Are you looking for the best web hosting for your website and not sure between which one to choose from Flywheel vs SiteGround? We all know, these two hostings are some of the most premium hostings which you could ever get for your website.
Both of them have a lot of features, reliable speed, and tools – but based on this, it’s tough to compare these two web hosting providers. Because SiteGround serves the general population, and you can host any type of website on this hosting. Still, when it comes to Flywheel, it is specially curated to host WordPress or WooCommerce based websites.
Based on these, we’ll review both of these amazing web hosting providers in this guide and comes to a conclusion on choosing the best between them. Here we’ll carefully examine them on various factors we listed below and try to solve all your doubts between SiteGround vs Flywheel.
We’ll examine flywheel and siteground on these categories:
- Pricing
- Control Panel
- Performance, CDN & Speed
- Features & One-Click Installation
- Security & Free SSL
- Customer Support
- Value for Money
So let’s get started…
But before we continue further and compare Flywheel vs SiteGround, if your main aim is to host non-WordPress based websites, then you can obviously go with SiteGround (Get 60% OFF on SiteGround) – but if your main aim is to host a WordPress website, then I’ll recommend reading this guide further.
Quick Summary: Flywheel is a winner here. So, if you’re looking for the best hosting with the fastest speed, security, optimized for WordPress, then you can go with it and you’ll never regret it (Get 2-Months Free on Flywheel).
But if you’re looking for reliable hosting at a limited price with great customer support, then no one can beat SiteGround here (Get 60% OFF on SiteGround). Depends on all these, make a wise choice according to your needs and requirements.
Flywheel vs SiteGround – An Introduction
Before we can proceed further to share the in-depth comparison of our research, first, let’s learn a bit about these two hosting giants and see how they’re useful for our WordPress website.
Flywheel
When it comes to WordPress and WooCommerce, Flywheel is one of the most interesting web hosting providers. This is the platform that isn’t just focused on providing you with advanced features but also saves your precious time as a developer or agency.
It has one of the easiest and convenient control panels, which I had ever used in any hosting giant. Right from the dashboard, you can manage some advanced features as well as check the stats of the website. It also helps you to deploy your website with all your favorite plugins and themes deployed in just minutes.
Key Features of Flywheel
- Staging Site option with PHP 7.4 ready.
- Protect your website with nightly backup.
- WordPress BluePrint to save time while deploying sites.
- Comes with a Free SSL, FlyCache, and CDN.
SiteGround
SiteGround is one of the most trusted web hosting providers globally, which is well known for its fastest performance and speed. It is one of its kind that offers managed WordPress hosting plan starting from just $6.99/Month with free website migration, free SSL, and a free CDN.
Recently, they’ve shifted their entire servers to Google Cloud, which makes SiteGround unbeatable in terms of performance, speed, and reliability. Not just to managed WordPress hosting, you can also use it to host tons of other websites or even custom websites – which is something you’ll never find on other managed WordPress hosting providers.
Key Features of SiteGround
- Setup WordPress site easily
- They offer free WordPress Migration, free SSL, and a free CDN.
- Keep your website safe with Daily Backup.
- SSH and WP-CLI are available.
Flywheel vs. SiteGround – Which One to Choose for WordPress?
Let’s talked about the web hosting providers in 2023. You’d get thousands of providers for your website – but there are only a few of them who are reliable, offer freebies, and provide top-notch security & performance for your website. SiteGround and Flywheel are some of them.
They both are best in the market depending upon your requirements and usabilities. However, choosing one amongst both of these hostings isn’t an easy task because of many similar functionalities, and they both are reliable.
But there is a lot of difference if we talk about the pricing, control panel, support, etc. Based on all of this, we have curated this guide for you, where we compare both Flywheel vs. SiteGround and share the results with you.
1. Pricing
The first thing which we think is most important in any web hosting provider is their pricing. If we compare flywheel and siteground, Flywheel hosting’s pricing starts from $13/month (if chosen annually) for the “Tiny” plan with up to 5,000 monthly visits, 5GB of disk space, and you can only host one website on it.
As you can see in the image above, they’ve got four different pricing, and we’ve already discussed about the first one. The next plan most popular in Flywheel is “Freelance“, which is valid for up to 10 sites and costs you around $96/month. This plan support around 100K monthly visits and provides you with a 20GB disk space – which is enough for 10 WordPress websites.
