Hello.

I am currently on Hostgator and I am very happy with them at $10 per month. But I have seen many advertisements by SiteGround which caught my attention, under $5 per month with more space.

I do not plan to stop using Hostgator but would like to try another host for a future website using Drupal of course.

Any feedback... good or bad regarding SiteGround would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

Comments

Kate-dupe’s picture

Hello Newbie8,

SiteGround will offer you the best hosting services for a Drupal website! With them you will get Drupal Tutorial , exclusive Drupal support, and of course (if you want) free Drupal installation! Currently, they host over 1, 000 Drupal websites and we do a lot to prove ourselves as a qualified Drupal Host!

You can review their Drupal Hosting Plan and learn more about the features it includes. If you have additional questions you may contact the sales department by either visiting the live chat system or using the toll free phone – 1 800 828 9231.

orick’s picture

Is it "they" or "we"? If you work for the company, just be clear about it and tell us. We don't mind. :)

trogie’s picture

Hello,

I'm a siteground user for +1 year now. I have good feedback on them but they recently 'upgraded' my shared host. It's a much better and faster server now but there also seems to be a 30seconds http timeout. Uploading a 100kB picture for a story is not possible anymore and I get connection resets...
Custom php settings don't help, it seems to be an apache or even firewall config.

This is a major issue to me, if they don't chance that policy I'll be looking for another hostcompany soon...

Trogie

trogie’s picture

Hmm... they don't seem to have any clue where this timeout comes from... And I'm getting more and more clueless too, not a php setting problem, there is no process or socket limitation,...

trogie’s picture

OK, I found out that another server of siteground did not have this problem and they proposed me to migrate to that server. The migration went fast and now everything is back ok for my site!

No hard feelings anymore :-)

Trogie

andrewfn’s picture

Siteground moved me to another server but didn't upgrade the PHP upload limits. I pointed this out to them and they resolved it immediately. This may well be the source of your problem.

I have been using the company for a year, with 8 sites, and am very pleased with them. You certainly can't beat the price. If you sign up with them, would you mind clicking through my link to get me credit: s1te.org.

trogie’s picture

Yes, my problems have all been solved too! We didn't find the real problem but on another server the upload limit is not there anymore and I cant find any other configuration settings neighter... very strange...

Daran-1’s picture

see her comment in this node.

midtoad’s picture

The automated Drupal upgrade service provided by Druapl for upgrading me from 4.6 to 5.3 deleted my entire files directory with 2 years of user submissions and photos in it! Now I have to pay $39.95 for a system restore. That's bad design.

modemlooper’s picture

I kid you not each month they say I go over bandwidth and charge more when there is no way we are using the amount the stated on sign up. We don't have that much traffic to the site. It's ridiculous.

STAY AWAY FROM THIS HOST!

HSN’s picture

Hello,

Can anyone recommended to me which web hosting company is the best for Drupal CMS? I am planning to change my web host as my current hosting company had so many downtime affecting my website www.homeshoppingnetwork.biz. Please vote your poll here. Your vote is much appreciated.

Soon after christmas we will be switching to a new web host. I can't make up my mind as they are so many out there.

Thank you.
================
My Veriuni Shopping Blog
http://veriuni.blogspot.com

Matt Simpson’s picture

I'm considering siteground right now... and was actually filling out the account registration form, when I started reading closely the Terms of Service... This caught my eye... I'll go and study my current size requirements closer... But I was hoping that 40Gig was going to be 40Gig... and that I didn't have to ballance that across file types. I talked to the sales rep. We basically determined that other accounts could be used for some storage and referenced via the primary account. But if the database ever got over 5Gig, that this would not work.

=== (quote) ===

Customer's use of disk space

Customer's account disk space is limited in accordance with the Customer's hosting plan. The maximum allowed space for shared Linux Hosting is 40,000 MB. The following disc space limitations for different file types are also applicable:

1. NO more than 5,000 MB of a Linux shared hosting account can be allocated to music, video or other multimedia files including but not limited to avi, mp3, mpeg, jpg, gif files.
2. NO more than 5,000 MB of a Linux shared hosting account can be allocated to any archive files, including but not limited to .rar, .zip, .tar, .gzip files.
3. NO more than 5,000 MB of a Linux shared hosting account can be allocated to databases dumps including but not limited to .sql files
4. NO more than 5,000 MB of a Linux shared hosting account can be allocated to disk images files containing the complete contents and structure of a data storage medium or device. These include but are not limited to .ISO, .NRG, .CCD, .IMG, .SUB, BIN/.CUE
5. NO more than 15,000 MB of a Linux shared hosting account can be allocated to text files, documents, source code and html. These include but are not limited to .txt, .doc, .htm, .php, .pl, .c .
6. NO more than 5,000 MB of a Linux shared hosting account can be allocated to Executable files and all other files which are the result of compiling a program. These include but are not limited to .exe, pdf, psd.
7. NO more than 5,000 MB of a Linux shared hosting account can be allocated to the email accounts associated with this hosting account.

