Positioning as a customer-centric hosting provider, A2 Hosting emphasizes its commitment to helping online businesses thrive. We at WPdiscounts decided to put A2 hosting to the test and set up an account on their managed WordPress hosting to evaluate the performance and features it boasts. The results and metrics were surprisingly outstanding, and our team can say that users will be more than satisfied with its unparalleled performance and value for money.
Get up to 82% off on A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting is best for businesses, e-commerce, blogs, learning management systems (LMS), agencies, non-profit organizations, and even personal websites. We built a fully functional WordPress website and tested its key features and other perks.
We can proudly say that A2 Hosting will provide the best user experience and fast-performing website to its users.
We tested out the A2 Optimized plugin with which we were able to pre-configure the WordPress installations to enhance security and speed. The plugin blends security and caching in one package, thanks to which, we smoothly ran the test website.
A2 Hosting also offers optimized hosting plans for WooCommerce and turns the website into a fully functional store in a few clicks.
We used the TurboHub control panel, which is A2 Hosting’s cutting-edge tool that updates plugins and optimizes performance. What surprised us was the website’s exceptional speed after we tried the Turbo line out. This means this tool will be very helpful for large websites with hundreds of visitors, varying traffic spikes, and heavy databases.
After carefully testing A2 hosting, let’s dive into what the team has to say about A2 Hosting.
What A2 Hosting claims it provides, but are they true?
While there could be numerous reasons to opt for A2 Hosting, there are three major features that got our team’s attention. Upfront is the 99.9% uptime commitment. It’s no joke, as we already told you that the team set up a test website, and we witnessed no downtime.
The next feature is customer support, We set up a scenario and asked the crew’s help. The response was prompt and they resolved our issue directly on the call. This made our team realize how efficient and knowledgeable A2 Hosting’s team is.
The third reason is the website’s performance remained stable; both the backend of WordPress websites and frontend performed consistently.
Key Features That Make A2 Hosting A Worthy WordPress Host
Domain Registration
If you’re looking for domain registration, A2 Hosting is your one-stop solution. Not only that, but with domain registration, A2 Hosting offers multiple features such as a custom nameserver which is good for branding if you are an agency that sells domains to your clients, free DNS management where you can modify DNS and help users reach easily to your website.
Another cool feature is Domain Theft Protection. Our team ran an artificial phishing scam but its theft protection plan prevented the domain hijacking and any vulnerabilities the phishing could impose.
While you are getting your domain registration, A2 Hosting offers a vast range of TLDs that can suit any business you own and whatever location your business is.
Our team researched competitor hosting service providers and found that compared to them, A2 Hosting was providing domain names in a relatively less rates.
| Domain | A2 Hosting | GoDaddy |
| gTLDs | ||
| .biz | $19.99/yr | $30.17/yr |
| .com | $11.99/yr | $22.17/yr |
| .io | $69.99/yr | $71.99/yr |
| .net | $19.99/yr | $25.17/yr |
| .org | $19.99/yr | $23.17/yr |
| CcTLDs | ||
| .ca | $16.99/yr | $17.99/yr |
| .cc | $19.99/yr | $15.99/yr |
| .co | $34.99/yr | $47.99/yr |
| .in | $11.99/yr | $12.99/yr |
| .us | $16.99/yr | $19.99/yr |
Business emails
Once we got the domain name and hosting plan from A2 Hosting, we also got us email hosting service. All hosting plans allow you to create business email addresses, each with its own inbox and space.. It also has dedicated and bundled email hosting which means every mail you send will be sent using your domain name which is a professional approach.
A2 Hosting’s business email hosting is all powered by Titan, which is the most reliable and secure email hosting platform. At first, our team wasn’t sure about what benefit Titan would give, but it was worth our try. It offers multi-account access, 30GB whopping inbox storage, calendar integration, SSL, PoP3, etc support.
What we liked most about it was the undo and fix option. We sent an email, and after some time, we undo the sent email, made some text corrections, and sent it again. This means you can edit a sent email anytime you want.
Storage & CPU
As for the storage, our team operated the entire website with extensive usage and didn’t find any sluggishness, or slow loading speed. Since all data on A2 hosting is on SSD and data is transferred using NVMe drives, this gives A2 hosting a significant edge over traditional hosting providers..