On the other hand, when we talk about SiteGround, the pricing for their base package “StartUp” starts from $6.99/Month with one website supports – but it offers you 10GB disk space and 10,000 monthly visits which are doubled if compared with Flywheel’s tiny plan and cost you 50% less in price too.
They also have two other plans apart from “StartUp” and these are “GrowBig” and “GoGeek“. GrowBig is one of the most popular plans which SiteGround offers and we have personally hosted a few websites on this plan. The pricing for this plan is attractive and the features too, you’ll get it for just $9.99/month with unlimited website supports, 20GB disk space, and 25,000 monthly visits.
SiteGround’s GrowBig and Flywheel’s Freelance plan have 20GB disk space with an unlimited website and 10 website support respectively – but I recommend you not installing more than 7-8 active sites on these plans.
It is because a normal WordPress website (blog websites) needs around 2-3GB of disk space to handle most of the things and especially, it takes a lot more when you use third-party backup plugins like Updraft or All-in-One Migration.
If we check the pricing offered by both of these hosting giants, you can clearly see SiteGround offers budget-friendly pricing with many similar features and even support unlimited websites. Apart from unlimited websites, SiteGround also offers double disk space and monthly visits starting from half the price of Flywheel and a lot more on other plans if compared.
Winner: When it comes to the pricing, SiteGround is a clear winner with a budget-friendly managed WordPress hosting pricing, no one could ever offer in the market.
2. Control Panel
The next thing which matters a lot in any web hosting giant is the control panel they offer. Most of the hosting giants in the market use cPanel/WHM on their server, but when it comes to managing WordPress websites, A few of them even offer customized or fully custom-built panels, SiteGround, and Flywheel are some of them.
If we talk about Flywheel, they’ve got really eye-catchy and beautifully designed control panels for their users. Along with Flywheel’s simplicity on their control panel, it has some steady and most powerful features too. From their control panel, you can easily check site stats, manage advanced features, and deploy a blueprint.
A blueprint is a special feature offered by Flywheel to its customer. Using the WordPress Blueprint, you can easily deploy a new WordPress site with your favorite plugins and themes in a minute or two without any hassle.
They also offer you a staging site feature in their easy-to-use control panel for managing your production works without getting published on your WordPress site. Along with all, the control panel is built in such a way that you can design the site of your client from your own account and then shift the site with all the settings to your client’s account.
On the other hand, when we talked about SiteGround, they’ve recently changed their server on their own panel – which also is easy to use and manage. Before it, they are using the cPanel/WHM panel on their hosting like all other web hosting providers.
The SiteTool or the control panel of SiteGround is curated so that it can be easily accessible by developers, agencies, and beginners. People like us really love to use this panel because it provides an easy-to-use interface and powerful features so that anyone can easily use it (Sometimes it can be tough to find things, especially when you’re shifting from the cPanel).
After the recent change of panel in SiteGround, migrating websites is easier now. But the thing which I don’t like with the SiteGround panel is their capping in the staging site. It requires a certain GB of free disk space to set up the staging site, and they also cap the number of operations per day, where’s flywheel doesn’t have any capping and limitations.
Winner: It’s tough for me to say who wins here – because they both are too different from each other. But based on the results we shared above, Flywheel seems to be a clear winner with robust and advanced features.
If you’re looking for something basic and easy to use, you can also choose the SiteTool panel of SiteGround.
3. Performance, CDN & Speed
The next thing that matters a lot in any web hosting provider is performance and speed. After the pricing and control panel, we’re going to review the performance and speed of the web hosting providers.
For checking the performance and speed, we’re going to deploy WordPress sites on both hosting and use tools like Pingdom and LoadImpact (now K6.io) to check the performance.
So we have deployed the first website on Flywheel hosting with default WordPress themes, plugins, and a dummy hello world post. After deploying the site, we just go to the Pingdom site to test the website’s speed.
As you can see in the image above, the results are quite good for a website without any optimizations. We have tested the website with Pingdom’s Dallas server, and it takes around 14 requests to load the website having 293.5KB of size in just 592ms.
After the Pingdom, we checked how much stress a website can take by sending virtual traffic load from LoadImpact (K6.io). For this, we have set up 25 virtual users for 5 minutes on the website to check the site’s average response and loading time.
Flywheel is really good here and it can easily manage the virtual load of 25 users for 5 minutes with an average of 80ms loading time (as you can see in the image above).