JohnForsythe’s picture

Wow, that's one ugly ToS.. Do they really consider photoshop (.psd) and acrobat (.pdf) files as executable files?! :O

Any host that tries to pull something like that is not trustworthy, imho. Just gives them plenty of excuses to dump people who actually want to use what they pay for..

sirestudios’s picture

Sorry to rehash an old thread, but if you can avoid them, then by all means AVOID SITEGROUND.

I have 9 accounts with them, totally more than $2100 in revenue for them, and I have CONSTANT email problems. Not to mention, when one of my sites got popular, they simply took it down without ANY warning.

There is NO PHONE NUMBER FOR TECHNICAL SERVICE.

My brother renewed a VPS without my permission, so I called and asked for them to cancel it. They said it was impossible. Then, I found out they DOUBLE CHARGED ME after I recieved 3 emails saying an auto-renew had failed. I still have not received a receipt for this. After days of negotiating, they finally refunded the purchase which they renewed without even telling me. The fact you can only pay on a month-by-month basis shows that even they are unsure if their VPS or Dedicated service will be up and running.

I am taking all of 9 my websites from them and going to a hosting company that cares.

Worst customer service in the world. If you want to get a hold of them, you have to talk to sales and THEN complain. It appears they love talking to non-existing customers but hate talking to existing ones. F-.

micromouse’s picture

Yep...all the negative comments about Siteground above are well founded...I'm especially glad someone posted their actual TOS up there. OK...so they OFFER you 750 GIGABYTE of disk space...that's SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY!! And TERABYTES of bandwidth!! There's the bait...now for the switch...if you actually USE LESS THAN ONE PERCENT OF THE RESOURCES YOU PAID COLD, HARD CASH FOR, they summarily cancel your account, delete your data without any hope of obtaining a backup and you lose EVERYTHING without warning and without apology. I can cite 13 living examples of this and will gladly provide you with e-mail addresses for folks who can share their miserable experience with these dirtbags. Can you imagine buying 75 acres of land and then find out if your house exceeds .5 acres of it, the city will take it away and leave you homeless??? It's the same deal here. Jesus chris...if you can't exceed 5 gig on your email, database/application, archives, audio, video, text and picture files each (I think that's every single file type there is) then by their own math, your total drive consumption cannot exceed 45GB of space. So how can they offer 750GB????? It boggles the mind!!!!!

The most insidious part is when you get in and realize they've disabled core CPanel functionality like BACKUPS (wouldn't want you to have those...after all, they wouldn't have much fun deleting your account then, would they?) and force you to PAY THEM AGAIN to get the scripts back!!!

Fudge SiteGround, man. RUN for your LIVE in another direction and use someone, ANYONE else. I use GoDaddy and their shared service really sucks the mighty one...no CPanel and only an in-house, no utility, totally locked down Admin panel (no small business could ever live with their service) but I'm WAY happier there than I could ever be with SiteGround...GoDaddy is GOLD compared to SiteGround's brown-stink.

merid’s picture

SiteGround really sucks!!!

They will tell you anything even lie to you in writing. Once you are registered and have paid, they don't let you go before they took at least $24.95 of your money. Avoid this hosting company if you don't want a head ache!!!!

tburton’s picture

I don't share the same vehemence as other posters, but I have to say their service has been very uneven. They mucked up the installation of an add on domain and it took me about 6 months to get it all cleaned up. The service ticket system is designed to drive you mad and don't believe the stuff about knowing about Drupal. Any time u have any thing slightly unorthodox they wont go near it unless you pay. Occasionally you get a support person who goes out of their way but in my experience that is rare and too often I was amazed at what they had not checked. I think it is a case of you get what you pay for. I am an amateur techie so really needed a host that could help me on sometimes basic stuff. Site ground is not that hosting company

kayaker’s picture

I was with Siteground for a year and a half. Initially, their servers were fast and everything was fine. However, when I added two new accounts in February, I ended up on overloaded servers.

The ONLY way to communicate with them is to say that your site is down. I've had Web sites for over ten years and call the hosting company maybe once a year. With Siteground, you CANNOT call them.

In the past two weeks, I have moved four hosting accounts away from Siteground.

dutler’s picture

check out this presales chat snippet with sg's senior sales engineer from 29FEB2008 2:30pm mst:

tom: ok.... the next question was about some quite neg feedback about you guys at drupal.org

tom: Im hopping for and explanation.... also there apears to be a poster that is an employee of sg, but trying suggest unbiasness....

