I’ve been on SiteGround’s cloud hosting since March 2016.
I upgraded from their semi-dedicated GoGeek plan which is sufficient for many mid-high traffic sites, but I wanted mine to load even faster. After all, WordPress speed is my thang.
There were a couple immediate differences when I upgraded to cloud…
- My site loaded about .4s faster in Pingdom (view my report)
- My site stopped getting CPU overages during heavy resource usage
- I now have the option to add CPU/RAM if needed, or use the autoscale feature
If you have questions about SiteGround’s cloud hosting (or any plan of theirs), drop me a comment. I’ve been with them for over 2 years and write about WordPress hosting frequently.
SiteGround Cloud Hosting
- Yes, I Actually Use SiteGround’s Cloud Hosting
- What Is Cloud Hosting?
- 2 CPU, 4GB RAM, 40GB SSD Space
- Autoscale Resources To Compensate For Traffic Spikes
- No CPU Overages Or Overclocking Your Server
- Isolated Resources Mean Better Uptimes And Security
- Additional Features That Come With Cloud Hosting
- How I Reduced My Load Time To .4 Seconds In Pingdom
- What Other People Are Saying About SiteGround Cloud
- It’s The Bomb If You Can Afford $80/Month
Affiliate Disclaimer – if you sign up for SiteGround with my affiliate link I will donate a good chunk at no expense to you. Each year I donate $3k to GoFundMe campaigns (2018 was to feed the hungry in Denver, 2017 was to Red Cross at Hurricane Harvey). Your support helps and I genuinely appreciate it. I try to make my reviews unbiased and backed by evidence in the form of Facebook polls, tweets, and real conversations. If you don’t want to use it, here’s a non-affiliate link to SiteGround. Either way I truly believe they are a stellar WordPress host and your site will run faster/smoother… do your research on Facebook groups + Twitter and you’ll find most people say the same.
1. Yes, I Actually Use SiteGround’s Cloud Hosting
Here’s the email I got when I upgraded…
2. What Is Cloud Hosting?
Definition:
Allows unlimited number of machines to act as one system. Other hosting solutions (shared or dedicated) depend on one machine only, while cloud hosting security is guaranteed by many servers. The cloud technology allows easy integration of extra resources, such as space or RAM and thus enable website growth.
Cloud hosting can sometimes perform better than dedicated hosting solutions
That means your site will have it’s own isolated resources and won’t be affected by issues going on with sites you would have otherwise been sharing servers with. These isolated resources plus higher CPU + RAM improve speed, security, and handling of traffic spikes.
You’re sharing servers with hundreds of other websites which reduces performance. This is fine for smaller websites on a $3.95/month budget but isn’t ideal if you want better speed, security, and reliability.
Cloud Hosting
Your website is hosted on a network of servers as opposed to 1 single server. If one fails, others will compensate. At $80/month you can expect better load times, security, and uptimes during traffic spikes.
Also called SiteGround’s GoGeek plan, semi-dedicated is 4x faster than regular shared hosting for just $11.95/month. This is an excellent plan for those who don’t want to pay $80/month for cloud hosting.
Dedicated Hosting
Primarily for high traffic websites requiring powerful CPUs and RAM. SiteGround pricing is $229/month and comes with VIP support including ongoing software updates, 24/7 monitoring, and quick tech assistance.
Who Is It For?
The applications depend on your site but cloud hosting is usually for medium traffic sites that can have 100 users online simultaneously. Or you run a complex site that needs more CPU, RAM, and disk storage than shared hosting plans. It’s for resource-hungry applications and websites that need special server configuration settings, like PHP running as Apache module. Or for me, it’s if you want to take your site to the next level of speed, uptimes, and security.
3. 2 CPU, 4GB RAM, 40GB SSD Space
SiteGround’s cloud hosting comes with 2CPU + 4GB RAM by default. This should be plenty for most sites but if you run a high traffic site or just need more resources to make your site faster and compensate traffic, you can login to your cPanel and add more (eg. during peak seasons). You can also set your plan to autoscale if your servers need it (and get a notification if it does).
CPU – (central processing units) handle and execute programs. When multiple requests are made on your website, they are queued in a line. Multiple CPUs process these faster, thus making your website faster. Think of it like an Intel Core i7 for your computer, only for your website. 2 CPU is usually plenty, but with cloud you always have the option to upgrade.
RAM – temporarily stores data and command instructions, then passes it along for computation. Just like you would add an extra slot of RAM to your laptop, adding RAM to your cloud hosting plan is one of the best things you can do to make your website load faster.
