrade to more expensive hosting!).
Support Throttling
Personally, I’ve always had great experiences with SiteGround support and think it has one of the better support services in the shared hosting space. However, around 2020, SiteGround started throttling support for users who submitted an ‘above average’ number of support requests.
Again, this is never something I’ve personally experienced (I’ve hosted at SiteGround for three years, but I’ve rarely needed any support). However, it’s an issue I’ve seen pop up in the Facebook WordPress hosting groups.
If you like to reach out to support a lot, you can find other quality hosts that won’t throttle support.
Four Best Alternatives That Are Cheaper than SiteGround
In this first section, I’m going to share cheaper SiteGround alternatives that still offer a hosting product that’s close to the same quality. Some of these hosts may not completely match SiteGround in terms of performance. However, they’re pretty close and they’re a lot cheaper.
In the next section, I’ll cover SiteGround alternatives that I think are just plain better products, while still being around the same price as SiteGround (or maybe a little bit more).
GreenGeeks
GreenGeeks is an all-round solid option for shared WordPress hosting. It kind of reminds me of what SiteGround used to be like before the many changes it implemented over the past few years.
So, if you were a happy SiteGround customer in 2018, but you’ve been put off by the changes, GreekGeeks could bring you back that same feeling.
One of the biggest advantages of GreenGeeks is all of its plans use LiteSpeed Web Server, which offers excellent performance for the money. This also lets you use all of the features in the free LiteSpeed Cache plugin, which is one of the best free performance plugins (and which GreenGeeks pre-installs for you).
Beyond that, here are some of the other notable features you get with GreenGeeks:
- Unlimited websites, storage and bandwidth (excluding the cheapest plan, which does have limits).
- Free SSL certificates.
- Automatic daily backups.
- On-demand backups (excluding the cheapest plan).
- Free email hosting.
- Staging tool (on all plans).
As the name suggests, GreenGeeks also emphasizes using clean energy, with eco-friendly data centers, a 300% green energy match and other eco-friendly commitments.
GreenGeeks’ entry-level Lite plan starts at just $2.95 a month promo ($10.95 a month regular). However, if you want unlimited resources, you’ll want at least the Pro plan, which costs $4.95 a month promo ($15.95 a month regular).
👍 Pros
- GreenGeeks uses LiteSpeed Web Server on all of its plans, which gives you access to similar performance to SiteGround (but at a lower price).
- GreenGeeks is a bit cheaper than SiteGround.
- GreenGeeks use cPanel on all plans.
- You get access to staging sites on all plans, whereas SiteGround only offers them on higher-tier plans.
👎 Cons
- The difference between the GreenGeeks promo prices and regular prices is very large. While the differences aren’t any worse than SiteGround, I think it’s still worth pointing out as a con. Make sure to factor in both prices in your decision.
DreamHost
DreamHost is a well-established host that’s been around since 1996. It offers incredibly affordable shared hosting plans that are still ‘pretty good’, although it doesn’t quite match SiteGround’s performance.
All of its plans come with the following features:
- Unlimited visits.
- Automatic WordPress updates.
- Automatic daily backups.
- Custom hosting dashboard.
- Free SSL certificates.
- 24/7 live chat, phone and ticket support.
DreamHost offers just two shared plans:
- Starter — one website for $4.95 a month promo or $7.99 a month regular with month-to-month billing ($2.59 a month with three-year billing).
- Unlimited — unlimited websites for $8.95 a month promo or $13.99 a month regular with month-to-month billing ($3.95 a month with three-year billing).
It also has managed WordPress hosting plans, called DreamPress, that start at $16.95 a month.
Pros and Cons
👍 Pros:
- DreamHost is a lot cheaper than SiteGround.
- DreamHost’s support quality is close to SiteGround’s level, although maybe a tiny bit behind.
- You can pay month-to-month for your hosting without a huge price increase.
👎 Cons:
- DreamHost’s performance isn’t quite as good as SiteGround’s. You’ll be taking a step backward in terms of performance quality.