A2 offers a Turbo plan which packs some serious features including 3 times fast storage with litespeed and NVMe. You will experience lightning-fast caching thanks to A2’s turbo caching and Ryzen 9 hardware which is top-of-the-line right now.
Security
Security is the most critical factor in any hosting service. And our team left no corner unchecked. Our final reviews? Outstanding!. A2 Hosting uses Imunify360-Security Suite which is specifically developed for Linux-based web servers.
Among the three Imunify products, A2 Hosting chose a multi-layered server protection plan that offers maximum PHP security and patch management. Integrated with ModSecurity and WAF, Imunify360 protects most application attacks even before they start.
A2 features the Imunify360 in highly affordable plans to provide users with maximum protection against cyber attacks. Our team gave a thumbs up on security considering that this tool is used by CentOS, Ubuntu, cPanel, WHM, and more.
CloudLinux OS
A2 Hosting uses CloudLinux OS, and seeing all the great perks it hosts, our team approved of it. This OS is the most stable, reliable, and high-performing. Cloudlinux further improves security by isolating different accounts from each other on the same server, A2 Hosting’s engineers have definitely prioritized security.
Upon further research, we came to know that it also backs up unsupported PHP versions like 7 or earlier. Among numerous features, Cloudlinux offers PHP X-ray, a power analytical tool that pinpoints sluggish databases, queries, functions, and plugins and assists users in quickly identifying and resolving the issue.
Free and Premium SSL
SSL certificates are the most critical for your site’s security, trust, and validation. A2 Hosting provides multiple types of SSLs, free and premium. Its difference lies in the level of encryption, where premium SSL offers organizational validation and extended Validation (EV).
Nowadays, SSL certificates are a must-have for your website as it is a standard requirement for Google SERPs.
Sitebuilder
While some hosting service providers offer site builder features, A2 Hosting sets itself apart by providing numerous pre-designed templates to cater to various business needs. Along with numerous designs, the site builder also packs Ignite Web Hosting.
With the templates and Sitebuilder, we were able to table our WordPress blog live within minutes.
Hosting Plans that A2 Hosting Provides
Shared Web hosting
If you are a small business owner, blogger, or a first-time website owner, you will need A2 Hosting shared web hosting. This type of hosting is where multiple websites are run on a single server sharing its resources. So you also get a chunk of it.
This is beneficial if you can’t afford to pay the cost of a 100% dedicated server. You will pay extremely low prices for utilizing hardware, software, and server maintenance.
Our team thought that the platform’s shared web hosting would be just like other service providers. But we were wrong.
It’s not just a plain shared hosting service, A2 Hosting also offers a Turbo plan to maximize performance, a free website builder, and the opportunity to create unlimited accounts.A2 Hosting offers four exclusive plans with unique perks. The initial price starts at $1.95/month and goes up to $13.95/month.
Get up to 82% off on A2 Hosting
Managed WordPress Hosting
A2 Hosting offers a hassle-free solution to its users with Managed WordPress hosting. This type of service is for those website owners who don’t want to be involved and manage the website’s technical issues. The managed WordPress hosting is suitable for critical WordPress websites that have considerable traffic.
With A2 Hosting, you not only get managed WordPress hosting, but you also enjoy Turbo Hub Dedicated WordPress Dashboard and Turbo LiteSpeed web server. These hosting plans are pre-configured for enhanced security measures like malware scanning and firewall and offer pre-configured speed optimization.With multiple options, A2 Hosting offers managed WordPress hosting plans starting from 9.95/month up to $39.95/month
VPS
Our team’s analysis of the A2 Hosting VPS service and various included features concluded that it is for those who need higher traffic, advanced security, and greater control over hosting environments.
With this hosting platform, users enjoy outstanding services by availing a chunk of actual servers and dedicated resources to properly function their websites.
The VPS pricing is divided into two categories, managed and unmanaged. The former is where users only focus on finalizing the layout, appearance, and expanding their business while the A2 Hosting team deals with all the WordPress technicalities.The managed VPS hosting price starts from $26.95/month and goes up to $45.95/month. On the contrary, the unmanaged pricing plan starts from 2.99/month and ends at 29.99/month.
Dedicated Web Hosting
The A2 Hosting offers its exclusive dedicated hosting service for those users who need 100% control over their servers with all resources where they choose the operating operating system and hardware etc.
