SiteGround vs WPEngine: Which One To Choose in 2022

Every business, idea, and prominent interaction in the digital domain most likely has a dedicated website today. Websites make your presence relevant and your services credible with a formal collection of information for people to visit.

WordPress, being a popular choice for creating websites with readily available templates, grows the demand for WordPress hosting providers in the market. Several factors, including speed, security, performance, and other features, can help you decide which service to go for.

This article unravels a comparison between Siteground and WP Engine, two of the most popular WordPress website hosting provider options based on their performance, ease of use, security, pricing, and other features specific to each provider. You will also read about storage options, WordPress-based features, and other customer support-based interactions and how good these are for each brand.

Before getting into the specifics, here is a brief overview of the two WordPress website hosting providers with some general pros and cons.

Siteground- Overview

Related: SiteGround Reviews 2023 – When (& When not) To Use It

In general, Siteground is suitable for you if your priority is to access different feature resources such as storage, multiple websites, and multiple visits at the most affordable costs. It also stands out due to its optimized speed and security features, daily plug-in updates, and backup features that are all important performance tests of practical use in any hosting server.

Before getting into the nitty-gritty, let us have a look at some highlights of Siteground features that are relevant in the hosting industry:

• Siteground offers a readily automated WordPress installation feature, handy for those new to the platform.
• It enhances the user’s experience with several advanced development tools, GIT integration, and other convenient cross-platform features.
• It provides free Cloudflare CDN and SSL certificates.
• Automatic daily backups and well-managed WordPress updates are included.
• The Siteground Migrator plug-in allows free site transfers and integrations to WordPress.
• Siteground offers robust security features such as a server firewall and SSL protection.
• With the provision of unlimited email accounts for your site, companies can get really good use of all these features.

WP engine – Overview

WPEngine can be a great pick if your functionalities are limited to WordPress and not many integrations are required. WP Engine is a hosting provider that hosts WordPress sites exclusively with all its features to improve site management on WordPress. This is why it is naturally more popular with WordPress folks who find target features for their intended platform.

If you’re a WordPress user, browse through some of these primary WP Engine provisions to find a match with your use case. Some specifics of WP Engine as a web hosting service include but are not limited to:

• WP Engine offers an automated migration plug-in, which is a handy hosting feature.
• WordPress updates and backups are also automated, making site management ten-fold easier.
• A dedicated WooCommerce plug-in makes it a great option got those with business integrations and a store as a primary purpose of hosting.
• Additional integration with SFTP and GIT makes it a versatile web host for varying requirements.
• WP Engine offers a dedicated Cloudflare CDN to promptly facilitate a content delivery network.
• It also provides an SSL certificate as a web hosting security protocol.
• Other advanced functions like built-in caching, robust customer service and other WP Engine features improve user experience.

Siteground vs. WP engine – Pros and cons

Have a look at some pros and cons of both hosting platforms to get a fair idea of which of these hosting servers would suit what you need. While both web hosts offer some similar functions, their contrasts can be seen as follows:

 Siteground Pros:

• It has no limitations on the number of sites you can host with a fair disk space available for the same.
• It is suitable for scaling up to larger traffic with the GoGeek plan, perfect for dealing with large diversions of website traffic.
• When it comes to the Google search engine Siteground vs. WP Engine analysis, Siteground checks all the boxes for basic hosting services and affordability.

Siteground Cons:

• With an equal space allocation for any number of sites, the feature can prove to be redundant after a certain number of sites.
• Siteground doesn’t offer the best loading speed compared to WP Engine-Siteground vs. even other contemporaries out there.
• When assessed for migration, Sitergound-WP Engine provisions mark out Sitergound as the robust and more affordable choice for customers for transfer services.

Wpengine Pros:

• It offers excellent disk space with a decent number of sites allowed on a single plan.
• WP Engine offers robust speed performance to customers who seek to prioritize better loading speed.
• WP Engine offers 24/7 support via live chat and optimized security as a shared hosting service.

Wpengine Cons:

• • There is an upper limit to the number of sites that can function on a single hosting. If you want to cater to more than 30 sites at once, this is a great option for you.
  • In terms of Google search engine Siteground vs. WP Engine, it holds limited reliability and popularity as per Google Trends.
  • In all web hosting plans compared to Siteground-WP Engine prices, all WP Engine WordPress hosting plans are much higher prices with equal or lesser functionalities in provision for the site.

