A2 Hosting Reviews: Can They Continue To Outrun The Competition In 2020?

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by Katie Horne

Last updated: August 11, 2020

Our Verdict: Outstanding Choice for Speed

Developer-friendly A2 Hosting supports almost any technology used for websites and apps. Top benefits include record-breaking speeds, award-winning customer support, plus optimized WordPress servers with cPanel access.

A2 Hosting currently has a great offer with 51% off all plans - amazing value for their service.

Don't just take our word for it - over 200 of our users have rated A2 Hosting 4.5 stars and love the speed and quality of technical support.

Are There Any Coupons Or Discounts?

Yes - you can currently save 63% on A2 Hosting with this exclusive coupon.

Is A2 Hosting Right for Your Website?

Looking for something specific? Jump to our most popular sections:

• Expert Review - read our thorough analysis by hosting specialist, Katie Horne.
• Best Reviews - see what almost 250 A2 Hosting customers have to say.
• Hosting Plans - compare the best A2 Hosting hosting plans and their prices.
• FAQs - find the answers to the most asked questions about A2 Hosting!

A2 Hosting has a reputation for offering rock-solid and lightning-fast web servers. But do they live up to this reputation?

Read on to see what I've discovered while testing A2's services, and also what their customers rant and rave about.

About A2 Hosting

Although they are a general hosting provider, A2 specializes in hosting for developers.

So regardless of which type of hosting (shared, VPS, dedicated) you need, you will get high-performance and reliable hosting.

Shared Web Hosting

Based upon my experience, A2 Hosting's shared hosting plans are faster than their competitors. Additionally, they offer 24/7 customer support for all subscribers, ultra-reliable servers, unlimited resources, and free website migration.

Shared Features

Other features of A2 Hosting's shared plans include:

• PHP (5.x and 7.x)

• Python (2.6, 2.7, and 3.2)

• PERL 5.10

• Node.js

• MySQL 5.6 databases

• PostgreSQL 9.6

• Apache 2.4

• FTP/SFTP access to your server environment

• Free SSH access

• Shared SSL certificate.

All shared plans come standard with free SSD storage to ensure top-notch performance.

My tests indicated that A2 Hosting also provides impressive speeds for your website as well as solid uptime. See below for details.

Choose from 3 Linux or Windows Plans

If you are looking to get started with a cheapest web hosting plan from A2 Hosting, you'll begin by choosing the operating system of your server environment: Linux or Windows.

Regardless of which option you choose, you will have three different plans. All of them come with unmetered bandwidth and SSD storage.

The higher level plans come with more features. All plans, however, come with standards like databases and auto-installers.

A2 Hosting offers a branded version of the popular cPanel control panel to customers purchasing a Linux shared hosting plan (also VPS and dedicated). Plesk is available for Windows servers.

The Lite Plan

The entry-level plan, which A2 Hosting call their Lite option, gets you hosting for one website, use of five databases, 25 email addresses, unlimited SSD disk space, unlimited data transfer/bandwidth, and a free (shared) SSL certificate.

Interested in A2?
Our readers can currently save 51% on A2 Hosting plans. Use this discount link to get the best price.

The Swift Plan

A2 Hosting's most popular shared hosting plan is the Swift, which is the mid-range option.

This plan is very similar to the entry-level plan. Its primary difference is that it allows you to host unlimited websites and offers you more resources. In particular, there is no limit on the number of databases or email accounts you can have.

The Turbo Plan

A2 Hosting's high-end shared hosting plan, called the Turbo option, is very similar to the other shared plans, but you get extras designed to increase the performance of your websites.

The most important extra of the Turbo plan is that your site(s) will be hosted on A2 Hosting's Turbo servers. These servers allocate more resources to each individual user because there are fewer users per server. A2 Hosting claims this increases the speed of your site by a factor of up to 20.

A2 has a robust set of speed technologies it uses.

