SiteGround vs A2 Hosting | What is the Best Web Hosting?
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SiteGround and A2 Hosting are a couple of popular hosting companies in the market. Both companies offer excellent performance, uptime reliability, and quick customer support.
Picking one of these web hosting services by looking only at features is a challenging task.
That’s why I have shared an UNBIASED comparison between SiteGround vs A2 Hosting, so you can choose the best web hosting for your online business.
SiteGround vs A2 Hosting – An Overview
SiteGround is a popular web hosting provider and rated #1 in many social media polls.
It’s an officially recommended web hosting company by WordPress.org.
SiteGround started offering web hosting services back in 2004, and as of 2021, it’s one of the largest independent web hosting companies managing more than 2 million domains.
Currently, it offers managed WordPress hosting, auto-scalable cloud hosting, and enterprise hosting services.
The people love SiteGround hosting because it offers super-fast SSD servers, in-house engineered SuperCacher, HTTP/2, free SSL, CDN, automatic updates, 1-click staging, automatic backup, and GIT integration.
Recently, SiteGround moved to Google Cloud Platform to get the advantage of Google’s fastest and state-of-the-art network.
Still, it may not be suitable for some users.
That’s why SiteGround offers a 30-day money-back guarantee if you decide to move from its servers.
A2 Hosting offers a wide range of web hosting services for beginners to professional developers.
You can choose between Linux and Windows hosting plans depending on your site’s requirements.
When you compare SiteGround vs A2 Hosting, you’ll find more hosting options in A2 arsenal.
SSD-powered Turbo servers, free SSL, automatic backups, free migration, uptime reliability, 24/7 technical support, and, most importantly, any-time money-back guarantee are key features of A2 Hosting.
Let analyze both services in different categories to check which performs better between A2 Hosting vs SiteGround.
SiteGround vs A2 Hosting – Essential Features
SiteGround and A2 Hosting offer all the essential features such as enough SSD disk space, unmetered bandwidth, choice of data centres that are close to your target audience, one-click script installers, website builders, and excellent network connectivity.
If you compare SiteGround vs A2 Hosting, then you’ll find that SiteGround performs better in some areas while A2 has an edge in some areas.
For example,
A2 Hosting StartUp plan offers more disk space than most SiteGround plans. People with Turbo plans get unlimited NVMe storage.
On the opposite side, SiteGround offers automatic backup and HTTP/2 with all plans that A2 doesn’t provide in its StartUp and Drive plans.
It’s extremely difficult to choose a winner between A2 Hosting and SiteGround by comparing the essential hosting features.
SiteGround vs A2 Hosting – Ease of Use
Both A2 Hosting and SiteGround provide control panels to manage your hosting accounts.
By signing in to your hosting panel, you can purchase new services or upgrade/renew current services.
In case you are not happy with your current web host, you can cancel your account and move to another web hosting service.
Apart from that, you can get access to various site tools such as script installers, email accounts, security features, and performance optimization tools.
Earlier SiteGround was offering a basic control panel.
Recently, the SiteGround team developed a custom control panel that is more user-friendly and easy to navigate.
Whether you want to create a new site, upgrade to a higher tier, access Site tools, or contact SiteGround technical support, everything is placed just a few clicks away.
A2 Hosting offers Linux as well as Windows hosting services.
Depending on the operating system you choose, A2 Hosting provides a cPanel or Plesk control panel to manage your hosting accounts.
cPanel is a leading control panel software that enables end-users to maintain their web hosting accounts with basic technical knowledge.
You can add domains, install CMS (WordPress, Joomla, Magento), install SSL certificate, create email accounts, manage backups, and much more.
Plesk is an excellent choice for Windows servers, but I recommend choosing Windows OS only if you have specific apps that can be run on Windows.
If you’re familiar with cPanel, A2 is the best pick.
However, people who love minimal UI will choose SiteGround.
Overall, in terms of ease of use, both companies compete for the neck and neck.
SiteGround vs A2 Hosting – Site Speed
SiteGround provides industry-leading web technologies such as NGINX, HTTP/2, PHP 7.X, caching mechanism, and free Cloudflare CDN to improve speed performance for your website performance.
