A2 Hosting stands out for its high-speed hosting solutions and performance. They are committed to fast loading times, supported by SSDs and advanced technologies like Turbo Servers, which can load pages up to 20 times faster than standard hosting. A2 Hosting also offers 99.9% uptime commitment and 24/7/365 support.
As a hosting expert and website owner, I’ve tested A2 Hosting, focusing on the quality of their hosting services, pricing plans, features, customer support, and and ease of use.
A2 Hosting, established in 2001, has become a reputable company catering to more than 110,000 clients globally. A2 Hosting prides itself on its commitment to its core values: providing exceptional support and offering affordable plans for a diverse clientele. Their two-decade-long experience equips them with the expertise to deliver top-notch hosting services.
A2 Hosting provides multiple hosting plans, including shared, VPS, dedicated, WordPress, reseller hosting, and several “hosting by service” plans. The company is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and is popular for its impressive server speeds and that’s particularly why I decided to review them.
A2 Hosting holds an impressive 4.7-star rating from 1866 reviews on HostAdvice, reflecting that a substantial number of its users are thoroughly satisfied with its services, frequently mentioning its outstanding offerings and user-friendliness. Importantly, A2 Hosting has earned an A+ rating with the BBB, showcasing its excellent business practices. Moreover, it boasts a 4.3/5.0 rating on Trustpilot from 2097 reviews, demonstrating a wide range of positive customer feedback.
In my opinion, A2 Hosting emerges as an exemplary hosting provider that I wholeheartedly endorse. With terrific uptime, an array of diverse plans, and attentive customer service, it’s an ideal pick for high-traffic sites and WordPress users seeking optimized performance.
A2 Hosting
Premium WordPress and shared hosting from A2 Hosting offers customisable hosting to a large audience. Their high-performance, versatile devices provide smooth website operation for all users. Want a smooth online experience? Explore A2 Hosting and boost your website performance.
To effectively compare different hosting providers, it is important to have a standardized methodology that specifies criteria to consider and then gives ratings based on how the hosts perform per criterion.
In this A2 hosting review, I’ve followed our hosting rating guide that measures and gives scores on how hosting providers perform so you can choose the right one for your business.
A2 Hosting is quite affordable with a money-back guarantee, but you enjoy the most value for money on its multi-year packages. Plus its boosted plans are slightly pricier.
1-click popular app installs, a modern cPanel, and a built-in website builder make it easy for you to get your website up and running. Plus the host’s user dashboard is exceptionally intuitive with a strong focus on support.
A2 Hosting offers support via phone, live chat, email, and a vast knowledgebase. However, I’d give them 8.0 because it took over 30 minutes for the agent to join the live chat.
A2 Hosting Pros and Cons
Pros
Impressive server speeds
Excellent customer support
Very versatile hosting plans
Top-tier security features out-of-the-box
Cons
Plans are cheap only for long-term commitments
Not the widest server footprint
A2 Hosting
Premium WordPress and shared hosting from A2 Hosting offers customisable hosting to a large audience. Their high-performance, versatile devices provide smooth website operation for all users. Want a smooth online experience? Explore A2 Hosting and boost your website performance.
And a varied suite of WordPress-specific plans. They also offer more technical plans like email and cPanel hosting, plus hosting specifically tailored for different services – Business, Ecommerce, Agency, Non-Profit, etc.
A2 Hosting also offers Turbo Hosting plans, specifically built for speed.
On its hosting plans, you get a 30-day money-back guarantee and if you have decided to commit to the platform, you can pay using a credit/debit card, bank wire transfer, Paypal, Skrill, or write a check.
When I started with my A2 Hosting review, their shared hosting plans were the first thing I checked. A2 Hosting especially recommends their TURBO BOOST plan – one of their boost packages – that includes everything you get with the shared hosting plan plus DELUXE WordPress features and LITESPEED cache plugins for superior speed.
TipTip: A2 Hosting shared hosting plans are excellent for small and entry-level websites that don’t get a lot of traffic and don’t have many pages. They’re also the most affordable plans for businesses on a budget.
