Does your site behave like a zombie when there is a spike in website traffic?
Or does your hosting keep spitting server errors and you are tired of troubleshooting them?
If it’s your situation right now you need a switch to A2 Hosting ( 66% discount Link). But Before that, you need to read this A2 hosting review.
A2 Hosting has configured its servers for better Speed, Tech Support, and Security. They promise to provide quality hosting service with insane speed. So let’s check it out.
I have used both Shared Hosting & Managed WordPress Hosting Plans.
This unbiased A2 Hosting review is completely based on the performance report of WordPress Hosting Service.
A Brief Introduction To A2 Hosting:
A2 Hosting are in the hosting business since 2001. At that time they were known as Iniquinet and back in 2003, they changed the name to A2 Hosting.
A2 refers to Ann Arbor (Michigan) which is the hometown of Bryan Muthing (Founder & CEO).
In today’s time most of the big Hosting brands like Bluehost, and Hostgator are owned by EIG, but that’s not with A2 Hosting.
They are independent hosting companies since then and are providing quality service.
Pros of A2 Hosting Service:
1. Site Speed That Beats Google’s Recommended Timing:
Whether you are running a blog or having a small business website speed always matters.
Google also has confirmed that Page loading time is one of the ranking factors and as per Google’s recommendation, it should be under 3 seconds.
A2 Hosting Turbo server technology claims 20x faster page loading time. To test it out I set up a real website with some content.
And here is what I have got:
Note: I have not done any optimization. This is a Pre-Configured and Optimized WP installation by A2 Hosting. I believe page loading time can be reduced to below 1 second by using CDN and scaling images.
Further, I have I have done a load impact test on the server, and below are the results:
In the above graph, the Blue line represents VUs (Virtual users) and the Greenline represents page load time.
I flooded my website with 1 to 100 real-time visitors for 5 minutes. For most of the time page load time is nearly the same at around 1.2 seconds (expect 1-2 spikes).
That’s quite a good result and it is below Google recommended 3 seconds. But truly speaking I was expecting more from A2 Hosting.
2. Great Customer Support:
Great customer support differentiates quality, and web hosts, from the rest of the crowd.
There are numerous hosting providers out there whose customer support sucks. Even some big hosting companies have a bad reputation for customer support departments.
But that’s not the case with A2 Hosting. It doesn’t matter whether you are a tech geek or a novice, A2 hosting customer support is always available to solve your problems.
Currently, A2 Hosting has a ‘Ticket Support’ system. You need to generate the ticket for your queries and Guru crew support will respond to your ticket shortly.
I have personally generated 2 support tickets. For the first time, I got a complete solution to my problem within 15- 20 minutes.
And for the second time when the issue was advanced (the fault was mine) their Expert WordPress team resolved the issue within 10-15 minutes.
So I can only say that customer support is really helpful. In my case instead of sending instructions, they resolved the issue and send the report of why this happened.
There is no doubt customer support is great and knowledgeable but I missed the live chat feature. I hope they will add a live chat feature shortly so we can contact them quickly.
The live chat feature is now available. You can access it inside the client area.
You can also ask for help by using their Call Support.
3. Free Migration: Leave Your Previous Host Without any Headache
In case you want to migrate your old site to A2 hosting you don’t need to worry.
Just submit a Migration support Ticket and sit back. They will migrate your site for free in most cases.
4. Uptime Stats:
A2 Hosting claims to provide 99.9% uptime. In my case, it was able to provide 100% uptime. But you can expect downtime of 1-5 minutes because 100% efficiency is nearly impossible.
5. Free SSL Certificate:
Google had announced that they will give an extra edge to HTTPS-enabled websites in rankings.
If you want that extra edge and want to make your site more secure you need an SSL certificate.
But buying an SSL certificate for each website can make a hole in your pocket.
A2 Hosting kept that in mind and they have joined hands with Lets Encrypt which provides Free SSL certificates.
6. Any Time Money Back Guarantee
Whoo! That’s something I heard for the first time.
I have seen hosting companies providing a 90-day money-back guarantee but A2 Hosting has taken it to the next level.
