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 $6.99/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 $14.99/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 ($14.99/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!
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