After moving to Google Cloud Platform, SiteGround customers can take advantage of Google’s well-optimized global network.
On the other hand, A2 Hosting also offers excellent speed optimization for websites hosted on its servers.
SSD hosting with up to 20X faster Turbo option, PHP 7.X, HTTP/2 & HTTP/3, Anycast DNS, multiple caching systems, and free Cloudflare CDN are a few features that make A2 Hosting one of the fastest web hosting services.
Although both services offer the latest speed technologies, SiteGround performs significantly better in the speed tests.
Although you won’t notice much difference in page loading speed for websites hosted on any of these services, SiteGround performs significantly better in the speed tests.
SiteGround vs A2 Hosting – Security
Website security is a critical part of hosting management.
Luckily, SiteGround, as well as A2 Hosting, have robust security systems to protect your website from unwanted attacks.
Being one of the reputed web hosting providers, SiteGround takes the security of sites hosted on its servers seriously.
It offers multiple security features such as free Let’s Encrypt SSL, automated backups and restores, DDoS protection, Web Application Firewall (WAF), ModSecurity, and auto-updates.
You also get spam protection for emails and additional DDoS protection by Cloudflare integration.
SiteGround continuously monitors for vulnerabilities in the most popular apps & modules and develops virtual security patches in the form of WAF rules.
A2 Hosting provides bulletproof security features such as free SSL, automatic backup, email spam protection, fail2ban, brute force attack prevention via Cloudflare, and perpetual security that includes Linux Kernel security and HackScan.
If you need more security for your website(s), both hosting companies recommend purchasing third-party services such as Sucuri that provide advanced security monitoring and unlimited malware removal.
SiteGround vs A2 Hosting – Pricing
SiteGround and A2 Hosting aren’t the cheapest web hosting services, but you get what you pay for.
SiteGround provides the managed hosting services, whereas A2 Hosting allows you to choose between managed and unmanaged options.
Although you won’t find much difference in shared hosting plans of both companies, A2 Hosting VPS and Dedicated hosting plans are more affordable than similar plans offered by SiteGround.
If you are looking for shared web hosting or managed WordPress hosting, SiteGround has the edge over A2 Hosting.
However, A2 wins by a wide margin when you compare SiteGround vs A2 Hosting VPS and dedicated server pricing.
Another thing to mention here is SiteGround offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, and if you don’t like its hosting services, you can ask for refunds within the first 30 days of sign up.
A2 Hosting is confident about its services and offers any time money-back guarantee.
A2 Hosting refunds the full amount if you cancel your hosting account within 30-days. After that, you’ll get pro-rated refunds for unused services.
SiteGround vs A2 Hosting – Technical Support
Everyone isn’t familiar with server technologies and may need technical assistance if any hosting-related issue arises.
To help you in such difficult situations, both SiteGround and A2 Hosting offer 24/7 quick customer support.
People love SiteGround mainly for its quick and friendly support that provides 99% resolutions at the first contact.
Recently, SiteGround has revamped its support portal with many advanced features to cater to maximum customers.
Now, it has an instant help center with smart AI chatbot, pinned help at every page, and automated solutions along with traditional support channels.
In case you want to talk to SiteGround customer representatives, you can contact them via phone calls, live chat, or helpdesk tickets.
A2 Hosting also offers 24/7 Guru crew support via live chat, phone calls, and email.
You won’t need to wait for more than a minute in most cases.
Apart from these options, both hosting companies have developed an extensive knowledge base to answer frequently asked questions and onboarding tutorials.
It’s quite challenging to say a particular company offers better customer support when you review SiteGround vs A2 Hosting services.
Final Words – SiteGround vs A2 Hosting
After comparing SiteGround and A2 Hosting, we found that both services have their pros and cons.
SiteGround continuously improves its hosting infrastructure and integrates the latest web technologies to ensure the top-tier performance for the sites hosted on its servers.
Plus, it offers many advanced features at a very competitive price. While competitors promise the faster loading time and excellent support, SiteGround actually delivers that in real.
However, if you’re considering purchasing the affordable hosting service, then A2 Hosting is a great option.
I hope this A2 Hosting vs SiteGround comparison article helped you find the right web host.
If you are using any of these services, please let me know your overall web hosting experience.