A2 Hosting has been around since 2001 and they’re most known for their page loading speeds.
In fact, they have delivered one of the fastest server speeds we’ve seen over the past 12 months. Also, A2 Hosting has a strong uptime, which makes their hosting service reliable.
The hosting plans are developer-friendly, and their “anytime” money-back guarantee is a unique feature.
A significant downside is the renewal rate, which jumps up aggressively after your initial period. However, if you need a fast web hosting service at relatively cheap upfront pricing ($1.99/month) with the ability to scale with your website growth. Then A2 Hosting might be an excellent option for you.
Here’s an in-depth look at A2 Hosting’s pros and cons after signing up, paying for their hosting service, and putting it to the test.
Pros of Using A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting is one of the best under-the-radar hosting companies you might not know about, but should.
Why?
Their speed is excellent, uptime is reliable, customer service is friendly, security features are plentiful, and refund policy is liberal. On top of it all, they’re even environmentally conscious.
Let’s take a detailed look at A2 Hosting’s many perks.
1. One of the Fastest Page Loading Speed (285 ms)
You see a recurring theme when you go to A2Hosting.com – speed.
And A2 Hosting is, in fact, fast. In the past 12 months, they have delivered an amazing average speed of 285 ms.
And what’s even better?
A2 Hosting has been showing improved results monthly basis. Thus rankings #2nd out of 40 hosts in average speed ( DigitalOcean is a tiny bit faster with 268 ms).
2. Reliable Uptime of 99.97%
On top of being lightning-fast, A2 Hosting is also quite reliable.
They had some trouble a few years ago when their uptime struggled to reach the industry standard of 99.93%. However, they’ve turned the problems around over the past year and achieved an average of 99.97% uptime. The total downtime of their servers was a bit more than two hours.
Last 12-month average uptime of A2 hosting:
March 2021: 99.99%
February 2021: 100%
January 2021: 99.85%
December 2020: 100%
November 2020: 100%
October 2020: 99.99%
September 2020: 100%
August 2020: 99.99%
July 2020: 100%
June 2020: 99.84%
May 2020: 100%
April 2020: 100%
3. 24/7 Server Monitoring and Malware Scanning
The best way to keep your site safe is by preventing issues before they break out. But, extra scanning, firewalls, or layers of encryption can often slow users down. This isn’t the case with A2 Hosting. They can still perform at the highest level while giving you loads of additional security features.
A2 Hosting servers are protected by “HackScan" a 24/7-monitoring service that scans for malware and other attacks.
Their data centers are also scalable, meaning you’re protected if a denial of service attack (DDoS) breaks out. These attacks attempt to flood your servers with traffic and knock your site offline. So A2 Hosting has got your back to handle sudden, unexpected surges.
4. Free Site Migrations (1-25 Depending on the Plan)
A2 Hosting offers to move a single existing website over to their servers without extra charge on all plans.
With the shared hosting plan, if you have multiple websites that you want to migrate, it costs $10/site extra. However, if you’re going with the Reseller, Dedicated, or Managed VPS hosting, you get 25 free site migrations. Their terms of service spell everything out in detail.
To take advantage of this, you need to reach out to their customer support department and give them your cPanel account credentials.
If your websites have any other control panel than cPanel, they might take a small fee for the extra work.
5. Content Management Systems (CMS) and Developer-Friendly Tools
A2 Hosting works seamlessly with all major content management systems.
You can install a WordPress, OpenCart, Drupal, Joomla, or Magento site with just a few clicks and don’t need a developer to do that.
A2 Hosting also has performance-enhancing plugins to make these CMSs faster, starting from the “Turbo Boost” plan. You get a free Cloudflare CDN with all hosting packages that further contribute to speeding things up.
