HostArmada vs SiteGround: Not Worth the Extra Cost

Table of Contents

HostArmada vs SiteGround: Pricing and Discounts

SiteGround is the most expensive shared hosting provider. It disguises its prices through massive discounts, but the starting plan renews at $14.99/m. HostArmada is much cheaper than SiteGround, with a basic plan renewal at $9.95/m. The highest tier SiteGround plan is so high that you can rent a full-fledged VPS for the same amount! Check out the SiteGround coupon page for all their deals.

By default, HostArmada gives you a 70% discount, but you can get a 75% discount exclusive to WP-Tweaks.com by using the following coupon:

Here’s the HostArmada coupon page for more discounts. SiteGround, on the other hand, doesn’t have coupons, and you have to accept the pricing they show on their website.

Another difference in the pricing between SiteGround and HostArmada is that SiteGround has a 30-day money-back guarantee, whereas HostArmada refunds you up to 45-days later. It’s not much, but HostArmada gives you more time to cancel your purchase if you’re unsatisfied.

SiteGround Price Increase: Unaffordable

SiteGround was always an expensive web host, but a massive SiteGround price increase rendered it unaffordable a while back. It’s a shame because I was a big fan of theirs and dedicated a lot of content on my website, highlighting the features. But since the price increase, I can no longer recommend SiteGround.

HostArmada’s pricing is more reasonable, and while they offer high initial discounts, the SiteGround renewal price is far higher.

HostArmada vs SiteGround Price Rating:

HostArmada Pricing Rating: ★★★★☆ 4 stars
SiteGround Price Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ 1 star

Winner: HostArmada

HostArmada vs SiteGround Features

Apart from a few differences, both HostArmada and SiteGround have similar features. They use NGINX in different ways, offer free backups, and have global data centers instead of just a few continents. The most significant divergence is that HostArmada has free malware fixing, while SiteGround has dynamic caching on all its plans:

Web Hosting Feature	HostArmada	SiteGround
Free Backups	✅	✅
Free Security	✅	❌
Free Domain	✅	❌
Free WAF	✅	✅
Dynamic HTML Caching	“Speed Reaper” Plan	✅
Web Server	NGINX/LiteSpeed	NGINX+Apache
CDN	Cloudflare	In-House CDN
cPanel	✅	❌
Storage	15 GB – 40 GB	10 GB – 40 GB
Data Center	9 locations	7 locations
India Servers	✅	❌

Here’s an explanation of the differences between them.

HostArmada vs SiteGround Backups

Despite being similar, SiteGround has better backups than HostArmada. However, SiteGround doesn’t allow you to take on-demand backups of your account on the StartUp plan – you require at least the GrowBig plan. HostArmada, on the other hand, lets you take snapshots via the JetBackup cPanel plugin. Here’s a more detailed explanation of HostArmada backups.

SiteGround stores 30-days of automatic, daily backups for all three shared hosting plans. These backups don’t count towards your disk quota. Backups include not just your files but the database as well. Here’s a screenshot of the SiteGround backup interface:

As you can see, you can choose to restore the files, the databases, the e-mails, or everything.

HostArmada stores between 7-days and 21-days of backups, depending on your plan. You can also create snapshots of your account on even the lowest-tier package. Like SiteGround, you can choose to restore the files, the databases, or the e-mails. However, the process requires a few more clicks compared to SiteGround. For ease of use, SiteGround’s backup interface is superior to HostArmada.

SiteGround vs HostArmada: Dynamic Caching

While SiteGround offers dynamic server-side caching on all plans, HostArmada reserves this technology only for the Speed Reaper plan with the LiteSpeed web server. So SiteGround beats HostArmada when it comes to caching. Of course, you can implement caching on your website through other means, but it’s not as fast as when your server has native support.

Here’s a screenshot of SiteGround’s dynamic caching screen:

On HostArmada’s Speed Reaper plan, however, the caching capabilities are fully a match for SiteGround – and even supersedes it. Thanks to the LiteSpeed web server, HostArmada’s top-tier plan is capable of advanced caching features like Edge Side Includes (ESI) and a fully customizable caching configuration, unlike the SiteGround caching SuperCacher technology, which is more limited.

So if you’re on the Speed Reaper plan, HostArmada’s caching is better than SiteGround.

HostArmada and SiteGround Architecture Comparison

Both HostArmada and SiteGround have a unique architecture compared to other web hosts that use the LAMP stack. HostArmada uses an NGINX server for its first two plans and a LiteSpeed server for its highest-tier “Speed Reaper” plan. By contrast, SiteGround uses an NGINX reverse-proxy set up with Apache.

The Speed Reaper plan is where HostArmada shines, as the LiteSpeed server makes a substantial difference to speed. Here’s a list of the best LiteSpeed hosting providers if you want more options.

But the NGINX server is fast as well. One of the benefits is that it allows static and dynamic file caching. While HostArmada doesn’t have dynamic caching on NGINX, it has static caching, and as we’ve seen above, SiteGround fully uses NGINX’s dynamic cache capabilities. Here’s a list of NGINX web hosting providers for more info.

SiteGround and HostArmada cPanel Availability

SiteGround abandoned cPanel a few years back because of the licensing changes and developed their custom interface instead. It’s not bad, but because cPanel is so popular, many people aren’t used to it. Unlike SiteGround, HostArmada continues to offer cPanel, which is a big plus point in its favor. It’s particularly impressive because SiteGround is so much more expensive than HostArmada that they can easily afford to shoulder the licensing costs. So it’s not HostArmada’s credit that they’ve decided to stick with the software with which everyone is familiar.