- DreamHost also uses a custom hosting dashboard, which is a con if you want a cPanel alternative.
A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting is kind of like what SiteGround used to be — a cheap shared host that offers better performance than its prices suggest.
All* of A2 Hosting’s plans offer the following features:
- Unlimited resources (websites, storage and bandwidth).
- cPanel dashboard.
- Server rewind backups (you should still use a backup plugin though).
- Free SSL certificates.
- Staging sites.
- 24/7/365 support via phone, live chat or email/ticket.
*The entry-level plan does have some resource limits.
A2 Hosting’s shared WordPress hosting plans start at just $4.99 a month promo ($10.99 a month regular) for a single site. However, if you care about performance, I’d recommend upgrading to the Turbo servers, which use LiteSpeed server/cache to offer much faster page load times. These plans start at $7.99 a month promo ($20.99 a month regular) for unlimited websites.
It also offers managed WordPress hosting plans starting at $8.99 a month promo (23.99 a month regular).
Pros and Cons
👍 Pros:
- A2 Hosting is a lot cheaper than SiteGround.
- If you go with the Turbo servers (LiteSpeed), A2 Hosting’s performance is quite good and can rival SiteGround’s.
- A2 Hosting gives you staging sites on all plans, whereas SiteGround only gives you staging sites on higher-tier plans.
- A2 Hosting still uses cPanel, which is nice if you were bummed by SiteGround’s move away from cPanel.
👎 Cons:
- A2 Hosting’s support doesn’t have as good of a reputation as SiteGround’s support.
- A2 Hosting’s cheapest two tiers won’t perform as well as SiteGround — you need to go with the Turbo (LiteSpeed) servers if you want to see comparable performance.
Cloudways
Cloudways is an interesting alternative that could’ve just as well fit in the ‘better than SiteGround’ category. However, it can also be cheaper than SiteGround, depending on your needs, which is why I put it in this category.
The most unique thing about Cloudways is it doesn’t have its own hosting infrastructure. Instead, it lets you choose your own cloud hosting VPS from providers such as DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, AWS and Google Cloud.
Once you make that choice, Cloudways sets everything up and operates much like a traditional host. You’ll also get lots of convenient features, including:
- a one-click WordPress install
- server-level caching for improved performance
- free SSL certificates
- automatic backups (extra fee)
- staging sites
- 24/7 support.
Cloudways’ prices depend on your underlying cloud hosting, with the cheapest option being a DigitalOcean server at $10 a month. All of the plans have no arbitrary website or traffic limits — you’ll only be limited by what your VPS can actually handle.
For slightly better performance, I recommend the Vultr High-Frequency (HF) servers, which still start at just $13. Personally, I just migrated some of my own sites from SiteGround to Vultr HF and have been blown away by the performance.
*Note: Cloudways was acquired by DigitalOcean in 2022, but you’re still free to use other cloud hosting providers beyond DigitalOcean.
Pros and Cons
👍 Pros:
- Cloudways offers excellent performance for a very low price. Even the cheapest plan will load blazingly fast — faster than SiteGround.
- There are no arbitrary limits in terms of websites, visitors, and so on.
- You get lots of useful tools, such as staging sites and automatic backups.
👎 Cons:
- Cloudways is a little more complicated than SiteGround. You certainly don’t need to be a developer, but I wouldn’t recommend it to beginners.
- It can be hard to know which VPS best matches the resource needs of your website(s).
- Cloudways’ support is technically only for the hosting itself — help with WordPress is outside the scope of its support policy (although I’ve found they’ll often help anyway, even if it’s just a link to a relevant article).
- Cloudways doesn’t offer email hosting like SiteGround — you’ll need a separate service to create your own [email protected] email address.
Three (+ One) Alternatives That Are Better than SiteGround
This next group of hosts are better alternatives to SiteGround. They may cost a little more than SiteGround, but they back it up with better performance, features and support.