A2 Hosting JUMP WordPress is the most recommended plan especially for businesses. You get 250 GB of storage and can host up to five websites.
TipTip: A2 Hosting WordPress plans are specifically designed for businesses and professionals who want to build and their websites through WordPress.
A2 Hosting recommends its Mach 8 plan that includes its Turbo servers, Deluxe WordPress features plus Litespeed cache plugins.
TipTip: A2 Hosting managed VPS plans take away the hassle of managing your website’s backend including your server security plus their 24/7 Guru support.
Unmanaged
A2 Hosting recommends the Mach 8 and Supersonic 8 VPS hosting plans for its managed and unmanaged packages respectively. These are the highest tiers and include the Turbo servers, more power, and high-speed Swiftserver features. You also get the Deluxe WordPress packages.
Their unmanaged VPS plans are best for highly technical professionals and companies with IT teams who need access to mission-critical controls and want to configure servers themselves.
TipTip: A2 Hosting VPS plans are awesome for businesses that are starting to outgrow their shared environments and need more scalable resources.
Just like its VPS plans, A2 Hosting managed and unmanaged dedicated servers are for businesses and professionals at different technical levels. They also give you the choice between AMD and Intel processors.
TipTip: A2 Hosting dedicated hosting plans give you dedicated servers with all the server resources to yourself. These are best for websites with large traffic and large amounts of content… plus businesses that deal with sensitive data.
A2 Hosting doesn’t specifically recommend any of their reseller plans but I personally think the ‘Grow’ plan gives excellent value for money.
A2 Hosting also provides the ‘Turbo’ version on their reseller plans like with most of their other packages.
TipTip: A2 Hosting reseller plans are best for hosting startups and businesses that want to resell their hosting plans but don’t have the resources to open their own data centers yet.
Pre-configured caching on Turbo plans + LiteSpeed cache plugins
Of all A2 Hosting’s features, I’d say the most unique feature they offer that make them stand out from other hosts is their Turbo plans – which they claim to offer up to 20X loading speeds.
Their Turbo plans are offered as standalone packages or as boosts to their other hosting plans, giving you access to their Turbo servers, NVMe AMD EPYC servers, traffic surge protection, HTTP/2 & HTTP/3, Apache 2.4, as well as other Deluxe WordPress features.
A2 Hosting
Premium WordPress and shared hosting from A2 Hosting offers customisable hosting to a large audience. Their high-performance, versatile devices provide smooth website operation for all users. Want a smooth online experience? Explore A2 Hosting and boost your website performance.
You should always consider some important performance metrics namely – speed, uptime, and loading time – before you commit to a web host.
The server speed measures how quickly the host’s servers send data to a user visiting your website. The uptime is how consistently your host’s servers ‘stay online’. And finally, how quickly will your web pages load when a user visits your website?
A2 Hosting promises a 99.9% uptime guarantee – the industry’s standard. To measure the host’s speed and load times, I used GTMetrix to test the performance of reloaderaddict.com – a website hosted on A2Hosting.
These were the results:
Reloaderaddict.com had a fair response time (time to first byte) of 358 ms and fully loaded time of 1.3 seconds (experts recommend 1-2 seconds).
The domain had an overall performance of 98% which is excellent:
Learn more about A2 hosting:
A2 Hosting
Premium WordPress and shared hosting from A2 Hosting offers customisable hosting to a large audience. Their high-performance, versatile devices provide smooth website operation for all users. Want a smooth online experience? Explore A2 Hosting and boost your website performance.
On A2 Hosting, you get a global directory of help lines you can call per region:
If you’re intending to use phone support, make sure there is a helpline for your country.
Live chat
I love it when a host has live chat support, however, A2 Hosting always has long queues of customers waiting to speak with their live agents. And on two separate occasions, I had to wait for over 30 minutes on the queue:
It took a while but the agent joined. They were very polite and answered all my questions quickly. However, the agent was quite quick to redirect me to their articles and self-help pages when I wanted them to answer me directly.
