Finding the right web hosting service for your website is a daunting task, given there are so many service providers available. A2 Hosting and SiteGround are both popular names. While SiteGround is recommended by WordPress, A2 hosting claims to be the best hosting for WordPress.
It’s a tough task to choose one from the two top hosting service providers. That’s precisely why we came up with this article to help you with the dilemma and choose the right hosting provider for your needs.
In the article below, you’ll find a comparison between A2 Hosting and SiteGround. The comparison is categorized into five different rounds. By the end, you’ll have a clear idea of which one is better. Here’s a short introduction to start with.
A2 Hosting Vs. SiteGround
About A2 Hosting
In 2001, A2 Hosting began its service as a shared hosting service provider for a limited number of users. Over the years, it has transformed from a two-room office to an international company with data centers located worldwide and customers spread all across the world.
About SiteGround
SiteGround started its services in 2004. Since then, it has been a remarkable journey for the company as it has expanded over three continents with offices in six different locations. There are currently 500+ employees working in SiteGround. They are dedicated to providing you with reliable services. No wonder it has gained immense popularity among WordPress users. WordPress recommends SiteGround as a hosting service for your WordPress site.
A2 Hosting Vs. SiteGround: Comparison
In this section, we will take a look at five different aspects of these two hosting services. This includes performance, usability, distinguishing features, customer support, and hosting price.
Round One: A2 Hosting Vs. SiteGround- Performance
A2 Hosting: Speed and Uptime
A typical A2 Hosting site takes around 1.28 seconds to load. This is a bit slower compared to other hosting service providers. Precisely, this means your website is only faster than 84% of all tested websites.
A2 Hosting claims an uptime of 99.99%, which is quite exceptional. In case of failure, you can claim compensation.
SiteGround: Speed and Uptime
For better performance, SiteGround offers the latest hardware and software solutions. This includes SSD, SG Optimizer, and HTTP2. The average loading time of SiteGround is 673ms.
In its official SLA(Service Level Agreement), SiteGround guarantees an uptime of 99.99% annually. If it does not live up to this standard, you can even demand compensation as follows:
If 99.99% to 99% uptime network dip, you get one month of free hosting service. For every 1% drop below 99.00% uptime network – the company offers an additional month of free hosting service. However, there are certain conditions specified under which SiteGround is not liable to compensate its users. They are:
- Scheduled maintenance
- Emergency maintenance
- Any hardware and software failure that the company resolves in under an hour
- Downtime caused by IP address or DNS changes, about which the company had notified, but you failed to set the configurations accordingly
- Hacker attacks, DDOS (Distributed Denial of service) attacks, or other similar events
- Downtime as a result of your configuration or by the use of any third-party applications
- Downtime due to consumption of the highest resource allocated for your chosen plan
- Downtime due to the violation of the TOS
- Downtime during upgrade/downgrade of your Cloud or Dedicated Server resources
- Downtime while carrying out your technical support request(s)
- Any event and condition beyond the company’s control
Winner
SiteGround wins this round with its exceptional, reliable, and consistent loading speed.
Round Two: A2 Hosting Vs. SiteGround- Usability
When it comes to usability, both A2 Hosting and SiteGround offer cPanel with a simple and easy-to-use layout. You can use this control panel to manage your hosting accounts.
Choosing Windows hosting with A2 Hosting, you can get access to Plesk for managing your hosting account.
Moreover, you can customize the control panel on your own to suit your needs. The one-click installer option available in both the service providers lets you quickly install—popular websites like WordPress, Joomla, etc.
Winner
Since both of them are easy to use and have customizable control panels, it is a tie.
Round Three: A2 Hosting Vs. SiteGround- Notable Features
A2Hosting – Features
- Windows and Linux hosting
With A2 Hosting, you get options to choose hosting service from either Windows or Linux, depending on your operating system. For windows hosting, A2 Hosting offers Plesk that helps you manage your hosting account.
Likewise, it claims to be the best in the market with its powerful Turbo servers and blazing fast Swift server for Linux hosting.
2. Money-back guarantee
Not only does A2 hosting provide outstanding and unique services, but it does with a money-back guarantee. This means you can try out advanced features offered by A2 hosting for free before paying for it. You can either choose to pay or leave the service, depending on your experience.
3. Developer friendly
Since the very beginning of A2 Hosting, it has been a developer-friendly solution. That’s so because it supports the latest web technologies. It is also regularly upgraded to keep up with the emerging world of web technology.
SiteGround – Features
The features given below are why SiteGround stands out from the rest of the hosting service providers.
- Customer Service
SiteGround emphasizes a dedicated support line for its customers, no matter what the medium is. You can reach out to representatives in SiteGround through 24/7 live chat, phone, or email. Moreover, you’ll also find plenty of tutorials and guides for customers once you purchase the product.
With SiteGround, you get a 24/7 live chat and phone support. No matter which method you choose, the employees at SiteGround make sure your query is answered and resolved.
2. Multiple Server Locations
One of the major factors for Siteground’s impeccable popularity is its availability. SiteGround has its data centers in Asia, Australia, America, and Europe. As a result, it has established a well-spread fan base across the world and continues to do so. If you’re from any of the regions mentioned above, choose the data center closest to you for the best results.
