A Small Orange Review

A Small Orange hosting includes shared plans to meet a range of customer needs, which results in a price range that hosting users new and old should find worthy of consideration. Even if a "Tiny" plan is all you need, you'll benefit from screaming-fast solid-state drives that give your shared server an extra gust of power. As for the essentials, you'll get unlimited email and webmail access, the popular cPanel control panel, and a customer support team that's based here in the US. "Our live chat people are there to help out," Zach assured us. "We have experts ready to go!"

Shared Hosting: “Freshly Squeezed” for Happy Customers

It says something about a company's true value when they're so confident in their customer satisfaction rate that they're willing to offer their product free of charge for 60 days as a trial run. A Small Orange offers a sweet sign-up deal for those who select one of their "Small," "Medium," or "Large" hosting plans for a year or longer: free hosting for two months with a free .COM domain name. Plus, shared server users have access to unlimited email accounts with SPAM protection, mailing lists, and auto-responders.

A Small Orange accepts the challenge to offer unrelentingly excellent support, features, and pricing, as well as a user experience that's worth the 12-month commitment. "We want to be the best shared host for everyone," Zach said. Looking towards 2016 and the future, he told us, "You'll probably see us iterating and making our shared platform even better."

Grow Your Business with A Small Orange cPanel Hosting

Zach told us that the company "eats" the cost of cPanel licensure, so that anyone who wants to get started with hosting can avoid that incremental charge. "We really do want to do the best by the customer," Zach said. "They’re the ones that keep us going everyday, so we never want to lose sight of that mission." From cPanel, customers can install all manner of popular web application scripts, including WordPress, Drupal, and Magento — some of the most user-friendly avenues for building personal or professional websites.

The Team Creates cPanel-Integrated Tools & Templates for Maximum Performance

The team told us about technical innovations they've concocted to further enhance their hosting offerings. They've implemented an assortment of caching technologies, and they offer MariaDB and MySQL for file storage and management options. They've also designed a series of templates catering to specific operating systems, which customers can seamlessly switch between based on needs. As an example, they built a WordPress-optimized template using NGINX (a web server to help your site load content at blazing-fast speeds). "These templates offer a great deal of flexibility, because we've created them in house ourselves," Ryan said. "A lot of these tools are cPanel integrations that we’ve done in house for anyone who wants those performance enhancements."

They’ve Built an Enterprise-Standard Hardware/Software Stack to Support You

Enterprise-level hardware comes standard. Even on shared server plans, A Small Orange uses high-powered Intel processors to give customers top-tier performance. "We are known for our technology," Zach said. "We have a tremendous infrastructure in place, so a lot of our customers have come to us for that."

Final Words: Affordability & A Small Orange Go Hand in Hand

A Small Orange shared hosting pricing ranges from a little under three to 20 bucks per month, which allows prospective customers to choose a plan based on the resources they require and the cost they can be comfortable with. What you can't really put a price on, however, is the extra thought that the technical team has put into their in-house innovations. With SSD speed-boosting, cPanel access, unlimited email addresses, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee — plus a 2-month promotion for free hosting — A Small Orange knows how to dangle a pretty enticing carrot as far as shared hosting cost is concerned.

A Small Orange hosting on dedicated servers includes the following: enterprise-grade hardware, expert-managed security updates and patches, and exactly the resources you need for your dedicated environment. The ASO team will fine-tune your server to your specifications, handle setup, and monitor your main IP address (with ping monitoring as well). You get the power of a dedicated plan with the peace of mind of a fully-managed shared plan.

Top-Tier Technology is a Standard, Not an Option

Solid-state drives, RAID 1 disk mirroring, and premier Intel processors all come standard on A Small Orange dedicated server plans. "We have a great set of hardware/software," Zach said — the stack is of enterprise-level quality with 24/7/365 monitoring done by an expert team. "We have a tremendous infrastructure in place, so a lot of our customers have come to us for that."

ASO dedicated customers all receive full root access as well as cPanel/WHM control to manage their servers. On the system administration side of things, Ryan and a team of 10-or-so run the infrastructure and respond to any issues that exceed the means of traditional support that may arise.

Employee Longevity Makes for a Well-Oiled Machine Team

Ryan has been a member of the A Small Orange hosting team for about five years now; Zach recently joined A Small Orange and Matt's been there for four years. They all agreed that the company holds a history of employee longevity that translates into both an enjoyable work environment and a better customer experience.

