SiteGround is widely known as the best hosting company in the world. In this SiteGround StartUp Vs GrowBig review, I will be comparing features, prices, web space, and more.
With SiteGround all plans will give you 99.99% uptime and around a 300-400ms load response time. However, GrowBig is slightly faster because of extra caching features. Let’s begin the comparison.
Websites hosted
Would you like to host an unlimited number of websites? If so you might be disappointed with the StartUp plan which only allows you to host one website on your hosting plan. GrowBig gives you the ability to host an unlimited number of websites.
Price
There is an obvious price difference between these two SiteGround plans. The StartUp plan is slightly cheaper which makes it more attractive to beginners. Both plans come with a lifetime domain for as long as you host your website with SiteGround. This added bonus will end up saving you an extra $15 a year.
When you choose StartUp, you are looking at hosting for $3.95/mo which comes up to $47 a year. There is no hosting platform that gives you the performance and the features that you will be getting with this cheap hosting price.
Right now, GrowBig has a sale going on and it can be purchased for $5.95/mo. I know that new bloggers are always trying to save money, but I would never allow a $24 difference to make my decision for me. Both prices are just right and unlike other hosting companies, you will not have to pay 36 months in advance to get a good hosting price.
Web Space
SiteGround makes sure that your projects run smoothly on their servers. The StartUp plan offers 10GB Web Space and in all honesty, this is a lot of space. Most site owners will never use this amount of web space.
However, rather than switching later, which is going to cost you more money in the future, it will be a good idea to invest in their GrowBig plan. GrowBig allows for 20GB of web space. If you want more out of your website, then GrowBig is a nice option to have.
Suitable for
If you look at all of SiteGround’s plans you will notice that they are suitable for a certain number of users.
StartUp is suitable for 10K monthly visits. GrowBig is suitable for 25K monthly visits.
With blogging if you receive 10K monthly visits that can mean 3000+ a month in profit. If you expect to have a small website, then 10,000 monthly visits might be perfect for you.
If you expect it to grow over time, then 25,000 monthly visits will get the job done and then some. The GrowBig plan has the perfect name for what it allows your website to do. It allows your website to grow. It is a perfect plan for those blogging days when you get a huge website spike.
Premium
All SiteGround plans offer essential features such as a free site transfer, 24/7 support, free app installs, free email accounts, unmetered traffic, free SSLs & HTTP/2, SSD, and more. However, unlike the StartUp plan GrowBig offers Premium features. Here are some premium features that you will not be getting with the SiteGround StartUp plan.
Here are a few SiteGround features.
- Unlimited MySQL DB
- cPanel & Softaculous
- SSD Storage
- Servers on Three Continents
- LXC-based stability
- Anti-Hack Systems
- Free SSH and SFTP Access
Priority support
The StartUp plan offers 24/7 phone and chat support, but GrowBig gives you priority support which means that GrowBig users get their issues resolved quicker.
Those who choose GrowBig are usually the ones who want more support features available to them. If you need the fastest response for your business, then GrowBig gives you the much-needed help.
SuperCacher
With all plans, you will get SuperCacher, which is a rare hosting feature. This is one of the features that sets SiteGround apart from the rest. SuperCacher greatly increases the speed of your website. The StartUp plan only gives you level 1 of caching.
GrowBig gives you all three levels of caching. The first level is going to give you a static content cache. The second level is going to give you a dynamic data cache. With level 3 database queries results in cache, running on Memcached. If you want the most site speed possible, then go with the GrowBig plan.
Wildcard SSL
If you want to create more profit for your blog, then selling products on your site is a good way to generate profit. Wildcard SSL offers better protection for your site and credit card transactions. This Premium feature is free for the first year of your web hosting plan and it is only for the GrowBig plan.
Let’s Encrypt SSL is better for small plans but Wildcard SSL is better for medium-sized sites.
Both Let’s Encrypt SSL and Wildcard offer Mobile Compatibility, Browser Compatibility, and 256-bit Encryption. What you won’t be getting with Let’s Encrypt that you will get with Wildcard is Dynamic Site Seal and Multiple Subdomains.
Server and databases
GrowBig offers 10 more Simultaneous Server processes than the SiteGround StartUp plan and 5 more Simultaneous Connections from a single IP.
With GrowBig you will also get 150,000 more inodes. When it comes to databases the StartUp plan gives you a DB size of 500 MB, but GrowBig gives you a DB size of 700 MB.
Which is better?
The answer is simple. GrowBig is the better plan. More is better. Choosing GrowBig over the StartUp plan is like choosing the sport option over the basic option of your favorite car.
If you choose the basic option you will still get the car that you want, but you won’t be getting the extra features and added perks. GrowBig gives you more site space, more monthly visits, more websites hosted, WordPress Special cache, 40 backup copies of your site instead of 1, etc.
The only downside of GrowBig is that you will be paying $24 more. If you are worried about the future, then you are better off going with GrowBig.
If you don’t really need a large website and are trying to save, then the StartUp option is a great plan because you still get most of SiteGround’s features. However, remember that when seeking to upgrade later it will cost you more.
Let’s start a site with StartUp or GrowBig. (4 minute setup)
- Choose a WordPress plan.
- On the right side click on Get Started GoGeek
- Create a new domain (Free)
- Set up your plan.
- Proceed with SiteGround’s automatic setup wizard.
- Create and log in to your WordPress website.