A2 Hosting Review [March 2023] : Get Up To 20X Faster Hosting
Are you wondering how you can boost the loading speed of your blog?
Speed affects the search engine ranking and thus it affects the conversion. So having fast web hosting is a must for an online business to grow.
That is why we have come up with this detailed A2 Hosting Review so that you know what A2 Hosting offers and why it is one of the best web hostings for your business.
A2 Hosting is not a premium web host, but it offers blazing-fast speed, reliable uptime, a secure hosting environment, etc. With their recent addition of a lite speed server, your website will get a speed boost for sure.
A2 Hosting is known for its cheaper plans as prices of all plans are very reasonable. So if you are someone who is just getting into blogging, I would suggest you to go for A2 Hosting instead of wasting money on premium web hosts.
A2 Hosting Overview
A2 Hosting was started by Bryan Muthig back in 2001 in the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan. In fact, the A2 Hosting name is basically the initials of the location, Ann Arbor.
Initially, they started with shared hosting only. But over the years, they have grown up and now they offer almost all types of hosting.
The company is based out in Michigan, USA. Although, data centers are spread well across the globe. They have a very skilled team of 200+ engineers who monitor servers 24X7 so that you can be confident that you are hosting with a great company.
A2 Hosting Business Portfolio
A2 Hosting provides six different types of hosting, Shared, WordPress, VPS, Cloud, Dedicated, and Reseller hosting. All plans are good and it can be intimidating for you to decide among them for your site.
Shared hosting is the most affordable and the best one. If you are a new blogger, you can go with any of the shared hosting plans. Once your blog starts growing, you may switch to other types of hosting.
Already established blogs can either opt for their VPS hosting plans or dedicated server hosting. Both are cheaper compared to other hosts.
For scalability and flexibility, Cloud Hosting service from A2 hosting is a great option that you can opt to manage your sites.
I would suggest you to try their Dedicated Hosting plans if you plan to run an eCommerce store. It’s a bit expensive but makes your website scalable, powerful, and secure too.
A2 Hosting Features
The feature list varies based on what type of web hosting you choose.
But in this article, we will only focus on the shared hosting features considering the fact that most of us go for shared hosting only for our blogs unless we have a very high-traffic blog.
1. Blazing Fast Servers
Not even the dedicated server or the VPS hosting, but even the shared hosting servers are much faster than other web hosts in the same price range.
One of the main reasons for that is the high resource allocation and fewer users per server. For moderate-traffic blogs, A2 shared hosting is the best option
Its blazing speed is unmatchable for VPS and dedicated servers as well. So, if you are wishing to have a website where speed is the concern, then A2 Hosting is a great option for you to invest in.
2. Free Site Migration
With A2 hosting, If you want to move your existing websites, you won’t be charged extra for migration, as they offer free migration.
In fact, the turbo plan allows unlimited website transfer free of cost. Other hosts in the market usually charge $100 for this service.
All you need is to raise a support ticket and the team will do the migration free of cost.
3. Unlimited SSD Storage
Except for the StartUp plan, all other plans come with unlimited SSD storage.
Generally, SSDs are 30% faster than regular hard disks. That’s the reason why most web hosts provide SSD storage nowadays.
Do you know that A2 Hosting uses NVMe SSD which is much faster than SATA SSD used by other hosts?
4. Superfast Turbo Servers
This is the real trump card that A2 hosting played with their shared hosting plans. They have two turbo plans that use Lite Speed Server coupled with Lite Speed Cache.
Lite speed server is one the fastest server available in the market today. Most of the other web host uses Apache web server which is free and very outdated.
The speed of your website gets multiplied by the Lite Speed Cache. Basically, lite speed cache is a product by the same company that developed the Litespeed server to optimize its server speed.
5. 99.9 % Uptime Commitment
Every web hosts nowadays claim that their server uptime is 99.99%, even A2 hosting does. What is the big deal?
So, here is the difference.
For every hour of service interruption, you will get a 5% credit for that month’s bill. For example, if your monthly bill is $100, you will get a $5 credit for every hour when the server was down.