Related: How to Choose the Best WordPress Hosting in 2023

Significant aspect comparisons for Siteground vs. WP engine

In order to get to the root of the best performance in different aspects, a thorough comparison was indeed required! It would be practically impossible for every new user to use both Siteground and WP Engine for prolonged periods to come to a conclusion. So, we did that to bring the verdicts and winner in each aspect to you. Read along to know more about significant hosting service aspects and how WP Engine and Siteground fared in each!

Round 1 – WPEngine vs. Siteground: Available Storage

For any VPS hosting, the first and most obvious ground for comparison is the storage that they offer. The available storage determines how many team members can get on board with the same plan and helps you estimate the disk space that is to be the minimum requirement from your hosting provider.

While both Sitegroung and WP Engine offer different plans with different storage options, the difference is stark and clear on this front. Siteground offers plans with 20GB unlimited site storage and 40GB for unlimited sites. On the other hand, WP Engine facilitates 20GB for 10 sites and 50GB for 30 sites.

VERDICT:

No one winner can be declared for this round as it really depends on what you need. While web space for WP Engine is more with a limited number of sites, one usually doesn’t require more than 30 sites in any case. Give a point to your preferred choice depending on what your priority is. For this article’s case, we’ll consider a point for the more practically popular case – WP Engine.

Round 2 – WP engine vs. Siteground: Ease of Use

Round 2 will compare the ease of use for these hosting companies, which is a fair ask from any hosting provider. This includes cPanel interactions, the control panel, site management, and other peripheral Siteground WP Engine functions.

As a hosting provider, Siteground employs its own dashboard instead of using cPanel. This feature makes it much easier to use in its current iteration. Site management is also optimized with individual site manipulation made possible. In the case of WP Engine, a dedicated interface is set to manage the WordPress hosting account, which is superbly flexible and easy to use.

VERDICT:

Both Siteground and WP Engine have incredibly well-designed and easy-to-use interfaces. Siteground offers additional selective functions and a white-label version that enables a sophisticated handling mechanism. Though this is a close call, the winner is Siteground owing to some additional polished provisions.

Round 3 – WP engine vs. Siteground: Traffic Adaptation

The next round is dedicated to what is most important for your website to be successful – the site traffic! Being a WordPress hosting provider, how much traffic a host can entertain is a deal-breaker or maker. One important factor that helps determine this is the bandwidth that both hosting companies provide.

If we compare Siteground and WP Engine for this round, we have a clear winner. Unfortunately, despite its targeted services for WordPress, WP Engine has its limitations when dealing with website traffic, which remains to a maximum of 400,000 per month on one of its most advanced Scale hosting plans priced at $241/ each month.

Siteground, on the other hand, provides an unmetered visiting pattern with its GoGeek plan that is specifically designed to cater to a large influx of traffic, permitting 100,00 visitors only at $11. 95 per month.

VERDICT:

Owing to the GoGeek plan alone, Siteground is a clear winner and takes away the point for this round. While WP Engine offers greater options at a much greater price, plus custom plans, Siteground definitely offers a better deal for handling website traffic.

Round 4 – Siteground vs. WP engine: Better Loading Speed

Coming to the next important feature for managed WordPress hosting companies – Speed. An optimized loading speed is always desired, whether it is WP Engine, Siteground, or other hosting services. This is a tricky feature to figure out as no speed is claimed by either of the host platforms, and testing statistics are the only factors to rely on for the same.

However, the results over repeated tests and use by different users are unanimous and crystal clear. While WP Engine tends to offer faster speed in some data centers such as DC and Dallas, Siteground offers a good speed in data centers in the US, UK, and Netherlands. In any case, the WP Engine Personal Plan delivers the fastest loading in comparison.

The factor to be considered here is the better price range and more uniform instances of good speed that WP Engine offers, making it stand out in this comparison of WP Engine-Siteground functions for the customer.

VERDICT:

The point for this round goes to WP Engine hosting services for providing the better speed performance for the majority of data centers and, in general, at the facilitation of merely the Personal Plan. Thus, the website traffic and loading speed have contemporary winners here!

Round 5 – WP engine vs. Siteground: Migration Features

After website speed, hosting migration features are important to analyze amidst Siteground-WP Engine provisions. Especially for working in tandem with file transfers, data warehouses, and databases, migration features are instrumental.