I always recommend you to check the virtual load of users on your website whenever you migrate to any web hosting provider and see how much average time it takes to respond. It is really beneficial, and you can use K6.io to freely check the stress of 50 virtual users on your server.
On the other hand, we have also deployed a WordPress website on SiteGround with default plugins and themes as we did in Flywheel. Once the site is deployed, we again check the Pingdom result of this website with the same server location and settings we did with Flywheel.
As you can see in the results above, it takes 14 requests, and the total size of the website is 327.5 KB with the default configurations and it takes 696 ms to load the website completely.
After this, we also analyzed the server’s stress testing and how much virtual loads it can handle using the LoadImact (K6.io) tool.
The server’s average response takes around 400ms (as seen in the image above) and remains constant for up to 25 users.
If we talk about the uptime of both Flywheel and SiteGround, they offer 99.9% SLA, and they both have multiple server locations on which you can deploy your website. Not only this, they both have equipped with the fastest SSD-based servers and the fastest CDNs.
Winner: If we talk about the winner, Flywheel is a clear winner here with 80ms average response time and built-in WordPress optimizations. So if you don’t mind spending a little extra on a faster website, then you can go with Flywheel.
4. Features & One-Click Installation
Features and one-click installation is another most important thing to look out for here. Firstly, I don’t want to include this one-click installation point while comparing both the hosting because it can be biased.
SiteGround is a web hosting giant that offers managed WordPress hosting and hosting for PHP and other types of websites, whereas Flywheel is truly devoted to managed WordPress hosting business.
SiteGround offers a one-click installer that facilitates you to install WordPress, WooCommerce, Weebly Sitebuilder, or other CMS as well. It means you can install or deploy any type of website on SiteGround, whereas if we talk about Flywheel, you’ll get the option to install WordPress and WooCommerce only.
Apart from this, if we talk about other features, they both have PHP 7.4-ready servers and provide you with free SSL, free migration, and CDN. But there are a few things that are too different on both of these hosting; some of them can include free Email servers, Genesis frameworks, and themes.
If we talk about the Flywheel, they offer you Genesis framework along with 30+ StudioPress themes and auto-healing servers along with site cloning, staging sites, and blueprints which are missing in SiteGround. But SiteGround competite it with free Email, WP-CLI, and more disk space along with doubled monthly visits.
Winner: It is difficult to judge both of these hosting giants here – but if we leave the WordPress thing aside, SiteGround is a clear winner. Also, SiteGround offers slightly more features and more disk space as compared with Flywheel here.
But if you’re looking for more robust features and want to host just WordPress websites, then I must say Flywheel competites well with SiteGround here, and they also offer a free Genesis framework and theme with every plan.
5. Security and Free SSL
If we compare Flywheel vs SiteGround, then we can’t deny comparing both of them on security metrics as it is one of the most important things or probably matters more than the things we mentioned above.
It is because we all know all websites are vulnerable to hacks, viruses, and exploits. If you don’t have proper knowledge about the mitigation process, it will cost you a lot more to get your website malware-free again, or if you’re doing it by yourself, it might take a few days or weeks.
Trust me; it can be harmful to your website, especially if it ranks well on Google and Bing. You’ll completely lose your website traffic which nobody wants. In this case, it is most important to choose a hosting provider who provides a complete solution to remove the virus from your website or to always audit your website for malware issues.
Flywheel offers a complete solution for you in situations like this, and it also offers free malware removal with its web hosting plans. You just have to raise a support ticket, live chat, or ask them for their support number with complete details.
SiteGround also offers similar services to you, but they charge $19.80/year for monitoring and checking your website for malicious codes, injected scripts, or notifying you if your site gets hacked.
Both SiteGround and Flywheel offer you an automatic update of the themes and plugins. They also support 2FA authentication, which helps websites prevent brute force attacks.
Additionally, if we compare other services like free SSL and CDN, they offer free SSL and CDN for your website. If we talk about the free SSL, the flywheel offers one-click simple SSL installation on your website in collaboration with Let’s Encrypt.
And if we talk about SiteGround, they offer a free SSL certificate for your website in collaboration with Let’s Encrypt. These certificates are free to use, easy to install, and great for improving your site’s security.
