Flywheel vs. SiteGround

Running and maintaining a WordPress website is not as easy as it sounds. Aside from content creation and marketing, you have to take care of your website’s design, update themes & plugins, update the core WordPress software, ensure site security, and so forth.

These routine practices can be time-consuming and can even become a constant headache, especially if you are not tech-savvy or are just getting started with WordPress. As such, you might consider hiring a DevOps engineer with WordPress experience to help you manage your website.

But hiring a developer is not cheap – especially if your budget is on a leash. A managed WordPress hosting solution helps you to avoid all the stress of the hiring process.

Specifically designed and optimized for WordPress websites and users, managed WordPress hosting takes care of all the technical aspects of WordPress for you – including server-level issues – while giving you top-notch performance.

With that said, Flywheel and SiteGround (which we’ll be comparing in this post) are two popular managed WordPress hosting providers alongside other companies like WPEngine, Kinsta, Bluehost, Pressable, and Pagely.

Flywheel, a fast-growing website provider, doesn’t offer domain registration services, email hosting, website builder, or eCommerce tools. Instead, the company focuses all its resources on managed WordPress services.

SiteGround, on the other hand, is an all-rounded hosting company that offers a wide range of services ranging from domain registration, shared hosting, managed WordPress hosting, WooCommerce hosting, and cloud hosting. The company is also officially recommended by WordPress.

While these two heavyweights offer a wide array of features and proprietary tools to optimize the WordPress hosting experience further, they differ when it comes to performance, pricing, customer support, security, and ease of use.

In this Flywheel vs. SiteGround review, we will dissect through each of the above factors to see which one wins the supremacy battle. 

Flywheel vs. SiteGround: Performance

You have to think about performance before anything else when choosing a hosting provider. Both FlyWheel and SiteGround take performance very seriously, making it challenging to decide on one. We separate performance into uptime and loading speeds to help make a more informed decision.

Website uptime is a vital factor for any business. By definition, it means how often your website will be up and running within a certain period. A web hosting’s servers have to be at their best to ensure that your website runs and is available for users all year round.

FlyWheel has a 100% server uptime guarantee for its customers. Despite the industry recommending at least 99.99% uptime, many web hosts do not maintain it continuously. But then, FlyWheel showed an impressive uptime record of 99.99% – 100% over our testing period.

SiteGround promises its customers 99.99% uptime. With six data centers spread out globally, downtime is almost unheard of with SiteGround. Customers choose their nearest server and get compensated with a free month subscription anytime they experience server downtime.

Another essential aspect of performance is website loading speeds. A vast majority of Internet users tend to click away from websites that take three or more seconds to load. Thus, it would help if you kept them by increasing loading speeds, and finding the right hosting provider should help you start.

FlyWheel doesn’t disappoint whenever it comes to website loading speeds. The company delivered a stellar performance during our speed performance tests with servers in different parts of the world. You’ll never get disappointed whether you host your site on a server in Asia, North America, or Europe.

SiteGround also delivers impressive website loading speeds. The company has heavy investments in speed-boosting features that make your site seamless even during peak traffic. During our entire testing period, the average loading times were below 2 seconds.

Comparing these two with performance in mind isn’t easy. FlyWheel has an excellent overall performance, but SiteGround has a better reputation for performance. With reliable uptime and fast website loading speeds, I would recommend this hosting provider to anyone.

Flywheel vs. SiteGround: Plans and Pricing

Price is not one you can overlook when deciding what hosting provider to employ in your business. The features that web hosting provides concerning the price you pay to experience them determines whether you get value for your money or not.

FlyWheel has an excellent pricing policy for businesses and individuals. It has four packages on its pay-per-site option, all at competitive prices. If you’re looking to start a simple WordPress site, you can choose either of their first two basic plans and higher plans for an online store or multiple websites.

The best thing about FlyWheel’s pricing is its competitiveness. You pay lower prices in exchange for high-quality service and value-adding features. Besides, you do not require micromanagement to maintain your website if hosted on FlyWheel.

Here’s a breakdown of FlyWheel’s pricing plan.

SiteGround has transparent pricing with different features under various plans. The best thing about its pricing is that it doesn’t coerce you to pay for a more extended period to get better value. With SiteGround, you pay the same monthly fee, whether signing up for a month or 36 months.

However, their pricing has its fair share of downsides. We disliked the fact that you pay three times the introductory price to renew the service. Despite being an excellent hosting provider, high renewal prices make it provide little to no value and thus not a great option for a budget-minded person.

Here’s SiteGround’s pricing structure for managed WordPress hosting.

1. StartUp ($6.99/month) – 1 website, unlimited databases, unmetered traffic, daily backups, 10GB webspace, 30-day money-back guarantee, free Email, CDN and SSL, etc.
2. GrowBig ($9.99/Month) – Unlimited websites, unlimited databases, daily backups, 30-day moneyback guarantee, unmetered traffic, 20GB webspace, free Email, CDN and SSL, etc.
3. GoGeek ($14.99/Month) – Unlimited websites, unlimited databases, daily backups, unmetered traffic, 30-day money-back guarantee, free CDN, Email and SSL, etc.

