A2 Hosting Review 2020
A2 Hosting Overview
Speed: 521 ms
Uptime: Over 99% Uptime
Support: Phone, Email, Live Chat
Hosting Type: Shared, VPS, Dedicated, WordPress
Price: Plans starting at just $2.96 per month
Benefits and Features of A2 Hosting
When you’re looking for the best hosting company for your website, you’ll want to take an in-depth look at each company to ensure that they offer a lot of features and benefits that you’ll be able to take advantage of with your website. It doesn’t make much sense to use a hosting provider that is providing features that you don’t need and won’t use with your own site.
We did our research on A2 Hosting and compiled a list of some of the features and benefits that you’ll have access to when you use A2 Hosting.
Here are some of the reasons that you should use A2 Hosting.
Great Server Uptime
When you’re trying to find the best web hosting company, you’ll want to take a look at their server uptime to ensure that they’re able to host your website with excellent uptime. If your site isn’t up and active, then there’s little purpose in having a website because your customers won’t be able to find you online.
There are reasons why a company may not have strong uptimes such as a server crashing, or too much maintenance on its servers. This downtime on your website can result in a loss of business due to frustrated customers and lost rankings within search engines such as Google or Bing.
When you work with A2 Hosting, you’ll be able to rest easy, knowing that they’re fully capable of hosting your website with reliable uptime. Over the last two years, they have recorded over 99% uptime for their clients.
A2 Hosting also offers an uptime guarantee of 99% or more, which means that if your website doesn’t have an uptime that exceeds their promise, then you’ll be able to get a refund for that month’s hosting fee.
Good Website “Load” Times
A decade ago, you might’ve been able to get away with a slow website. However, within the last five years, you’ve likely noticed that many viewers now expect a website to be fast, and they become easily frustrated when a website takes too long to load.
Website speed is an essential feature for any website to possess, and if you’re able to achieve fast load times, then you’ll be rewarded with better search rankings and happy customers who come back to your website.
There are many ways that you can make your website faster, but if your hosting provider isn’t able to give you fast hosting speeds, then your website will be only as fast as your hosting provider. This is why you must find a fast web host for your website.
We did a review on over 30 different hosting companies, and we found that the average loading time was 700 ms to load a website. When we tested A2 Hosting, we were pleased to find that they beat the industry standard by recording load times of just 521 ms. This is a pretty good load time and one of the many reasons we are impressed by A2 Hosting.
Reliable Support Staff
When you’re choosing a hosting provider for your website, then you’ll want to take a look at their customer service to ensure that they’ll be able to handle any issues that you may encounter down the road. If the customer support staff isn’t reliable and doesn’t know what they’re doing, then this can cause a lot of frustration.
One of the reasons that we love A2 Hosting is because they have a reliable support staff that is happy to help you resolve any issues that you may be experiencing. They can easily be accessed through phone, email or live chat.
This is a nice feature to have from any hosting provider because it means that you’ll be able to resolve your problems without headaches or loss of business.
Free Website Migrations
If you already have a website built and you wish to change your hosting providers, then you’ll need to perform a website migration. This can be a long process full of headaches if you don’t know what you’re doing.
One of the beautiful things about A2 Hosting is the fact that they will provide website migrations without charging you a penny. This is nice to see because other hosting providers will charge you up to $150 for your website migration.
This means that you can sit back and relax while the experts at A2 Hosting migrate your website and you can rest easy knowing that your website migration is done properly by an expert staff member.
A2 Hosting has Global Data Centres
One of the reasons that A2 Hosting can record such reliable performance records is because they have global data centers located in the USA, Europe, and Asia. This allows them to handle requests based on a location and then they will use a data center that’s closest to you and your request.
This process acts similar to a Content Delivery Network, which is a tool that many website owners have to purchase because their hosting provider doesn’t have access to global data centers.
With the global data centers, you’ll be able to handle your audience’s requests in a shorter amount of time, and you’ll be able to provide a consistent viewing experience to a global audience.
Carbon Friendly Hosting Servers
One of the admirable features of A2 Hosting is the fact that they are trying to reduce their carbon footprint. They are committed to becoming carbon-friendly by partnering with various green programs that allow them to reduce their carbon footprint, and they have officially been carbon-friendly since 2007.
Whether you’re a newbie in the hosting world or a seasoned web designer, this is another reason that A2 Hosting is an excellent choice because you’ll be supporting a company that is helping our environment.
Affordable Web Hosting
If you’re building a website on a budget, then you’ll likely want to find a web hosting provider that has a lot of different plans with features that you can use at a price that you’ll be able to afford.
One of the reasons that we love A2 Hosting is because they offer cheap web hosting plans that start as low as $2.96 per month. This will give you more than enough space to get a smaller website off the ground and allow you to get those first visitors to your new website.