Storage – check how much storage you’re using on your current hosting plan (usually be found in the cPanel). Then add the necessary amount to your cloud hosting plan.
Upgrade Anytime – you can monitor your memory in the SiteGround cPanel to see if your server is stressed (it’s always on the edge of your limits). If this happens you can more RAM or CPU if needed. This was when their minimum plan was only 2GB RAM and I upgraded to 4GB:
4. Autoscale Resources To Compensate For Traffic Spikes
If you have peak seasons or want to compensate for traffic spikes, you have the option set your cloud hosting account to autoscale (increase CPU + RAM) should your website get a large amount of traffic. Otherwise your site would run very slow or shut down (like shared hosting).
To do this, login to your SiteGround cPanel and click Autoscale…
Then simply create an event based on your needs…
5. No CPU Overages Or Overclocking Your Server
The with SiteGround’s shared hosting is your website can be temporarily shut down due to CPU overages. This means you exceeded your plan’s resource limit and can be caused by installing a bad plugin, enabling a CDN (content delivery network) like you would in W3 Total Cache, or just bad code. This actually happened to me when I was on shared hosting.
You are NOT likely to get this on cloud hosting (CPU overages usually happen on medium traffic sites using shared hosting). Even though you can avoid this by reducing executions, SiteGround’s CPU limits on shared plans are often not enough for those medium traffic sites.
6. Isolated Resources Mean Better Uptimes And Security
Since you’re not sharing servers with other websites, you won’t be effected if something goes wrong with their. With cloud hosting there is much less risk of running into technical issues.
7. Additional Features That Come With Cloud Hosting
SiteGround’s cloud hosting comes with the following features:
- Backups
- Priority support
- Automatic updates
- Free hosting migration
- Back & restoration service
- Unlimited hosted websites
- WordPress-related support
- High amount of email storage
- Security and spam prevention
- 4 data centers to choose from
- SiteGround’s speed technology
- SiteGround’s uptime technology
- SSD (solid state drives) for speed
- CDN (content delivery network) for speed
- NGINX servers, HTTP/2, PHP7, and HHVM for speed
- Free domain name, SSL, WordPress autoupdates, email storage
Plus everything listed on SiteGround’s cloud hosting page:
8. How I Reduced My Load Time To .4 Seconds In Pingdom
I wrote a pretty popular WordPresss speed optimization tutorial but your cache plugin and hosting are the 2 main factors. If you can drop $49 on WP Rocket it was the #1 rated cache plugin in this Facebook poll and is easy to setup using my WP Rocket tutorial which also shows you how to add Cloudflare + StackPath’s CDN. Combine this with SiteGround’s cloud hosting and your website should load blazing fast. If you prefer to use a free cache plugin I also have a tutorial for WP Fastest Cache and W3 Total Cache (the 2 top rated FREE cache plugins). I would use one of those over SiteGround’s SG CachePress plugin as they got me better results.
Here’s my website…
And it has a .4s load time in Pingdom…
9. What Other People Are Saying About SiteGround Cloud
@SiteGround your cloud hosting rocks. Really is a noticeable improvement over GoBig. Are there any iPhone apps to keep check of server perf?
— Andrew (@andrewmcsweeney) October 24, 2015
@SiteGround One month completed in siteground.. Happily renewed our cloud hosting packages.. :) Thank you soo much..
— StudentProjectGuide (@projects_buzz) November 1, 2016
.@SiteGround is our #Website #Hosting God! Just upgraded to the Business Cloud service with two CPU Cores and my site is flying! Thanks!
— Reality Crowd TV (@RealityCrowdTV) March 11, 2015
Thanks @siteground for upgrading my Cloud hosting account: serious performance improvement! pic.twitter.com/eke2S80lj5
— Simon Kloostra (@simonkloostra) March 18, 2014
Just signed up for @SiteGround cloud to move away from @hostmonster/@bluehost. Thanks @norcross @syedbalkhi @corymiller303
— Michael Torbert (@michaeltorbert) February 26, 2016
@Siteground blowing it out the Water with HHVM on their Cloud Hosting Plans https://t.co/jgCb3wVTEd #bizitalk #hosting #vps #cloud
— Jonathan Griffin (@thebesthostnews) May 23, 2015
I’ve deserted Hostgator after 10 years. Now moving everything over to Siteground cloud hosting.
— Sue Bride (@sueken) September 15, 2015
Need #managed #WordPress #hosting ? @SiteGround ‘s new scalable cloud #vps is great. I use it for all my wp sites. http://t.co/dcxNBZJxci
— Mark Cyrus (@markcy_) April 30, 2015
Love it! @RealityCrowdTV @StephenCaggiano good thing we switched our @SiteGround package to their Cloud solution :). Website traffic up!
