This site is no longer hosted at SiteGround.
I’ve been a SiteGround customer since they gave me a free year of hosting at WordCamp US 2016 in Philadelphia. I do not believe I will renew in February 2025. I moved my sites from SiteGround to an Akamai/Linode.com server. I’m using SpinupWP to manage WordPress installs on the server, and anyone who uses this link to signup gets $50 to spend at SpinupWP.
When I say my sites, I mean 8-10 sites that belong to me, including coreysalzano.com, breakfastco.xyz, entriestogooglesheet.com, and a family business. I manage ~150 car dealership websites, those are hosted at Rocket.net, and I’m happy with the service there.
If you’re looking for managed WordPress hosting for your business, I recommend Anchor Hosting. Anchor builds on top of great managed WP hosts and takes care of updates. I chose SpinupWP + Akamai because the number of personal sites I operate fluctuates, and a per-install cost structure is not always a great fit.
Recently, I had to re-home a site built on CS-Cart. SiteGround has been a great place for the client so far, so I recommend SiteGround for some non-WordPress sites.
Why I moved
- SiteGround’s price no longer competitive for me
- Support is necessary & AI chat bot support hallucinations
- Bad email service, even though I know better
SiteGround’s price is no longer competitive with my skill level
I don’t need a UI anymore. I’ve got shell scripts! The control panels at hosts like SiteGround are just fancier versions of cPanel, and I can operate at the command line. Designing database queries is more comfortable in an app like phpMyAdmin rather than the mysql client shell, but this work is being done on my local copy of the site and the apps running on my computer, not the server.
Tech Support is Necessary With Big Hosting Companies
Server configuration changes require support tickets. The people at SiteGround have always been kind and helpful. Since I signed up, it has gotten more difficult to drill down through the website to find a contact form. It is the case I’ve migrated away from a hosting company that uses chat and chatbot support to a company that takes form submissions and replies via email.
AI Chat Bot Support
Months ago, SiteGround’s AI support hallucinated an answer to me. No one wants this, but yet some have deployed:
I’m a happy ProtonMail customer
I started a consulting business, tried Google Workplace for a year or two, and then began using a free email account from a hosting company for important work like a fool. I ran into a problem with SiteGround email in 2023.
SiteGround filters outgoing email for spam, and will refuse to send a message with a 550 High Probability of Spam error because of links with unique domain extensions it finds in quoted replies. This is absurd, because there would not be a quoted reply unless SiteGround accepted the message containing the link! Zoom meeting links use a .us domain.
SiteGround also refused to send a reply because it found a non-https link in a signature in a quoted reply. This good-enough-to-receive-but-not-good-enough-to-send treatment regarding quoted replies forced me to try ProtonMail, and I’m glad to have made the switch. ProtonMail customers get free VPN software, so you might save money by switching. Try a free month of ProtonMail with this link and I save a few bones, too.
So long and thanks for all the socks
SiteGround is famous for dress socks as conference swag. I do not wear suits often. If you see me in a suit, it is possible I have coordinated colors with a pair of SiteGround socks.
I’ll move one script updating Shopify inventory quantities by February, and then I’ll only have access to the slick interfaces inside SiteGround via a few clients.
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