Both WordPress hosting providers provide inclusive migration functions. They offer different plans and price points, which becomes one significant factor to consider amongst the customers.

While WP Engine has one Automated Migration plug-in to cater to all migrations specifically, it doesn’t come without one of their dedicated hosting plans for their customers. Siteground allows one free migration while all consequent migrations from Siteground are priced at 30$ each.

VERDICT:

In any case, it is fair to say that both offer free site migration in one instance or another. Thus, one winner cannot be picked for this feature. Both get the point for facilitating site migration promptly. You could pick the one that suits you need more than all others.

Round 6 – Sitegroung and WP Engine: Scalability

Scalability is a top requirement of all features that WordPress hosting companies can cater to for the dedicated site of their customers. When assessing a WordPress website’s scalability metrics, several factors such as additional cloud hosting facilities, custom plans, and other essentials can be looked at.

Siteground extends shared hosting plans with up to 100,00 visitors allowed each month at up to $40. There is an additional SiteGround Cloud Hosting plan that enables to scale up the processing, storage, and other functions. The custom plans under Siteground could be more on the expensive side.

WP Engine’s shared hosting plans and the site scalability options rise to $272 a month, and custom plans cater to 1 million visitors at a much higher price.

VERDICT:

In general, both WP Engine and Siteground provide scalability options to varying ranges and at different price points. Give a point to whichever option seems better for your website. For this comparison, we will consider a point for each.

Round 7 – WP engine and Siteground: Security Features

WordPress websites, especially e-commerce sites, definitely require robust security and all other functionalities. In fact, security becomes a significant priority for a WordPress site dealing with personally identifiable information and all other significant data sets regarding their customers. For companies to prioritize this requirement, standard security is deemed for the site on WordPress.

Talking about security, both Sitegroung and WP Engine offer SSL certificates, a secure File Transfer Protocol, and an SSH connection. The latest PHP 7 version is also featured in both for blocking actors and brute force attacks on the system. The only slight difference that can be pointed out is regarding the plug-in filtering that WP Engine carries out to avoid any slightest bit of malware from anywhere.

VERDICT:

Nothing is to say that with SSL certificates and other security protocols met, one of these services has better security than the other. This point is given to WP Engine, merely owing to some additional innovative security measures.

Round 8 – Siteground vs. WP engine: Performance

How your WordPress website will perform in functioning with Siteground or any other hosting service for that matter is a naturally important factor to analyze for the site. Several factors can determine site performance.

To begin with, Siteground provides an interface of its own instead of cPanel, which optimizes the performance at the interface level. The control panel is also inclusive of this interface, making managing these facets much easier.

While WP Engine provides several features to optimize the website’s uptime and speed, Siteground definitely optimizes the overall performance with its high-quality, responsive server and easy-to-navigate interface.

VERDICT:

This point clearly goes to Siteground, which holds a better performance record in worldwide bulletins and boards. Siteground emerges as the clear winner for this round.

Round 9 – Siteground and WP engine: Customer Support

Oftentimes, getting these hosting service providers to work promptly requires prompt customer service. This includes live chat options, a dedicated support team, etc., which are indicators of this customer support. While both Siteground and WP Engine have a live chat, support team, and other services in the provision, what becomes the decider here is which of the two respond more promptly.

When tested and experienced by most users, Siteground customer service proved to be slightly more responsive and well-staffed compared to WP Engine. There have been instances of WP Engine responding well. However, an overall result leans towards Siteground.

VERDICT:

The point for this round goes to Siteground with its more responsive and functional customer care. Despite both platforms having some live chat and support team options, popular use wins Siteground this round.

Round 10 – Siteground vs. WP engine: WordPress Features

Round 10 is dedicated to summing up the general functions to indicate which hosting provider caters to WordPress better. Whether it is available for SSD storage, internal integrations, or other functions, for those who are focused on WordPress, there is one more dedicated and rigorous platform for the same.

Siteground is easy to install, provides automatic system updates for WordPress, free automatic plug-ins and SG optimized in-build caching, a GoGeek plan for traffic optimization, along adequate migration plug-ins. In the case of WP Engine, functions of easy installation and automatic updates are supplemented with WP Engine caching, staging functions, and some pretty sophisticated plug-ins, even though some add-ons are paid.