— Manolis Sfinarolakis (@AverageJoeVC) March 4, 2015
@EricHamm switched to a @SiteGround cloud vps and performance and support is really awesome!
— Hans Swolfs (@Photastic) October 11, 2014
@gsterling I'm a huge proponent of #managedwordpresshosting Flywheel is great, but I've been using @SiteGround's cloud hosting and love it.
— Chris Ratchford (@prodentite) July 14, 2016
10. Conclusion: It’s The Bomb If You Can Afford $80/Month
Remember, SiteGround will migrate your hosting for free so all you have to do is choose your plan then send them your login info. You can also call them directly at 1-866-605-2484.
If you run a relatively smaller website and are looking to improve load times without paying the $80/month, their GoGeek plan is cheaper ($11.95/month) and is semi-dedicated hosting which gives you 4x more server resources than their other shared hosting plans. So if SiteGround’s cloud hosting is a budget breaker, try GoGeek… you can always upgrade!
View SiteGround’s Cloud Hosting
Check Out My Other SiteGround Reviews
SiteGround Cloud Hosting
Summary
SiteGround cloud hosting starts at $80/month and is what I’ve been using on my WordPress site since 2016. I added a few CPUs/RAM which was more expensive, but made a huge difference. After upgrading to PHP 7.3 which they newly released, my site now loads ridiculously fast (click through my pages or run my site through GTmetrix/Pingdom if you like) which will show <1s load times and near 100% scores.
- Speed
- Autoscaling
- Cloud Technology
- Price
Overall
Pros
- Cloud hosting is sometimes faster than dedicated
- Autoscale resources during periods of high traffic
- Isolated resources improve speed, uptimes, security
- Much less likely to get CPU overages (common with shared)
- Comes with tons of features included in SiteGround’s shared plans
- SiteGround was rated the #1 host in 10 different Facebook polls
- SiteGround’s industry-leading speed technology makes your site faster
- SiteGround’s support team actually helps you solve issues in a timely manner
Cons
- $80/month can be pricey for some
- CPU overages can still happen on cloud hosting, but is unlikely
Desi Technical says
Hi Tom Dupuis,
After reading your review, I have transferred my site from Bluehost to Siteground. Truly siteground hosting service is very good.
Not only that, I have read your others post too. Your guidelines are really awesome.
I have seen the hosting review on a lot of websites and blogs, but only few websites have a right and true review. You are also one of them.
Thanks
Swarajit Biswas says
Great tutorial. I’m really considering moving to Siteground cloud host, but I’m not sure how cloud hosting compares to VPS hosting.
What do you think about VPS hosting?
Tom Dupuis says
I need to update this tutorial. Cloudways is better for cloud hosting than SiteGround – it’s faster at a fraction of the cost. I just published this yesterday and need to updated my hosting recommendations to reflect it: https://onlinemediamasters.com/cloudways-review/
Jillian says
Thanks for the review..I like siteground from the start. Now I am in GoGeek plan. I used WpRocket … Should I enable the SG Cachepress for better speed? Do you think it really works?
Thank you!
Tom Dupuis says
I would test SG Optimizer to see if you gives you better load times. If not, don’t use it, but it’s worth a shot. I use WP Rocket + SG Optimizer and am thinking about deleting it so long as my scores stay the same.
Jillian Bell says
Thank you for the reply. Your website is full of speed, seo and speed resources.
Willi Olsen says
Hi Tom,
Thank you so much for great content. I’ve been following you for more than a year now.
My page has some traffic but I decided to upgrade shared Siteground to cloud hosting.
Probably the reason was the shared hosting quality was fluctuation.
Anyway, I’ve upgraded. It appears the page is slower now.
In order to achieve better speed, I’ve reinstalled WP Rocket + SG Cache. Requests increase but speed increases too.
But my question for your is regarding the HHVM. Does Siteground Cloud still include HVM?
Tom Dupuis says
Ah it looks like they don’t support it anymore so the main use for SG Optimizer is to upgrade PHP versions, and caching if you want to use it. Will update the articles to reflect that.
lux says
Hi Tom,
Awesome stuff, I have been looking at your articles intensively for the past couple of days.
A quick question: you mention you don’t use SG cache right?
Do you only have one plugin activated (right now I have SG cache, Super Cache and Cloudfare as well, definitely worried it’s a conflicting overkill).
Thank you Tom!