When asked what keeps them around, they attributed their sticking with ASO to their professional peers. "I think a lot of it has to do with the people — I really enjoy everyone that I work with," Matt said. "We have a lot of fun together," Ryan echoed. The team gets unlimited vacation time, daily video hangouts (for work-related discussion and for fun), and the option to work from home or choose their schedule. "At the end of the day, we're a giant team and a big, happy family," Zach concluded. That employee morale translates into a better hosting experience for the customer. "We really care about the customer and want to offer them a good service," Matt said.

Final Say on Finding the Dedicated Server to Fit Your Needs

Dedicated server hosting with A Small Orange means flexibility. You get a range of options for memory and disk storage settings — spanning from four to 16 gigabytes and 128 gigabytes to one terabyte, respectively. You get the power of an Intel Xeon core processor. You get the control of cPanel, WHM, and root administrative access. With A Small Orange, you get the power of dedicated resources, backed by a team that can support the security, setup, and troubleshooting needs that accompany that server responsibility. "Our product portfolio is based on the customer and what they need," Zach concluded.

KVM virtualization, Intel Xeon 6-core processors, automatic failover, and state-of-the-art network safeguarding — a blur of letters and buzz words for hosting newbies, but for the more savvy VPS shopper, these features are exactly what you're looking for in a cloud-based server. A Small Orange cloud hosting includes the latest in performance technologies, so you can expect enterprise-level hardware and expert-level help to secure and monitor it. Ryan, Matt, and Zach introduced us to their VPS hosting infrastructure, talking through the tech and the team behind it.

Performance Testing Reveals 100ms Response Times

Cloud Spectator conducted performance testing on A Small Orange and other providers

and reported 100% uptime for A Small Orange Linux hosting in February 2016. When comparing the response times coming from various datacenters, the results for February 2016 ranged from 297 milliseconds to respond to a low 100-millisecond load time.

ASO promises 99.9% uptime, which isn't jaw-dropping in the hosting space; however, they were one of three providers with 100% uptime in February 2016, according to the results of the Cloud Spectator performance review.

ASO Team Talks the Tech Fueling the Cloud Product's Power

While discussing A Small Orange's hosting offerings, Zach told us the cloud product in particular is "one of a kind." This piqued our interest immediately. "The way we have it set up is pretty cool," he explained that the entire platform is SSD-powered with RAID solid-state drives and several "cool caching technologies" in place (e.g., PHP-FPM/FastCGI Process Manager and other PHP-level caching tools).

NGINX & Caching Galore: In-House Innovations Offer More Performance & Flexibility

"One of the things that really differentiates our cloud platform and that really enables us to provide a higher quality of service than other providers on the market right now is that all of our templates for different operating systems are homegrown," Matt said. "What I mean by that is that instead of downloading a template from the developers of our virtualization software, we create them based on what we've learned about what our customers are actually doing in the real world; then we optimize the templates around that research."

As an example, the A Small Orange team built a WordPress-optimized template using NGINX to deliver faster content loading for customers' site visitors. "These templates offer a great deal of flexibility, because we’ve created them in house ourselves," Matt said. "We’re able to offer certain performance bonuses that you can’t find with any other provider." Customers can seamlessly switch between various templates as their hosting needs fluctuate.

More is Better: Control with cPanel, Speed with SSDs, Data Protection with RAID 1

"From a marketing side, cPanel’s included," Zach said, "so anyone who wants to get started with VPS is not faced with that incremental charge." Ryan added that many of the in-house tools we discussed are integrated with cPanel, "so if someone wants to get these performance enhancements, there are cPanel integrations that we’ve done in house that are a part of those stacks as well."

In addition to cPanel hosting, A Small Orange VPS customers benefit from SSD speed-boosting, resulting in screaming-fast response times. To protect your precious site data, A Small Orange conducts daily site backups, with options for rolling back to previous versions over a 7-day timespan. They also offer R1Soft's Bare-Metal Restore (BMR) backups for all of their servers, along with RAID 1 disk mirroring.

Final Words: VPS Customers Get "Big Deal" Support

Recognizing that no hosting solution can be one-size-fits-all, the A Small Orange hosting support team is there to help iron out the setup and security details. They offer free migration assistance, 24/7 network monitoring, and a "personable" support experience, to use Matt's words. "We treat the customer like we would want to be treated," he said. They have around 100-or-so support employees and Zach told us those folks make up the "bulk" of the ASO staff. "Support has always been a big deal at ASO and I think the customers recognize that," Matt said. "It really shines through in all of our support channels."