This is a pretty good deal when you consider that you can host your website for less than a cup of coffee per month.
Flexible Hosting Plans
When you’re choosing the best web host for your website, then you’ll want to take a look at their hosting plans. If a hosting provider doesn’t have any plans that fit your needs, then they won’t be a good web host for your website.
Always take a look at their plans and make sure that you’ll be able to upgrade your hosting plans as your website grows. This will allow you to save money on a smaller hosting plan and then upgrade your plan once your site requires more hosting resources.
When you work with A2 Hosting, you’ll be able to scale your hosting plans with a click of a button and increase your plan size to meet the growing needs of your website. We love this feature because you’ll be able to save money on hosting while your site is still growing.
30-Day Satisfaction Guarantee
Choosing a web host can be a daunting task because if you make a mistake, then you could be locked into a long term contract with a web host that doesn’t make you happy or provide quality hosting services.
This is why it’s nice to see a good refund policy, such as the 30-Day Satisfaction Guarantee that you’ll find with A2 Hosting. With a refund policy like this, you’ll be able to set up a small website and test out the hosting services before you lock yourself into a long term contract.
All you’ll need to do is cancel your hosting plan within the first 30 days, and A2 Hosting will issue you a refund for the hosting that you purchased.
A2 Hosting has a good track record
You never want to buy hosting from a company that isn’t reputable or has a history of low-quality services. This is why it’s essential to look at the track record of each hosting company to ensure that they’ll be able to provide quality services and that they’ll be around for the long run.
When you use A2 Hosting as your web host, you’ll be able to rest easy, knowing that you’re in good hands. A2 Hosting has been around since 2001, and they have almost two decades of experience that you’ll be able to take advantage of as one of their many customers.
Disadvantages of A2 Hosting
If you’re looking for a perfect web host, you’ll spend a lot of time searching because there isn’t a perfect web host. Every company has its pros and cons, and it’s up to you to decide which hosting company is the best fit for you and your needs.
We took a critical look at A2 Hosting, and we were only able to come up with a couple of disadvantages that you may experience if you’re working with A2 Hosting to host your website.
Higher Renewal Rates
While this isn’t a disadvantage of using A2 Hosting, it is a disadvantage of working with hosting companies in general because higher renewal rates seem to be the norm within the hosting industry.
When you purchase hosting, you’ll often be given a significant discount for your first hosting contract. Don’t waste this promo because it will usually save you a lot of money for your first 2-3 years of hosting, depending on the term that you purchase.
However, you need to be aware that after this contract expires, you’ll have to pay the regular hosting price if you want to renew your hosting agreement. Always look at the regular price and make sure that you’re okay with paying this fee after your initial contract has expired.
A2 Hosting Website Looks Dated
When you take a look at the website for A2 Hosting, it can seem pretty dated when you compare it to other hosting companies. Don’t let the outdated look fool you for a second because they are genuinely one of the best web hosting companies that you can use.
The design and look of the A2 Hosting is a disadvantage because it can scare off a lot of potential customers, but the look of the website doesn’t affect the quality of their hosting services in any way.
A2 Hosting Plans and Pricing
If you’re going to purchase web hosting, then you’ll want to take a good look at the plans and pricing that your hosting provider can give you. If you can’t find an excellent hosting plan within your budget, then you may want to reconsider which hosting provider you’re using.
A2 Hosting has a lot of diversity when it comes to the types of hosting that they’re able to provide, and they have packages and plans within each hosting tier so that you’ll have a better chance at finding a hosting plan within your budget.
You’ll be able to enjoy four different types of hosting from A2 Hosting, such as:
- Shared Hosting
- VPS Hosting
- Dedicated Hosting
- WordPress Hosting
We will take a look at each of these hosting types and then break down the plans and pricing so that you can make an educated decision on which hosting plan is the best for you and your needs.
Shared Hosting by A2 Hosting
If you’ve ever had a website before then, you’ve likely use shared hosting because this is one of the most common forms of web hosting. This is because shared hosting is the cheapest form of web hosting, and it often provides more data than your website will require every month.
There are some downsides to shared hosting such as slow load times due to your server not having enough hosting resources to handle all of the websites within the server. When you’re on a shared hosting plan, you’ll be sharing your hosting server with other websites, which can make it harder to handle a lot of traffic on your site.
Also, there aren’t any guarantees for how much data your website will be allotted every month, which means that a faulty website may be able to eat through too much data and not leave enough for your website.