Kremy: Where did you read that feedback. We actually sponsored the Drupal conference last year

tom: right, but thats jsut cutting a check... very differnt than user reviews

Kremy: can you give me the link?

tom: top two search results:
http://drupal.org/search/node/siteground

tom: http://drupal.org/node/140062

Kremy: Well Tom we host about 150, 000 websites at the moment and we cannot satisfy all customers

Kremy: since people have different expectations

tom: welll that assumption is the only reason im chatting here now :D

tom: the most disconcerting thing was the poster "kate"

tom: an apparent empolee of sg?

tom: does sg have a standard policy of how employee participate in communidy forums?

Kremy: I haven't heard of such policy of our company

Kremy: I can see only one post from Kate about the Tutuorial

tom: having an employee act like there not employees in community forums is a pretty big deal.... just a sec ill give a link

tom: http://drupal.org/node/84935

SiteGround offers the best Drupal services!
Kate - October 27, 2006 - 08:05

Hello Newbie8,

SiteGround will offer you the best hosting services for a Drupal website! With them you will get Drupal Tutorial , exclusive Drupal support, and of course (if you want) free Drupal installation! Currently, they host over 1, 000 Drupal websites and we do a lot to prove ourselves as a qualified Drupal Host!

You can review their Drupal Hosting Plan and learn more about the features it includes. If you have additional questions you may contact the sales department by either visiting the live chat system or using the toll free phone – 1 800 828 9231.

tom: should read the reast of the thread....

Kremy: Apparently there is no problem for SiteGround to advertise their services on Drupal.org since we're partners with drupal

Kremy: however the decision is all yours

tom: the senirio i presented is a matter of company honesty.... was kate acting on her own.... or as part of company stratigy? is this kate person still working at sg?

Kremy: I don't know this person and even if I knew it this is confidential information. It might not be an employee of SiteGround

tom: here she claims she is: http://drupal.org/node/13383
Hi,
I am a representative of SiteGround Hosting Services and we would like to make a special discount for Drupal Users.

Our plan is fully compatible with Drupal CMS. We have many customers who have chosen Drupal for managing their websites.

Here is a special promo link you can use to order account with $10 OFF the price:
Order Hosting with $10 OFF - For Drupal.org Members

Please, use this link or contact our live chat for more info!

Kate Michaels
www.siteground.com

tom: here is is honestly... provided her association

tom: the only thread she tried to act like she wasnt part of sg

tom: so, is it just her, or is this a company wide issue....?

Kremy: Tom, different companies advertise their services on different websites and I don't think there's something wrong to make a statement about a recent service like she did. It is not a policy of our company

Kremy: Do you have any further pre-sales questions I can help with/

tom: ok... if you dont see the ethics issue in an employ pretending not to be an employee to promote the product... than my question is anwswered

Kremy: ok

Kremy: bye

esllou’s picture

I'll say one thing about web hosts....ALL web hosts.

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.

you pay something ridiculous like $5 a month, you get $5-a-month quality service. It really isn't rocket science.

j11t’s picture

Scam artist.....I have had not only a database deleted, but terrible customer support. You have to pay for EVERYTHING..backups etc. They take away features on cpanel so they can sell them back to you. Stay away..I wish I had. Try hostmonster, I've had a better experience with them, though you have to pay to access mail....

itsa’s picture

I host my websites with Dotster and Siteground. I did the switch to Siteground only to have access to more RAM (32 megs...) vs Dotster with 16 megs. This way, I can embed my Gallery2 into Drupal. But I am thinking about paying more to upgrade my Dotster account and maybe get the VPS package for $30 a month.

Some stuff I don't like about Siteground:
1- they recently updated cPanel and it now causes a bug with Horde so we cannot use the redirect function under the webmail interface.
2- yes, they advertise big amounts of disk space available but you are limited to a ridiculous 5 gigs depending on file type. yack!
3- I fint the ftp access very slow to respond. Also web pages could load faster.

Only thing I don't like with Dotster so far on the shared ip is the amount of RAM we have access to. 16 is not enough and should be 32 at least...

Anybody else is with Dotster and want to comment?

Thank you,
itsanogo

merid’s picture

I don't know about Dotster, but I have never seen unethical cheaters like Seiteground. Everybody I spoke to has a terrible experience with this Web hosting Company. It is like throwing your money away.

jcl324’s picture

j11t,

I'm looking at moving to Hostmonster. Could you elaborate on having to pay to access email? I see no reference on their website....

JCL

JCL

cherylchase’s picture

See this article discussing Siteground's marketing tactics. They create a large number of apparently neutral hosting review sites, each of which compares SG against a handful of very small players, leaving out the main competitors. Surprise! SG is always rated very highly. Each "review" site links to SG, but not to any other vendor.

http://www.alledia.com/blog/seo/siteground.com-and-their-search-results-...

silverwing’s picture

I think there's a point where ethics and deceit come into play, and that Siteground has crossed the line into deceit. What wont they do for a buck? And I understand that web 'review' sites make money off of affiliate links, but this is just wrong on so many levels.