Another extra of the Turbo plan is that it includes the A2 Site Accelerator. It is a cPanel plug-in that speeds up your site by providing pre-configured caching.

There are three major subsystems of the A2 Optimized Site Accelerator:

1. Turbo Cache: caches the entire contents of your web pages so that they can be served without running PHP

2. OPcache/APC: improves responses of pages that require the use of PHP

3. Memcached: increases the speed of MySQL databases by keeping your most used data in memory for quicker retrieval.

WordPress Hosting

A2 Hosting offers a special kind of shared hosting for WordPress. These plans are more expensive than the general shared plans described above. But they include a number of things that make them appealing:

• Turbo optimized for faster page delivery

• Staging server

• Jetpack Personal

• Easy WordPress backups.

There are other minor features that make setting up and running a WordPress site easier. So this is worth a look if you are running a WordPress-based site.

VPS Hosting

For those who have outgrown their shared hosting plans or need better speeds for their websites, A2 Hosting offers virtual private servers (VPS).

VPS Management Options

Typically, moving up from shared hosting to VPS requires you to either gain the technical knowledge required to manage your server "slice" or hire someone with the necessary system administration experience.

However, this is not the case with A2 Hosting. You can opt for three kinds of management for your VPS plan:

• Unmanaged: is perfect for those who are developers or system administrators looking for a fully customizable, bare metal installation.

• Managed: offers the full power of a VPS plan, but with the same user-friendly cPanel platform bundled with the shared hosting plans. It also comes with what A2 Hosting call their 100% worry-free Host-Guard Management from the Guru Crew Support team (which is available 24/7).

• Core: for those wanting a managed VPS plan, but with the addition of root access/administrative privileges. You will get worry-free support from A2 Hosting, but you will also get complete control over your server environment.

You can get unmanaged VPS plans for shared hosting prices.

A2 Hosting's managed VPS plans (including Core) are more expensive but still competitive by industry standards. They are also more powerful than the unmanaged plans. The table below provides the basic information.

Operating Systems

Like the shared hosting plans, you can choose to host your site on a Windows or Linux server. Windows plans cost 25% more than their Linux counterparts. And instead of the cPanel control panel, Windows plans offer Plesk.

RAID Storage

For the purposes of data redundancy and performance improvement, all VPS plans get RAID 10 storage. RAID 10 drives combine striping (which increases speed) with mirroring (which increases reliability).

The size of the RAID 10 drive depends upon the plan.

Dedicated Hosting

A2 Hosting offers both managed and unmanaged dedicated servers for those in search of web hosting for the fastest speeds and resource-intensive or highly-trafficked websites.

Managed dedicated servers get upgradeable RAID 1 storage, which means all the data is mirrored and thus less prone to data faults or loss.

Reseller Hosting Plans

A2 Hosting offers reseller plans for those looking to get into the web hosting business themselves. They allow you to choose between Windows and Linux options, and there are four different reseller plans from which you can choose (regardless of which operating system).

With the exception of the basic plan, billing software (WHMCS or Blesta) is included. You can upgrade to a premium WHMCS package.

Continued below user reviews

A2 Hosting Reviews by Our Community

Overall Rating from 262 Reviews by A2 Hosting Customers

Support
Quality
Features
Value

Filter reviews by: Most HelpfulMost RecentNegativePositive

Most Helpful Reviews

Simon Mackay northseacompactors.com

Feb 09, 2014

A2 Hosting provide an excellent service in all respects. This includes: (1) a high-spec infrastructure (eg SSDs, choice of hosting centers) with many extra features bundled into the contract (eg automatic server-based backup, anti-virus protection, etc); (2) superb technical support accessible/delivered in a number of ways (eg high quality self-service knowledge base, online chat & a real person helpline); (3) support staff who are responsive, knowledgeable & patient; (4) efficient billing support in resolving issues (eg moving domain billing between accounts); and (5) good value-for-money for a quality product. In fact A2 Hosting's service has been so consistently good over that past two years I have moved my company's web services account to them.

