How to Migrate SiteGround to Kinsta (Step-by-Step)
If you’re looking to migrate from SiteGround to Kinsta, you’re probably already past the point of “should I do this?” and into “how do I actually do this without breaking anything.” This guide covers the full process, from pre-migration prep through DNS cutover, and flags a few things that tend to trip people up.
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Who This Guide Is For
This is aimed at WordPress site owners who are currently on SiteGround (any plan) and want to move to Kinsta’s managed platform. That might be because you’ve outgrown shared or cloud hosting, or because you’re chasing better performance infrastructure, or honestly just because SiteGround’s renewal pricing has climbed and the gap between what you’re paying and what you’re actually getting feels wider than it did.
It’s worth being direct about something: Kinsta is not the right move for every site. If you’re running a low-traffic personal blog or a site that generates no revenue, the cost difference is hard to justify. But for business sites, WooCommerce stores, agencies, or anything where performance and reliability actually matter, the infrastructure gap is real. Kinsta runs on Google Cloud with isolated container architecture; SiteGround runs on a more traditional shared model, even on higher tiers. That difference shows up in load times, especially under traffic spikes.
For a comparison of where each host sits in the broader market, the Kinsta vs SiteGround breakdown is worth a read before you commit.
Before You Start: What to Prepare
Don’t start the migration request until you’ve worked through this. Skipping prep is where things go wrong.
Take a full backup from SiteGround. Go into Site Tools, find the Backup section, and download both your files and your database. SiteGround offers daily automated backups but you want a manual snapshot taken right before the migration. If something goes sideways you need a clean restore point that predates Kinsta’s involvement.
Note your current DNS records. Log into your SiteGround Site Tools, go to DNS Zone Editor, and record every record you have. A records, CNAME, MX, TXT (including SPF and DKIM if you’re sending email from your domain). This step is non-negotiable. If you switch nameservers later without having documented your email records, you’ll lose email delivery silently. It’s one of the most common migration mistakes and it’s completely avoidable.
Lower your DNS TTL. Twelve to 24 hours before your anticipated migration timeframe, reduce the TTL value associated with your domain to 5 minutes (300 seconds) to speed up DNS propagation. If your TTL is currently set to something like 86400 (24 hours) and you don’t lower it first, propagation after the cutover will take far longer than it needs to.
Check whether 2FA is enabled on your SiteGround account. For SiteGround, if two-factor authentication is enabled, Kinsta recommends adding them to your account with the email address migrations@kinsta.com and giving them the necessary access. If you’d rather not do that, you can also use a backup file approach instead.
Know whether your site is e-commerce or membership. WooCommerce stores and membership sites need to go into maintenance mode during migration to prevent order or user data being lost mid-transfer. Plan for this. Schedule the migration during a period of low traffic if possible.
Option 1: Let Kinsta Migrate It For You (Recommended)
This is the route most people should take. Kinsta offers unlimited free migrations from all hosting providers for sites using standard WordPress installations. Customers can have websites migrated directly through MyKinsta by either sharing information about their current hosting provider or using a backup file.
The managed migration means Kinsta’s team handles the actual file and database transfer. You just fill in a request form and wait. If you don’t select a specific date, the expert Migrations team will complete it as soon as possible, usually within two business days.
Here’s how the process works in practice:
Step 1: Sign Up for Kinsta
Go to Kinsta and choose a plan. For most sites coming from SiteGround’s higher tiers, the Starter or Pro plan is a reasonable starting point. If you’re running WooCommerce with any real volume, look at Business 1 or above for the additional PHP workers. The Kinsta pricing guide has a clear breakdown of what each tier actually includes.
Step 2: Request the Migration in MyKinsta
Once your account is set up, log into MyKinsta. Go to Sites, click Add site, and follow the prompts to request a migration. You’ll be asked to choose timing: as soon as possible, scheduled for a specific date, or expedited (for a fee, usually completed within 8 hours on weekdays).
