Are you looking for an honest SiteGround vs Pressable comparison?
I recently stumbled upon a SiteGround vs Pressable comparison that was disturbingly biased, prompting me to write this ruthlessly honest review.
In the comparison I came across, they cited false information and provided minuscule “speed” data as evidence of something special. It wasn't even clear what their speed test consisted of. There was no mention of how the test was performed or what tools were used.
Almost every checkmark that wasn't given to Pressable was false! SiteGround won at “Network” and “Server” without additional comments. What does that even mean? And at the end of the “comparison,” they chose SiteGround as the “winner.” What a load of crap!
I'm sick of these websites that only push the most popular WordPress hosts to generate a commission, but then I remembered that this is the exact reason I started this blog – to dispel all of this misinformation.
So many websites and blogs these days just spew garbage and then paste affiliate links to whichever is more popular or has a higher payout…or both. The complete disregard for the end-user is sickening.
As a rule of thumb, you should be skeptical of any website declaring the more popular host as the winner. This includes hosts like SiteGround, Bluehost, Hostgator, Hostinger, and Dreamhost. Why, you ask?
The more popular a hosting provider is, the better it must be, right? WRONG! It's a common fallacy to believe that the most popular equals the best. Sometimes, something is popular simply because it is the most popular. It shouldn't be used as an indicator of superiority.
For example, Elementor has over 5 million downloads but is one of the WordPress repository's most useless and bloated plugins.
With that said, I'm not here to declare any winners because of how subjective that is. Everyone has different requirements for hosting! For example, one host might be faster than another but doesn't offer cPanel.
Instead, I'll offer you an honest SiteGround vs Pressable comparison, but the ultimate choice is yours. I'm only presenting the information.
SiteGround vs Pressable
User Sentiment
I like to start off my comparisons by analyzing the overall user sentiment for each provider.
Overall, both hosts have a high user sentiment. They are both well-respected companies in the WordPress hosting industry with great support and customer service.
However, if you perform a search for SiteGround sucks, you'll find a bunch of negative blog comments, posts, and reviews.
Do the same for pressable, and you won't find one related search result. What does this tell us? Considering the size difference in userbase, possibly not much. But many people are fed up with SiteGround and looking to jump ship!
Price to Performance Ratio
The below performance results are based on thousands of complied data entries using tools such as GTmetrix, Pingdom, and Sematext. In the benchmarking tests, I cloned the same website on 19 different WordPress hosts and ran them through the same exact performance tests.
The lower, the better
More WordPress hosting benchmarks
In the above chart, I used Pressable's Personal plan ($25/month) and SiteGround's Grow Big plan ($24.99/month). In this case, it's easy to see that Pressable offers much better performance than SiteGround. And with both plans being almost exactly the same, you get a much better deal in terms of performance with Pressable. But wait, there's more!
The higher, the better
Looking at the Final Results from all 19 hosts, Pressable actually came in second place with 107 points (out of 133), and SiteGround placed 18th with 41 points (out of 133).
As far as performance goes, SiteGround performed absolutely terribly. And I gave every host a fair chance. Given each host's tools and options, I tried my damndest to draw out the best possible performance from each host.
The bottom line: SiteGround is slow, and I felt that first-hand in the 2 years I used them. Not only that, but year after year, their prices increase while most hosts stay the same.
But again, it isn't all about speed. Let's look at the Pros and Cons of each host to get a better idea of what each host has to offer.
SiteGround Pros
- Unlimited websites starting with their Grow Big plan
- Powerful SG Optimizer caching plugin
- Advanced security plugin (not top-tier by any means)
- Native file manager
- Free SSL & email accounts
- Free Cloudflare CDN
- Domain registrar
- 30-day money-back guarantee
SiteGround Cons
- Slower than peanut butter
- Pay for premium CDN
- High renewal rates
- Uses Site Tools (not as popular or feature-rich as cPanel)
- Constant price hikes
Pressable Pros
- Built specifically for WordPress
- Free one-click proprietary CDN
- Free SSL
- Free Web Application Firewall (WAF)
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Pressable Cons
- Doesn't offer unlimited websites
- Uses custom control panel (also not cPanel)
- No native file manager
- No email services
- No domain registrar
Expert Choice
Personally, if I had to choose between the two, I would go with Pressable for the performance. I'm familiar with FileZilla, so a file manager isn't really important for me, and email hosting can be solved with GSuite. SiteGround also has a creeping TTFB (Time to First Byte), which is one of the main reasons why I left them.
Both companies offer live chat support, and from my experience, both are great! This makes sense because overall user sentiment reflects that. However, I think Pressable's control panel is a bit more user-friendly and streamlined than SiteGround's. Plus, SiteGround is using Site Tools now, which I'm not a huge fan of.
But that's just me. I'm not even using either of these hosts. I'm actually using Cloudways because they were the fastest managed WordPress host out of the 19 that I performance-tested. Additionally, Cloudways has an email hosting solution for just $1/month which is cheaper than GSuite, and their customer support is phenomenal.
Anyway, let me know what you think about my slightly more unorthodox SiteGround vs Pressable comparison in the comments below. Do you agree? Who do you prefer?
