If you are someone who is looking for a web hosting solution that is super fast then you should definitely consider A2 Hosting.
This article provides you my honest and detailed A2 Hosting reviews.
The plans that fall under the A2 Hosting will provide you with a platform and features that have been designed specifically for optimized speed and providing security.
This is one of the major reasons why A2 Hosting is considered to be one of the most popular providers of web hosting.
In my opinion, A2 Hosting is ideal for:
- Fast Web Hosting
- WordPress Sites
- Bloggers
- Business Websites
A2 Hosting is extremely reliable and widely recognized. It has already bagged 22 awards for its hosting solution and they have quickly gained huge popularity.
Let’s dive into the detailed information of A2 Hosting reviews and how to host a website from A2 Hosting.
(There is a new and 40% faster hosting plan from A2 Hosting starting at just $2.99/month, check it out.)
Table of Contents
1. A2 Hosting Company Information
Business Started: 2003
Data Center Location:
- Michigan, USA;
- Arizona, USA;
- Amsterdam, EUR;
- Singapore, Asia
2. WPBuilderMaster Is Hosted with A2 Hosting
The review is based on my experience with A2 Hosting.
3. A2 Hosting Reviews: Performance
A2 Hosting provides incredible loading speed, the fast server response time (or synonym to Time To First Byte (TTFB)), and high uptime.
Below are the 3 parameters I measure.
- Fully loaded time: When a page is fully loaded and no network activity is running. The average fully loaded time of a page from the whole internet world is 7s.
- TTFB: The time spent on the first response from the hosting. Google suggests all website’s TTFB should be less than 300ms.
- Uptime: The amount of time that a server has stayed up and run. Get hosting uptime more than 99.9%.
3.1. GTMetrix Result
With the WordPress speed optimization implemented, the speed result I obtained from GTMetrix is fast, it can fully load a page in 0.5s and the TTFB is only 155ms.
3.2. Pingdom Result
Whereas, my page’s fully loaded time tested with Pingdom is only 485ms.
3.3. Google PageSpeed Insights
The TTFB measured by Google PageSpeed Insights is only 110ms.
3.4. FreshPing – Server Monitor
81ms TTFB and 100% uptime from the analysis of Freshping 24/7 server monitor.
3.5. WordPress Optimization Comparison among Different Hostings
This section is talking about the GTMetrix performance comparison among A2 Hosting, Siteground, and Fastcomet.
In order for a fair comparison, the entry-level of the shared hosting plan from each hosting is used: Lite Shared(A2 Hosting), StartUp Shared(Siteground) and FastCloud Shared(Fastcomet).
They are all blank WordPress websites and the performance is tested immediately after the WordPress script installation.
Below are the results:
These are the findings collected:
- The hosting technology used by A2 Hosting and Siteground is really optimized for WordPress. You can see the performance scores are excellent.
- The hosting speed provided by A2 Hosting is really like advertised, super fast. It is faster than Siteground and Fastcomet.
4. Pros of Using A2 Hosting
4.1. Performance and Speed
A2 Hosting will provide you with the fastest page loading. It has been designed in a way that can make the website load faster.
All the plans that are provided by them have been priced by keeping in mind the speed that it provides. It is definitely one of the fastest websites shared hosting provider.
My Honest Experience & Review
I’m having a very great loading speed result even though I’m using just the cheapest plan (Lite) from A2 Hosting. Below are my results.
Fully Loaded Time
- GTMetrix: 0.5s
- Pingdom: 485ms
TTFB
- GTMetrix: 155ms
- Google Page Speed: 110ms
- February 2020 Average Response Time (FreshPing): 83ms
- January 2020 Average Response Time (FreshPing): 67ms
- December 2019 Average Response Time (FreshPing): 93ms
- November 2019 Average Response Time (FreshPing): 91ms
- October 2019 Average Response Time (FreshPing): 163ms
- September 2019 Average Response Time (FreshPing): 79ms
- August 2019 Average Response Time (FreshPing): 90ms
- December 2019 – February 2020 Average Response Time (FreshPing): 81ms (See above FreshPing image)
4.2. Uptime
Even if your page is loading quickly still it can fail to provide optimum results if the website is getting offline constantly. One needs to concentrate more on providing people with better uptime.
Uptime is considered to be the prime ingredient in the host performance. Uptime with downtime less than 99.9% is considered not that good.
My Honest Experience & Review
A2 Hosting has provided me an outstanding uptime. The uptime performance of A2 Hosting is nearly perfect. See my results below.
- February 2020 Average Uptime: 100%;
- January 2020 Average Uptime: 100%;
- December 2019 Average Uptime: 100%;
- November 2019 Average Uptime: 99.98%
- October 2019 Average Uptime: 99.97%
- September 2019 Average Uptime: 100%
- August 2019 Average Uptime: 99.97%
- December 2019 – February 2020 Average Uptime: 100% (See above FreshPing image)
4.3. Support
If you encounter any type of issue with A2 Hosting then you can go and seek its 24 hours support at 365 days.
You can connect to the support center via live chat, phone or the ticket system.
My Honest Experience & Review
There were several times I contacted them via the live chat system.
Live chat first response speed: 3-15 mins. (Depends on the busy of the line)
4.4. A Plethora of Plans
A2 Hosting is definitely the conventional web hosting so you will definitely get different types of plans here.
