WP Engine vs. SiteGround: I’ve Used Both. Which Is Better?
Since 2016, I've been a faithful SiteGround customer. I had zero complaints, but I was always eyeing WP Engine because it's kind of the premier hosting provider in the blogging world. WP Engine is known as the hosting provider you switch to when you've got over 100,000 pageviews of traffic a month; it's also way more expensive.
But, after blogging for seven years, I really wanted to “upgrade” to WP Engine. I felt like it would prove I'd finally made it. After all, it costs more, so it must be nicer, right? I expected it would speed up my blog if I switched to WP Engine.
Now that it's been three months since I've switched from SiteGround to WP Engine, what do I think?
There has been no improvement in speed.
When I switched from Bluehost to SiteGround, I saw an immediate improvement in site speed—my blog started to load faster! However, when I switched from SiteGround to WP Engine, I saw zero improvement in site speed.
To be fair, this could be because my site is already so fast that it can't load any faster, but I don't think that's true.
I miss SiteGround's support team.
SiteGround's support team is top-notch. While both SiteGround and WP Engine offer 24/7 chat support, I've found that SiteGround's is much more likely to do the work for you, while WP Engine's is more likely to tell you what to do. And as a non-techie person, I would much rather have someone else do it for me.
WP Engine does not help you with migration (SiteGround does).
With WP Engine, you must migrate the site yourself using a plugin. But with SiteGround, you can submit a ticket and have their support team do it for you (free on GrowBig and GoGeek plans).
WP Engine does not have a cPanel nor email accounts.
Most popular web hosts, such as Bluehost and SiteGround, have cPanel, which is basically a dashboard where you can manage things like email accounts, WordPress installations, and domains.
WP Engine, however, does not have cPanel. So it's rather confusing for me to find things in the dashboard.
WP Engine also does not have email services, meaning I can't create an email account with my domain name like I could with SiteGround. I'd have to use a third-party service, and I'm too lazy to do that right now.
WP Engine vs. SiteGround: Which One Do I Think Is Better?
Honestly, I prefer SiteGround. And that makes me sad because I'd like to switch back, but I've already paid for a full year with WP Engine, and they can't guarantee me a refund. So I'm going to wait until the 12 months are up, and then I plan to switch back to SiteGround.
