Are you on the hunt for the best hosting service for your website?
Kinsta and Siteground are, without a doubt, two of the beasts out there. Both have built excellent reputations in the hosting world and within the WordPress community. The reason they are so popular is that they offer high-quality hosting features and excellent customer service.
I honestly think that they are both great options. You just need to learn which one works better for you.
In this post, I am going to show how Kinsta vs Siteground compare. This will help you choose one among these hosting based on which one adapts better to your business needs.
Let’s dive in!
*Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself, and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.
Kinsta vs SiteGround: Features Comparison.
| Features | Kinsta | Siteground |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress Installer |  | |
| Auto WordPress Updates | | |
| WordPress Performance Monitoring | | ❌ |
| Domain Included | ❌ | * |
| E-commerce integration | | |
| Free Daily Backups | | |
| On-Demand Backups | | ** |
| One-click Backup Restore | | |
| Staging Sites | | ** |
| Server-Level Caching | | ** |
| PHP 8.2+ | | |
| Free SSL | | |
| Free CDN | | *** |
| Premium DNS | | ❌ |
| Free migrations | | **** |
| Analytics | | |
| Free Hack Fixes | | ❌ |
| Email Hosting | ❌ | |
| Data Centers | 24 | 5 |
| > Check Kinsta | > Check Siteground |
*Free during the first year.
**Not available on the cheapest plan tier.
*** Via Cloudflare.
**** Via Siteground Migration plugin.
The features offered by both Kinsta and Siteground are really similar. You’ll find basic and powerful features in both of them.
The main differences between Kinsta and Siteground are:
- Kinsta offers premium DNS and Free CDN, which will help notably with your site speed. Siteground relies on Cloudflare for this.
- Siteground includes email hosting and domains, but Kinsta does not.
- Kinsta has a free hack fixes service.
- Kinsta APM offers a performance monitoring tool for WordPress sites. It helps you identify WordPress performance issues.
- Some of the Siteground features are not available in the starter plan, whereas Kinsta offers all the features in all plans.
- Kinsta will migrate one website for you for free, whereas SiteGround either requires you to migrate websites yourself using their plugin or pay an extra cost to have their team take care of it for you.
- Kinsta provides APM (Application Performance Monitoring) to identify the source of slow performance on your website.
Kinsta vs SiteGround: User Experience Comparison.
Kinsta and SiteGround make website management easy.
They provide clear menus and a visual dashboard where to manage and overview your sites. Kinsta interface is a bit more modern and provides some powerful tools for speed optimization.
Let’s see how Kinsta vs Siteground user experience compares.
Kinsta User Experience.
Personally, I find Kinsta very intuitive and easy to use.
The dashboard (above) is the place where you can manage your sites and see some key metrics. Each section of the dashboard is clickable. This means you can jump from different sections simply by clicking on what you want to check. This will take you to the specific part of the menu with further info.
Adding sites is very simple. You just need to select “Sites” on the left menu and then clicking the “Add Site” button on the top right. A new window will open where you can install WordPress with one click.
In a few minutes, your site will be ready to go. You can even install WooCommerce or set up WordPress Multisite from this menu.
Once you have your site ready, you’ll need to point your domain to Kinsta. You have two options to achieve this:
- Keep your existing DNS provider and add A records,
- Or use Kinsta’s premium DNS service.
You can find the DNS information on the Kinsta DNS tab on the left. Then, by clicking on the “Add Domain” button on the top right, you’ll be able to manage it via Kinsta DNS. This will increase your site speed performance.
Lastly, you can control all related to your website from the “Sites” menu. A panel directly to the right will allow you to access your WordPress, perform backups, check WP plugins, and much more.
For access to your WordPress panel, Click on Sites > Open WordPress admin. Easy and ready to go.
Also, you can change the environment from live to staging by clicking the button at the top-right “Change Environment“
To see how each of the sections work, check Kinsta’s ease of use here.
Siteground User Experience.
Although the panel from Siteground might not be as visual, it is still very easy to understand and use. You can easily customize it and access your preferred tools from here. Also, you can see some basic site information and analytics from this view.
Adding a new site is also incredibly easy. When you login into Siteground, you’ll see the screen below. Then click on tab “websites“> “Add New Website”
Next, you can choose if you want to start a new website or migrate an existing one. From here you can also pre-install WordPress and even WooCommerce.
Once you have your website ready, you can access the Wodpress Kit or Website Tools.
The WordPress Kit menu will show like this:
The Site Tools menu will take you to the dashboard. From there, you can control and access all the aspects of your website:
Lastly, you can fine-tune your site with the submenus on the left column. When clicking on a submenu, you will access a specific page where you can adjust more settings.
The appearance might not be as fresh as Kinsta. But when talking about user experience, I think Converkit makes it very easy for the user. However, you have fewer options for website optimization.
Kinsta vs SiteGround: Performance Comparison.
For the performance comparison, I have set up identical test sites on both hostings. This is exactly what’s included on each test site:
- The popular Neve Theme with a pre-made template.
- 10 Plugins: Including Yoast, Sucuri, Smush, Autoptimize, Pixels, and some others for social sharing and design.
- Javascript
- Images
Performance Test 1.