Step 3: Fill in the Migration Form
After entering your host information, you’ll be asked for your domain, WordPress credentials, and WordPress admin URL, as well as whether your site is a Bedrock/Trellis site, e-commerce, community, or membership site, if it’s a multisite, and if it uses HTTPS.
For the SiteGround-specific flow, you’ll enter your SiteGround credentials so Kinsta can access the source account directly. If you have 2FA enabled, either disable it temporarily or add Kinsta’s migrations email to your account as described above.
Step 4: Wait and Don’t Touch Anything
Refrain from making any changes to your site during the migration to ensure any updates aren’t left behind on your previous host. If there’s a delay between the migration and going live, a second migration may be needed for any updates.
This is harder than it sounds for active sites. If you’re running a blog and you publish something during migration, that post won’t be on the Kinsta copy. If you can, put the site into maintenance mode for the duration or just avoid making changes.
Step 5: Review the Migrated Site
Kinsta recommends using the Site Preview tool before updating DNS, which lets you access your migrated site using a temporary URL. You can test functionality, verify content, and check integrations before making DNS changes that affect visitors.
Go through everything. Check forms, test checkout if it’s a store, confirm images are loading, verify your SSL certificate is working on the staging URL. This is your chance to catch problems before anyone else sees them.
Option 2: Self-Migrate Using a Plugin
If you’d rather do it yourself, the most practical route is using a migration plugin. Kinsta’s documentation supports both Duplicator and Migrate Guru.
Migrate Guru is a free plugin available from WordPress.org. It is relatively easy to use, works well even with larger WordPress sites, and is compatible with Kinsta.
The process:
- Sign up for Kinsta and add a new site in MyKinsta. When creating it, select “Install WordPress” so the environment is ready to receive files.
- While that’s being created, log into your existing WordPress site on SiteGround.
- Go to Plugins > Add New, search for Migrate Guru, install and activate it.
- On the Migrate Guru page, enter your email address and click the Migrate Site button, then select Kinsta as the host you are migrating to.
- Enter your Kinsta SFTP credentials (found in MyKinsta under your site’s info tab) and start the transfer.
Migrate Guru handles large sites reasonably well, but it’s not bulletproof. Kinsta notes that Migrate Guru may not be fully compatible with some WordPress sites, and their support team cannot assist with failed migrations using this method. If your site has custom configurations, a multisite setup, or is over 10GB, the managed migration is the safer option.
Step 6: Update DNS to Go Live
Once you’ve reviewed the migrated site on the temporary URL and you’re satisfied everything works, it’s time to point your domain at Kinsta.
Kinsta structures migrations so that overlapping environments are the default. Your SiteGround site keeps running while the Kinsta copy is being tested. The DNS update is just flipping the switch at the end.
To point your domain:
- Log into your domain registrar (wherever you registered your domain, which may or may not be SiteGround).
- Update your A record to point to Kinsta’s IP address for your site (this is visible in MyKinsta under Domains).
- If you’re moving nameservers entirely, make sure you’ve already added all your MX and TXT records to Kinsta’s DNS management panel first. Email will stop working otherwise.
DNS propagation usually takes about one hour but may take much longer in some cases if extended TTL values are associated with your current DNS records. If you lowered your TTL 24 hours in advance as recommended, this should be much faster. You can check propagation status using a tool like whatsmydns.net.
Don’t cancel your SiteGround plan immediately. Keep it active for at least a few days while you confirm everything is running correctly on Kinsta. Then downgrade or cancel.
What to Check After Going Live
A quick post-migration checklist:
| Check | What to look for |
|---|---|
| SSL certificate | HTTPS loading correctly, no mixed content warnings |
| Forms | Contact forms, newsletter signups submitting correctly |
| Send a test email from any form or plugin | |
| Admin login | WordPress dashboard accessible, users intact |
| Caching | Kinsta’s server-level cache working, no stale content |
| WooCommerce (if applicable) | Checkout functional, orders recording correctly |
| Google Search Console | Add Kinsta’s new IP if you have any property verification via DNS |
One thing that sometimes catches people out: Kinsta uses server-level caching by default. If you’re seeing unexpected cached versions of pages, you can flush the cache in MyKinsta or via the Kinsta MU plugin that gets installed automatically.