WPX Hosting
WPX Hosting is an affordable managed WordPress host that make a great option if you want excellent performance and you need to host multiple sites. Unlike a lot of ‘premium’ managed WordPress hosts that only let you have a single site on their entry-level plans, WPX Hosting’s starter plan supports five websites and the following features:
- A built-in CDN.
- Automatic and manual backups.
- Staging sites.
- Free SSL certificates.
- Firewalls, malware scans and DDoS protection.
- 24/7 support via live chat (or phone on higher-tier plans).
Plans begin at $24.99 a month for the below:
- Five websites.
- 10 GB storage.
- 100 GB bandwidth.
Pros and Cons
👍 Pros:
- WPX Hosting offers excellent performance — even better than SiteGround.
- WPX Hosting has excellent support, with 30-second average response times.
- WPX Hosting is similar in price to SiteGround, as long as you don’t need to host more than 15 websites.
👎 Cons:
- While WPX Hosting is similar in price to SiteGround’s GrowBig and GoGeek plans, it doesn’t offer a cheap entry-level plan like SiteGround’s StartUp plan, nor does it have any unlimited website plans.
- WPX Hosting counts staging sites as websites for billing purposes. For example, one production site plus one staging site equals two sites for billing.
- The WPX Hosting dashboard is a little basic compared with that of SiteGround and other managed WordPress hosts.
Rocket.net
Launched in 2020, Rocket.net is a newer managed WordPress host that’s quickly grown in popularity.
The most unique thing about Rocket.net is how it’s built its hosting infrastructure on Cloudflare Enterprise. Rocket.net fully caches your WordPress site’s pages to Cloudflare, which leads to super-fast global load times because your site is able to serve full pages from Cloudflare’s global network.
You also benefit from a lot of other security and performance improvements from Cloudflare, such as an enterprise-level firewall and automatic image optimization (no need to use a separate plugin).
Beyond that, Rocket.net also offers all of the features you’d expect from a managed WordPress host:
- A well-designed custom hosting dashboard.
- Automatic daily backups with 14-day storage.
- On-demand backups.
- Free SSL certificates.
- Easy staging sites.
- Automatic WordPress updates.
- 24/7 support via email, live chat, and phone (phone support is only available on higher-tier plans, though).
Rocket.net’s plans start at $30 a month for the following resources:
- One website.
- 250,000 monthly visits.
- 10 GB storage.
- 50 GB bandwidth.
👍 Pros
- Rocket.net offers better performance than SiteGround. All things equal, your site should load faster on Rocket.net than it would on SiteGround.
- Rocket.net uses Cloudflare in a unique way, which offers a lot of benefits for performance optimization and security.
- Rocket.net’s plans can support higher traffic (in large part because of Cloudflare). This is also a big advantage for Rocket.net when compared with other managed WordPress hosts such as Flywheel (next on the list).
👎 Cons
- Rocket.net is more expensive than SiteGround. While Rocket.net’s entry-level Starter plan is comparable to SiteGround’s GrowBig and GoGeek plans, Rocket.net’s Starter plan only supports a single site.
- Rocket.net doesn’t offer email hosting — you’ll need a separate service to create your own [email protected] email address.
Flywheel
Flywheel is a premium managed WordPress host in the same vein as other hosts such as WP Engine or Kinsta. The reason I’m recommending Flywheel and not those other hosts has everything to do with price.
Despite being premium managed WordPress hosting, Flywheel still offers a plan for just $15 a month, although it only works for low-traffic sites because it has a 5,000-visit limit. The next tier up is $30 a month, which, if you’re willing to pay that much, also makes WP Engine (our review) and Kinsta (our review) two other excellent options to consider.
In terms of the combination of features, performance and ease of use, Flywheel is probably the best option on this list (though Rocket.net is right up there). All of the plans give you the following features:
- A well-designed custom hosting dashboard, including a custom database management tool.
- Google Cloud infrastructure (same as SiteGround).
- Server-level caching.
- A built-in CDN.
- Automatic daily off-site backups and an option for manual backups.
- Staging sites.
- Firewalls and malware scans.
- Free SSL certificates.
- Automatic WordPress updates.