Still, their support is great and I got answers to most of the questions I asked:
Support tickets
A2 Hosting allows customers to open support tickets, but this support feature is only available for customers who have signed up. Disappointing.
A vast knowledgebase
And finally, a vast knowledgebase with a built-in search engine and answers to most questions you may have relating to your packages:
Mailing address
I doubt if anyone in the 21st Century still requests support via old-school mail but they do have a physical mailing address:
Ease of use
Registration
Registering and signing up on A2 Hosting is incredibly straightforward and easy. To have an account, however, you need to buy one of their plans. You can simply click the “Get Started” button on their homepage and then go from there:
Once you choose a plan and checkout, you also have the option to customize your hosting plan – choose a location, add a dedicated IP, whether you want the website builder, plus several other add-ons:
Once you follow all the prompts and you have an account, you’ll have access to the A2 Hosting account management dashboard that boasts a clean, intuitive design and a direct login to your cPanel:
A2 Hosting Control Panel
A2 Hosting features a modern cPanel as its control panel where you can manage all your hosting backend – files, storage, backup, databases, domains, emails, etc:
You can access your cPanel directly from the account dashboard plus A2 Hosting also added their WordPress optimized installations. In the end, A2 Hosting cPanel has been designed to help you manage your website and servers effectively and efficiently.
Installing WordPress onA2 Hosting
It is incredibly easy to install WordPress on your A2 Hosting account. If you haven’t bought a plan yet, good news! That’s the easiest way to go. While you’re checking out, simply click the “WordPress A2 Optimized” and once you are done, WordPress will be installed automatically:
If you already have an account and plan though, you can install WordPress manually or via cPanel using Softaculous.
To add an email account to your website with A2 Hosting you can use cPanel or the Plesk panel (for Managed WordPress hosting). Simply login to cPanel, go to ‘Email Accounts’, click ‘Create’.
Next, select the domain you want to tie the email address to and then fill in your intended email address. You can then click ‘Set a password now’ or send a login link with login details to an alternate email address you’ll provide.
Then click ‘Create’ and you’ll have your account ready.
TipTip: In cPanel, you can tweak other email account criteria like email storage quota, create folders for plus addressing, and decide if setup instructions should be sent to your email.
A2 Hosting Alternatives
Hostinger
Hostinger is known for its affordability and ease of use, making it a popular choice among beginners and small to medium-sized website owners.
They offer a variety of hosting services, including shared hosting, VPS hosting, and cloud hosting. Hostinger offers a user-friendly interface, competitive pricing, and solid performance.
HostGator offers a wide range of hosting services, including shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated servers, and cloud hosting.
Compared to A2 Hosting, HostGator offers a broader array of hosting options and an excellent uptime guarantee, making it a versatile choice for various web hosting needs.
Despite not being one of the biggest names in the industry (not yet), A2 Hosting is an incredible host and I recommend them. In this A2 Hosting review, you’d see that they offer very versatile hosting plans suited to different businesses, great support, and incredible server speeds (one of their main strong points).
Their Turbo plans are specially optimized for speed – music to Google’s ears and the potential for higher rankings.
A2 Hosting sells itself as a host for the people – as a smaller provider with a smaller customer base, their services are quite tailored and they can ultimately cater better to their users.
A2 Hosting
Premium WordPress and shared hosting from A2 Hosting offers customisable hosting to a large audience. Their high-performance, versatile devices provide smooth website operation for all users. Want a smooth online experience? Explore A2 Hosting and boost your website performance.
A2 Hosting is known for its fast servers and excellent customer service, appealing to many users. If you’re looking for different pricing structures or enhanced features, consider exploring our page on the 10 Best A2 Hosting Alternatives to find a service that matches your specific requirements.
Because I am not tech-savvy and have been tasked to manage 8-10 WordPress websites, tech support is the #1 priority when choosing a web host for my clients. I selected A2 Hosting for this reason, and they haven't let me down. The support process has been clear, timely, and reliable. Thank you, A2.
I've had clients on a2 for a couple years. We've had Wordpress related security issues -- but those I'd imagine you'd get anywhere. Support has always been helpful.
