SiteGround GoGeek Review (Avoid): Garbage Plan And 1 Year Renewal To Get You Sucked Into A Bad Hosting Company

I migrated my website to SiteGround’s GoGeek hosting in February of 2015.

I started on Bluehost then eventually upgraded to GoGeek which is semi-dedicated hosting and roughly 4x faster than StartUp. That is the biggest difference between GoGeek and their other shared hosting plans – the amount of server resources you get which is the main factor when it comes to hosting and site speed. Your website will load faster with the higher plans.

You can see a StartUp vs. GrowBig vs. GoGeek comparison chart on SiteGround’s features page which also shows you the extra server resources you get under the “we allocate the resources you need” section. But I will go over these in my SiteGround GoGeek review… with GoGeek you basically get more server resources, 1-click staging to create demo websites, 10GB more storage than GrowBig, and SiteGround will restore your website for you if needed.

If you have any questions or want to leave your own feedback of SiteGround’s GoGeek hosting, leave a comment below. But I do think it’s an awesome plan for those who want super faster hosting for $14.99/month, but don’t feel like paying $80/month for their cloud hosting.

Yes, I Have Used This Plan

You think I would write a review of a hosting plan I haven’t used just so I can make an affiliate commission? Nah, that ain’t me. I only write reviews of things I have actually used. Here’s the email SiteGround sent me after I upgraded from from their GrowBig to GoGeek plan…

SiteGround GoGeek is the same thing as their semi dedicated hosting:

Here’s what other people say:

SiteGround GoGeek Is Good If…

• You want more server resources (faster website)
• You want to host multiple websites with priority support
• You want higher limits on your storage, database, and email
• You want SiteGround support to restore your site for you if needed
• You want a pre-installed Git which allows you to create repositories
• You want to use their PCI compliance to help prevent credit card fraud
• You want other features that come with SiteGround plans listed below…
• 30 daily backups, automatic updates, free domain, and hosting migration
• Actual 99.99% uptimes with quick (priority) support that actually helps you
• NGINX servers, SSD drives, 4 data centers, Cloudflare and other speed technology
• Security protection from a team who constantly updates servers during new threats
• You can pay $14.99/mo for awesome hosting, but don’t want to pay $80/mo for cloud

Semi-Dedicated Hosting = 4x Faster

If you look at SiteGround’s features page under “we allocate the resources you need” you’ll see that as you upgrade plans you also get about 2x the amount of server resources. GoGeek has the highest amount of server resources and is about 4x faster than lower shared hosting plans.

Here’s how many server resources you get with each plan (also listed on the features page):

SiteGround says this about GoGeek’s server resources…

Limited number of GoGeek users are hosted on each server. Thus we are able to provide up to 4x more server resources than on the lower shared hosting plans.

.4s Load Time – my site loads ridiculously fast on GoGeek (view Pingdom report).

Cloudflare CDN – don’t forget to activate Cloudflare in your cPanel which makes your site even faster. This comes with all SiteGround hosting plans, but definitely make sure you do this.

Turn on aggressive caching, minify code, and Railgun for even faster load times.

If you’re running WordPress and want your site loading as fast as possible, avoid using SiteGround’s caching plugin (SG CachePress) and use W3 Total Cache instead. It has better ratings and should make your WordPress site blazing fast especially if you use my popular W3 Total Cache guide which has over 200 comments. It shows you how to setup the different “performance” tabs on the left of your dashboard once W3TC is installed, plus Cloudflare and MaxCDN. It also has a pre-configured zip file you can upload to W3TC with the same settings I use. This is an AMAZING combination and can easily improve load times by multiple seconds.

Speed Optimization Tips (Outside Of Hosting)

• Minimize WordPress plugins, Joomla extensions, etc
• Configure the W3 Total Cache plugin with Cloudflare/MaxCDN
• Use a lightweight theme, like a Genesis theme from StudioPress
• Run your site through GTmetrix to see unoptimized images on the page
• Resize large images (GTmetrix will tell you the correction dimensions)
• Specify image dimensions in the HTML or CSS (GTmetrix will also tell you)
• Use Imagify to losslessly compress all images on your website in bulk
• Run the P3 Plugin to diagnose large plugins, replace them with lightweight plugins

WP Rocket and WP Fastest cache are also good, and I wrote tutorials for those too.

