As a freelance graphic designer, I’ve been building websites for clients since the early 2000s.
If you’d have asked me years ago whether or not it mattered which hosting service provider you used for your website I’d have probably told you that it matters very little.
After all, the vast majority of sites I’ve built for clients over the years were low-trafficked portfolio sites with a few Squarespace and Shopify sites scattered in throughout.
I don’t think a single site generated more than 500 page views a month.
So no, for those sites, it didn’t really matter.
Then, I built my first big site – TheSmokies.com – a regional travel blog about my hometown.
I thought I’d be able to get away with a cheap host – like GoDaddy – just as I had done for years.
Boy, was I wrong.
Within weeks my traffic was exploding – with several hundred thousand page views per month and cheap hosts like GoDaddy and SiteGround could not keep up.
And so, I began my journey to find a web host that could handle my growing business needs.
Spoiler Alert: Today I own and operate four blogs (MorganOverholt.com, MiamiTake.com, HeyOrlando.com and TheSmokies.com) which, at the time of this writing, generate 5-7 million page views per year.
Current BigScoots offers
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What does BigScoots do?
Today, between my client sites and my blogs (most running on WordPress), I still use a variety of hosts including GoDaddy, SiteGround, BigScoots and ServeBolt. I personally find that each has its own strengths and weaknesses.
And I will discuss those strengths and weaknesses in this article.
But first, what does BigScoots do?
BigScoots offers a variety of web hosting services like WordPress Managed Hosting, Dedicated Servers, VPS Hosting and even Website Building.
But for the sake of this article, I’ll mostly be focusing on Managed Servers and Managed Hosting.
A Managed Server is precisely what it sounds like – a server that someone else manages for you. This means the host is responsible for server maintenance, updates, and troubleshooting should problems arise.
And trust me, when a problem arises – and no matter who you are or what kind of site you run, problems will arise – you’ll want a managed solution.
And while there are plenty of sites that offer managed solutions on paper – like GoDaddy for instance – BigScoots’ packages feature more of a white glove, concierge-level managed service.
Sometimes, BigScoots alerts me to issues before I even know there’s a problem. I always get to speak directly to an actual human.
And I never have to wait in a phone queue. If I have an issue, I simply create a support ticket. Without fail, I receive a reply within minutes, no matter the time of day.
I tend to prefer email support but phone support is also available.
Current BigScoots offers
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Is BigScoots fast?
Yes, BigScoots is fast.
In fact, in our experience, this is why most large sites in the blogger community seem to run their websites on either BigScoots or ServeBolt.
In fact, that’s how I originally heard about BigScoots – on an exclusive premium blogger Facebook Group.
For the uninitiated, site speed is one of the most important factors for ranking on Google Search.
And while there are a lot of factors that go into determining site speed – including themes, scripts, styles, images and video – naturally, server speed is an important component.
BigScoots is so proud of its ability to boost its clients’ load time they’ve published hundreds of case studies on the topic.
I’ve included a snapshot of that study featuring average site speeds before and after their clients switched to BigScoots.
The numbers listed are based on BigScoots’ internal studies at the time of this writing.
| Host | Before BigScoots | BigScoots | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1&1 | 10,323 ms | 876 ms | 74% |
| AWS | 32,470 ms | 949 ms | 84% |
| BlueHost | 4,776 ms | 1,085 ms | 69% |
| GoDaddy | 5,848 ms | 1,404 ms | 67% |
| HostGator | 5,908 ms | 1,091 ms | 71% |
| NameCheap | 3,725 ms | 1,020 ms | 59% |
| SiteGround | 3,204 ms | 1,095 ms | 55 % |
And while I am sure that reporting is somewhat biased as I suspect BigScoots only selected their biggest success stories for their case studies, I can attest that my sites also made significant speed gains when I migrated from GoDaddy and SiteGround to BigScoots.
How to test your site’s speed
If you want to test your own site speed and performance, simply check out Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. You can also compare apples to apples by using Chrome’s DevTools extension.
Current BigScoots offers
Explore current hosting packages and bundles from BigScoots.com.
How does BigScoots compare to other hosts?
Now let’s see how BigScoots’ service offerings and prices compare to a few leading competitors.
It is important to note that most of the hosts mentioned below offer several different packages and service levels. For the sake of brevity, I’m going to be looking at WordPress Managed Hosting services and provide a snapshot of currently available plans.
Pricing and packages are “as of the time of this writing” and based on an annual contract.
1. BigScoots vs GoDaddy
In full disclosure – I started my website-building life with GoDaddy and I remain a dedicated GoDaddy customer today. However, I admit that mostly only use them for domain registration and hosting small, basic HTML sites with light traffic.
In fact, GoDaddy is probably my favorite entry-level website host in the industry.
Sure, you don’t get the white glove service that BigScoots offers, but it’s cheap. And I find customer support, whether using live chat or phone, to be extremely helpful.
Plus, GoDaddy is affordable – with shared hosting plans available for as little as $5.99 per month.
Managed WordPress Hosting packages start at just $8.99 per month and include a free domain name.