You will get the full refund within 30 days after signing up and after that refund will be based on unused service.
You can read refund-related terms and conditions here.
7. Security: Do they take security as a concern?
Each day thousands of websites got hacked and blacked listed by Search engines.
So you need to pay special attention to your site security.
Each A2 Hosting Managed WordPress Account includes Free Hack Scan Protection, Brute Force Defence, and Dual firewalls to keep your site safe from Hackers.
You can Enable/Disable the Web application firewall from the Plesk control panel.
There is also a tool Patchman that will scan for software vulnerabilities and malware detection and resolve them.
Along with that, their A2 hosting Optimize Plugin (Pre-Installed) provides features like:
- Login URL change
- Lock Editing of Plugins and Themes from the WP Admin
- Deny Direct Access to Configuration Files and Comment Form and much more.
8. Free Automated Backups:
To keep your data safe A2 Hosting provides weekly and monthly backups. You can easily schedule your backup routines from the Plesk Control panel and for storage, you can use the FTP storage location or link your Dropbox account.
Jetpack Personal Plan(Free with A2 Hosting) also allows you to back up your data daily.
9. Free Jetpack Personal PlanWorth $3.50/month {Came with Managed WordPress Plans Only}
If you are familiar with WordPress you must have heard the name of the Jetpack plugin.
It is one of the popular plugins that comes with lots of features like Marketing, Security, and Performance features.
With Each A2 hosting’s managed wordpress account you get access to a personal plan of Jetpack that includes unlimited image CDN, Daily automated backup, automated spam filtering, automated social media posting, and many more.
10. Pre-Installed WordPress with A2 Optimized:
While signing up for A2 hosting I used Subdomain and later I added a .com domain purchased from a third-party domain registrar.
Both times I got Pre-Installed WordPress. That means no more time-wasting searching articles about WordPress Installation and Speed Guides.
There is also an option for manual installation of WordPress.
Also, each WordPress installation is A2- optimized which ensures tightening security and Blistering speed on your site.
By default following plugins were Pre-installed:
- A2 Fixed W3 Total Cache: Caching plugin to Boost page load speed
- A2 Optimized WP: WordPress optimization Plugin provided by A2 hosting.
- EWWW Image Optimizer: Image optimizer to compress images
- Wp-Form Lite: Plugin to create a contact form and Other
Cons of A2 hosting:
No doubt A2 hosting is one of the best WordPress Hosting but there is one thing that I don’t like about them.
1. Vague Pricing:
Vague pricing is one of the things that discourages me from completing the order. And I am sure it also discourages many users like me.
But it’s not only with A2 Hosting. I have seen many hosting companies that show lower pricing on the landing pages and when you are close enough to finish your order original pricing will blow your mind.
Below is the original pricing which you need to pay for the Lite Plan or shared Hosting Plan.
A2 Hosting Pricing & Packages?
A2 Hosting provides various types of hosting such as WordPress, VPS, Reseller, and Dedicated Hosting. But among them, WordPress Hosting is a hot favorite.
WordPress Hosting:
In WordPress hosting A2 Host provides both Shared and Managed WordPress Hosting. If your Site/Blog is new and doesn’t have high traffic you can go with a Shared WordPress Hosting plan. But If your Site got tons of traffic and you want more than with Managed WordPress plan.
Shared WordPress Hosting:
Their Shared Hosting plan starts from $3.92/month (with a Discount) and goes up to $9.31/month.
Managed WordPress Hosting:
Currently, they are providing 3 packages ranging from $24.46 – $75.48 monthly and after using coupons it can be dropped to $11.99 – $36.98 monthly.
After comparing all of the 3 plans I have noticed that you will get almost the same features with each plan.
But the difference got created when it comes to Domain Add-ons, Storage, and Resource Usage.
Final Thoughts on A2 Hosting Review
After using A2 hosting overall experience is good. There were some glitches but A2 Hosting Customer Support did a great job.
If you are searching for a Stable Host with High Performance, Tighten Security, great Server Uptime, and Faster Site speed you can go with A2 Hosting.