While users who buy dedicated hosting enjoy maximum website performance during high volumes, A2 dedicated hosting goes one step ahead. It offers top-of-the-line resources like Ryzen and AMD EPYC and specifically and Turbo plan to boost load speeds.
Other than that users can get maximum read-write capacity by NVMe storage and ultimate security with Imunify360 Security Suite along with root access.
There are three pricing plans in dedicated hosting offered by A2 Hosting. The starting price is 149.99/month and the maximum price is 485.99/month.
Woocommerce Hosting
Our team did a detailed analysis of the WooCommerce hosting plan to understand what separates it from the rest of A2 Hosting products. After careful review, our team analyzed that it is similar to a general WordPress hosting service.
The main difference is that the hosting comes with pre-configured integration of WooCommerce tools, features, plugins, etc. One unique offering in this hosting service is the provision of Rapid SSL.
It offers fast issuance of SSL certificates to secure eCommerce websites with no lengthy approval process. Another offering is A2 Hosting’s pre-designed page template and easy migration process of your existing e-commerce store to the WooCommerce store.
A2 Hosting offers four exciting pricing plans for its WooCommerce users. The starting price is 9.95/month and goes up to 39.95/month.
How to host WordPress on A2 Hosting
Now, we are going to cover our firsthand experience signing up with A2 Hosting, how their control panel looks, and how we launched our first WordPress website.
Step 1: Create an account / purchase a plan
A2 Hosting offers various plans. To make the purchase decision easy for you, here is what we recommend.
Shared Hosting: Go with a shared hosting plan if you are just starting out a new website. WordPress can be installed on these plans as well.
WordPress Hosting: These plans, as the name suggests, are finely tuned to host high-performing WordPress websites. If you already have a WordPress website on another hosting, then we suggest buying a WordPress hosting plan on A2 Hosting and migrating.
VPS Hosting: If your website gets high traffic and you want a semi-dedicated server, then A2’s VPS hosting plans are a good value proposition. These plans give your account dedicated CPU and Memory resources.
Dedicated Hosting: On these plans, you get full access to dedicated server resources, such as CPU, RAM, and NVMe storage, which are dedicated entirely to your websites. You can host multiple websites on a dedicated server.
Step 2: Pointing a domain
The first thing we did was add our domain. It is easy to do so in A2 Hosting control panel.
Note: Before adding the domain, it is recommended that you add the Nameservers provided by A2 Hosting to your domain name through your registrar.
Step 3: Installing WordPress
After you log in to A2 Hosting, you will see an option to log in to the cPanel. Within cPanel, we can see WordPress Manager, which allows us to install WordPress within seconds.
After clicking on “Log in to cPanel,” we are taken into our control panel, where we get settings to control our domain names and installations.
Inside the control panel, navigate to WordPress manager to install WordPress on the domain that we pointed. It takes a few seconds to install WordPress.
We can also log in to our WordPress admin with just a click.
Step 4: Asking support to migrate
A2 Hosting provides free migration from other hosting providers. Their expert support team migrates entire websites and also email accounts.
There is a helpful form that you have to fill out to request the migration.
Step 5: How backups work
A2 Hosting utilizes JetBackup that allows customers to take their own backups or automate backups. A user can take full account backup, or backup one website, or a database or their email accounts.
Step 6: Security Features – SSL and Imunify360
Once you add a domain and install WordPress, the SSL automatically installs for free and starts protecting your website.
All accounts on A2 Hosting are secured through Imunify360 – the most advanced server firewall, security hardening that includes a malware scanner and removal. The scanner automatically scans all directories of your hosting accounts and informs and clears any malicious code found within your installations.
Step 7: Our performance benchmarks
We put our default WordPress website to the test before beginning any development on our website. We used two tools to check the performance. It is safe to say the smallest plan on A2 Hosting is good enough to build a busy blogging site.
Web Page Test Results:
Google Page Speed Insights Results:
The Takeaway
Get up to 82% off on A2 Hosting
While there are numerous hosting providers, our team’s careful analysis shows that the perks and the price offered by A2 Hosting cater to a large number of SMEs, beginner individuals, and organizations looking to establish their online presence with affordability.
This leaves all of them with the choice of A2 Hosting. While there is a possibility that some hosting service providers may offer any highly unique feature in one of their pricing plans, it can not side-step the combined effect of A2 Hosting’s services that deliver benefits in the long run.
