A2 Hosting : Unbiased and Honest review for India


  • 99.9% Uptime guarantee
  • Unlimited SSD storage
  • Free site migration
  • Anytime Money Back Guarantee

Starting from $ 3.92

per month

A2 Hosting is a web hosting platform founded in 2001 by Bryan Muthig in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A2 Hosting provides Shared, Managed, VPS, Reseller, and Dedicated server solutions, which are loved by both casual consumers and technical developers.

A2 Hosting, amidst all the contemporaries such as Siteground and Bluehost, is underrated. It’s comparatively less spoken of in the online world ⁠⁠— to keep in human terms: it’s like that brilliant introverted kid.

As far as we are concerned, it’s right up there with the best of the best in every department. We rigorously tested the speed, server response times, uptime, and technical support of A2hosting’s Shared and Managed Wordpress plans.

Our verdict? We can happily recommend it to anyone looking to host a small/mid-sized site.

Apart from a couple of downtime sessions- the response times, speed, security, and customer support team were incredible.

Additionally, given the free perks and an anytime money-back guarantee just shows their confidence in their service.

But, are they overconfident by any stretch? Well, here’s our A2 Hosting review to clear your doubts:

A2 Hosting overview

For the people who love numbers, facts, and objective reasons, here’s an overview table of A2 Hosting’s offerings:

Our ratings

A+ | 4.7/5

Average response time

~180 ms

Avg. response times in top-targeted countries

US: ~ 50 ms | India: ~ 205 ms

Uptime

99.93% (guarantees 99.9%)

Support

24/7 live chat, Phone support, and Tickets/Email support

Site transfer

Free

Introductory Pricing

Starts at $3.92/mo. (for 3-year tenure)

Top features

Unlimited storage, Unlimited bandwidth, anytime money-back guarantee, Free SSL

A2 Hosting Review

10 things we loved about A2 Hosting

Apart from Green hosting(which we will obviously discuss in this section), here are a few more things we loved about A2 Hosting:


1. Super-fast, Unlimited SSD storage


In our best hosting solutions in India list, we emphasized largely on their unlimited SSD storage. And, it, for sure, is one of the primary reasons to consider A2 hosting.


Not only does A2 hosting’s offering include unlimited SSD storage, but it is also one of the top-notch SSDs used in the hosting industry. Meaning, the page loading speed will be extra-fast when compared to most in the segment.


When we tested the storage’s read & write speed, we found it to be significantly better than many others (in the segment) like Dreamhost, Godaddy, and of course, the HDD-driven Hostgator.  

In short, their claims⁠ and motto — “300% faster Solid State Drive Servers” and “Our Speed, Your Success” ⁠— has a truth to it.


For those of you who like numbers, the site hosted on A2 Hosting’s Turbo plan with dummy content loaded in under half-a-second⁠— that’s right up there with our top recommendations, Siteground & Bluehost.


Overall, A2 hosting’s blazing fast SSD servers make it worth being included in the top hosting providers’ list.

A2 Hosting Speed Test


2. Good & Consistent response time


Server response time is another factor that contributes to the site’s speed. Moreover, it’s the most crucial element to affect the bounce rate⁠— people will bounce-off if they find the site is not loading.


Server response time is the time it takes for a web server to respond to a request from a browser.


According to Google, “You should reduce your server response time under 200ms.” If it’s above 250-300 ms, people will notice a lag and probably bounce.


Thankfully, A2 hosting’s response time is in the recommended criteria. On average, A2hosting takes 180 ms to get the first byte from the server. For those targeting the US demographic, it’s well under the recommended at about 50 ms.


All in all, A2 hosting’s server response time is excellent and consistent. And that’s another reason to choose their service. 


3. Security


One of the myths going around in the online world is, speed and security are inversely proportional. People believe if a site is highly secure- due to the number of firewalls and other security factors interfering, the website will slow down.


This is only true when things are poorly executed. In A2 Hosting’s case, you get both speed and security.


We already discussed their high speed; here’s how they manage user’s security:

  • They provide a free SSL certificate with each hosted site.
  • Their free, perpetual security, Hackscan, block hacks before they do any damage.
  • The KernelCare, well, takes care of the kernel with rebootless updates.
  • The DDoS protection blocks the bot traffic, which can get your servers down.
  • Additionally, dual firewalls and brute force defense supervises and blocks the common tries hackers use to enter admin accounts.

