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If speed and performance, partnered with support and security, are at all priorities in your web host shopping, A2 Hosting should be a leading contender. When A2 Hosting first launched in 2003, the company was focused on serving developers; A2 Hosting was among the first providers to offer PHP 5 and to support Ruby on Rails on shared servers. As the company grew, the focus shifted toward performance, following a customer survey that revealed loading times trailed only support and reliability as top priorities. As such, A2 Hosting was also one of the first to offer hosting with high-speed solid-state drives, which now reside across the company's entire portfolio of services. A2 Hosting's full-stack optimizations unlocked a 300% increase in page load speeds The company took performance yet another step forward when it launched its Turbo hosting platform, which boasts fewer users per server, pre-configured caching options, and twice the allocated physical memory. With the Turbo Server option, caching tools, and other optimized software, sites experience page loads speeds up to 20 times faster than average. Whether you want a dedicated server, standard shared hosting with cPanel, VPS, or anything in between, A2 Hosting can offer the services to meet your needs. With expertly-tuned servers that house fewer accounts, the company promises uptimes of 99.9% or higher, with Guru Crew customer support available all day, every day. Overall, you can't go wrong in choosing A2 Hosting as your web host. The company's inventive hosting solutions, impressive performance and security measures, and the constant thought put into the user experience warrant our high praise for their services.
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It's hard to imagine something intangible, like a website, contributing to climate change. In fact, with millions of servers and thousands of datacenters drawing massive amounts of electricity, the web hosting industry is on pace to surpass air travel as one of the world's worst polluters. With that in mind, CEO Trey Gardner — an avid surfer, hiker, and skier, in addition to helping build seven other hosting companies — established GreenGeeks in 2008 to leave a positive energy footprint. The company purchases wind energy credits to restore more than three times the energy that the company consumes. The honorable quest is impressive enough, but GreenGeeks provides superb hosting packages that stand on their own. Powered by modern SSD storage and name-brand hardware, the company has grown to serve more than 55,000 customers and host more than 600,000 websites in 15 years of business. After putting the company's shared, VPS, and dedicated services through the wringer, in addition to testing the managed WordPress and site builder options, we were impressed by the multitude of tech-savvy features that ensure hosting happiness for both first-time site owners and experienced developers. We're suckers for SSD storage, and GreenGeeks up the ante with RAID-10 configurations and nightly backups. Around-the-clock knowledgeable support, coupled with free migrations and rapid provisioning, makes growing through the VPS and dedicated hosting ranks a breeze.
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#7 out of 10 in Cheap Hosting reviews There are plenty of excellent cPanel shared hosting providers out there, so what sets A2 Hosting apart from the rest? Not only does the company offer a ton of features, but it has custom-built its packages for enhanced performance, speed, and security — putting your priorities above pricing. A2 Hosting packages include a free Cloudflare content delivery network, 24/7 Guru Crew support, and multiple SSD speed boost solutions. Within the comfortable cPanel control panel, users will find Softaculous — featuring easy, 1-click installations of popular web applications. With A2's Perpetual Security features, users receive free HackScan protection and KernelCare, which runs rebootless auto-updates to kernels daily. The company promises 99.9% uptime and 24/7 network monitoring, plus virus scanning and defense against brute-force attacks. Not only was A2 Hosting one of the first to offer SSD hosting — featuring three times the page load speeds of standard hosts — but the company also invented its own Turbo hosting platform. A2 Hosting's Turbo Servers yield 20 times faster page load speeds, using less CPU and memory, with fewer users on each server. We appreciate how A2 Hosting spends a great deal of time and effort on performance testing and ensuring its giving customers the best speed, security, and support available at a price users can afford. The highly optimized solutions make getting started easy, and the usefulness and reliability of A2 Hosting's products make them extremely cost-effective. With 24/7 support, including a WordPress-specific department, we're confident A2 Hosting can provide the assistance you need to get an affordable site launched and thriving.
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Perfect for small business owners, bloggers, or web developers, GreenGeeks offers an impressive blend of features that appeal to all types of site owners. More experienced customers will appreciate the unlimited domain names, SSD RAID-10 storage, and unmetered data transfers, along with nightly backups and built-in caching programs. First-timers, however, will enjoy the free website builder, marketing and SEO tools, and hands-free migration service. Additionally, GreenGeeks offers an array of components at prices very competitive with other top hosts relying on SSD-powered infrastructure. Plans powered by newer, more-performant solid-state drives tend to be a few dollars per month more expensive than the most affordable hosting plans that utilize traditional hard-disk drives. Instead of simply touting the SSD upgrade, however, GreenGeeks includes a comprehensive suite of services that combine cutting-edge technology with sheer usability. Customers can manage their GreenGeeks hosting account using the company's intuitive and recently updated online interface, which provides simple paths to requesting domain or site transfers, registering a domain, or changing billing information. From there, users can access hosting resources using the most recent version of cPanel, the industry's leading control panel. Backed by the industry's standard 99.9% uptime guarantee, 24/7/365 responsive support, and 30-day money-back guarantee, GreenGeeks hosting plans are a worthwhile hosting investment long before the environmental benefits kick in.