For this first test, I have not performed any extra optimization on any of the hostings.
Also, I have left the locations to the default settings for each speed test. That way, I will be able to see how they perform in different locations.
| Hosting | GT Metrix | Sucuri | Geekflare | Web Page Test |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kinsta | 0.6 sec | 0.45 sec | 1.5 sec | 0.98 sec |
| Siteground | 0.6 sec | 0.5 sec | 1.8 sec | 0.83 sec |
The difference is almost minimal in this first round. Loading times are very similar.
GT Metrix Test
Sucuri Test
Geekflare Test
Webpage Test
Performance Test 2.
Now, I am going to run exactly the same tests, only this time I have optimized speed on both hosting dashboards:
- Kinsta optimization: PHP 7.4, enabled Kinsta CDN and Kinsta DNS.
- Siteground optimization: Activated NGINX direct delivery, Memcached, Cloudflare CDN and PHP 7.4.
| Hosting | GT Metrix | Sucuri | Geekflare | Web Page Test |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kinsta | 0.45 sec | 0.45 sec | 0.8 sec | 1.3 sec |
| Siteground | 0.5 sec | 0.5 sec | 1.4 sec | 0.76 sec |
After the optimizations, the numbers improved for both. But the difference was more noticeable on Kinsta.
GT Metrix Test
Sucuri Test
Geekflare Test
Webpage Test
Performance Test 3.
What really got me surprised was the increase in the Kinsta Web page test. Since server location plays an important part in page load speed, I performed a final test. This time using Pingdom in two different zones in the US:
First, the test for the web-hosted on Siteground:
Second, the test for the web-hosted on Kinsta:
| Pingdom Test | From Washington D.C | From San Francisco |
|---|---|---|
| Kinsta | 1.41 sec | 0.79 sec |
| Siteground | 0.41 sec | 3.30 sec |
This is a great example of the effect of server locations worldwide. It suggests that if your audience is mainly on the Eastside of the US, Siteground performs better. Whereas on the Westside, Kinsta has better numbers.
Performance Test: Final Results.
Finally, after conducting all these tests, I did the average loading time. For that, I took all the results from performance tests 2 and 3 (with the hosting optimized) and divided them by the total number of tests (6). And these are the final results.
| Hosting | Average Loading Time |
| Kinsta | 0.86 sec |
| Siteground | 1.14 sec |
I have to say I am impressed with both results. This only proves that although Kinsta is faster, they both perform very well.
Kinsta vs SiteGround: Support Comparisons.
Regarding customer support, both Kinsta and Siteground are excellent. They both provide fast response times. On top of it, their workers are very knowledgeable and always are very helpful.
Kinsta Support.
Kinsta offers live chat support. You can access support at any time from any screen in your Kinsta dashboard. You just need to look for the icon below, click on it, and type your question.
In my experience, Kinsta support works excellently and fast. The average response time to my queries has been less than 5 minutes. Also, you’ll get your conversation sent to your email.
Siteground Support.
Siteground offers live chat and telephone support, and you can also raise a ticket. To access support, you need to go to contact us > select help desk > select topic > describe inquiry > contact support.
If you select the chat, it will open in a new window. My personal experience with Siteground could not be better. If Kinsta’s response is fast, Siteground is immediate! They are always willing to help you and will fix your issues most of the time. They’ll also send your conversation via email.
Kinsta vs SiteGround: Pricing Comparison.
When it comes to price comparison, Siteground offers much more affordable plans than Kinsta.
If you want the fastest hosting with premium features and top security, Kinsta is your best option. But if you want is reliable hosting, with good speed and other helpful features, then SiteGround is the best option.
Kinsta Pricing
Kinsta hosting offers a range of pricing plans tailored to meet various web hosting needs, from small projects to large enterprises. The entry-level Starter plan is priced at $35 per month or $350 annually, providing cost savings for annual payments. This plan includes hosting for WordPress sites, accommodating up to 25,000 visits, 10GB of storage, and free migrations.
Additionally, Kinsta ensures customer satisfaction with a 30-day money-back guarantee. For web applications, Kinsta introduces flexible billing, allowing users to scale their resources as needed. This approach to pricing ensures that Kinsta can accommodate a wide range of customers, from individuals running small websites to large corporations with extensive web application needs
And although SiteGround offers more storage than Kinsta, Kinsta excludes the staging environment from the total disk calculation. So if you use to perform tests on your website, you might want to consider this.
Siteground pricing.
In my personal case, I find Siteground offers the best value for money.
The GrowbBig and GoGeek plan allows unlimited websites. I have several of my client’s sites hosted on the GrowBig plan. So I’d say Siteground is a better option for hosting light websites and without much traffic.
Also, Siteground offers a bit more extra storage for your websites and unmetered traffic.
You might want to read next:
Conclusion: Kinsta vs Siteground- what should you choose?
In this Kinsta vs Siteground comparison, you can see there are many clear differences. But in my opinion, there is not better or worse. There is simply one that may adjust better to your needs than the other.
You should choose Kinsta if you:
- Have the budget.
- Want your website to load extremely fast.
- Want extra security.
You should choose SiteGround if you:
- Have a tight budget.
- Want free email hosting
- Are building a brand new website
- Plan on hosting several websites