All these things are perfectly capable of securing your site. However, if security is your top priority and you can’t have enough of it, there are many paid features & options as well, including OpenVPN, CSF, Linux Environment Security, Clef, SimpleRisk, Fail2Ban, Wordfence, and Let’s Encrypt.


In short, everything combined makes you safe in the best possible way.


4. Support


If you’ve been reading our hosting reviews, you know we consider the customer/technical support as our top priority.  Particularly, we examine the quality of the support and the number of ways to contact that support.


In both cases, A2 hosting’s Guru crew support is 5/5.


In our experience, the support team members seemed experienced, well-versed, and respectful. They responded in a short time, examined our questions/problems, and provided the best solutions. They also helped us with setting up our site.


As for the “get in touch” options one has, A2 hosting hasn’t cut any corners. To get your questions answered, you can reach the A2 Hosting support team via:

Live Chat Support
  • Live chat: With their 24/7 live chat, you will get an instant response and best solutions from the experts in the specific department.
  • Call support: Might take a couple of minutes to get in contact with the ideal expert, but you will be able to get your problem across much faster.
  • Emails/Tickets: Again, the responses are fast but not as much as the other two options. If the problem is minor and doesn’t require immediate assistance, this is the best option for you.

Overall, A2 hosting gives the most options to get in touch. The only other provider to do so in our top 5 list is Siteground. 


5. Global data centers


Despite being a comparatively small business, A2 hosting has managed to set a global footprint by placing data centers in three major continents:

  • America: Michigan & Arizona.
  • Europe: Amsterdam.
  • Asia: Singapore.

The data center location can affect your site’s speed(data delivery) and latency. 


It’s simple logic: Your browser has to contact the physical server to get the information the user requested for. All of the communication happens through cables, i.e., the longer the cable, the more the time it will take for a request to get to the server and return with the information. 


No doubt, the delay is only a few milliseconds per hundred kilometers, but it can have a slight effect depending on the scale. 


For instance, if you are from Michigan and the site you’re accessing is located on the Asia data center, the latency will be about 100 ms more than if it was at the US one.


In a nutshell, the multiple data center options A2 hosting provides will help you keep the latency in check. Just make sure to choose the data center near to your target audience.


6. Freebies


We are all in for freebies. Many a time, it has been a recommendation factor for us.

 

We won’t stretch it anymore⁠— let us just list the “free” things/features/services you get with A2 Hosting:

  • Free SSL certificate.
  • Free site migration.
  • Free SSD speed boost on your site, OS, and databases.
  • Free Cloudflare CDN for faster page load.
  • Free Patchman Enhanced Security Tool.
  • Free emails.
  • Free iContact Email Marketing trial.
  • Free website builder and themes.

Freebies aren’t something only A2 Hosting gives, but it’s better than some providers that don’t have any. In summary, adding all these freebies keeps A2 Hosting in the business⁠— and, it’s a “pro” from where we stand.


7. Developer friendly

For the webmasters in our audience, A2 hosting is good news for you. Compared to other web-hosting providers, A2 Hosting has an edge in being developer-friendly.


For the common users dealing with CMSs, you can install Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, or Opencart with a few clicks. You won’t need any development experience and everything will work seamlessly.

Web Developer


However, if you are a developer and want to build your site and host with A2 hosting, you can use:

  • PHP version 4.4, 5.x, or 7.x.
  • MySQL database or MariaDB
  • Python 2.6-3.2
  • PERL 5.10
  • Apache 2.4
  • Node.js
  • PostgreSQL 9.6.
  • And get free SSH access, WP-CLI, Git, etc.

This is a big plus. And if you are managing A-Z of web development for multiple clients, you can simply purchase the reseller plan and get it done at a low cost. 


8. Go green


If you are launching an online business and renting a server, you are essentially adding to the carbon footprint


In 2008, A2 Hosting launched Futureserve Green Hosting by partnering with carbonfund.org. Now, this step doesn’t eliminate the carbon released from A2 Hosting’s server farms. However, this step makes up for it by using renewable and efficient resources, being a part of reforestation, etc.


This initiative doesn’t affect your website performance in any way, and it shouldn’t be a deciding factor on which hosting you choose, but if you’re getting a great hosting which indirectly benefits the world, why not go for it?!