Winner: Both of these web hosting giants are very well at managing your website’s security – but we liked Flywheel the most. It is because sometimes we may forget to add add-ons like “SG Site Scanner” while purchasing hosting, and later we regret it.
But it is not with Flywheel; they also offer free malware removal services in the same plan and completely removes malware/virus from your site. They’re also very good at managing and optimizing security for your WordPress website and safeguarding you from OWASP’s top 10 attacks.
6. Customer Support
Both Flywheel and SiteGround offer great customer support – but when we talk about the flywheel, you’ll only get phone support with the purchase of an Agency or custom plan. With regular Tiny, Starter, and Freelance plans, they offer ticket and chat support. It is something which I don’t like.
The Flywheel team’s phone support is also limited to Monday-Saturday from 9 am to 6 pm EST. If you’re in a hurry, you just have the option to chat with them to solve your issue or wait for getting replied on tickets.
Where’s if we talk about SiteGround, they offer 24×7 chat, email, and phone support. You’ll also get a fast reply on siteground due to their no-hold policy. They also promise to pick up the phone or reply to your chat within seconds, and this is something which I don’t even find on any other host (SiteGround has already taken my heart here 😜)
When I contacted their support via email (as email always take time to get a response) – but I was shocked, I got my reply within 7-8 minutes, which is too good for any users like us, the most host takes a lot more time to respond if we compare them with SiteGround.
Another thing that matters is how they’re able to respond to your queries and solve them. Here I think Flywheel responds and is able to solve queries quicker than SiteGround due to its narrow focus.
Winner: Based on the support offered by both of them, we think SiteGround is a clear winner here with no waiting time and quick response. They’re also very good at solving your queries, and they even offer phone support to all users.
7. Value for Money
The last thing which matters is which one is the most value for money? And if the same question is going around in your mind, then this point is especially for you.
Both flywheel and siteground are best for managing websites and providing speed, security, and reliability. But if we talk about Flywheel, it seems a bit overpriced compared with other managed WordPress hosting providers. Where’s SiteGround is something easily available to small bloggers and businesses.
So, if you’ve got a limited budget or you’re just starting your first website, you can continue with SiteGround and later switch to Flywheel for better WordPress optimization.
Flywheel vs. SiteGround
Flywheel is best for WordPress, and SiteGround is best under a specific budget. Grab the discount we shared below to get a discount on your hosting plans!
Frequently Asked Questions
Still not sure which one is best between flywheel and siteground?
Here we’re sharing a few FAQs which our readers mostly ask. It will surely help you in choosing the best hosting for your WordPress website.
Flywheel vs SiteGround for WordPress?
If we talk about hosting WordPress, then I highly recommend you to grab Flywheel. The flywheel is properly optimized for WordPress with tons of robust and advanced features, along with major security-related updates.
They also offer a free malware removal service for your website at no extra cost with the fastest CDN powered by Fastly.
Is SiteGround Better than Flywheel?
No, if you’re looking for the best hosting, then I highly recommend you choose Flywheel instead of SiteGround. It is because of the robust performance, speed, and advanced features flywheel offers along with their subscription.
You can also choose SiteGround hosting if your budget is limited or you don’t want to invest hefty money on buying a web hosting plan.
What’s the Major Difference Between Flywheel vs SiteGround?
The major difference between these two web hosting giants is, Flywheel is only available for bloggers or site owners who want to host WordPress or WooCommerce websites on a subscription. The hosting is only available for them, and it is pre-optimized for managing the WordPress thing.
Where’s if we talk about SiteGround, they also have other plans like a regular web hosting plan where you can host any type of website created using any CMS or even a static website created by you using HTML. Another major difference is their pricing and the support they offer to you, and in this case, I like SiteGround the most.
Wrapping Up
So in this guide, we tried our best to compare the flywheel and siteground hosting on various factors. Both of them are the biggest web hosting giants which you can choose from.
Based on the results we shared above, if you’re looking for managed WordPress hosting, then you can go with Flywheel and SiteGround if you want to host more than a WordPress website. You can also choose SiteGround because of its budget pricing (as compared with Flywheel). Furthermore, both of these hosting providers provide month-to-month web hosting plans.
However, in most cases, the pricing for managed WordPress hosting isn’t that steep, but the gains in features and performance make up for the investment.
If you’ve any other questions related to managed web hosting and choosing the best web hosting for your website, then you can simply connect with us at [email protected] or ask away in the comments section below!