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#1 out of 8 in Dedicated Hosting reviews Whether you're looking for managed or self-managed hosting, A2 Hosting offers three extremely reliable dedicated server plans to meet your needs, depending on your levels of comfort and experience. With A2 Hosting's Unmanaged Flex Dedicated Server plan, users get administrator-level control with root access and their choice of Linux operating system. Your server will be ready for configuration with an optional cPanel license available. Plus, the company offers 24/7/365 server monitoring and maintenance for hardware. We found this package to be most useful for experienced developers who are familiar with the command line. The Managed Flex Dedicated Server service removes the operating system choice and root access — along with any of the hassle or stress of server maintenance and management. Blending the best of both worlds, A2 Hosting also offers a managed server with root access as part of its Core Dedicated Server plan. A2 Hosting's dedicated servers feature its proprietary SwiftServer platform — expertly-tuned hardware with performance enhancements. The company was one of the first to offer SSD hosting, a perk passed down to all dedicated server customers that unlocks page load speeds as much as three times faster than those of standard web hosts. Servers are never overloaded, and A2 notifies you of targeted server occurrences, such as high load volume or when a filesystem becomes full. With four datacenters strategically located on three continents, A2 Hosting offers high redundancy and global distribution.
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The free site migrations offered by GreenGeeks makes sticking with the company a worthwhile venture as your website or application grows to new levels of hosting. The company's elastic platform allows for easy resource upgrades to make sure your growth is supported. All of the GreenGeeks dedicated server hosting plans come with five IP addresses, up to 10TB of data transfer, and server-grade Intel processors. DDR3 memory ranges from 2GB to 16GB across the four dedicated hosting options. Disk space ranges from 500GB to 1TB, which is pretty standard for the industry. Interestingly, however, dedicated servers are the only GreenGeeks hosting plans that don't include SSDs. The strange decision, coupled with the lack of upfront information about features, add-ons, and support, gives us pause when considering GreenGeeks for dedicated hosting. The company's prices outpace many mainstream competitors, placing them among luxury boutique hosts, without clear justification. The company's excellent offerings in the shared and VPS tiers give us confidence in the dedicated servers, but we'd recommend some more research instead of blindly signing up for service. GreenGeeks connects hosting infrastructure with Gigabit speeds, using Juniper and Cisco for network switching and routing. Customers can choose in which of the company's four datacenters their data is provisioned: Chicago, Phoenix, Toronto, or Amsterdam. In addition to the name-brand and energy-efficient hardware, GreenGeeks houses its equipment in datacenters designed to be environmentally friendly.
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#5 out of 9 in VPS Hosting reviews While A2 Hosting's turbocharged shared hosting platform gives site owners ample room to grow, the company's tech prowess is on full display with its portfolio of VPS options. Ranging from unmanaged, bare-metal environments to stress-free, fully managed space, A2 Hosting is sure to have the perfect option for your expanding online presence. No matter which option customers choose — and there are many — A2 Hosting allocates ample storage, bandwidth, and memory to VPS customers. Site owners or app developers can customize their hosting package to include root access, cPanel, or high-performance solid-state disks. We highly recommend the company's Core VPS packages, which combine managed services with root access to provide the best of both worlds. The configurations start with a whopping 4GB of RAM, 4vCPUs, 75GB of SSD storage, all well above average elsewhere in the industry. Experienced developers who are comfortable with the command line and willing to spend the time managing and maintaining their VPS will find a great deal with A2 Hosting's unmanaged servers, which also enable customers to select from a staggering 15 different operating systems. Beyond the myriad of management and operating system options, customers can also select cloud-powered VPS options to receive the ultimate redundancy and reliability, custom-fit servers, and flexible resource monitoring and scaling. When it comes to speed and performance, A2 Hosting pulls out all the stops. The company's Turbo option, paired with its exclusive Site Accelerator software suite, produce page load speeds up to 20 times faster than competitors. A2 Hosting holds a breadth of opportunities for flexibility, cost control, and custom solutions built for VPS customers. With an emphasis on performance and a commitment to solving customer problems, you won't regret going turbo with A2 Hosting's VPS packages.
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Geared for rapidly growing businesses and enterprise-level companies, GreenGeeks VPS plans provide the computing resources and scalability required to support and adapt to your growing traffic. Virtual servers are deployed in less than 60 seconds, and we appreciate the included cPanel and WHM licenses, root access, and site migration. The GreenGeeks storage capacity range of 50GB to 150GB is on the lower end of the spectrum, especially given the company's relatively high prices, but GreenGeeks goes above and beyond with the combination of super-speedy SSDs and RAID-10 configurations that provide added redundancy and performance boosts. GreenGeeks VPS containers come with ConfigServer Security and Firewall, along with Login Failure Daemon and added protection from ModSecurity and well-tailored Apache configurations. The company backs up customers' files every night and stores backups for 48 hours. Unlike many hosts that tout free backups, GreenGeeks will restore a site for free once a month. Additional restorations, if needed, are very reasonably priced. Reseller plans are fully loaded with the impressive GreenGeeks features, including site transfers and a free website builder, that you can pass along to your customers. The 100% white-label platform allows for a custom logo and private nameservers. VPS and reseller customers will receive a free eNom domain reseller account, and resellers enjoy unlimited cPanel accounts along with a free ClientExec license to automate customer invoicing, support, and provisioning.