Visit Host Now →

Adam Silver kitchensinkwp.com

Dec 19, 2016

I recently requested a cPanel migration and I the process went very smoothly. The issues I found were actually my own, and nothing to do with A2 Hosting. Eac email interaction was answered quickly and with the needed information.

Additionally, the overall time frame to have the process done far exceeded my expectations taking less then 1/2 the time I was originally told. Great job A2 Hosting!

Visit Host Now →

Razique Mahroua fitforlife.fr

Mar 28, 2014

I'm an A2 Hosting customer for almost a year now. As a technical consultant myself I'm really nitpicky about IT services. A2 Hosting is the best I've came across so far based on tons of testings and deployments around (I've benched up to 10 providers before)
What seduce(s)|de me:
• Clear and simple pricing
• Limited but more performant offers
• CPanel-powered features
• Advanced functions
• Billing made easy
• Tons of services and features if you need

The support is rock solid and very available, I had one major DNS incident related to a subdomain, the team has been able to resolve.

I also love their Ssd-powered servers, their integration with CloudFlare and the advanced DNS features you can play with. Finally, they have excellent uptime and latencies worldwide. If I had some cons:
• Sometimes the support just doesn't treat the tickets, and no news, but it's very rare (less than 5% of my tickets)
• No PHP caching on shared servers (opcache, etc...)

Definitely a company I recommend

Visit Host Now →

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Features

In this section we'll look at A2 Hosting's infrastructure, performance, customer support, and plan features like SSL certificates and the Cloudflare CDN (content delivery network).

Uptime and Downtime

One of A2 Hosting's biggest selling points is their performance.

Performance and Reliability

I've tested A2 Hosting's uptime and load speed over the last year on my server. Note that this is only one server so this doesn't necessarily indicate how all A2 Hosting servers perform. But it does provide a useful snapshot of their speed and reliability.

There is one major problem with this data. A2 Hosting had a significant amount of downtime in April and June of 2018. Since that time, they've performed exceptionally.

As a result, I've provided the averages for both 12 months and 6 months. I think the last 6 months is more important. However, it's worth bearing in mind these major outages.

The 12-month average for A2 Hosting's speed is very good. The six-month average is exceptional - even better than WP Engine.

This A2 Hosting server had two major down periods: 82 minutes on April 26 and an astounding four hours on June 14. Since that time, the server has been rock solid and fast.

What you think of this will depend upon you. It does, however, indicate that A2 Hosting notices problems and fixes them. Check back here for updated information.

Uptime Guarantee

A2 Hosting back their claims with a 99.9% uptime commitment, and they strive to meet this promise by following the web hosting industry's best practices, using top-notch datacenters, and carefully managing all servers.

With that said, there are two instances when the uptime commitment does not apply:

1. During routine maintenance and upgrade periods that are scheduled ahead of time

2. During outages that result from circumstances beyond the control of A2 Hosting.

Compensation

If you see any downtime as a result of issues not related to the exclusions listed above, and the downtime accounts for more than 0.1% of your total time that month, you will receive compensation from A2 Hosting.

This compensation is in the form of a service credit that is equal to 5% of the fees you paid for that month. You will receive one such service credit for each hour that your website is unreachable beyond the 0.1% (~42 minutes) uptime guarantee.

However, the maximum service credit you will get for missed uptime promises will be equal to the full amount you would have paid for that month for web hosting had you seen no outages.

Please note that to receive service credits as compensation, your downtime must be confirmed by an A2 Hosting staff member.

Backups

You can use your control panel (cPanel or Plesk) to manage partial or full backups of your website.

To restore your website using a full backup, you'll need to provide a copy of it to the A2 Hosting support team. There are no fees when requesting such services.

Migration Policy

If your former web hosting provider supports cPanel, A2 Hosting can manage the migration on your behalf. Migrations are available for shared, managed VPS, and managed dedicated accounts, and this process typically takes less than 72 hours.