Pros and Cons
👍 Pros:
- Flywheel offers excellent performance thanks to Google Cloud infrastructure, server-level caching, the CDN and other features. In my tests, it was faster than SiteGround.
- Flywheel has excellent support — even better than SiteGround.
- The Flywheel dashboard is well-designed and gives you lots of useful tools, such as staging sites and secure off-site backups.
👎 Cons:
- Flywheel is more expensive than SiteGround. It also bills you based on visits, which SiteGround doesn’t do, and it doesn’t have any unlimited website plans.
- Flywheel bans some plugins, which SiteGround doesn’t do.
- Flywheel doesn’t offer email hosting — you’ll need a separate service to create your own [email protected] email address.
Cloudways
I just want to add Cloudways here again to reiterate that, in addition to being cheaper than SiteGround, Cloudways can also be better than SiteGround, especially if you purchase more powerful underlying cloud hosting.
For example, consider the $42-a-month DigitalOcean plan with the following:
- 4 GB RAM.
- 2 processor cores.
- 80 GB storage.
This plan will give you a lot more power and performance than the comparatively priced $39.99 SiteGround GoGeek plan (at full price). These higher-resource Cloudways plans also make a good alternative to SiteGround’s cloud hosting.
SiteGround Alternatives FAQs
While we can’t get inside the mind of SiteGround’s executives, it seems as though SiteGround wanted to move more ‘up market’ and distinguish itself as being a cut above hosts such as Bluehost and GoDaddy (which were previously around the same price).
SiteGround isn’t overpriced per se, but its value proposition is less compelling since it’s raised its prices. SiteGround’s prices aren’t outrageous for what it offers, but you can find cheaper hosts that offer similar or better performance and quality.
SiteGround’s shared hosting offers better performance and features than DreamHost’s shared hosting. However, DreamHost’s shared hosting is a lot cheaper and is still ‘good enough’ for most people. Therefore, it really depends on how much value you place on DreamHost’s low prices.
GoDaddy’s hosting products aren’t as good as SiteGround’s, which is why it doesn’t make a good SiteGround alternative. If you’re looking for a cheaper SiteGround alternative, GreenGeeks or A2 Hosting are better than GoDaddy.
While Bluehost has done a great job of creating a really nice, beginner-friendly WordPress experience, the performance and reliability of its hosting isn’t as good as SiteGround, which is why I don’t recommend it as one of the best SiteGround alternatives.
No, SiteGround isn’t a Russian company. SiteGround was founded in Sofia, Bulgaria and currently has multiple offices in Bulgaria, as well as one office in Madrid, Spain.
Once you’ve moved your site to a SiteGround alternative, you can cancel your SiteGround account by going to Client Area → Services → Hosting. Then, click Manage next to the plan you want to cancel and select Cancel from the menu. You’ll then need to go through a few steps to finalize the cancellation.
Which Is the Best SiteGround Alternative for Your Needs?
The best SiteGround alternative for your sites obviously depends on your needs, knowledge level and what you’re frustrated with SiteGround about. To that end, I’ll run through a few scenarios and you can pick the one that best fits your situation.
A Casual User Who Wants Something Cheap and Easy
If you’re a casual user and you want something that’s easy to use and cheaper than SiteGround, then I’d recommend you go with one of these three hosts:
- GreenGeeks — my pick for the overall best cheap shared hosting alternative to SiteGround. With good performance for the money, cPanel and solid support, it’s just an overall solid budget option.
- A2 Hosting — use the Turbo plans for comparable performance to SiteGround.
- DreamHost — DreamHost doesn’t perform as well as SiteGround, but it’s a lot cheaper and offers cheap month-to-month billing. Use it if you want the cheapest option for ‘good enough’ performance.
A More Advanced User Who Wants Something Cheap and Fast
If you’re a more advanced user, I’d recommend you go with Cloudways. Cloudways is a little more technical than SiteGround, but still well within the abilities of a non-developer. The upside is you’ll get very good performance at a price that can be lower than SiteGround.