Tom Dupuis says
Hey Lux,
Glad you like the tutorials :)
I actually use both SiteGround’s SG CachePress and WP Rocket. I believe SiteGround says you shouldn’t because of them conflicting like you said, but using both got me the best results in GTmetrix/Pingdom and there’s no issues with my site. I also use Cloudflare/MaxCDN. I had my developer/speed optimizer review everything to make sure I set it up properly but that’s what I use now :)
caseybella says
Thaks for sharing the amazing information with us. its really help me in getting some knowledge. keep it up you are doing a great job.
Arun gawande says
Wow nice and informative article thanks for sharing keep up good work
Dharmendra Kumar says
Thanx Brother
Tom Dupuis says
Of course :-)
Dharmendra Kumar says
Hi Tom Dupuis,
After reading your review, I have transferred my site from Bluehost to Siteground. Truly siteground hosting service is very good.
Not only that, I have read your others post too. Your guidelines are really awesome.
I have seen the hosting review on a lot of websites and blogs, but only few websites have a right and true review. You are also one of them.
Tom Dupuis says
Thanks for saying that Dharmendra. I am a true believer of them. I’m so glad you are having a great experience!
Cameron says
I have been doing some research on cloud computing and have found really great reviews of Site Ground as a hosting company in general. One thing I can’t seem to understand is the difference between Sitegrounds $80/month hosting plan and why a site like HostGator offers a cloud hosting service for 14.95$ a month at their highest tier? Host Gator cant be offering the same service even though they have the same name? Any help would be much appreciated.
Tom Dupuis says
I actually Tweeted SiteGround and they said…
The price of our Cloud package covers not only the optimal performance it provides to your site, but 24/7 support lines, upgrades and custom-built features to make managing your website even easier!
… I don’t know how other hosting companies offer it for so cheap but obviously HostGator, Bluehost (EIG) you’re probably not going to be happy with their performance/support. So I trust SiteGround and am currently using this plan – it’s a lot of $ but couldn’t be happier.
Adrian says
Good article, but I have seen that its web in Google Speed is slow. Check the following: In our test, the server responded in 0.64 seconds. How is it possible? I’m looking for information on siteground cloud servers, but still with php7 and https2 it’s slower than my cloud servers without new technologies.
Tom Dupuis says
Hey Adrian,
What websites are you running the test on, and do you have any screenshots, etc of the test? I know my TTFB (time to first byte) is around 251ms in the GTmetrix timings tab and although it’s not a perfect indicator of server speed, it’s still a decent one and is fast. But I did also add an extra 1GB of RAM.
Jume deen khan says
Hi Tom Dupuis,
After reading your review, I have transferred my site from Bluehost to Siteground. Truly siteground hosting service is very good.
Not only that, I have read your others post too. Your guidelines are really awesome.
I have seen the hosting review on a lot of websites and blogs, but only few websites have a right and true review. You are also one of them.
Thanks
Tom Dupuis says
I appreciate you saying that Jume. So glad to hear it’s working out with SiteGround! I try to just lay out the evidence and let people decide for themselves. Let me know if you have any questions about the SEO/speed tutorials! Glad to help.
Alisa says
hey there,
I am moving off a dedicated, I decided to go with the Cloud option over the Go-Geek Plan. I see from your review you are very happy with them. Did you do any transfers with their team initially ? Or did you do this yourself?
What makes you believe the cloud option on Site Ground is better than WP Engine. The one thing (I know it maybe minor) that WP doesn’t do full DNS as in Email. i don’t like that fact and I know with moving there could be downtime which I cannot have. So just looking for a bit more info from someone who has been with Site Ground.
I will agree the customer support is insanely good!!!! Basically why would you pick the cloud over WP Engine ? Any thoughts? Thanks for your time in advance and this was a great read!
Tauseef Alam says
Hi,
Siteground Cloud hosting looks expensive for my project.
I need a hosting service that can handle 400-500 visitors per day, that’s it.
The only thing I am looking for is the SPEED. I need a hosting service that is FAST and helps my site load quickly. Any recommendations?
Odira Ndubuisi says
Great tutorial. I’m really considering moving to Siteground cloud host, but I’m not sure how cloud hosting compare to VPS hosting.
What do you think about vps hosting?
Tom Dupuis says
Here’s a comparison. SiteGround Cloud will probably be better but pricier, another option is their semi-dedicated hosting which I’ve used and is nice/fast.
Karlo says
Hello, all i want is that my website loads faster. Do you recommend Sitegrounds Gogeek, or Hostgators wordpress business cloud, since the price is nearly the same. Thank you!