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By: Alexandra Anderson
Editor: Lillian Castro
Reviewer: Cristian Lopez
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★★★★★
With an impressive breadth of overall hosting services offered, SiteGround is a leading innovator in the hosting space — from custom software solutions to premier customer support. The company offers the full range of web hosting features, including a free in-house SiteGround CDN, Site Tools with SSH access, and unlimited MySQL databases and bandwidth — not to mention prize-worthy customer support. CEO Tenko Nikolov and CTO Ivo Tzenov, SiteGround Co-Founders, gave us the inside scoop on SiteGround's features and took us through the solutions they've engineered to enhance the user experience. Customer service has long been the company's claim to fame, behind custom solutions built to make the hosting experience as stress-free as possible. SiteGround engineered an in-house chat software that allows users to select and rate thoroughly vetted customer service agents with whom they've worked previously. The company wrote its own ticketing system, as well, which comprises an algorithm designed to select appropriate technical support representatives for specific tasks. The end result is instant replies to phone calls and chats, and 10-minute responses to email tickets, all of which contributes to a 99.7% customer satisfaction rate. For shared hosting, SiteGround conceived a one-of-a-kind server isolation system that prevents vulnerable servers from taking down entire networks. In place of VPS hosting, the company built its own cloud container platform, featuring thousands of containers and top-notch scalability and security. All SiteGround hosting service users benefit from a unique downtime prevention mechanism, which has helped SiteGround develop a reputation for stellar uptime rates: 99.996% annually and 99.999% monthly.
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★★★★★
A fast-growing web hosting provider laser-focused on performant WordPress hosting, Flywheel serves experienced designers, developers, and agencies a beautifully designed hosting experience with the muscle to back up the good looks. More than a pretty face, Flywheel appeals to a more experienced customer base that understands the importance of a technology stack specifically tailored to hosting the world's most popular content management system. Instead of trying to be all things to all hosting customers, Flywheel employees put all their effort into managed WordPress services — there is no email hosting, no domain services, no website builder, and no built-in ecommerce tools. Those limitations might frustrate mainstream hosting consumers, but the more tech-savvy Flywheel customers should have no problem arranging the services they need. As avid WordPress users ourselves, we appreciate Flywheel's dedication to optimizing WordPress hosting. Flywheel deploys each customer on its revamped cloud platform, meaning each user receives ample computing resources, stability, and security. With instant, automatic scalability, the company's infrastructure is never overcrowded or overtaxed. In business since 2012, the host based in Omaha, Nebraska, doubled its staff in 2016. In addition to software developers and designers, Flywheel employs numerous Happiness Engineers and Customer Success Specialists to ensure happy hosting experiences. We appreciate that Flywheel prioritizes customer support so much that it developed its own proprietary systems. Instant chats and email tickets are never more than a click or two away, but phone support is only available to customers that spend $250 or more per month. Even better, however, the company recently expanded its support availability beyond regular business hours. Plus, we trust someone to promptly respond to our inquiries at all times of day, unlike other mainstream hosts that tout 24/7 support but make you wait an hour.
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★★★★★
#4 out of 10 in Cheap Hosting reviews Providing hosting with the perfect balance of technological innovation and superior customer support, SiteGround offers a range of affordable hosting services to meet your needs. In addition to the expected cheap web hosting perks — a free website builder and unlimited bandwidth — the company specializes in custom-built tools to deliver strong and positive user experiences. Although SiteGround prices itself on the high-end of the shared hosting spectrum, the upgraded SSD-powered infrastructure and additional perks make its service well worth the investment. In addition to included SSL certificate, daily backups, and a content delivery network, SiteGround delivers a top-notch blend of speed and security. SiteGround developed its own ticketing system and custom chat software, allowing you to chat with trusted and capable representatives with whom you've had success in the past. The software takes in about 1,500 chats on any given day. The website itself receives about 1 million visitors per month, with users coming for both tutorials and knowledgebase articles written and updated by the tech support team. Once a month, SiteGround tests competitors' and its own support levels with dummy accounts, measuring response times, attitude, and effectiveness. If a competitor is doing something well, SiteGround's team takes note and tries to improve its own services.
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★★★★★
When it comes to VPS hosting, SiteGround does things a little differently. Instead of managing a typical virtual private server network, the company created its very own cloud platform built from the ground up. Although the services are similar to a VPS, with shell access included, it's much more scalable. The hefty price tag certainly jumps out at potential customers, however, making SiteGround's cloud product a major investment. The company's top-tier infrastructure and customer support certainly back up the cost, but the platform may not be the right step for first-time VPS customers looking to take a small step beyond shared hosting. That said, SiteGround's managed cloud hosting includes thousands of containers and is much faster than most products you'll find on the market. A single cloud instance can be provisioned, up, and running in seconds. The container platform behind the cloud hosting isn't the only in-house technology the company has up its hosting sleeve. Instead of using third-party programs, SiteGround developers write almost all of the platform's software themselves. Among SiteGround's many custom solutions is a unique server isolation system that shields servers from falling victim to the vulnerability of single, corrupted accounts. SiteGround was the first to develop such a mechanism. The company also created its own backup system, which runs daily backups in about an hour; a downtime prevention mechanism that has yielded stellar uptime rates; and its proprietary SuperCacher, which offers four caching options for optimum load times. With each custom innovation that SiteGround has engineered, customers have reported being pleasantly surprised by how much the technology simplifies their hosting experience. SiteGround's cloud hosting service is no different. The company offers all the hit features they're known for, plus the added scalability and security that surpasses most VPS hosting providers. If you're ready to move beyond shared hosting, and want to do so with a king of customer service and tech solutions, look no further than SiteGround's cloud hosting.