VERDICT:

Owing merely to the variety of WordPress functions available, this point goes to WPEngine. WPEngine beats the other and becomes a winner for this round.

Before proceeding with the last and final round, accumulating all points from the previous rounds, Siteground stands a winner for ease of use, migration, traffic, scalability, performance, and customer service, with 6 points. At the same time, WP Engine won the storage, speed, security, migration, scalability, WordPress functions rounds, and stands with 6 total points as well.

The last round can hence be a technical decider. However, you should consider the above points as per your preferred functions, especially where tied.

Round 11 -Siteground vs. WP engine: Plans and Prices

Finally and importantly, what you spend on these services is significant, however good they may be. This round will pick out the more affordable option; however, your choice could be driven by which option seems to be worth the money for your use case. Siteground, in general, is more affordable than WP Engines, with all basic, intermediate and advanced plans in consideration. Have a look at the detailed Siteground and WPEngine plans:

Siteground:

 

It presents three main plans, including a basic plan termed StartUp, an intermediate plan – GrowBig, and an advanced plan – GoGeek. There is also a 30-day money-back guarantee. The plans are listed as follows:

StartUp Plan- $3.99 per month

• Up to 10,000 monthly visits
• 10 GB of web space with unlimited website hosting.
• Free SSL, CDN with unmetered traffic, and unlimited databases.
• Daily backup
• Managed WordPress

GrowBig Plan- $6.69 per month

• Up to 25,000 monthly visits.
• 20 GB of web space with unlimited website hosting.
• Free SSL, CDN with unmetered traffic, and unlimited databases.
• Speed boosting caching
• On-demand backup functions

GoGeek Plan- $10.69 per month

• Up to 100,000 monthly visits.
• 40 GB of web space with unlimited website hosting.
• Free SSL, CDN with unmetered traffic, and unlimited databases.
• Staging and Git.
• White label clients.

 Wpengine:

WpEngine includes three main, distant pricing plans and an additional custom plan. Money-back is guaranteed for 60 days of 10 GB disk space and 30 Gbs of the domain. The plans include:

StartUp- $20 per month

• Up to 25,000 monthly visits.
• 10GB available storage.
• 50GB monthly bandwidth.
• Intended for 1 site.

Growth – $ 77 per month

• Up to 100,000 monthly visits.
• 20GB available storage.
• 200GB monthly bandwidth.
• Intended for 10 sites.

Scale- $193 per month

• Up to 400,000 monthly visits.
• 50GB available storage.
• 500GB monthly bandwidth.
• Intended for 30 sites.

Custom- custom pricing

• Up to 1 million monthly visits.
• 100GB – 1TB available storage.
• Over 400GB monthly bandwidth.
• Intended for 30 sites.

VERDICT:

While it is subjective how much you are willing to pay or have budgeted for your website hosting, this round has been decided on a feature and pay basis. While WPEngine does have a range of innovative functions and an elaborate custom plan that can cater to several scalability requirements, Siteground does offer a good range of functions for a much better price. Due to this difference alone, Siteground gets the pricing point.

With 7 points in total, Siteground emerges as the overall winner for this comparison, whereas WPEngine is a close second at 6. This gives a general idea of pros and cons, but your count can definitely vary depending on functionalities more important to your use case.

Final thoughts

Siteground vs. WP Engine is neck and neck comparison to observe. While it cannot be settled which web hosting provider out of the two is clearly superior, one can clearly mark out some contrasting features, each suited for a different take on your WordPress site management.

While speed and optimized SSD storage might be a priority for some, others might be looking for easy-to-integrate WordPress features. A particular user might require easily shared hosting plans or perhaps a prompt customer support team to integrate these features without technical knowledge. Thus, the use case of hosting providers varies greatly, and so do their provisions.

The final verdict can be declared, keeping a few things in mind. If you’re looking for better traffic management, user experience, and performance in general, then Siteground is a clear winner. On the other hand, if security measures, available storage, dedicated WordPress plug-ins, and other WP Engine features are what you need, then that will be the emerging winner.

The idea is to rely on a hosting server response that fits the bill for you. We hope the feature-wise comparison of Siteground vs. WP Engine helps to find a managed WordPress hosting server response that is the closest to fitting your needs and your idea of an optimally managed WordPress site.

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