- A2 Hosting’s shared hosting is suitable for those blogging for the first time and small business website.
- A2 Hosting’s VPS hosting is suitable for a growing website that needs better stability and security.
- A2 Hosting’s dedicated hosting is suitable for large business which has in-house developers to manage the server.
Not only these, but there are also other plans as well.
My Honest Experience & Review
Every plan of A2 Hosting is targeting better speed at its core.
Pricing
- Shared hosting starts from
$3.92$2.96. - VPS hosting starts from $5.00.
- Dedicated hosting starts from $99.59.
4.5. Security
If you are looking for great security, then you can opt for the A2 Hosting plans because it will protect the system from any type of malware and comes with a free tool for scanning.
It will provide you with the KernelCare that will look after the kernel updates, dual firewall, brute force defense and many more.
4.6. Free Site Migration
A2 Hosting will help in moving the existing website to the new server and will not ask for any extra charges.
With the help of this free site migration, you will be able to easily migrate the websites.
If you are opting for the shared hosting then they will perform free site migration for one time.
Shared web hosting plan: 1 free website migration.
Dedicated, reseller or the managed VPS hosting: 25 free website migration.
4.7. Anytime Days Money-Back Guarantee
A2 Hosting will provide you with the flexibility of availing the 30-day money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied with the hosting plan.
If you are facing any issues within the first month then you will be able to avail of the complete refund.
You can also get the anytime days money-back guarantee which indicates that if you are availing for a bigger plan of 3 years and preparing for it then if you are unhappy with the services after using it for one year then you can definitely get the remaining amount as a refund.
4.8. Green Web Hosting
A2 Hosting is working more on protecting the planet from global warming. They have worked towards supporting renewable energy along with reforestation.
They have also incorporated some initiatives related to green hosting in order to reduce the emission of offset from the servers.
I’m not a person that is very keen on renewable energy. However, although it is not a contributing point when it comes to opting for a hosting website, it definitely adds to the perks.
5. Cons of using A2 Hosting
5.1. High Renewal Rates
If you are opting for long term plans then you are going to pay a lot of money.
A2 Hosting only provides good deals to new customers with their introductory special pricing. When the initial term expires the next automatic renewable will be charging you with the regular pricing which is almost twice the amount that you have paid in the first place.
So you need to write a cancellation request two weeks before the renewable term. If you fail to do so, then the payment will get included in the renewable plan and it will happen automatically so you won’t receive any type of refund.
Renewal Price: 2X of the first purchase price
Solution: Get a longer period like 2-3 years during your first purchase.
5.2. Restrictions on Cheapest Plan
You get restrictions on the cheapest plan. Yes, you still get essential features like a single website, great speed, free SSL, unlimited storage, site migration along with any time money-back guarantee.
But you won’t get the fastest turbo service that can enhance the page loading speed. Only the Turbo package or above are having this technology.
My personal experience: Although I’m not using its Turbo package, the speed provided is also very great, better than most of the hosting providers.
6. How to Host a Website from A2 Hosting (Registration Process)
Choose a hosting plan. Enter A2 Hosting’s website to choose a hosting plan.
(New 40% faster hosting plan from A2 Hosting starting at just $2.99/month, grab it before the price is increased)
Choose a domain. You have to enter your existing domain name or purchase a domain name from A2 Hosting (which I don’t encourage). If you had followed my Step 1 guide and had bought a domain name from a Domain Registrar, you need to choose “Use my existing domain and update my nameservers”, and fill in your purchased domain name.
Configure hosting solution. Please refer to the following steps provided to configure your hosting solution, for instance, billing cycle, server location and etc.
Review the order. After reviewing your order then proceed to checkout.
Account creation and payment. Fill in all your personal, account creation and payment information in order to checkout.
7. Assign Nameserver of A2 Hosting to Your Domain Name
Copy nameserver addresses. Once completed your checkout, you can log in to your web hosting dashboard to look for the nameserver’s addresses.
Or, you will receive emails from your web hosting (A2 Hosting in my case). Look for the email which provides nameserver addresses. (Note*: Some web hosting only has 2 nameserver’s addresses)
Login to your domain registrar (NameCheap in my case) account.
Domain List -> “yourdomain.com”. Look for your domain name and click manage
Assign new nameserver addresses. Point nameserver of your web hosting to the custom DNS by following the steps below.
Wrapping Up
In this A2 Hosting reviews, I would say A2 Hosting is definitely an affordable, reliable, and branded web hosting solution.
It will provide supreme support and an impressive capacity of real-time. It can easily integrate itself with the various domain name.
The benefits of A2 Hosting surpasses its cons and which is why you should consider opting for it.
2 thoughts on “A2 Hosting Reviews: How Fast and Stable is It? Pros & Cons of Using A2 Hosting”
Hi, you say they don’t offer renewal discounts at all, but the support told me they do, but can’t give any information or estimate how much this would be (I’m opting for a Core CVS hosting). For example SiteGround offers renewal accounts, too, if you select a longer period of time (currently on Grow Big, their VPS prices are awful high). Do you have any experience how much a renewal discount could be?
Best, Michael
Hi Michael, I didn’t know that they offer a renewal discount, but it is good news if they do offer. Thank you for sharing.