9. Anytime Moneyback guarantee


This is everyone’s favorite!

Though we did test the hosting up & down and left & right (and found it to be fantastic), there’s still a possibility of A2 hosting not being sufficient for your needs.

In that case, you don’t get a 30-day moneyback guarantee like with Bluehost or a 45-day guarantee with Hostgator, but you have an anytime opt-out option! If you don’t like their services within the first month, you will get a full refund; after that, if you want to opt-out, you just pay the already used service’s fee and get the remaining money back.

We feel it’s more of a statement from A2hosting’s side, like: “We know our hosting is the best; opt-out if you can and want to.”

Anyway, we love this guarantee, and indeed you do too.

Another guarantee ⁠— that’s pretty common “plus point” in the hosting world ⁠— is the 99.9% uptime guarantee.

10. 99.9% Uptime guarantee:

Uptime is the time during which the server/computer is available.  


Ideally, you want this number to be 100%, i.e., anyone can access your website anytime. However, practically, it’s not possible, especially in the long-run. 


99.9%, though, is a feasible number. Therefore, like every other hosting, A2 hosting also gives a 99.9% uptime guarantee. And in our overall experiment, they delivered the promise. 


But…We are not happy despite getting such fantastic uptime. Why? Because it wasn’t outstanding and it could be better.

2 things that can be improved about A2 hosting:


1. Doesn’t give the top-notch uptime


As we already wrote, 99.93% overall uptime isn’t the extraordinary number we expect from an otherwise remarkable web hosting.


This is the only place where it can not match the top of the line services like Siteground that constantly delivers a >99.98% uptime. 


However, this doesn’t mean A2 hosting’s uptime is mediocre⁠— the only time it was mediocre was in June and July of 2019. After that, A2 hosting also gave the best uptime, which is an improvement we expect, to say the least.


2. Industry-standard pricing tactics


Another complaint we have about A2 hosting is they also follow the industry-standard pricing tactics. For e.g., the higher renewal rates, advertising the lowest price of $3.92/mo. and asking for a 3-year advanced payment for the plan or the upselling the additional security features.


Though they don’t have aggressive upselling like Hostgator and it is a common practice in the hosting industry, having a bit of pricing transparency can make for better customer experience.


Overall, it’s nothing to worry about as long as you know what you’re paying for.


A2 Hosting India vs. A2 Hosting US

One of the questions we encounter, no matter which hosting’s review it is, is: “Is this hosting suitable for an Indian demographic?”


The short answer in the case of A2 Hosting? Yes.


A2 Hosting is an excellent choice if you are targeting the Indian audience. You get the same high-performance SSDs, you can choose the Singapore data center, their technical support will be as helpful as always, and the response time from Bangalore, India, also proved to be fantastic.


So, just go for it. And, yes, you can buy any plan from A2 Hosting US, and the speed and reliability will remain the same.

A2 Hosting Plans and Features

Like with all our top recommended web-hosting providers, A2 Hosting provides multiple types of hosting services.


Whether you are a freelancer looking to build a portfolio site or an organization expecting hundreds of thousands of traffic, they have all the hosting options, including Shared, Wordpress, Reseller, VPS, and Dedicated.

1. Shared Hosting:

A2 Hosting Shared Hosting

Shared hosting, for those of you who don’t know, means your site will be hosted with numerous other sites on one server. Basically, you will be sharing server resources with others.


A2Hosting’s shared plans are excellent for those looking to host small-mid sized, low-mid traffic sites. Depending on your requirements, these are the three plans you can choose from:

Lite: This is their cheapest offering at $3.92/month. For the price, you

  • Can host one website
  • Will get unlimited bandwidth and SSD storage
  • Get 25 email accounts
  • Are assigned one core, 2.1 GHz processor; 1 database; and 512 MB RAM.

Swift: At $4.90/mo., you

  • Can host unlimited websites on Unlimited SSD storage with unlimited bandwidth
  • Get unlimited professional emails.
  • Are assigned double the resources.
  • Have Server rewind backups

Turbo: For $9.31/mo., here’s what additional you receive compared to Swift plan:

  • You receive 20x faster, Turbo hosting. You will have more resources to yourself and the density of users on your server will be less. It also included Litespeed caching for any application, whether it be a Wordpress blog or a Woocommerce store. Additionally, you will be using the HTTP/2 protocol, which is faster than the traditional HTTP.
  • You receive Cloudflare Plus instead of the Cloudflare free, which comes with the other two plans.