Though not required, A2 Hosting recommends that you allow an overlap of at least seven days between opening your hosting account and closing your previous hosting account to minimize the downtime you might see during the transfer process.

Migration Without cPanel

If your former web hosting provider did not use cPanel, A2 Hosting will transfer your website but only one database.

CloudFlare CDN

A content delivery network (CDN) places copies of your website on servers throughout the world. This allows users to be served from a host that is local to them. As a result, pages load faster.

A2 Hosting plans include CloudFlare free of charge. Cloudflare is a commonly used CDN. A2 Hosting claims that a website using CloudFlare sees 200% faster page loads, uses 60% less bandwidth, and is more secure.

Installing CDN

There are two ways to activate your CloudFlare CDN:

• Using the CloudFlare cPanel plugin

• Signing up on CloudFlare's website.

If you decide to use CloudFlare's cPanel plugin, you can easily enable and disable CloudFlare for your domains and subdomains using your A2 Hosting cPanel environment.

If you decide to activate using CloudFlare's website, you will need to use the CloudFlare site to manage all of your settings.

With this option, you cannot use the A2 Hosting cPanel to manage your CDN.

SSL Certificates

SSL certificates allow your site to send and receive data securely. They are essential for e-commerce and are now considered by Google to be a best practice for all websites. They are good for providing user trust and even to boost your search rankings slightly.

There are two different ways you can get SSL certificates from A2 Hosting.

Free Let's Encrypt SSL

First, if you have purchased a shared or reseller hosting package, you can opt for Let's Encrypt, an SSL solution that provides your site with enhanced security.

Users with Managed VPS Plans and Managed Dedicated Servers can also use Let's Encrypt, but they will have to have a dedicated IP address as well.

Advanced SSL Certificates

The other option is to purchase an SSL certificate from A2 Hosting. They offer three types of SSL certificates for sale:

• Single Site — works on a single site with one domain name

• Wildcard — works on all pages of a given site, including sub-domains

• Advanced — works across multiple websites, each with its own domain name.

Website Builder

Using a website builder, you can publish a site as easily as a Facebook page - but with more control.

A2 Hosting offers their own website builder, which you can get included in a hosting plan. They support everything from single-page to e-commerce sites.

Green Hosting

A2 Hosting is a green hosting company. In addition to being 100% carbon neutral in their day-to-day operations, A2 Hosting is a partner of Carbonfund.org, which is a leading organization dedicated to battling global climate change.

Since 2007, A2 Hosting has supported Carbonfund.org's reforestation efforts and development of clean, renewable sources of energy.

Hosting Backend and Customer Support

Immediately after logging in to your A2 Hosting account, you will be redirected to a dashboard landing page.

There, you can manage everything relevant to your website, including the services to which you subscribe, as well as your domain names and account billing.

Account Management

You can easily manage the settings for all of your A2 Hosting accounts and domain names using the dashboard. You can also upgrade or downgrade your plans if necessary, as well as manage your billing-related settings.

If you need to share access to your account, you can do so under the Developer Access section. This means that multiple people can manage your website without you having to share credentials to the master account that has the permissions to control things like billing and developer access itself.

Domain Names

A2 Hosting allows you to transfer domains owned by other providers and migrate websites hosted elsewhere. You can initiate either of these actions using the control panel area.

Support Management

You will notice that support-related content and links are prevalent on your dashboard. In addition to the Support PIN that is prominently displayed in the top-left corner, there are two hyperlinks in the navigation toolbar that you can use if you need help.

First, there is the Support tab, which allows you to:

• View your existing and open new support tickets

• See records of (and request) website migrations

• Check the status of A2 Hosting's servers, as well as whether there have been any instances of service interruptions over the past few days (this is important, especially given that the uptime guarantee requires you to report downtime to receive compensation)

• Navigate to the knowledgebase

• Navigate to the notification center, where you can customize the service-related notifications you receive from A2 Hosting

• Navigate to the A2 Hosting company blog, where you can read about all things web hosting and web design.