A2 Hosting currently has three different hosting plans within their shared hosting tier:
- Lite Shared Hosting – Starts at $2.96 per month
- Swift Shared Hosting – Started at $3.70 per month
- Turbo Shared Hosting – Starts at $7.03 per month
These are the starter plans that you’ll be able to purchase from A2 Hosting, and each plan comes with more than enough data to be able to handle several thousand visitors every month.
These plans are also quite affordable, and a pretty good deal when you consider that you can host your website for the price of a cup of coffee every month.
Who will benefit from A2 Hosting’s Shared Hosting?
If you own a smaller website and you don’t require a lot of hosting data for your website to function, then you’ll be able to benefit from a shared hosting plan. Whether this smaller website is for your personal use or a small business, these cheap hosting plans will be right for you.
The shared hosting plans should be able to handle up to 30,000 visitors every month as long as you upgrade your hosting plans as you begin to grow. This will allow you always to have more than enough space to handle spikes in website traffic.
VPS Hosting by A2 Hosting
Another way that you can host your website through A2 Hosting is by using a Virtual Private Server (VPS) to help host your site. When you use VPS hosting, you’ll find that it can be similar to shared hosting since you’re sharing your hosting server with other website owners.
However, there are many upsides to the VPS hosting when you compare it to shared hosting. One of these upsides is the fact that you’ll be given an allotted amount of hosting data each month, and nobody will be able to use this data except you. This is nice because it means that a faulty website won’t be able to affect your site speed any longer.
A2 Hosting has 3 different types of VPS hosting:
- Unmanaged VPS Hosting – As low as $5 per month
- Managed VPS Hosting – Just $25 per month
- Core VPS Hosting – Starting at $25 per month
Each of these hosting types has different plans and pricing within them, and they’re great for beginners to seasoned web developers. This is one of the many things that we love about A2 Hosting is the fact that they have something for all levels and abilities.
If you’re a tech guru, then you’ll be able to use unmanaged VPS hosting. However, if you need managed plans, then A2 Hosting will provide multiple managed plans within your budget.
Who will benefit from A2 Hosting’s VPS Hosting?
One of the beautiful things about using a Virtual Private Hosting Server is the fact that you’ll be given an allotted amount of data every month for your website to use, and it can’t be used up by other sites within your server.
If you have a more extensive website and get over 50,000 viewers every month, then it may be time for you to upgrade your web hosting plans. Before you upgrade your hosting plan, make sure that you need to upgrade your hosting so that you’re not spending too much money on hosting data that you’re not using up.
Dedicated Hosting by A2 Hosting
When you use a dedicated hosting server, you’ll be getting an entire server that is dedicated to hosting your website. This means that you won’t be sharing any of the resources that the server has, and you won’t get affected by slower websites being hosted on your server.
One of the downsides of having a dedicated server is that it can be more expensive because you’re not sharing the hosting costs with other website owners. Since your website is the only one being hosted, you’ll need to cover the entire cost.
However, these extra costs will come with much more data than the other plans, and you’ll be able to configure your hosting server to meet your requirements. This will give you a lot of need flexibility, especially if you have a website that gets a ton of traffic.
A2 Hosting has four different plans within their dedicated hosting tier:
- Unmanaged Server – From $99.59 per month
- Discount SSD Server – Just $129.30 per month
- Managed Flex Server – Starting at $141.09 per month
- Core Flex Server – Starting at $141.09 per month
One thing that you’ll want to remember before you purchase dedicated hosting is that there are few websites which will require a hosting plan with this much data. So, unless you have a lot of traffic coming to your website, you’ll likely be able to get by with shared or VPS hosting.
Who will benefit from A2 Hosting’s Dedicated Hosting?
While there may be few websites that require dedicated hosting servers and the amounts of data that come with owning your own server, there are other reasons why you may be interested in having a dedicated server.
One of these reasons is that there is an added level of security when you use a dedicated server. There’s less chance that your hosting server can get hacked through a faulty website on your server since it’s only your website on the server.
The main reason why people purchase dedicated hosting is that their website is getting an enormous amount of traffic (over 500,000 viewers) every month. If your site is getting near this amount of traffic, then you may want to upgrade your hosting plan to the most extensive VPS hosting plan or consider a dedicated server to host your website.
Do we recommend A2 Web Hosting?
Yes, of course! Based on our research, we would recommend A2 Hosting to anyone who needs quality web hosting at an affordable price. We found that they have a wide selection of plans that are affordable for small businesses or individuals who want cheap web hosting.
They also have a strong uptime record, and they have fast load times, which is essential for any website if they want to succeed. Each plan also comes with a lot of features that you can take advantage of for free.
A2 Hosting also has an exceptional support staff that is friendly, knowledgable and happy to help you solve any issues that you may be experiencing.
Overall, we would say that A2 Hosting is a great company and that they can provide some of the best web hosting that you’ll be able to find.