Let’s Encrypt + Wildcard SSL With PCI Compliance

If you need eCommerce hosting, GoGeek comes with features StartUp and GrowBig don’t have including a free Let’s Encrypt SSL, Wildcard SSL (for use on subdomains), and PCI compliance for safer credit card processing. SiteGround supports most major shopping carts.

SG-Git For WordPress Repo Creation + Pre-Installed Git – creates a Git repository of your WordPress installation, which you can edit on local branches. Deploy updates and show differences between your local source code and your production or staging site. Pretty geeky.

StartUp vs. GrowBig vs. GoGeek Comparison Chart

A full comparison of SiteGround’s shared hosting plans can be found on the features page:

Priority Support: Tickets Usually Answered Within 10 Minutes

SiteGround’s GrowBig and GoGeek plan come with priority support where tickets are usually answered within 10 minutes, or I can call SiteGround and speak with them instantly. I’ve only had 1 issue and they resolved it immediately. Their team actually logged into my WordPress site and helped me configure the Wordfence Security Plugin to block spammy bots crawling my site. Their support knows more than just hosting – they’re incredibly knowledgeable with WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, themes, plugins, and other components of running a website.

Tickets are answered super fast.

GoGeek Reviews From More SiteGround Customers

SiteGround = #1 Host In Multiple Facebook Polls

At $14.99/month GoGeek is cheap compared to their cloud hosting ($80/month) and dedicated servers ($229/month). It’s the perfect balance if you want a super fast website but don’t want to pay an arm and leg for hosting. It should be perfectly capable of running a high traffic website or multiple smaller sites without you having to worry about resources getting consumed and websites getting shut down (a common problem with other cheaper plans).

Fast hosting is the #1 thing WordPress recommends in their optimization guide so while you can setup caching, optimize images, etc. You still have to rely on your hosting to provide enough server resources to make your site load fast. And that’s where GoGeek comes into play. I contribute my .4s load times partially to SiteGround’s GoGeek hosting, but keep in mind there are other ways to make your website load fast. If you’re running WordPress you can find additional tips in my tutorial: Why Is WordPress So Slow And How To Get .4s Load Times.

I hope my SiteGround GoGeek review helped you choose a plan… it’s definitely worth the extra few bucks a month if you want a fast website. And remember, SiteGround will migrate your hosting for free so getting started is as easy as buying a plan and sending your logins.

View SiteGround GoGeek

 

SiteGround Alternatives

I originally left SiteGround for Cloudways Vultr High Frequency and posted my results in the WordPress Hosting Facebook Group. But that Facebook Group (along with several others) is now run by SiteGround’s affiliates, so join WP Speed Matters if you want less biased feedback.

Since then, I moved to Rocket.net who is even faster. Unlike SiteGround’s shared plans, Rocket.net and Cloudways Vultr HF are cloud hosting with Cloudflare Enterprise (faster than APO alone), NVMe storage (faster than SATA), Redis (faster than Memcached), and MariaDB (faster than MySQL). And unlike Cloudways, Rocket.net has a lot more resources (32 cores + 128GB RAM) with APO and LiteSpeed’s PHP. In fact, Rocket.net is so fast that they average a <100ms global TTFB which you can test in KeyCDN or SpeedVitals. If yours is slow, you need to rethink your hosting/CDN setup since those are 2 main TTFB factors. Another solid tool to test hosting performance is the WP Hosting Benchmark plugin. TTFB is also 40% of your LCP score.

Maybe you haven’t heard of them because they don’t go aggressive marketing, but here’s an email I got, read this Facebook thread, or see other people who moved from SG to Rocket.net.

Curious to why they’re faster, I made this table.