3. Multiple Startup Features
By choosing the minimal startup plan, you get the following features and services.
- Unmetered traffic
- WP auto-updates and backups on demand
- Free WP installation
- Free CDN
- Unlimited database and
- WP-CLI and SSH
Winner
With unique and advanced features provided by A2 Hosting, unlike any other modern hosting service provider, A2 Hosting stands atop in this round.
Round Four: A2 Hosting Vs. SiteGround- Customer Support
For customer support, both hosting platforms provide 24/7 support via email, chat, and phone. Besides, both of them also have extensive knowledge to help you with common problems.
Winner
As the customer support feature is the same with both hosting service providers, it is a tie.
Round Five: A2 Hosting Vs. SiteGround- Hosting Price
Both the hosting providers offer a variety of services at different prices. Here’s an overview of different types of services and their prices offered by these hosting service providers.
| Shared | WordPress | Reseller | VPS | Dedicated | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SiteGround | $3.95 /mo | $3.95 /mo | $42/credit/year | $269 /mo | |
| A2 Hosting | $3.92/ mo | $3.92 /mo | $13.19 /mo | $5 /mo | $99.59 /mo |
Within the shared hosting plan, there are multiple packages with different features and different prices too. Check it out below.
Shared Hosting Plan of A2 Hosting
| Startup($2.99 per month) | Drive($4.99 per month) | Turbo Boost($9.99 per month) | Turbo Max($14.99per month) |
|---|---|---|---|
| One website | Unlimited websites | Unlimited websites | Unlimited Websites |
| 100GB SSD Storage | Unlimited SSD storage | Unlimited NVMe Storage | Unlimited NVMe Storage |
| Free and easy site migration | Fast and easy site migration | Free and easy site migration | Free & Easy Site migratiion |
| Money back guarantee | Free automatic backups | Free automatic backups | Free Automatic Backups |
| Money back guarantee | Turbo (Up To 20X Faster) | Turbo (Up To 20X Faster) | |
| Money back guarantee | 5X More Resources | ||
| Money-Back Guarantee |
Shared Hosting Plan of SiteGround
| Startup ($6.99 per month) | GrowBig ($9.99 per month) | GoGeek ($14.99 per month) |
|---|---|---|
| One Website | Unlimited Websites | Unlimited Websites |
| 10 GB storage | 20 GB storage | 40 GB storage |
| ~ 10,000 monthly visits | ~ 25,000 monthly visits | ~ 100,000 monthly visits |
| Unmetered Traffic | Unmetered Traffic | Unmetered Traffic |
| Free WordPress Installation | Free WordPress Installation | Free WordPress Installation |
| Free WordPress Migrator | Free WordPress Migrator | Free WordPress Migrator |
| WordPress Auto-updates | WordPress Auto-updates | WordPress Auto-updates |
| Free SSL certificate | Free SSL certificate | Free SSL certificate |
| Daily backup | Daily backup | Daily backup |
| Free CDN | Free CDN | Free CDN |
| Free Email Account | Free Email Account | Free Email Account |
| WP-CLI and SSH | WP-CLI and SSH | WP-CLI and SSH |
| Unlimited databases | Unlimited databases | Unlimited databases |
| 100% renewable energy match | 100% renewable energy match | 100% renewable energy match |
| 30-days Money-back | 30-days Money-back | 30-days Money-back |
| On-demand Backup copies | On-demand Backup copies |
|
| Speed-boosting caching | Speed-boosting caching | |
| Staging | Staging + Git | |
| Adding Collaborators | Adding Collaborators | |
| White-label clients | ||
| Highest Tier of Resources | ||
| Ultra-fast PHP | ||
| Priority Support |
Winner
Since we’re talking about prices, the A2 hosting service provider beat SiteGround with its low and affordable prices for all. It brings all the modern features combined at a reasonable price.
A2 Hosting Vs. SiteGround- Our Verdict
From the article above, it is evident that A2 Hosting is the best compared to SiteGround. Its reasonable price and advanced modern features make it stand out from the crowd.
However, choosing any one of the two is entirely dependent on your personal choice and purpose.
Besides, there are multiple options for web hosting. You may check this guide for the best hosting providers of 2024. Also, check and compare different managed WordPress hosting services.
Let us know which hosting platform you choose and why in the comment section below.
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
Is A2 Hosting good?
In the article above, we’ve compared two of the best hosting providers: A2 Hosting and SiteGround. The comparison is based on performance, support, features, price, and more. We can see that A2 hosting stands above SiteGround when it comes to price and features. Hence, A2 hosting is a good hosting provider.
What are hosting plans available by A2 hosting?
A2 hosting offers five different hosting plans:
1. Shared hosting plan
2. WordPress hosting
3. VPS hosting
4. Reseller hosting
5. Dedicated hosting
When to use A2 Hosting service?
If you’re looking for an affordable hosting plan without missing out on hosting service providers’ modern-day features, A2 hosting is the best bet for you.
When to use SiteGround?
SiteGround can come in handy when you have multiple sites that need to operate concurrently without any lag. Since SiteGround ensures top-notch performance, you can use it if you’re looking for a high-performing hosting platform.