Ticketing System

Second, there is the Open Ticket tab which, contrary to what its name suggests, leads you to the Client Area. In this area, you can:

• Submit a sales ticket if you have questions about purchases

• Submit a hosting question if you are having a problem with your account

• Submit questions to either the Support or Billing teams that are not related to an existing domain name or hosting account.

You can access a record of all tickets you have created and submitted using the left-hand navigation bar. Your tickets are separated based on the teams to which your question was routed.

Tech Support Team

If you ever have any questions, comments, or concerns, you can get in touch with the A2 Hosting "Guru Crew" Support team 24/7 via their internal ticketing system, Skype, telephone, or live chat.

Knowledgebase

If you're interested in self-help resources, A2 Hosting maintains a robust and in-depth knowledgebase. The homepage for the knowledgebase contains links to FAQ pages based on topic, as well as links to helpful, frequently-used articles.

Furthermore, the knowledgebase is easily searchable (a necessity, since the website's navigation is lacking — there are just too many articles to be found for any other method to be super efficient).

Refunds and Money-Back Guarantees

If you purchase a web hosting option from A2 Hosting and you decide within 30 days that they are not right for you, you can take advantage of the money-back guarantee and receive a full refund of all fees paid.

After the 30-day period has elapsed, you can still cancel your account. However, you will only receive a pro-rated refund that is equivalent to the unused service for which you have already paid. (This does not include domain registration.)

cPanel

From the dashboard, you can launch the cPanel for your website; if you are hosting multiple websites with A2 Hosting, you will see a list of cPanels available for your use on the dashboard home page.

On the left-hand side of the cPanel is a panel of information relating to your account. It includes information on things like your domain name and directory on the server.

It also includes: addon domains, aliases, autoresponders, bandwidth, mailing list disk usage, MySQL disk usage, total disk usage, number of email accounts, and email filters.

cPanel Features

The primary management area, which comprises the left and middle portions of the cPanel, allows you to do things like:

• Manage your files

• Install scripts that extend the feature set and functionality of your website using Softaculous, an app installer that works with cPanel

• Access staging features for your website

• Create, manage, and optimize your website's databases

• Handle your domains and subdomains

• Control the email accounts associated with this particular website/domain name

• Access metrics on user visits, including frequency and length of stay

• Secure your site by setting up security suites and applying SSL certificates.

More advanced features available include software that supports programming languages and website optimization and caching.

A2 Hosting Alternatives

HostGator, Bluehost, and SiteGround are all good alternatives to A2 Hosting. I will look at HostGator in the most depth because they are the most like A2 Hosting. However, give serious attention to Bluehost and SiteGround as well.

HostGator

Many people who consider A2 Hosting also consider HostGator. How do these two companies match up?

Price

When comparing the prices for shared hosting plans, I looked at how much you would pay if:

• You received start-up/contract discounts

• You paid on a monthly basis (and therefore received no discounts).

In general, HostGator is notably cheaper than A2 Hosting - especially if you sign up for a long contract. This is even more true for Shared and WordPress hosting.

A2 Hosting is cheaper with their VPS and Dedicated plans when purchased at full price. Also, A2 offers very cheap unmanaged VPS plans.

Performance and Stability

Both companies claim that their shared hosting plans perform well, but only A2 Hosting offers the (paid) option to place your websites on servers that host fewer websites than a traditional shared server.

As you can see from this table, HostGator has been more stable over the last 12 months. (This is not true over the last 6 months.) But they load pages substantially slower than A2 Hosting, regardless of the time period.

Technical Support and Customer Service

Both companies offer 24/7 technical support. A2 Hosting offers a slightly more robust knowledgebase. They both offer an uptime guarantee with most packages.

Refunds and Money-Back Guarantees

HostGator offers a slightly longer money-back guarantee for new users: 45 days. A2 Hosting only offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.