	SiteGround GoGeek	NameHero Turbo Cloud	FastComet FastCloud Extra	Cloudways Vultr HF (2GB)	Rocket.net Starter
Type	Shared	Shared	Shared	Cloud	Private cloud
Websites	Multiple	Multiple	Multiple	Multiple	1
Visits/mo (est.)	400,000 (very unlikely)	50,000	400,000	2TB bandwidth	50GB bandwidth
Server	Apache + Nginx	LiteSpeed	LiteSpeed	Apache + Nginx	Apache + Nginx
Cores/RAM	Not listed	3 cores/3GB	6 cores/6GB	1 core/2GB	32 cores/128GB
Storage	40GB / SATA	Unlimited NVMe	35GB / SATA	64GB / NVMe	10GB / NVMe
Database	MySQL	MariaDB	MySQL	MariaDB	MariaDB
Object cache	Memcached	Redis	Memcached	Redis Pro	Redis
PHP processor	FastCGI	LiteSpeed	LiteSpeed	FPM	LiteSpeed
PHP workers	CPU limits common	Efficient with LiteSpeed	Efficient with LiteSpeed	No limit	No limit
DNS	Internal (previous issues)	Use QUIC	Use QUIC	DNS Made Easy ($5/mo)	Cloudflare
CDN	SiteGround CDN	QUIC.cloud	QUIC.cloud	Cloudflare Enterprise ($5/mo)	Cloudflare Enterprise
CDN PoPs	176	80	80	285	285
CDN Tbps	Not listed	Not listed	Not listed	192	192
Full page caching	✓	✓	✓	x	✓
Smart routing	Anycast	Geo-routing	Geo-routing	Argo	Argo
Image optimization	Very limited	via QUIC	via QUIC	Mirage/Polish	Mirage/Polish
Image resizing	x	x	x	via Cloudflare	via Cloudflare
Cache plugin	SG Optimizer	LiteSpeed Cache	LiteSpeed Cache	Breeze	x
Email hosting	✓	✓	✓	x	x
Major incidents	TTFB/DNS/CPU issues, but denies them	2011 2-day node outage	2022 DDoS attack on 3 data centers	None	None
Migrations	$30/site	1 free	3 free	1 free + $25/site	Unlimited free
TrustPilot rating	4.6/5	4.6/5	4.9/5	4.6/5	4.9/5
CDN price	$7.49/mo	$.02 – .08/GB	$.02 – .08/GB	$5/mo	Included
Intro price	$5.99/mo	$9.98/mo	$5.49/mo	$30/mo	$25/mo when paying yearly
Renewal price	$39.99/mo	$19.95/mo	$21.95/mo	$30/mo	$25/mo

 
If the websites/storage/bandwidth limits are too low, there are still better shared hosts than SiteGround. NameHero’s Turbo Cloud and FastComet’s FastCloud Extra both use LiteSpeed servers which means you’ll use LiteSpeed Cache + QUIC.cloud CDN (arguably the fastest setup on a budget). Unlike FastComet, NameHero uses NVMe/Redis, but their data centers are only in US/EU. If your visitors aren’t close to there, use QUIC.cloud CDN’s paid plan which uses 80 PoPs + full page caching, or use the FastCloud Extra plan from FastComet who has more data centers.

These are all faster than SiteGround, but they’ll never admit it.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between SiteGround GrowBig and GoGeek?

SiteGround GrowBig comes with less storage, server resources, and it doesn't come with GIT or priority support. GoGeek comes with all those features.

Which SiteGround plan is best?

The best SiteGround plan depends on your budget, but GrowBig is their most popular plan since it's only $2/month more than StartUp and comes with lots of extra features.

What is semi-dedicated hosting?

Semi-dedicated hosting is a balance between shared and dedicated hosting. Since you're sharing servers with less people than you would with shared hosting, more resources will be allocated to your website, making it load faster.

Is GoGeek worth $35/month?

GoGeek is probably not worth $35/month after your promotional price expires. At that price, you can get a faster cloud server from a different provider. SiteGround is more for smaller to medium websites for the 1-year promotional period.

Is priority support worth upgrading to GoGeek?

No. SiteGround's regular support is still extremely fast and helpful. Priority support is even faster, but it doesn't make a big difference unless you are constantly using support.

How many visitors can GoGeek handle?

SiteGround recommends ~ 100,000 monthly visitors for their GoGeek plan, but this is an estimated number. It depends on your plugins, traffic, concurrent visitors, and how much CPU your website is using. If you're running resource-hungry plugins or WooCommerce, you will need a higher plan even without considering monthly visits.

 

Check Out My Other SiteGround Reviews