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★★★★★
Flywheel takes an interesting approach to web hosting by giving each customer a fine-tuned cloud environment perfectly optimized for WordPress. The company rebuilt its infrastructure from the ground up, partnering with Google Cloud Platform to provide the high-availability hosting and dedicated resources needed to power high-traffic sites. Flywheel offers single-site or bulk hosting plans, referring to the number of WordPress installations allowed. The $13-per-month price tag for the most affordable single-site plan will seem a little steep for novice customers who are used to seeing shared hosting, unlimited websites, and costs less than $5 per month. The added infrastructure, resources, and managed support, however, make Flywheel an excellent deal for developers and designers with more discerning tastes. Flywheel starts single-site hosting plans with 5GB of storage and 250GB of bandwidth, along with a free site migration and SSL certificate. Traffic is limited to 25,000 monthly visits with the most basic plan, but Flywheel won't shut off your site if you go over. With the infrastructure optimized for speed, Flywheel engineers also devote ample time to security. Servers are configured with WordPress security best practices, and server-level blocking and scanning services prevent brute force attacks and protect core files. If a site does become infected, Flywheel will remove the malware for free. Flywheel's partnership with Sucuri means customers get world-class malware scanning, and the company's intelligent IP blocking detects attackers within seconds and prevents them from attacking the network.
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★★★★★
#4 out of 9 in WordPress Hosting reviews Want a hassle-free, WordPress-optimized hosting service? SiteGround has thought of everything you need to get your site up and running. Starting with the essentials, users get free email accounts, site transfer, SiteGround CDN, and the Site Tools control panel. Then the company makes it simple for you to start rolling out content by offering an easy, automated WordPress installation and a unique and powerful WordPress Starter program that walks site owners through site setup. The custom tool helps customers choose from professionally designed themes and add key functionalities likee a contact form, online store, portfolio, or other content. Selections are automatically installed on the site, delivering a fully-functional website in minutes — without any tech expertise required. SiteGround's WordPress hosting also features automatic updates to the core and plugins, with built-in, multi-layer WordPress caching built-in, as well. Users can easily test and deploy changes to their site with single-click staging, and Git is available for version control. SiteGround's unique downtime prevention software monitors servers' statuses in real-time and resolves more than 90% of server issues instantly and automatically. Many competitors can take an average of five to 20 minutes to detect an issue, plus up to 20 minutes to react and resolve the exploit. From in-house solutions on the technical side to warm and unwavering support from a customer service angle, SiteGround has crafted a complete package for any hosting need. For WordPress-specific hosting, the company offers popular perks you wouldn't get with other shared hosting providers. Get started with all of the awesome freebies and prepare to be blown away by SiteGround's commitment to building hosting solutions intended to make your WordPress experience easier than ever.
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★★★★★
It seems rather obvious (and repetitive) to say that a web host that solely hosts WordPress sites excels at hosting WordPress — but it's true. In addition to revamped infrastructure optimized for the world-famous content management system, Flywheel offers several proprietary, one-of-a-kind services that extend WordPress hosting beyond traditional norms. We're suckers for hosts that provide WordPress staging environments, and Flywheel has one of the best — no need for an additional server or plugins. Users can push and pull changes between production and staging environments with just one click of the mouse, in addition to selectively merging the database or just themes and plugins. Staging environments are the perfect way to test how new plugins or updated versions of WordPress will affect your website. Flywheel further streamlined the design and development process when it acquired popular local WordPress development platform Pressmatic, eventually relaunching it as Local by Flywheel. Local™ removes the technical headaches of configuration and debugging local environments and allows for one-click WordPress installations, flexible infrastructure, simple root access, and shareable URLs. We also appreciate that Flywheel enables designers, developers, and agencies to package together commonly used themes and plugins for rapid, automated configuration of new sites and projects. Blueprints can be saved and deployed with speed and simplicity, empowering you to focus on a client's specific needs and customizations. In addition to free site migrations and fine-tuned cloud architecture, Flywheel further expands WordPress hosting with performant server-side FlyCache solutions and full-featured, free demo sites. Everything is controlled from a gorgeous, easy-to-use interface. All your sites are hosted and accessible through the admin portal, meaning you don't have to remember all the different logins for sites you manage. Traditional hosting customers might miss the standard cPanel installation, but Flywheel's platform was clearly designed for people passionate about well-crafted user experiences.
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★★★★★
#6 out of 9 in Website Builder Hosting reviews Do you know you need to build a website but don't know where to begin? Well, SiteGround will give you not one, but two extremely popular and user-friendly options to create the online presence of your dream. Plus, customers start off with unlimited email accounts, site traffic, and database storage options — all for free. Whether you're transferring a domain or want a relatively hands-off experience starting your very first site, you'll find helpful support at every turn. SiteGround hosting includes easy installations for your choice of content management system, including WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and Magento. The company's WordPress experts will even migrate your site for you — a seamless transition with zero downtime — or first-timers can benefit from their in-house setup wizard. Alternatively, SiteGround gives each customer access to the ultra-popular Weebly drag-and-drop site builder and hundreds of professional templates. Once you're up and running, custom ticketing and chat systems have been engineered and implemented to provide you with pleasant and tech-savvy customer support 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. SiteGround also conducts daily site backups, using an in-house system that can run backups in about an hour, compared to rival technologies that can take up to half a day to operate. Whether you're a hosting newbie or a site-building savant, you can trust SiteGround to provide you with a hosting and website-building combo that is simple to manage and pleasant to troubleshoot.
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