However, after this initial period, only A2 Hosting offers refunds for any unused service that you've already paid for (this is especially nice if you've opted for an extended contract upfront in exchange for lower prices on a monthly basis).

Furthermore, A2 Hosting offers refunds even on their dedicated server options.

Features and Functionality

If you're tech-savvy, and you need a speedy web host that supports the latest and greatest technology, as well as bundling premium offerings (such as SSD storage) with even the most basic packages, then A2 Hosting is the company for you.

If, however, you're looking for an easy-to-use product at a great price, then HostGator is the company for you.

Bluehost

You've probably heard of Bluehost: they are one of the most popular web hosting services around. they host over 2 million websites on the internet — and there are good reasons for this.

In addition to being inexpensive and easy to use, their products integrate well with WordPress, which is one of the most popular content management systems today.

Bluehost offers nearly as many options as A2 Hosting, but Bluehost aims more toward those looking for an easy-to-use solution.

SiteGround

Founded in 2004, SiteGround is a provider of premium-level hosting backed by excellent support and top-tier infrastructure.

While SiteGround was once run out of university dorm rooms, they are now one of the leading providers of web hosting services, with 4 datacenters (located in Chicago, UK, Netherlands, and Singapore), employing 400 people, and managing over 500,000 domains.

If A2 Hosting is too "techie" for you, but Bluehost is too restrictive, consider SiteGround.

A2 Hosting Quick Overview

Here is a convenient overview of A2 Hosting's offerings.

Specializations

• Uptime Guarantee

• Developer-Friendly Hosting Options

• "Green" Hosting.

Plans starting at...

$3.92 per month using this discount link.

Migration Policy

Free, easy transfer.

Control Panel

cPanel Control Panel included with Linux plans; Plesk included with Windows plans.

Money-Back Guarantee

30 days.

Site Builder Included?

Yes, with site builder plans.

Datacenters

Michigan, Arizona, Amsterdam, Singapore.

Pros and Cons

What are the upsides of using A2 Hosting? What are the downsides?

Pros

Flexibility: A2 Hosting strives to support as many technologies, software platforms, integrations, and so on as possible, so you're most likely able to use whatever tools and products you've selected with your web hosting plan.

Speed and Uptime: even when having server problems, A2 Hosting provides great speed. They had uptime problems in the first half of 2018, but have since been great.

Developer-Friendly: The entire A2 Hosting platform is extensible, so you'll be able to integrate all of the tools you currently use with your website, no matter how complex or obscure. If for some reason, A2 Hosting doesn't currently offer support for an integration that you need, you can open a support ticket and request a feature enhancement from the A2 Hosting development team.

Cons

Complexity: A2 Hosting offers a lot of options, which can be overwhelming for someone looking for a simple, easy to use web host without a lot of distractions. Developer-friendly, in some senses, is inherently the opposite of "hassle-free" and "very easy to use."

Not PCI Compliant: while this limitation can easily be rectified by integrating with a secure shopping cart solution, some creators of online stores may prefer a web host that is, by default, PCI compliant and therefore requires no additional work when setting up an online store for e-commerce.

Can't decide?
Our readers can currently save 51% on A2 Hosting by using this discount link. Money-back guarantee included so give them a try!

Conclusion: Is A2 Hosting Right for You?

If you are a developer or system administrator comfortable with the management of servers, you will find that A2 Hosting offers excellent deals, especially when you consider the number of features that come with a typical plan.

However, if you are not, you will still find A2 Hosting worth consideration. Its shared options are a great choice, and as your site grows and it's an easy upgrade to VPS plans or dedicated servers.

Overall, it's hard to find many faults with A2. Check out what our user community has to say about A2 Hosting.

Edited by Frank Moraes.

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About Katie Horne

Katie is a C# developer who became a technical writer. She is a lifelong bookworm and all-around nerd with a soft spot for gimmicks and packaging. She judges books by the cover, and she's not sorry about it. In her spare time, she likes to swim, knit, and do the New York Times Crossword Puzzle.

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