6. Guru Crew Support
The guru crew support is available 24X7. They are well-trained and know how to solve problems. The support lead time varies depending on the types of web hosting you have chosen.
For example, in the case of shared hosting, the wait time may be more compared to VPS hosting. The best way of getting quick support is through the support ticket system. They usually respond to support tickets within 24 hours.
7. Global Data Centers
A2 Hosting has four data centers. Although, with CDN, the data center location may not make a lot of difference.
In fact, they have one data center in Singapore to serve Asian countries. So if you have your audience from India, then you can choose the Singapore location as your data center.
8. Staging Area
With all plans, you will get the option of creating a staging area for your production website. This is useful to test different themes or plugins without affecting the production website.
Once you are happy with the outcome in the staging server, you can deploy the changes in the production server easily.
A2 Hosting Plans And Pricing
A2 Hosting Deals
A2 Hosting Plans [ Shared]
Under shared hosting, A2 hosting has four different plans. Out of that, turbo plans are the best as those are powered by Lite Speed Server.
Start-Up
If you have a low-traffic website, you can opt for the Startup plan. It comes with 100 GB SSD storage, free site Migration, and Money back guarantee. But you can only host one website in the start-up plan.
Drive
If you want to host multiple websites, the drive plan is the best. You will get unlimited space and unlimited bandwidth.
Turbo Boost
The turbo plan is recommended. It is a fast, secure, and the most value-for-money plan. It is powered by a Lite speed server.
This plan comes with NVMe storage which is almost 30% faster than traditional SSDs
Turbo Max
This is the best plan in the shared hosting portfolio. It is the same as the turbo plan but offers five times more resources. So if you have a high-traffic website, then this is the plan for you.
A2 Hosting Plans [ VPS ]
If none of the shared hosting plans are able to handle your website traffic needs, then the VPS hosting plans are a great option for you. A2 Hosting offers both managed and unmanaged VPS hosting plans.
Unmanaged VPS Hosting Plan
Unmanaged VPS hosting plans are suitable for experienced developers. The pricing is competitive and compatible with those who want full customization in their virtual servers.
An unmanaged VPS allows developers to select exactly how much RAM, storage, and other resources they need.
Managed VPS plans
Managed VPS hosting plans are managed by the A2 Hosting support team. You can also manage it as all come with C Panel.
A2 Hosting Plans [ Reseller ]
Reseller A2 hosting plans might be a great option for developers, designers, and those who have agencies.
Similar to shared hosting, reseller hosting also has different plans based on whether it is powered by Apache or Lite Speed server.
Dedicated Servers
If you have a high-traffic website or an online store, then a dedicated server may be a good option. You can customize the resources you want.
There are two types of dedicated server options available. One is the unmanaged dedicated server and the other one is the managed dedicated server.
Unmanaged dedicated servers are for those who want to have full control of their servers. In the case of managed dedicated servers, the A2 hosting technical team is responsible for managing the servers.
How To Host A Blog On A2 Hosting
You can follow the below step-by-step process to host a blog on A2 hosting. Since all plans come with cPanel, the onboarding process is very smooth and straightforward.
Go To A2 Hosting Home Page
To go to the A2 hosting home page, you can click on this link.
Choose A Plan
You can click on ” Hosting” and select ” Shared Hosting ” to see the shared hosting page. Here, you can choose any plan you like. My personal recommendation would be to try the ” Turbo Boost ” plan as it is the most value-for-money plan.
Please choose for 36-month tenure to get the maximum discount.
Choose A Domain Name
A2 Hosting does not offer any free domain name. You can either use any existing domain name or buy one on the fly. I would suggest you to buy domain names from Namecheap only as the service and pricing are really great.
Once you decide on the domain name, click ” Continue “
Fill In All Required information
Here you need to choose the data center and any add-ons you like. Please make sure that you have chosen the 36 months tenure for the maximum benefit.
Once everything is set in place, click on ” Continue “
Checkout And Complete The Order
You will see the review page when you click on Continue as mentioned in the last step. Review all the information and click on ” Checkout “.