To sum things up: VPS requires flexibility and that power warrants a need for relentlessly reliable support; that support needs to translate from the chat portal to the network of servers — servers which need to be online. A Small Orange's cloud hosting for Linux yields screaming-fast response times, the team offers support you can count on, and the company promises 99.9% uptime for your site. That's a virtual deal you can literally feel good about.

WordPress hosting is a popular avenue for individuals, business owners, and bloggers to get a new website launched quickly and easily. A number of the ASmallOrange.com offerings benefit WordPress hosting seekers, starting with their sign-up deal for annual plans (two months of free hosting). With the extremely popular cPanel control panel, customers can log in and easily install WordPress, along with hundreds of other web apps, via Softaculous auto-installer. Once you're up and running, your site will perform up to 15 times faster, thanks to A Small Orange's SSD-powered servers.

WordPress-Optimized Templates Built In House

The team told us about some cool performance enhancements that they've engineered in house. They offer a variety of system-specific templates, with a boatload of caching and SSD speed-boosting technologies. Ryan explained one template type in particular: "We have a WordPress-optimized template that actually uses NGINX instead of the Apache web server to deliver faster content loading for the customers’ visitors."

They determine what kind of templates and in-house innovations to work on next based on what they observe their customers doing, using, or needing. "We create these templates based on what we’ve learned about what our customers are actually doing in the real world," Ryan said. "By creating these templates in house, we’re able to offer certain performance bonuses that you can’t find with any other provider."

Support from the Experts with a 99.9% Uptime Promise

WordPress is well-liked and well-supported in the hosting community, but there's nothing more frustrating than trying to troubleshoot a WordPress hiccup yourself to no avail. A Small Orange offers the help of their friendly support staff 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. They're US-based and ready to assist.

Meanwhile, their security team is also keeping an eye on your website and server. They conduct daily site backups, with 7-day rollback options, and promise a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Your data is also better protected with Bare Metal Restore (BMR) backups.

WordPress with A Small Orange in Review

What could be better than 1-click installation, SSD speed-boosting, and a US-based support team to get you started with the very popular blogging platform, WordPress? A Small Orange makes it easy, affordable, and darn-right pleasant to launch a WP site for your personal or business use. "The customer has always been a really important part of our business," Zach said. "Our product portfolio is based on the customer and what they need." A Small Orange centers their business around helping you build your business.

A Small Orange builds upon their usable and flexible hosting offerings by partering with Weebly to provide the "Professional" and "Business" website builder plans. Keep in mind, all shared hosting plans come with a free Weebly site builder, but these particular services give you the same drag-and-drop ease-of-use, without the ASO branding. These add-ons allow you to get a professional-looking site up and running in mere minutes and are especially appealing to eCommerce-minded customers or those with no programming experience (and no interest in becoming a developer overnight). Both plans include A Small Orange hosting features like cPanel access and unlimited email addresses, as well as 24/7/365 live chat support.

Market Your Personal Brand with Weebly Drag-and-Drop

Customize a beautiful web property that boasts your brand with the simplicity of Weebly's drag-and-drop builder tool. With either of A Small Orange's web builder plans, you can create an unlimited number of pages, a custom footer to connect them all, and a slideshow to catch visitors' eyes at first landing. Password-protect pages, add audio or video, and host your masterpiece at a personalized domain name. Once you're satisfied with your design, hit "Publish" and start promoting your brand or profiting from your products.

SMB Tricks: Shopping Carts, Promo Codes, & Calculators

If you're building an online marketplace, A Small Orange offers all the eCommerce features you need to feature and sell your products on the Web with ease. Feature up to 25 products with the "Professional" plan, or display as many as you can come up with using the "Business" plan. Other perks to opting for the slightly pricier "Business" plan include a shopping cart integrated into your domain (rather than parking it at a Weebly.com subdomain), no transaction fees, and additional tools for calculating shipping, taxes, and coupon codes. Depending on your business size and sales expectations, you can determine which plan better suits your inventory needs.

The Bottom Line: Web Building with ASO is Easy

If there's one thing we want to stress here, it's that the A Small Orange team is readily available to help no matter your hosting or site-building requirements. "We offer a personable type of support," Matt said. "We really care about the customer and want to offer them a good service." Based on our conversation with the ASO team, we believe that their attitude is: your business's success is their business.