Editor's opinion
Sean Thompson
I am a full-time web developer & IT professional with more than 18 years experience. I have been working with numerous hosting companies over the years.
First impression
A2 Hosting, one of the oldest and most trusted hosting companies, was founded in 2001 by Bryan Muthig. He started the company from a two-room office, and it has since grown to become one of the largest global brand names when it comes to WordPress hosting. If you wonder where the name comes from, it is actually a tribute to his hometown, Ann Arbor in Michigan.
This giant of the hosting world, backed by a team of 200+ highly capable administrators, engineers, and technicians, has racked up an impressive client base of over 110 000 customers across 223 countries. They offer Shared Hosting, WordPress Hosting, VPS Hosting as well as Dedicated Server Hosting. Their hosting packages are robust, and scalable and come with an uptime guarantee of 99.98%, which is superior to most.
The A2 Hosting team will also migrate your website to them for free in most cases!
Comparative table of the main characteristics of the TOP-10 hosting providers
Company name
Cheapest shared hosting plan
Most expensive shared hosting plan
WordPress hosting
Website builder
Dedicated servers
Cloud hosting
Additional features
Uptime for your website
Hostinger.com
$1.99
$8.99
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Minecraft Hosting
excellent
A2Hosting.com
$1.99
$11.99
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
excellent
AccuWebHosting.com
$3.99
$7.99
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Forex VPS Hosting
excellent
FastComet.com
$1.79
$3.74
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
excellent
Kamatera.com
No
No
No
No
No
Yes
No
excellent
UltaHost.com
$3.29
$12.99
Yes
No
Yes
No
MineCraft - Game Server, 7 Days To Die - Game Server
excellent
Scalahosting.com
$2.36
$11.96
Yes
No
No
Yes
No
medium
InMotionHosting.com
$2.29
$11.91
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Minecraft Server Hosting
excellent
Name.com
$6
$13
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
No
very bad
123-reg.co.uk
£2.99 ($3.74)
£7.49 ($9.47)
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
excellent
Trial Period
If you do decide they’re not the right host for you, they will give you a hassle-free refund. Simply cancel your account within your first 30 days for a full refund, or receive a prorated refund of unused service after 30 days.
A Brief Video Introduction from A2hosting Company
Billing Cycle
A2 Hosting offers monthly, annual, biennial, or triennial payment options. The longer you commit, the more of a discount you will receive. They accept PayPal (excluding INR), Bank Wire Transfer, PayULatam, Skrill, UnionPay, Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover credit cards and check or money orders as accepted payment methods.
Control Panel
All A2 Hosting plans come with cPanel for website and hosting management.
Limits
A2 Hosting has 4 options to choose from on their Shared Hosting, namely Startup, Drive, Turbo Boost, and Turbo Max. The entry-level plan features 100GB of SSD storage, with unlimited email addresses, but you're limited to a single website. Their Drive plan doesn’t have any of those limits and also comes with free automatic backups. Turbo and Turbo Max run on NVMe SSD drives and is thus, much faster than the previous two packages. What sets these two apart is that Turbo Max has 5x more resources allocated to it.
Their VPS hosting has four tiers, Lift 4, Lift 8, Lift 16, and Mach 8. Each increases slightly in allocated RAM, SSD Space, and Core CPUs. The entry-level plan starts with 4GB RAM, 150GB SSD Space, and 2 Core CPUs, whilst The Mach 8 plan boasts 8GN RAM, 150GB NVMe SSD Space (the only one to run on NVMe), and 2 Core CPUs. All VPS plans come standard with a free SSL certificate and Imunify360.
With their Turbo plans you are guaranteed to get the most speed and performance for your investment with hosting plans pre-optimized for a great user experience, perfect for SEO rankings.
Security
All A2 Shared Hosting plans come standard with a free Let's Encrypt SSL certificate, Reinforced Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection, ModSecurity and Config Server Firewall (CSF), and Patchman, a malware/vulnerability detection, and patching tool.
In addition, they also run Imunify360 on their hosting plans. This malware protection suite is proactive in protecting websites. While it is impossible to guarantee protection from malware due to the nature of what malware is, Imunify360 does a great job at protecting sites and keeping malware under control.
Account sign-ins are also protected with two-factor authentication.
OS
All A2 Hosting servers are Linux based.
Support
A2 Hosting has one of the best customer support teams I have had the pleasure of dealing with. Their "Guru Crew" support team is available around the clock via live chat, phone, or email ticketing system. They are extremely quick to respond, friendly, and super efficient!
There is also an extensive knowledge base for solutions to the most common hosting issues.
Is A2 Hosting suitable for my company?
Who might benefit from A2 Hosting?
Website owners prioritizing speed: A2 Hosting is well-known for its speed, which can improve user experience and potentially boost search engine rankings.
WordPress users: A2 Hosting offers managed WordPress hosting, meaning they handle security, updates, and backups for WordPress sites, freeing up the site owners to focus on content and functionality.
Beginners and small businesses: A2 Hosting offers shared hosting plans that are affordable and easy to use, making them a good option for beginners, personal websites, and small businesses.
Developers: A2 Hosting supports a wide range of languages (including PHP, Python, and Ruby), offers root access on its more advanced plans, and provides reseller hosting options, making it suitable for developers and web design agencies.
Who might not benefit from A2 Hosting?
Those with a tight budget: While A2 Hosting offers a lot of value, it's not the cheapest option on the market. Those who are particularly cost-sensitive might prefer a less expensive hosting provider.