But GoDaddy is, in my personal experience, considerably slower than BigScoots. And, seemingly, riddled with cache issues.
It used to drive me crazy when I’d make a change to one of my GoDaddy sites but have to reset the entire cache multiple times to see the edit. And caching plugins didn’t seem to help.
These are issues I rarely experience with BigScoots.
BigScoots also consistently blows GoDaddy out of the water in terms of response time (as referenced above).
Regardless, if you value price over performance, GoDaddy may still be an option for you.
Below you will find a side-by-side comparison of the two hosting providers featuring a few of GoDaddy’s Managed WordPress Hosting options compared to BigScoots Managed WordPress packages.
Entry Level Packages
| BigScoots | GoDaddy |
|---|---|
| Starter | Basic |
| $31.46/mo | $8.99/mo |
| Approx 250k Visits/Mo | – |
| 1 Website | 1 Website |
| 10 GB Storage | 20 GB Storage |
| 1000 GB Bandwidth | Unlimited Bandwidth |
| CDN Included | CDN Included |
| SSL Included | SSL Included |
| Site Monitoring | Site Monitoring |
| Staging | – |
| Email Included | Email Included (1 year) |
| Migration Included | Migration Tool |
| Daily Backups | Daily Backups |
Mid Level Packages
| BigScoots | GoDaddy |
|---|---|
| Professional | Managed WP Pro 10 |
| $89.06/mo | $69.99/mo |
| Approx 750k Visits/Mo | – |
| 10 Websites | 10 Websites |
| 30 GB Storage | 80 GB Storage |
| Unlimited Bandwidth | Unlimited Bandwidth |
| CDN Included | CDN Included |
| SSL Included | SSL Included |
| Site Monitoring | Site Monitoring |
| Staging | Staging |
| Email Included | Email Included (1 year) |
| Migration Included | Migration Tool |
| Daily Backups | Daily Backups |
Top-Tier Packages
| BigScoots | GoDaddy |
|---|---|
| Business | Managed WP Pro 50 |
| $224.06/mo | $229.99/mo |
| Approx 1.5M Visits/Mo | – |
| 20 Websites | 50 Websites |
| 200 GB Storage | 200 GB Storage |
| Unlimited Bandwidth | Unlimited Bandwidth |
| CDN Included | CDN Included |
| SSL Included | SSL Included |
| Site Monitoring | Site Monitoring |
| Staging | Staging |
| Email Included | Email Included (1 year) |
| Migration Included | Migration Tool |
| Daily Backups | Daily Backups |
You can see a full list of BigScoots’ and GoDaddy’s hosting packages on the sites’ respective pricing pages.
2. BigScoots vs SiteGround
SiteGround is another extremely affordable website hosting provider with shared hosting packages starting at just $14.99 a year. Sometimes, you can even sign up when they are having one of their big hosting sales and nab a hosting package for as little as $1.99 for the first year.
However, unlike BigScoots and GoDaddy offerings, SiteGround does not include SSLs with their managed hosting packages, which can add quite a bit to the final price tag.
SiteGround’s performance, in my experience, seems to be a bit better than GoDaddy. I also find SiteGround’s user interface to be more user-friendly. And, I’ve never been disappointed with their customer service.
But their Managed WordPress Packages are limited. The biggest package tops out at just 40 GB of space which can only efficiently handle about 400,000 visits per month.
I currently only have one small WordPress site on my SiteGround account.
I used to host my original blog – TheSmokies.com – with SiteGround until it outgrew the service.
Below are a few of SiteGround’s Managed WordPress Hosting options compared to packages from BigScoots.
Entry Level Packages
| BigScoots | SiteGround |
|---|---|
| Starter | StartUp |
| $31.46/mo | $14.99/mo |
| Approx 250k Visits/Mo | Approx 10k Visits/Mo |
| 1 Website | 1 Website |
| 10 GB Storage | 10 GB Storage |
| 1000 GB Bandwidth | Unlimited Bandwidth |
| CDN Included | CDN Included |
| SSL Included | – |
| Site Monitoring | Site Monitoring |
| Staging | – |
| Email Included | Email Included |
| Migrations Included | Migration Tool |
| Daily Backups | Daily Backups |
Mid Level Packages
| BigScoots | SiteGround |
|---|---|
| Professional | GrowBig |
| $89.06/mo | $24.99/mo |
| Approx 750k Visits/Mo | Approx 100k Visits/Mo |
| 10 Websites | Unlimited Websites |
| 30 GB Storage | 20 GB Storage |
| Unlimited Bandwidth | Unlimited Bandwidth |
| CDN Included | CDN Included |
| SSL Included | – |
| Site Monitoring | Site Monitoring |
| Staging | Staging |
| Email Included | Email Included |
| Migration Included | Migration Tool |
| Daily Backups | Daily Backups |
Top-Tier Packages
| BigScoots | SiteGround |
|---|---|
| Business | GoGeek |
| $224.06/mo | $39.99/mo |
| Approx 1.5M Visits/Mo | Approx 400k Visits/Mo |
| 20 Websites | Unlimited Websites |
| 200 GB Storage | 40 GB Storage |
| Unlimited Bandwidth | Unlimited Bandwidth |
| CDN Included | CDN Included |
| SSL Included | – |
| Site Monitoring | Site Monitoring |
| Staging | Staging |
| Email Included | Email Included |
| Migration Included | Migration Tool |
| Daily Backups | Daily Backups |
You can see a full list of BigScoots’ and SiteGround’s hosting packages on the sites’ respective pricing pages.