Will There Be Downtime?
Kinsta’s migration process never requires your site to go offline. The migration team clones your site to Kinsta’s servers while your original site continues to serve traffic and remain functional. The only brief transition period occurs when you update DNS records. During DNS propagation, some visitors may reach your old hosting while others access Kinsta’s servers.
In practice, for most sites this window is short enough that it’s a non-issue. The risk goes up for e-commerce or membership sites where user actions during propagation could create data inconsistencies. That’s why maintenance mode is recommended for those types.
Common Problems and How to Handle Them
Site looks broken after migration. Usually a URL issue in the database. Kinsta’s team handles this with WP-CLI search-and-replace during managed migrations. For self-migrations, run a search-replace for any hardcoded URLs from SiteGround’s temporary staging domain.
Email stopped working. You changed nameservers without transferring your MX and DKIM/SPF records first. Log back into SiteGround (while you still have access), note the missing records, and add them to your DNS provider.
White screen of death. Usually a PHP version mismatch or plugin conflict. Check Kinsta’s error logs in MyKinsta under the site’s Logs section.
Site loading from SiteGround after DNS update. DNS hasn’t propagated to your location yet. Flush your local DNS cache and wait. You can also test from a different network or use a VPN pointed to a different region.
Is Kinsta Actually Worth the Price Jump?
That depends entirely on what your site does. For blogs and informational sites with modest traffic, the performance difference exists but the business case is harder to make. For revenue-generating sites, WooCommerce stores, or client sites managed by agencies, the infrastructure difference becomes meaningful.
Independent benchmarks cited by Review Signal consistently place Kinsta in the top tier for response time and uptime. That’s not marketing copy. It’s a reflection of what Google Cloud’s infrastructure actually delivers compared to shared or semi-dedicated environments.
If you want to understand how Kinsta sits relative to other options at a similar price point, the best managed WordPress hosting overview covers the full field.
The migration itself costs nothing. The evaluation period is 30 days with a money-back guarantee. If it doesn’t work for your site, you haven’t lost anything except some time.
Quick Summary
| Step | Action |
|---|---|
| 1 | Backup your SiteGround site (files + database) |
| 2 | Note all DNS records, especially MX and TXT |
| 3 | Lower DNS TTL to 300 seconds, 24 hours before migration |
| 4 | Sign up for Kinsta and request migration via MyKinsta |
| 5 | Wait for migration to complete (typically under 2 business days) |
| 6 | Review migrated site on Kinsta’s temporary URL |
| 7 | Update DNS records to point to Kinsta |
| 8 | Monitor for 24-48 hours, then cancel SiteGround |
The managed migration route is the one worth using. The self-migration path exists, but given that Kinsta handles it for free and the team works with SiteGround transfers regularly, there’s not much reason to take on that complexity yourself.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does migration from SiteGround to Kinsta take?
Without selecting a specific date, Kinsta’s migrations team will usually complete it within two business days. Expedited options are available if you need it done within eight hours.
Is the migration really free?
Yes. Kinsta offers unlimited free migrations from all hosting providers for sites using standard WordPress installations. The only paid option is the expedited migration if you need faster turnaround.
Will my SiteGround email break during migration?
Not if you handle DNS records carefully. MX records are separate from your A record. If you only update the A record to point to Kinsta and leave nameservers unchanged, email won’t be affected at all. The risk comes if you switch nameservers without first transferring your email-related DNS records.
Can I migrate a WooCommerce store?
Yes, but it’s treated slightly differently. Sites that are updated continuously, such as e-commerce, membership, and community sites, will need to be placed into maintenance mode during migration to prevent data loss. Plan the timing accordingly.
What if I want to test Kinsta before fully committing?
Kinsta offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on all plans. Migrate your site, run it on Kinsta for a few weeks, and if the performance doesn’t justify the price for your use case, request a refund.