A2 has great customer support and very reasonable prices. I was glad to see that they recently enabled 2 factor authentication (or at least, I recently found the option to enable it). I had made a custom MediaWiki installation and their system picked it up and alerted me when the software had become out of date. I've been very happy with my service.
This is my third hosting company, and the best one so far. I am not a tech guy, I just run a small retail shop with a wee web precense. Everytime something has gone wrong, A2 has gone out of their way to make it right - even when it was my doing.
I switched to A2 Hosting after being a die-hard GoDaddy customer for probably 10 years. Before I switched, I of course did my research comparing features and pricing; however, being a web developer, I wanted to make sure the hosting company I went with was developer friendly. A2 Hosting met all my requirements and beyond. Their plans are so affordable, even more so when I bring in referrals and end up with a credit on my account.
When I have an issue I can always chat with customer service and get it solved.
I am using Managed VPS for running a PrestaShop powered web-shop which now counts a significant part of our total business. Thus, reliability of A2 services is crucial. I had trivial hiccups during 2014, but 2015 went through smoothly (not counting down-times I haven't even noticed, but got to know through external services...). Well done!
On what operating system do A2 Hosting servers run, and are they reliable?
A2 Hosting servers run on Linux operating servers. The Linux operating server is known for its security and stability. All plans offered by the company are also hosted on a safe and fast SwiftServer platform. A2 Hosting has the best hardware, networks, data centers, software, and industry techniques that ensure its servers run at optimal performance.
What makes A2 Hosting faster than other hosting providers?
A2 Hosting has a Turbo Server option to make your website 20X faster. Their Turbo servers have a drop-in, speed-enhanced Apache alternative and more resources per user. They’re also faster because they have SSDs, which use flash technology to improve page loads by up to 300%.
What software can I use with A2 Hosting’s shared hosting?
The cPanel has a feature called Softaculous. Through Softaculous, you can install the web’s most popular software with only one click. You can easily install WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. You’ll also get support from the best versions of PHP, MySQL, Apache, Python, and resources such as free SSH access, Git, and much more.
What kind of customer support is offered by A2 Hosting?
A2 Hosting has excellent customer support. They provide 24/7/365 live support via chat, email support, and ticketing support, and they even can be contacted through the phone. The hosting provider also has an excellent knowledge base and FAQ sections, where users can get answers to their questions.
Does A2 Hosting have a money-back policy?
A2 Hosting’s money-back policy is hassle-free. If you don’t like the service you’ve purchased and cancel your plan in 30-days, you can get a full refund. If you cancel your plans after 30-days, you will get a prorated refund of unused service.
On what operating system do A2 Hosting servers run, and are they reliable?
A2 Hosting servers run on Linux operating systems – chosen for their reliability and security. The host also features its Swiftserver web hosting platform on all plans.
What makes A2 Hosting faster than other hosting providers?
A2 Hosting provides its specialized Turbo servers that were especially designed for up to 20X speed. With their Turbo plans, you get limited occupancy, high-end caching software, and 2X TTFB values. They are also powered by NVMe SSD storage drives, also optimized for speed.
What kind of customer support is offered by A2 Hosting?
A2 Hosting offers 24/7 support over phone, live chat, tickets, and a vast knowledgebase. Their ticket support is only available for registered customers.
Who owns A2 Hosting?
A2 Hosting is not owned by any other hosting company but is independent and still owned by the founder Bryan Muthig who founded the company in 2001.
Is A2 Hosting better than SiteGround?
We compared A2 Hosting and Siteground in this A2 Hosting vs SiteGround article and A2 Hosting came out on top, thanks to its more versatile plans and storage. A2 Hosting was also slightly faster than SiteGround.
HostAdvice.com provides professional web hosting reviews fully independent of any other entity. Our reviews are unbiased, honest, and apply the same evaluation standards to all those reviewed.While monetary compensation is received from a few of the companies listed on this site, compensation of services and products have no influence on the direction or conclusions of our reviews. Nor does the compensation influence our rankings for certain host companies.This compensation covers account purchasing costs, testing costs and royalties paid to reviewers.
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