And the fact that they support Drupal is an embarrassment.

~silverwing - who wrote about this today...

_____________________________________________
MisguidedThoughts | showcaseCMS

JohnForsythe’s picture

There's a lot more to their SEO manipulation than what that article covers, but they do a good job of pointing out the more obvious stuff. I advise everyone to complain to Google via the webmaster tools.

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=en

ewestland’s picture

You can compare what you pay for with different sites, but the most important consideration is support.

With Siteground, you get almost none - no email contact, no phone number and no live chat. When you do finally get into a thread, count on them telling you it is not their fault or that you somehow violated a policy.

I'm very sorry I gave them any money. It was wasted.

vitor.cunha@netc.pt’s picture

Hi,

I currently own 2 websites hosted in siteground, they are both Joomla based but this is not essential to the big questions adressed here (it is important in regards to drupal specific technical assistance) as i believe both drupal and joomla would produce similar (same order of magnitude) loads on a server for equivalent sites.
Some thoughts:

1 - I get very very scared with what i've read here

2 - In over a year I had no such bad experiences with siteground

3 - I'm not pleased with the 5GB limit on videos/photos then another 5GB on PDF?? .exe, then 5GB on .zip etc... but i was aware of this when i signed in

3.1 - Can anyone tell me from experience if similar price/offer sites like bluehost/lunarpages don’t have this limitation (I might give them a try for a 3rd website)

3.2 - Actually they've upped the total GB offer but maintained the individual limits (not nice, I must write and point this out to them) –but truth is I get the same deal I signed for

4. - Always do your back-up, both database and files, and keep a copy of the backup with you, i.e. out of the host (to be safer keep copies you can access physically but keep them at different locations). At this kind of price I would not expect a reliable backup service from any host. Don’t trust to others something as vital as this.

4.1 - If you have some ‘heavy’ files (videos / big photos) that take time to backup have them properly organized locally (in your PC and other local backups) before uploading (and maintain them afterwards), This way you do not need to download/backup them. For example I have a ‘videos’ directory online that I never need to backup (I have them all organied in my PC and backup drives).

I must point out again that I never had troubles with siteground, and I just hope if I have they’ll be able to solve them. Surely I can tell sometimes the site is slower, buy hey this is a shared hosting and however much they manage server load you do depend on your neighbors site usage.

For what is worth take a look at my two siteground sites, you might not understand the content (as this is in portuguese) but you will see they work fine on siteground servers (I hope they keep that way):
-anadar, a swimming web site with lots of videos (in most of the front page news), in portuguese that's roughly, um site de natação com muitos vídeos:)
-aqualoja, a swimming equipment online store, in portuguese that's roughly uma loja de equipamento de natação online

regards

Vitor Cunha

PS: Do take a good look at point 4 and 4.1 if you do this you can have a site up and running in a new host in a hurry (maybe 1 - 2 days depending on how much you have to upload)

HotDrupal.com’s picture

This is the kind of thread that should get bumped on a regular basis ...

Steve

bruce3000’s picture

I chatted with their sales and ask if there is a money back guarantee, the sales said a Yes and encourage me to purchase them and I did by following his instructions. After one day of frustrated setup instructions, I just gave up, so I want to cancel my account and get the money back, but I was told that the setup fee(24.95 or more) cannot be REFUND.

Ok, I say bye to the service.

sitegroundsucks’s picture

I recently decided to move off of APLUS.NET to Siteground, due to cost. Biggest mistake I've made in a while. I've started to chronicle all the problems I had with them here: http://www.siteground-sucks.com.

Never use Siteground. They cheat and waive their terms of service in your face when they want to explain gaps in their service or ways they don't deliver what they promise.

merid’s picture

I had also very, very bad experience with this cheaters!!!

They are not there to keep customers, but to grab your money and they don't care after that. btw once you register, they will not return some of your money, even if you are only one day with them. The 30 days money back is a trap.

seanray’s picture

Its fun that SiteGround is ranked at the top 3 in google with key word "drupal hosting". This is an SEO game.

Best Drupal Hosting | Affordable Web Hosting | Discount Web Hosting

seanray’s picture

Below is an interesting Post about SiteGround, by which you can see how SiteGround game on Google.

http://www.alledia.com/blog/seo/siteground.com-and-their-search-results-...

Best Drupal Hosting | Affordable Web Hosting | Discount Web Hosting

infowarp’s picture

There are some decent hosts out there for $5-10 per month, but when you're using a cms like Drupal it pays to get a plan that provides plenty of server resources, so go with a host who offers an upgrade path to semi-dedicated or vps plans.

Andrew