Are you a busy business owner? Have more things on your mind than your website? We can help! When you host your website with Pod Creative you don’t have to worry about a thing.
What is hosting?
Check out this dedicated post for more details. The super quick explanation: “Hosting is the physical storage, on a server, of the files for your website. Every website requires hosting to be able to work.”
Pod Creative VS Siteground
Pod Creative is a small but mighty Web Development, Graphic Design, and Website Hosting company located in the Comox Valley, British Columbia. We provide dedicated, managed hosting at an extremely affordable rate to any size business, big or small! Our servers are located in Montreal, we support Canadian-owned businesses.
SiteGround is a holding of companies registered in the USA, UK, Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Spain that manages three offices and offers hosting services in several data center locations around the world.
Up-time monitoring
Pod Creative
Siteground
Uptime monitoring is an automated way of checking whether a service such as a website or an application is available. When service goes down during an outage (downtime), uptime monitoring spots the issue and alerts the right person on the development team.
Wordpress + Plugin Updates
Pod Creative
Siteground
As part of Pod Creative’s dedicated, managed hosting, we take care of all regularly required WordPress core, theme, and plugin updates. This means you can have the peace of mind that your website up to date, secure and running optimally.
Siteground has an internal system that will automatically update WordPress and your plugins. You can set how regularly the updates happen or if you want them to happen at all.
Email Accounts
Pod Creative
Siteground
Pod Creative’s dedicated, managed, hosting package includes the free setup of three domain based email accounts. We offer expanded email management for our clients who require more complex email service. We also will set up your account through the aggregator of your choice (Gmail, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, etc.).
Siteground allows email addresses with your website domain at no extra cost. You can create as many accounts as you need, access them using a webmail interface, create forwarders and autoresponders, and more.
Bandwidth
Pod Creative
Siteground
One of the elements that makes Pod Creative’s hosting service stand out from the rest is that we are able to offer unmetered network traffic with no bandwidth charge.
Siteground also offers unmetered network traffic. However there is a limit on the number of website visits your account can handle. And the number of visits is based on the total from all sites under your account!
Support
Pod Creative
Siteground
Pod Creative pride ourselves on our customer service. We are available 24/7 by phone or email. For our clients in the Comox Valley we offer in person support at our office.
Siteground offers ‘Priority Support’ to its ‘GoGeek’ tier.
ssl setup and renewal
Pod Creative
Siteground
Pod Creative offers free setup of your SSL and will ensure it stays renewed. Never worry about your site’s security again!
Siteground offers free setup and renewal for basic SSL with paid options for more advanced requirements
regular website checks
Pod Creative
Siteground
Never worry about your site! One of the most popular pieces of our hosting package is the fact that we check your site monthly for performance, errors, omissions, and more.
Siteground does not offer this or a similar service.
Cloud-stored backups
Pod Creative
Siteground
Pod Creative backs up your website regularly, and irregularly, and stores these backups in our secure Google Drive. Access these backups at any time or request one by emailing us, there’s no extra charge.
Siteground offers daily automated backups, and the ability to purchase 5 on-demand backups.
Secure server
Pod Creative
Siteground
Pod Creative hosts our websites on a secure, dedicated server. This means that ONLY Pod Creative websites exist on our server, offering extra protection and lightning-fast response. At this point we have less than 300 websites on our server!
Siteground offers secure shared hosting on their server. This means that your website will share its server, and subsequent resources, with thousands of other websites.
Host any site
Pod Creative
Siteground
Big or small, Pod Creative can host it all! Whether it be a small personal website, a multi-page e-commerce site, or a popular members-only forum site, we have you covered. We have no restrictions on the number of visitors or website size!
Siteground offers hosting for any size site, with a tiny catch. Their most comparable plan to Pod Creative, the GrowBig plan, offers 20GB of space with approximately 100,000 visits per month.
Annual cost
Pod Creative - $400
Siteground - $300
Pod Creative’s dedicated, managed hosting is $400 a year, billed annually.
Sitegrounds GrowBig hosting plan is $25/month, billed either monthly or annually.
Pod Creative’s Experience with Siteground
From time to time we like to try out other hosting platforms to see how we compare, and with our client’s permission will move a website or two over for some time to test the performance. We were particularly interested as the plan we chose offered “Unlimited” sites on the same hosting plan.
As with most things when they are, it was too good to be true. We found that the 20GB of web space really doesn’t go a long way, and when it’s exceeded your hosting is SHUT DOWN until the next billing period. In other words, your website is turned off, no warning, nothing. Not what we were expecting at all! To say we were unimpressed was an understatement.
Final
Thoughts
Whether you’re a big business or small, needing a personal website or an e-commerce platform, we have you covered for hosting. Sign up for our dedicated, managed hosting today and feel your website stress melt away!