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#4 out of 9 in WordPress Hosting reviews As experts in performance optimization, A2 Hosting is a top choice for powering resource-heavy WordPress websites. The company offers shared or managed plans for the ultra-popular content management system, with the benefits extending to Joomla, Drupal, and other platforms. A2's shared web hosting plans come with cPanel control panel, where users can access Softaculous auto-installer. Easily install popular web applications, including your choice of CMS, with one click. Alternatively, A2 Hosting experts will pre-install and configure WordPress for you, complete with PHP7 and HTTPS protection. While the company's all-SSD infrastructure enables sites to fly, A2 Hosting's enhanced Turbo Servers and proprietary Site Accelerator particularly shine with WordPress plans, enabling 20-times-faster page loads and automatic compression and caching options. To boost security and protect customers, the company build another custom program that auto-hardens WordPress sites for proactive protection against malicious attacks. Additionally, A2 Hosting offers virus scanning, a firewall, and brute-force attack protection — not to mention spam filtering for emails, which are also IMAP, POP3, and SMTP supported. A2 Hosting offers 24/7 customer support and tons of optimized features made with WordPress users in mind. Whether you're an online retailer looking to launch a fresh site with WooCommerce or a moderately web-savvy WordPress user looking for speed and security excellence, we'd highly recommend A2 Hosting.
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The GreenGeeks comprehensive suite of added features resonates particularly well with the company's managed WordPress hosting plan. Modeled after the GreenGeeks shared hosting package, the managed WordPress services will resonate with a wide cross-section of the ultra-popular content management system's enthusiasts. Effectively hosting WordPress can be challenging for lower-tier hosting providers, but GreenGeeks has both the technical know-how and high-powered infrastructure to optimize the experience for both customers and their site visitors. In addition to the unlimited storage and data transfers, the company's SSD RAID-10 storage configurations are perfect for hosting the resource-heavy CMS. GreenGeeks utilizes the one-click Softaculous installer for WordPress, but plans come pre-installed with Git and WP-CLI. Customers have SSH access to their hosting account and can select which version of PHP to use. On the security front, GreenGeeks isolates each managed WordPress hosting account and automatically updates WordPress core files. The company actively scans for vulnerabilities and blocks attacks, even including built-in DDoS protection. GreenGeeks maximizes WordPress performance with server-grade, name-brand hardware, and optimized HTTP and MySQL. Customers can add the Cloudflare CDN with just one click while they sit back and enjoy server-side software and hardware caching to accelerate page loads.
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When it comes to site-building, A2 Hosting sets users up with all the tools they need to get a website built, launched, and thriving. The company's own drag-and-drop site builder offers total simplicity for those without coding experience, or users can opt for design tools from Microweber or RapidWeaver. Additionally, the inclusion of the cPanel control panel and Softaculous script library means dozens of other blogging, ecommerce, and content management systems are just a one-click installation away. A2 Hosting strives to make these setup processes as simplistic and intuitive as possible, and the company has built optimized plugins to configure each application to its specific infrastructure advantages automatically. While we appreciate the wide range of site builder options, we're a little surprised to see relatively simple website elements, such as a blog, SSL certificate, or ecommerce store, are held out of A2 Hosting's introductory site builder plan. Upgrading to more expensive plans probably means the company is pricing themselves above many first-time site owners' budgets. That being said, we appreciate the company's focus on providing an above-average experience for all types of customers. An emphasis on modern, high-powered hardware is combined with personalized and responsive support to help users learn about how to design, launch, and grow a website.
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Shared hosting customers can easily request access to the GreenGeeks website builder through the account management portal. Our site builder installation was ready to go within 40 minutes, and we appreciated the clear instructions on how to get started. Users can choose from among 16 responsive templates or hundreds of free and premium options. We have a soft spot for site builders that let users switch to a different template without losing content, like the GreenGeeks platform does, but we wish the themes were easier to sift through when looking for a particular feature or design conducive to a particular industry or project. The drag-and-drop interface will seem very familiar and comfortable to customers. While intuitive enough for the earliest of beginners, the GreenGeeks site builder also enables more experienced developers to adjust and tweak the HTML and CSS code. In addition to the standard color adjustments, image uploads, and navigation settings that come with most website builders, customers can add functionality through the use of widgets that cover a variety of tasks, such as embedding forms, YouTube videos, and maps. Adding an ecommerce component seems easy, until clicking on the button to upgrade redirects you to the GreenGeeks homepage. When you're ready to go live, the site builder will let you preview your designs on desktop and mobile. All in all, GreenGeeks offers a solid, if not exciting, site builder option — great for beginners, perhaps a little clunky for developers.
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