Green.ch review

First impression

Green is a Switzerland based IT company that was originally founded in 1995 by the Swiss Farmers Union that wanted to provide internet connectivity to people in the rural Swiss region. The company was originally agri.ch, and changed its name to green.ch in 2001. They offer a range of services such as internet connectivity, shared hosting, cloud solutions, domain registrations, and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (Iaas) to name a few.

Trial Period

Green doesn't advertise any free trial periods on their website, however, their support did confirm that one can request a free trial (probably for a very short period) by sending a mail to request@green.ch. It is important to note that they don't have a money back guarantee in place, so if you sign up you are in for the long haul as their plans only come with annual subscriptions.

Billing Cycle

Their shared hosting plans are billed annually in advance only, so if you were hoping to pay monthly you are out of luck. They currently accept payments via Visa, Mastercard, PostFinance Cards, PostFinance eFinance, Diners Club, PayPal, and TWINT, a widely used mobile payment app in Switzerland.

Control Panel

This provider includes their own control panel, the 'Web & Mail Control Panel' in all their hosting plans. Their panel reminds me a lot of the cPanel control panel as it has a very similar interface and comes with basically the same functionality. It allows users to manage all aspects of their hosting plans, such as domains, DNS, emails, databases, Cron jobs, and more, from one convenient location. If you are familiar with cPanel you will have no problem using this panel. Very user-friendly and efficient!

Limits

Green's shared hosting plans, all running on blazing-fast SSD storage drive, PHP 8.4, and GZIP compression for super-fast loading times, are available in three options, the Small, Medium, and Large. The Small plan starts things off with 1GB RAM, 100GB SSD disc space, 25 MySQL databases, and a limit of 750 sub domains (more than anyone can possibly need anyway). The Medium plans comes with 2GB RAM, 250GB SSD storage, 50 MySQL databases, and a limit of 1500 sub domains, while the Large plan, their top-tier option, features 4GB RAM, 500GB SSD disc space, 200 MySQL databases, and a limit of 3000 sub domains, perfect for large projects. All plans come standard with unlimited POP/IMAP email accounts, complimentary SSL certificates by Let's Encrypt, and backups running every 6 hours.

Website Builder

They include their own, custom created, website builder free of charge in all their shared hosting plans. This builder comes with over 200 ready-made designs and a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface that lets you edit these templates with ease to create a professional looking website quickly and effortlessly. Their hosting plans also come with one click installs of Joomla, WordPress, Drupal, Typo3, and more, if you prefer to create your website using a CMS (content management system). Furthermore, Green also provides a website design and development service should you want them to rather take care of this process.

Security

They host their servers in georedundant data centers in Switzerland, so in the event that one location experiences an outage due to a disaster, system failure, or other issue, the system can seamlessly fail over to another data center, thus keeping your site online always. Their infrastructure is further protected by 24/7 monitoring, advanced DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) attack protection, web application firewalls (WAF), as well as mail and spam protection on all email accounts. In 2023 they made changes to all their hosting plans to come standard with a complimentary SSL certificate by Let's Encrypt. Solid security measures all round!

OS

Green utilizes Linux on their shared hosting plans, and you will either get setup on a server running Debian or Ubuntu. Both solid options and known for being very stable and secure.

Support

Their support agents can be reached via phone or live chat (Monday to Friday 8 am to 5.30 pm), by e-mail, or support tickets. Their agents are helpful, and response times near instant on live chat. Tickets on the other hand was not as speedy as I would have liked. Expect answers within 12 hours. Overall good support. 

Conclusion

Green's focus isn't entirely on hosting as they offer a wide range of services, but what they do, they do extremely well! Their shared hosting plans come with plenty of SSD storage, a free website builder, SSL certificates, and unlimited email accounts, while their security is robust and their support is fast and friendly (on certain channels). If you are based in Switzerland and on the hunt for a new provider, be sure to check them out.