In short, Turbo is a high-performance hosting that can handle mid-high traffic, while Lite and  Swift can handle only low-mid traffic. With Swift and Turbo, though, you can pay an additional $1.47 per month for “Performance Plus”, which essentially assigns more memory and keeps the server from going down during traffic hikes.

2. Wordpress Hosting:

A2's Wordpress Hosting

In A2 hosting’s case, Wordpress hosting is based on their shared architecture with a few Wordpress-specific fine-tuning.

Within the Wordpress hosting too, A2 has two offerings:

  1.  Shared Wordpress: 

With the same name and pricing, Shared Wordpress plans are essentially shared plans with Wordpress specific optimization

  1. Managed Wordpress:

These are a bit different. There are three Fast Managed Wordpress plan: 1-Site, 3-Sites, and Unlimited. They cost $11.99/mo., $18.99/mo., and $36.98/mo. respectively.


Why are they so expensive and how’s it different from the other ones? Well,

  • Each of these plans run on their Turbo servers.
  • You get Jetpack Personal License.
  • The page speeds will be 6x faster.
  • Wordpress will be pre-installed.
  • Each plan has Wordpress Litespeed cache installed.
  • You get access to Wp-CLI(Command Line Wordpress Interface).
  • Your data will be stored on RAID-10 storages— it will be limited, though(10 GB, 25 GB, and 40 GB, respectively).
  • The resources will be better, i.e., 2 x 2.4 GHz and 2 GB, 3 x 2.4 GHz and 3 GB, and 4 x 2.4 GHz and 4 GB, processor and memory, respectively.
  • And other features such as Anycast DNS, HTTP/2, SPDY, ESI, etc. will be a part of each plan.

All in all, Managed Wordpress is better than Shared Wordpress in almost every way. If Wordpress performance is a priority, we recommend paying a premium and getting an overall better, Managed plan.

3. VPS Hosting:

If you are looking to rent a Virtual Private Server, A2 Hosting offers that too. Primarily, depending on who you are and what your needs are, they have three types of VPS with three plans in each:

1. Unmanaged VPS for developers:

In here, you essentially rent the hardware. You have all the access to your Virtual Dedicated Server, and you can play with it anyhow you like. They have three plans to choose from:

  • Entry($5/mo.): You have 20 GB storage, 512 MB RAM, 1 core, and 2 TB Transfer capability.
  • Mid($10/mo.): You have 30 GB storage, 1 GB RAM, 1 core, and 2 TB Transfer capability.
  • Elite($15/mo.): You have 50 GB storage, 1 GB RAM, 4 cores, and 2 TB Transfer capability.

2. Managed VPS without root access:

If you need more resources than a web hosting and aren’t quite ready for a dedicated server, these VPS plans are for you:

  • Power+: For $25/month, you have a dedicated 4 GB RAM, 75 GB storage, 4 cores, and 2 TB transfer capacity. You get all the free benefits you would with the shared plans.
  • Prestige+:  For $35/month, you have a dedicated 6 GB RAM, 100 GB storage, 6 cores, and 3 TB transfer capacity.
  • Pinnacle+: For $50/month, you have a dedicated 8 GB RAM, 150 GB storage, 8 cores, and 4 TB transfer capacity.

3. Core VPS- Managed VPS with root access:

This one’s mostly the same as the previous one, right from the names of the plans to the resources allocated. The only difference, and it’s quite apparent from the heading, is you get the root access.


If none of these hosting plans suffice your resources need, we present to you their dedicated plans:

4. Dedicated Hosting:

Their dedicated plans are also similar to the VPS except for the resources allocated⁠— you have three types of dedicated hosting to choose from, and each one has three different plans. Let us just list down the plans and resources you get with those plans:

1. Unmanaged Dedicated Server:

  • Sprint: Starting at $99.59/mo., you can configure with 8+ GB RAM, 2X500+ GB Storage, 10 TB Transfer, and 2 Cores Intel 3.1+ GHz processor.
  • Exceed: Starting at $165.99/mo., you can configure with 8+ GB RAM, 2X500+ GB Storage, 15 TB Transfer, and 4 Cores Intel Xeon 2.4+ GHz processor.
  • Mach: Starting at $248.99/mo., you can configure with 16+ GB RAM, 2X1000+ GB Storage, 20 TB Transfer, and 8+ Cores 2x Intel Xeon 2.4+ GHz processor.