Here you need to fill in all the personal and payment information and then click on ” Complete Order “
Once you place the order, you will receive an email with Cpanel login information along with nameserver details.
Login to cPanel and create or transfer your website. You can refer to this article to install WordPress or this article to transfer your blog from one web host to another,
A2 Hosting Positives And Negatives
- Choice of Lite Speed Server
- Unlimited Website Installation
- No Limit on Bandwidth
- Fast NVMe SSD Storage
- Strategic data center location
- Free site migration
- 30 days money-back guarantee
- Daily backup option
- Staging area
- Excellent pricing
- No free domain name
- Pricing is good only if you buy for 3 years
- The Lite speed server is not available in the Startup and Drive plan
Conclusion: A2 Hosting Review
Yes, We recommend A2 Hosting. The reason is simple. A2 Hosting is a fast, popular, highly scalable, and flexible web hosting provider in the market.
No matter if you are a newbie developer, a startup owner, or running your agencies. A2 Hosting has a plan for you.
It’s a fact that A2 Hosting is not the fastest web hosting in the market. But when you compare the pricing with the features that A2 hosting offers, then definitely, A2 Hosting is one of the best value-for-money web hosts available in the market today.
Best Alternative To A2 Hosting
Although finding an alternative to A2 Hosting is very difficult considering the features it offers at this price point, Cloudways, and Hostarmada are a few of the close contenders.
Cloudways
Cloudways is a cloud hosting platform where you can choose from different cloud service providers to host your blog. It is different from shared hosting in the sense that, you will be allotted dedicated resources.
In Cloudways, you can choose from Digital Ocean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, and Google Cloud as your cloud service provider. All these providers are equally good and very popular.
You can start your journey with Cloudways for as low as $10 per month. You can host multiple blogs, you will get ample SSD space and bandwidth.
You will also get Cloudway’s in-house developed cache plugin called Breeze. Redis cache is available on all servers and for security, they have Malware security.
When you host your blog with Cloudways, you will definitely get a speed boost. I am using Cloudways for a long time, and I must say that Cloudways is one of the best and most cost-effective web hosting solutions out there.
Cloudways Hosting 80% off
Vertical Scaling Possible
Excellent Pricing
HostArmada
Hostarmada is another tough competitor to A2 Hosting. Although it is relatively new to this web hosting business, within a short span, they could able to establish a name for themselves.
The lite speed server powered “Speed Reaper” is more or less equal to the “Turbo Boost” plan of A2 Hosting. On top of that Hostaramada offers a free domain name with all plans. The pricing is also less compared to A2 Hosting.
Hostarmada Hosting 70% off
Unlimited Bandwidth
Free Domain
FAQ | A2 Hosting Review
Is A2 Hosting Good?
Yes, Absolutely. Especially A2 Turbo plans are way faster than some of the premium web hosts.
The feature list is very extensive in all the plans. If you compare the price-to-feature ratio, the A2 Hosting plans are real value-for-money plans.
A2 Hosting Offers A Free Domain Name?
No, A2 hosting does not offer a free domain name in any plans
Where Is A2 Hosting Located?
A2 Hosting has its headquarters in Aan Arbor, Michigan, USA. It has data centers in the following locations.
Michigan [USA]
Arizona [USA]
Amsterdam [Europe]
Singapore [Asia]
Does A2 Hosting Offer Money Back Guarantee?
Yes, A2 Hosting offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. In case you are not happy with their service, you can ask for a refund within 30 days.
A2 Hosting Review
A2 Hosting is there in the market for a long time and they offered some of the best web hosting plans. Let's find out how fast it is in this A2 Hosting Review.
Price: 2.99
Price Currency: USD
Operating System: Linux
Application Category: Web Hosting
4.3
Pros
- Choice of Lite Speed Server
- Unlimited Website Installation
- No Limit on Bandwidth
- Fast NVMe SSD Storage
- Excellent pricing
Cons
- No free domain name
- Pricing is good only if you buy for 3 years
- The Lite speed server is not available in the Startup and Drive plan