HostArmada vs SiteGround: CDN Comparison

SiteGround officially announced its new CDN a while back. HostArmada, on the other hand, continues to rely on its integration with Cloudflare for CDN capability. But this is far from a bad thing. I’ve always maintained that the free Cloudflare CDN is worth it and that you don’t need anything else. If you use the SiteGround CDN, you have to forego Cloudflare’s DNS services, which are the fastest in the industry.

So I would say that despite having its proprietary CDN, you’re better off using the free Cloudflare CDN with HostArmada. Of course, you can always continue to use Cloudflare even with SiteGround by disabling the CDN integration.

SiteGround and HostGator Data Center Locations

Both SiteGround and HostArmada have more data centers than most web hosts. But HostArmada wins this round because it has more locations in more countries.

Here’s a list of SiteGround’s seven data centers:

• Iowa, US
• Madrid, Spain
• London, UK
• Frankfurt, Germany
• Eemshaven, Netherlands
• Singapore
• Sydney, Australia

And here’s a list of HostArmada’s nine data centers:

• Fremont, USA
• Dallas, USA
• East Newark, US
• Toronto, Canada
• London, UK
• Frankfurt, Germany
• Mumbai, India
• Singapore
• Sydney, Australia

HostArmada has more choices in terms of US locations and access to more countries than SiteGround. Read more about the SiteGround data center locations.

HostArmada vs SiteGround Features Rating:

HostArmada Features Rating: ★★★★☆ 4.5 stars
SiteGround Features Rating: ★★★★★ 5 stars

Winner: SiteGround (Just about)

HostArmada is Better than SiteGround for India Hosting

HostArmada has servers in India, unlike SiteGround, which only has a data center in Singapore for Asia-based hosting. I’ve written a great deal about why Singapore might be better for Indian hosting, but sometimes you have no choice but to use Indian servers. The Indian government might have legal requirements for local hosting, for example. Whatever your reasons, HostGator’s Mumbai data center enables you to serve your Indian customers with a nearby server instead.

Here are other web hosts that have servers in India if you want to compare them with HostArmada.

HostArmada vs SiteGround: Customer Service

I’ve been a SiteGround customer for seven years before moving on, and their customer service is excellent. Particularly on the GoGeek plan with priority support. The staff on live chat were accommodating, knowledgeable, and able to fix many complicated problems almost instantly.

I’ve also interacted with the HostArmada staff and found them responsive and helpful. HostArmada has a guaranteed 10-minute response time for their tickets, which is helpful. Both SiteGround and HostArmada have excellent tutorials for various tasks on their platform. However, I have to give the edge to SiteGround for their superb customer service.

HostArmada vs SiteGround Customer Service Rating:

HostArmada Customer Service Rating: ★★★★☆ 4 stars
SiteGround Customer Service Rating: ★★★★★ 5 stars

Winner: SiteGround

SiteGround vs HostArmada: Performance

Thanks to the highly optimized architecture of both HostArmada and SiteGround, they have excellent performance. However, HostArmada lags SiteGround in performance for the first two tiers of hosting because of the lack of dynamic caching. On the “Speed Reaper” plan, however, when HostArmada utilizes the LiteSpeed server, the performance of SiteGround and HostArmada is comparable.

QUIC.cloud is Superior to SiteGround’s CDN

Along with the LiteSpeed server on HostArmada’s Speed Reaper plan, you also get access to the QUIC.cloud CDN, which is superior to SiteGround and has more functionality. LiteSpeed customers get an extra free tier with QUIC.cloud as shown here:

One benefit is that QUIC.cloud stores your dynamic content for free on global POP servers close to your customers, no matter where they are. However, with SiteGround, this functionality is paid, and even then, the performance won’t be as good as with QUIC.cloud.

Both QUIC.cloud and Cloudflare are leading the trend of hosting dynamic content away from the origin servers instead of just static files. It’s good to see SiteGround moving in this direction with their CDN, but with HostArmada’s Speed Reaper plan, the QUIC.cloud network performs better.

HostArmada vs SiteGround Performance Rating:

HostArmada Performance Rating: ★★★★★ 5 stars
SiteGround Performance Rating: ★★★★★ 5 stars

Winner: Tie

HostArmada vs SiteGround: Security

While both use firewalls to block malicious traffic, HostArmada has better security than SiteGround. This is because HostArmada scans your site for malware for free, whereas SiteGround makes you purchase the “Site Scanner” add-on for the same service. It also implements rate limiting, which prevents your server from being flooded with requests from IP addresses. This is usually a premium feature from security providers like Cloudflare. Here’s a screenshot of Cloudflare’s rate limiting screen:

SiteGround, on the other hand, has a security plugin called “SiteGround Security” for WordPress sites. This plugin hardens many aspects of WordPress, such as locking down the login page, implementing 2FA, and disabling common usernames. These are all useful, but it’s not unique to SiteGround. Many plugins like the iThemes WordPress plugin perform the same functions.

But HostArmada beats SiteGround when it comes to fixing a hacked site. HostArmada does this for free, whereas SiteGround doesn’t provide this service. Here’s a more in-depth explanation of all of the HostArmada security measures.

Final Thoughts on HostArmada and SiteGround

SiteGround is a great web host with lots of features and excellent performance. But HostArmada beats it because it’s so much cheaper and has many of the same features – particularly on the robust “Speed Reaper” plan. SiteGround’s CDN doesn’t do much compared to the free Cloudflare plan, so it doesn’t have an advantage. And given the superior security features, I recommend HostArmada over SiteGround for web hosting.