However, I think Cloudways can be overwhelming for total beginners, so I’d recommend beginners stick with one of the three hosts from the previous section.
Any User Who Wants Overall Better Hosting (and Is Willing to Pay)
Finally, if you’re willing to pay a little more than SiteGround for a host that offers better performance and support (and just generally a better experience), then I recommend choosing one of these three alternatives:
- WPX Hosting — it’s still pretty affordable, especially if you have multiple sites.
- Rocket.net — this is a great option if you want managed WordPress hosting, especially if your site has a global audience.
- Flywheel — an especially good option for freelancers or agencies hosting client sites, although anyone can benefit from Flywheel hosting.
Related Reading:
- The Best Managed WordPress Hosting Services Compared – With Speed Tests!
- Bluehost vs SiteGround WordPress Hosting Compared – Which Is Best?
- Flywheel WordPress Hosting – An In-Depth Everything-You-Need-To-Know Review
- Kinsta Managed WordPress Hosting Tried and Tested – Is It Really All That Good?
- WP Engine WordPress Hosting Review – Does It Really Make a Difference?
Used/using any of these SiteGround alternatives? Thoughts?
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When you included Dreamhost on this list, you lost me. I left Siteground and moved to Dreamhost. They should be called nightmare host. My sites don’t take a second or two to load, they take about 15 seconds or more. My traffic dropped like a rock after I moved to Dreamhost. To download a new theme or plugin takes about 6 times as long as it did with I used Siteground. I just can pay Siteground $25/month when I don’t make money from my sites. Dreamhost though is the worst I have used in more than 20 years.
Thank you for this article – it’s very helpful!
If you’re still monitoring here, as an aside, having English and Creative Writing degrees, I found your use of ‘are’ rather than ‘is’ pretty distracting. SiteGround are…WPX Hosting are, as opposed to is.
Thanks also for the links…
Grateful for this clear and well-written overview. SiteGround has effectively shut down its chat, email, and phone support, forcing you to negotiate a maze of possible solutions before they’ll condescend to talk to you. Perhaps understandable in view of the overall economy just now, but frustrating for non-technical users such as yours truly. I had a bad feeling about Dreamhost – friends use it, and performance is good, but when I put out feelers about moving our multiple SiteGround Go Geek sites to DH, they weren’t very forthcoming with help – so I backed off. Looks like A2 might be our best bet when the current year’s SiteGround subscription runs out.
I used SiteGround for many years and was very happy till they made multiple changes especially when they increased their prices. I’ve moved my sites, including our clients’ to another hosting because of SiteGround’s changes. I don’t understand why they doubled their prices. Web hosting should not be that expensive (doubled) just because you improve a thing or two and remove the cPanel. Plus, like this article mentioned, their support has changed, but not for the better. Bye SiteGround – Let me know when you lower your hosting plan prices and bring back the cPanel.
Great review, and completely right about siteground, I am a longtime gogeek user.
I am looking into cloudways, but how do i solve the emailhosting problem?
I’m sorry, but Dreamhost as the #1 alternative is laughable. I’ve been moving client sites off of Dreamhost because I can easily get a 50% improvement in page load speed on Siteground or a cloud server. And Dreamhost’s hosting Dashboard is appalling – even worse than GoDaddy.
Thank you for this. I hate the new SiteGround all together. These look like good alternatives.
I’m currently at wpx hosting but I’m thinking of migrating to Cloudways because the ram is really small when you use Elementor on wpxhosting and the cdn doesn’t always work fine.
I am so glad i found this article. My siteground hosting will expire on April and im looking for a month on month plan. Weighing things if i should go with Dreamhost or A2.
Thanks for this again 😊
Good article. I keep reading that cpanel has gone with siteground, but I use them and there is a link to cpanel. It’s the one I have seen at other sites, so not sure what all those references to NO cpanel mean. Many articles say this what am I missing.
If you’re an existing customer, you still might have legacy access to cPanel, but SiteGround is in the process of moving all their old accounts to the new Site Tools so it won’t last forever. New customers cannot choose cPanel, either.