3. BigScoots vs ServeBolt
Finally, we have the elephant in the room: ServeBolt.
Take note: ServeBolt is missing from the BigScoots case study page. And likely – although I’m mostly guessing here – it’s because they are a much more worthy opponent.
It’s easy to pick on the little guys, as they say.
In fact, we host two of our blog sites on BigScoots – MorganOverholt.com and MiamiTake.com (1M pageviews/year). But we host the biggest two sites on ServeBolt – TheSmokies.com and HeyOrlando.com (5M pageviews/year).
ServeBolt seems comparable to, if not better than BigScoots as far as speed is concerned. And if you want to talk about white glove service – ServeBolt is bar none.
ServeBolt’s massive computing power offers an unrivaled scale for extra-large, highly trafficked websites.
But all of that awesomeness comes at a steep price. In fact, ServeBolt’s entry-level packages start at $99/month and climb all the way up to $1,400. They can even work with businesses on custom packages if needed.
This is why we tend to start our sites on BigScoots and eventually move them to ServeBolt after a few years.
Below are a few of ServeBolt’s Managed WordPress Hosting options compare to BigScoots.
Entry Level Packages
| BigScoots | ServeBolt |
|---|---|
| Starter | Pro Plan |
| $31.46/mo | $99/mo |
| Approx 250k Visits/Mo | Approx 1M Visits/Mo |
| 1 Website | 3 Websites |
| 10 GB Storage | 4 GB Storage |
| 1000 GB Bandwidth | Unlimited Bandwidth |
| CDN Included | CDN Included (2 domains) |
| SSL Included | SSL Included (2 domains) |
| Site Monitoring | Site Monitoring |
| Staging | Staging |
| Email Included | – |
| Migration Included | Migration Included |
| Daily Backups | Daily Backups |
Mid Level Packages
| BigScoots | ServeBolt |
|---|---|
| Professional | Business Plus Plan |
| $89.06/mo | $549.99/mo |
| Approx 750k Visits/Mo | Approx 1M Visits/Mo |
| 10 Websites | 10 Websites |
| 30 GB Storage | 32 GB Storage |
| Unlimited Bandwidth | Unlimited Bandwidth |
| CDN Included | CDN Included (2 domains) |
| SSL Included | SSL Included (2 domains) |
| Site Monitoring | Site Monitoring |
| Staging | Staging |
| Email Included | – |
| Migration Included | Migration Included |
| Daily Backups | Daily Backups |
Top-Tier Packages
| BigScoots | ServeBolt |
|---|---|
| Business | Small Enterprise |
| $224.06/mo | $1400/mo |
| Approx 1.5M Visits/Mo | Approx 10M Visits/Mo |
| 20 Websites | Unlimited Websites |
| 200 GB Storage | 128 GB Storage |
| Unlimited Bandwidth | Unlimited Bandwidth |
| CDN Included | CDN Included (2 domains) |
| SSL Included | SSL Included (2 domains) |
| Site Monitoring | Site Monitoring |
| Staging | Staging |
| Email Included | – |
| Migration Included | Migration Included |
| Daily Backups | Daily Backups |
You can see a full list of BigScoots’ and ServeBolt’s hosting packages on the sites’ respective pricing pages.
Conclusion: Would I recommend BigScoots?
In conclusion, I’d offer the following advice.
If you’re a small business that doesn’t expect more than a few hundred visits every month to your website – your best choice, in my opinion, is still GoDaddy. You just can’t beat that affordable pricing.
For small websites, to me, it’s the obvious choice.
But if you have a larger website – as in, a website that attracts anywhere between 5,000-750,000 hits a month and/or requires a significant amount of storage space – go for BigScoots. It offers the best of both worlds with affordability, white-glove service, lightning speed and other high quality options for your site.
We saw dramatic traffic increases with each site we migrated from SiteGround/GoDaddy to BigScoots.
I cannot emphasize this enough. Site speed matters when it comes to SEO.
But don’t forget to keep ServeBolt in mind if you have a website (or two) that is growing at a rapid rate and in need of more dedicated resources and hands-on technical support.
It’s cost prohibitive for the vast majority of websites. However, ServeBolt wasn’t built for the majority – it was built for that small minority of websites that attract millions of views annually.
Current BigScoots offers
Explore current hosting packages and bundles from BigScoots.com.
Are you currently considering switching to BigScoots? Do you have any specific questions about the service or about my BigScoots review? If so, drop your questions and comments below!
PS: If you’ve found any of the above advice helpful, and you feel so inclined – buy me a coffee (leave a tip) on Kofi!
Hi Morgan,
Very Amazed by your BigScoots Review & especially the review thumbnail. After reading from top-to-bottom, I found out that I should be moving onto BigScoots hosting.