2. Core Servers- Managed server with root access:

In here, the resources are the same just the prices are increased because they will be managing it:

  • Sprint: Starting at $141.09/mo., you can configure with 8+ GB RAM, 2X500+ GB Storage, 10 TB Transfer, and 2 Cores Intel 3.1+ GHz processor.
  • Exceed: Starting at $207.49/mo., you can configure with 8+ GB RAM, 2X500+ GB Storage, 15 TB Transfer, and 4 Cores Intel Xeon 2.4+ GHz processor.
  • Mach: Starting at $290.49/mo., you can configure with 16+ GB RAM, 2X1000+ GB Storage, 20 TB Transfer, and 8+ Cores 2x Intel Xeon 2.4+ GHz processor.

3. Managed Server without root access:

All three plans of the Core server and Managed server are ditto. The only difference is you don’t get the root access.

5. Reseller Hosting:

If you are a web developer, marketer, or anyone who wants to sell web hosting, either as a part of a package or a package itself and give individuals admin rights to a dedicated section of the plan, A2 Hosting’s reseller plans are for you.


You can get as big a plan(s) as you want and give cpanel access to as many users as you sell to. Anyway, to not waste regular user’s time, you can have a look at those plans here.

A2 Hosting Control Panel:

A2 Hosting uses the traditional control panel, cpanel. Though the design of the interface is outdated, it’s a great overall panel to manage your website(s).


You have options such as:

  • Softaculous Apps Installer: To install CMSs like Wordpress, Prestashop, Woocommerce, etc.
  • Mail: To create email accounts, check webmail, set email forwarders, etc.
  • Files: To access File Manager, take backups, check disk space usage, etc.
  • Logs: Data on recent changes, accesses, etc.
  • Domain: To add and manage domains & subdomains.
  • Others: There are many other options such as Cloudflare, Security, Databases, Software and Services, SEO and Marketing, etc. to manage the particular element.

In essence, A2 Hosting’s control panel is fantastic. It gets the job done.

A2 Hosting Pricing, Discounts & Coupon codes

Is A2 hosting’s pricing justified? 


Considering the real-time traffic it can handle, the monthly traffic it can manage, the speed every individual of that traffic loads the site at, the technical support you get, the overall response time and reliability it provides, A2 Hosting’s pricing is well beyond justified.


It’s a true value for money for anyone looking to host their small, mid, or big-sized business sites, blogs, or video portfolios.


A2 Hosting is the perfect example of “you get what you pay for” ⁠— in this case, you get premium quality at a reasonable yet premium price.


All of the mentioned/discounted prices throughout the article can be accessed through our special/affiliate links. Purchasing through the links gets you the discount, and we get a commission from them for bringing them the customer. It’s a win-win.


You can also click on this link to check if we have any special coupon codes for you.   


Nevertheless, we request you to purchase the hosting from our links(as already discussed, you don’t pay an extra penny). The affiliate capital helps us in testing hosting providers such as A2 hosting and share the positives and negatives with confused consumers such as yourself.


That being said, let us share our final opinion on the A2 Hosting.

Conclusion- Do we recommend A2 Hosting?

Yes, we recommend it.

In fact, we urge you to go and purchase any of their plans.


Let’s go a full circle and point out the reasons for our conclusion, shall we?

  • Your site’s data will be saved on high-performance SSDs.
  • The response time across the globe is phenomenal.
  • A2 Hosting support is excellent.
  • You get top-notch security.
  • Additionally, numerous freebies are a part of each plan.
  • Your servers are powered by green energy. A part of the profit the company makes goes into environment-saving activities such as reforestation.
  • And the best of all, you have an anytime money back guarantee!

The only place we were unfavorable with A2 hosting was in its overall uptime(99.93%). However, over the past six months or so, it has been great(>99.98%).


All in all, A2 hosting is a near-perfect hosting if you are looking to host a small/mid-sized website. That’s all we have to say.

  • Unlimited SSD storage
  • Free site migration
  • Anytime Money Back Guarantee
  • Free SSL Certificate

starts from $ 3.92 per month

Starting at

$ 3.92

/month

• 99.9% Uptime guarantee:

• Unlimited SSD storage

• Free SSL certificate