Flywheel vs. SiteGround: Customer Support

Customer support is a significant factor to consider before you choose a web hosting provider. The level of customer support depends on various factors, such as reliability and availability. Let’s see who between Flywheel and Siteground offers better customer support.

FlyWheel has excellent customer support for its customers. Its team is available to assist 24/7 through various communication channels. You can contact the support team through live chat for urgent issues and Email to ask non-urgent questions.

The best thing about their customer support is high professionalism. The team provides straightforward answers and sometimes handles technical tasks for its clients. Besides, their responsiveness is worth mentioning as they revert within seconds.

FlyWheel has immensely invested in building a robust knowledgebase. Its website is full of article guides and video tutorials that answer basic questions and help people navigate the website. If you’re looking for excellent customer support, FlyWheel has your back.

SiteGround also offers impressive customer support services. If online reviews are anything to go by, it could be the best in the industry. Its professional team handles queries sent through multiple channels quickly and is available 24/7.

The most striking feature of SiteGround’s support team is transparency. You can also see who is assisting you from their end as their picture displays on the live chat. Users on higher plans also enjoy prioritized customer support.

Flywheel vs. SiteGround: Security

Running a website without proper security can be a nightmare. It not only puts your entire network at risk but also your website visitors’ data. That makes it necessary to work with a security-sensitive web hosting company to assure you of data safety.

FlyWheel has invested in top security features to help you secure your website data. The company’s server runs on Google cloud infrastructure, making it less vulnerable. Besides, it has built-in firewalls that help detect and prevent malware.

Another great security feature is the automatic daily backups with a one-click restoration that the company offers. There are also free SSL certificates to make your website look authentic. You can also choose a suitable data center for your website from ten available options.

SiteGround has also invested in top security features to ensure you are safe from hackers. Some of the security features it comes with include artificial intelligence and advanced DDOS protection features.

It is a great web hosting provider because of how it responds to security patches. If there are vulnerabilities, SiteGround will use internal resources to fix the mess. Many hosting providers rely on third-party developers, consequently reacting too late.

Flywheel vs. SiteGround: Ease of Use

A useful web hosting service should be easy to use with or without technical knowledge. As a website owner, knowing the technical aspects of your web hosting isn’t your business. A considerate provider should make it easy to navigate their site and purchase a package you like.

Flywheel is one of the most straightforward web hosting services to use. Whether it is creating an account or paying for a subscription, every step is seamless. It also provides other user-assistance features such as a free WordPress website builder to help you develop your site from scratch.

Being a WordPress specialized company, it isn’t compatible with many apps out there. But then, it also comes installed and ready to use immediately after signing up. It has a simple user interface despite lacking a cPanel.

SiteGround is as well relatively easy to use. Creating an account on the platform is easy as well as accessing and using a website building tool. It is also easy to integrate it with various applications and install a website with a single click.

Flywheel vs. SiteGround: Features

A rundown of FlyWheel and SiteGround features will help you make a quick decision. Here are all the features that matter.

FlyWheel features

• 10 data centers spread around the world
• Google Cloud infrastructure
• Automatic backups
• Easy to use website builder
• Free SSL certificates
• Fantastic security features

SiteGround features

• Good customer support
• Free SSL certificates
• 99% uptime and excellent loading speeds
• Easy website migration
• 30-day money-back guarantee
• Clear pricing model

Flywheel vs. SiteGround: Our Pick

As you can see, this has been a closely contested comparison. It’s time to pick the best from this FlyWheel vs. SiteGround review. But first, here’s a quick rundown on the metrics.

• Performance – Both web hosting providers have impressive uptime and website loading speed statistics from our tests. However, SiteGround pulled a better overall performance than Flywheel making it a better pick here.
• Pricing – Pricing is a tricky factor to consider. Despite both being clear on pricing, we didn’t like SiteGround’s renewal terms. Paying a triple price for a renewal is not ideal for a business.
• Customer support – Flywheel has excellent customer support with 24/7 availability and many other features. However, SiteGround has a better reputation, and we agreed with the positive online reviews after our test period.
• Security – Security is paramount, and both providers know that. But then, SiteGround comes top on this one because of its extra security features. Automatic backups, cloud environment infrastructure, and the use of AI, etc., make it an excellent choice.
• Ease of use – FlyWheel is easy to sign up into, install and use. It also has an intuitive user interface that makes using the service easy. However, SiteGround is better because it has a cPanel, which Flywheel lacks.
• Features – There are lots of different features that you can enjoy on either platform. Flywheel has more data centers, excellent security features, etc. SiteGround, on the other hand, is easy to integrate with other applications and, therefore, a better option.

A glance at these metrics shows that SiteGround has done well in almost every aspect. It is, therefore, our winner for this FlyWheel vs. SiteGround comparison. However, you can consider Flywheel when looking for SiteGround alternatives as it offers excellently managed WordPress services.