Large enterprises: While A2 does offer VPS and dedicated hosting, larger businesses with high traffic websites might prefer a hosting solution tailored specifically for enterprises, such as cloud hosting with auto-scaling capabilities.
Non-tech-savvy users: Although A2 Hosting provides plenty of assistance and a user-friendly control panel, some aspects of their service might still be a bit complex for users with no technical background, especially when it comes to making the most of the advanced features.
Conclusion
Pros
Cons
Reliable;
Free SSL;
Money Back Guarantee;
Excellent support.
Lack of Windows options;
Expensive renewal.
A2 Hosting offers a wide range of scalable and robust hosting options with a strong focus on speed and performance. Their customer support is second to none, and although they are slightly expensive on their renewal costs, they are one of the best hosting providers I have dealt with. A great choice for novice users as well as seasoned experts.
FAQ
✅ Does A2Hosting offer free website migration?
Yes, A2Hosting offers free website migration for new customers. Their migration team will transfer your existing website from your previous hosting provider to A2Hosting at no additional cost. To initiate the process, you need to submit a migration request through the A2Hosting customer portal after signing up for a hosting plan.
✳️ Can I host multiple websites with A2Hosting?
Yes, you can host multiple websites with A2Hosting, depending on the plan you choose. The Startup shared hosting plan allows for hosting a single website, while the Drive, Turbo Boost, and Turbo Max shared hosting plans allow for unlimited websites. The VPS and dedicated server hosting plans also support multiple websites, depending on the resources and configurations you choose.
✔️ Does A2Hosting support WordPress hosting?
Yes, A2Hosting offers optimized WordPress hosting plans. These plans come with pre-installed WordPress, along with the A2 Optimized plugin for faster performance, enhanced security, and automatic updates. A2Hosting also provides managed WordPress hosting plans, which include additional features like automatic backups, staging environments, and expert WordPress support.
❓ How can I choose the right A2Hosting plan for my website?
To choose the right A2Hosting plan for your website, consider factors such as the number of websites you want to host, the expected traffic and resource requirements, and your budget. If you have a small website with low traffic, a shared hosting plan might be suitable. However, if you expect high traffic or need more resources, a VPS or dedicated server plan may be a better option. You can also contact A2Hosting's customer support to discuss your needs and receive personalized advice on the best plan for your specific requirements.
Plans
Note! Some companies do not include VAT in their prices. Prices are indicated for one month’s pay. If you pay for a longer period - discounts are possible. Domain prices are indicated for new domains registration.
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Sorting
Hosting rating
verified
Slaviša Milojković
Serbia
14 june 2019
This is the fastest web hosting I've seen. All of their plans offer unlimited bandwidth and storage, responsive customer support (phone and live chat), free SSL certificate, site migration, and domain name…The hosting here would be great if they didn't had the downtimes so often. The reliability and the uptime is not so great. Another downside is that the starter plan is too restrictive (one-website limit, five database limit, exclusion of addon domains, and WordPress cache limitations).
Hosting rating
verified
Max Alexev
Bulgaria
18 nov. 2022
I don’t know how to characterize the hosting, where, according to the support, the traffic can be no more than 35-40 visitors per day and they consider it more than sufficient for the site)) either such support or the hosting itself. I hope hosting with such a high rating is not a joke, but the manager misunderstood something?
Exerpt from the chat script:
[11/17/2022 21:21:07] Yatin T.: That means simultaneously 30-35 users can access your website.
If there are more than 40 visitors you have on the site, at a time. your site will start showing 503
error.
[11/17/2022 21:22:51] Yatin T.: For the basic site 35-40 visitors is enough.
[11/17/2022 21:23:07] Yatin T.: If you are expecting more traffic on the website, then you may
upgrade plan to managed VPS.
SIMILAR
Check out companies here from the same country, with similar scores and customer numbers.
We highly recommend not to purchase the cheapest hosting package. Usually, they come with a row of issues: the server is often down, the hardware is outdated, lousy and slow support, registration and payment errors, etc.
For your convenience, we have created a tool that can help you to choose the right hosting package for you just by answering a few simple questions.
CMS is a content management system. A lot of hosting providers offer so-called CMS optimized packages. However, this is a marketing trick because most CMSs do not have special software or hosting requirements.
Bulletproof hosting - it’s a type of service that allows to host almost any type of content, even the restricted one (adult content, warez, spam etc). Bulletproof hosting providers do not remove your content in case someone reports an abuse.
Unlimited hosting - refers to companies that provide packages with unlimited disk space, bandwidth, number of domains, databases or email accounts, etc. This is usually a marketing trick but sometimes you can find something worth a try.
Secure hosting - it’s a type of service when the hosting provider is mostly responsible for the security of the user’s account: updates the software installed on their servers, provides an antivirus and malware scanner, firewalls and basic anti-DDoS protection, etc.
DDoS-protected hosting - companies that provide packages that include anti-DDoS protection. These packages are considerably more expensive than regular ones. Nevertheless, they’re totally worth their price because the company will ensure that your website is secured from cyber attacks.
The more comfortable the control panel is, the easier will it be for you to change the website and hosting account settings.
Most hosting providers that are in TOP20 in our rating offer user-friendly control panels, such as cPanel, Plesk or DirectAdmin. That’s why we recommend to pay attention to other, more important parameters, while choosing a hosting provider.
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