Microsoft Azure vs SiteGround

Microsoft Azure is strongest for enterprises. SiteGround is strongest for WordPress sites. Here's how they stack up on price, uptime, and support.

Feature	Microsoft Azure	SiteGround
Starting price	$0.01/mo	$17.99/mo
Best for	Enterprises Windows/.NET workloads Hybrid cloud Regulated industries	WordPress sites Small business websites Agencies wanting managed WP WooCommerce stores
Stated uptime SLA	99.99%	not formally published as a credit-backed SLA on marketing pages; SiteGround informally markets high uptime (~99.9%) via status page / blog claims
Storage	SSD	SSD
Regions	60	6
Managed Kubernetes	Yes	No
Support channels	Ticket, Phone (paid plans), Docs, Community forum	Ticket, Live chat, Phone (higher tiers/cloud), Docs/Knowledge base
Compliance	SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, FedRAMP, GDPR, PCI DSS	GDPR
Hidden costs to watch for	Windows Server VMs carry a license surcharge on top of the Linux compute rate Outbound bandwidth billed above 100 GB/month pooled free tier, tiered by volume Premium SSD/Ultra Disk IOPS and throughput billed separately from disk capacity Blob Storage Cool/Cold/Archive tiers bill a minimum 128 KiB per object and impose early-deletion penalties (90/180 day minimums) Archive tier retrieval fees are notably high ($6.50/10,000 read ops) AKS Standard tier control plane fee ($0.10/hr per cluster) on top of node VM costs	Renewal prices are 3-6x higher than signup/intro price after the first term (e.g. StartUp $2.99 -> $17.99/mo) Storage and visit caps are enforced per plan tier; exceeding them can trigger upsell prompts Free domain / free migration offers are time-limited promotions, not permanent 12-month (or longer) prepay is required to get the lowest advertised intro rate
Last reviewed	2026-07-18	2026-07-18