Both A2 Hosting and SiteGround are among the top performers when it comes to web hosting solutions. But what if you compare these two? One has to come off as a better choice than the other, right?
Without a doubt, the web hosting plans of both companies come at an affordable price. You can choose the plans that suit your budget. Moreover, both the companies have Cloudflare CDN (Content Delivery Network), WordPress optimized features, and 24/7 customer support.
So, which is the better choice?
To answer that, we have come up with a review of A2 hosting vs. SiteGround hosting. As you go along this article, you will find comparisons based on five crucial factors.
Let’s begin with a short introduction of each web hosting provider.
A2 Hosting Vs. SiteGround – Overview
Firstly, let’s start with individual introductions to A2 Hosting and SiteGround hosting providers.
About A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting is a popular web hosting provider on the market today. They began their web hosting services in 2001 from Michigan. They initially started under the name Iniquinet and later changed the name to A2 Hosting in 2003.
A2 Hosting is best known for its fast performance and versatility. A2 meets the custom needs of any level user, from beginner to advanced developers.
About SiteGround
Starting the web hosting services in 2004, SiteGround is best known for its reasonably priced hosting plan and incredible customer support. Its headquarters is located in Sofia, Bulgaria.
SiteGround has branches in six locations and data centers on three continents. You can choose to get your services from any of these locations you find convenient. Currently, SiteGround has more than 400 staff and hosts more than two million+ domains.
A2 Hosting Vs. SiteGround – Quick Comparison
| A2 Hosting | SiteGround | |
|---|---|---|
| Founded in | 2003 | 2004 |
| BBB Rating | A+ | A |
| Address | 2000 Hogback Road Suite 6 Ann Arbor, MI 48105 | SiteGround Office, 8 Racho Petkov Kazandzhiata, Sofia 1776, Bulgaria |
| Contact Number | (888) 546-8946 | (866) 605-2484 |
| Types of Support | Live Chat, Ticket, Phone, Email | Live Chat, Ticket, Phone, Email |
| Data Center Location | Michigan, Amsterdam, Singapore, and the Netherlands | Chicago Illinois, Amsterdam, Singapore, and London |
| Monthly Price | Starts at $2.99 per month | Starts at $6.99 per month |
A2 Hosting Vs. SiteGround – Compared
We will now compare A2 hosting and SiteGround on five different rounds – Performance, Usability, Features, Customer Support, Hosting Price.
Round One: A2 Hosting Vs. SiteGround- Performance
When comparing A2 Hosting vs. SiteGround’s performance, we will talk about their speed and uptime.
A2 Hosting – Speed and Uptime
If you google and visit the A2 hosting’s homepage, you will find the constant boast about the speed. A2 hosting uses Turbo servers to speed up your site’s performance by up to 20 times. However, you get this 20 times more performance only if you sign up for their Turbo Boost hosting plan.
On their Turbo shared hosting plan, we received an average response time of 317 ms, which is impressive. Also, the company guarantees an uptime of 99.9% on their Terms of Service.
SiteGround – Speed and Uptime
SiteGround offers the latest speed technologies, like NGINX, SSD disks, SG Optimizer, PHP7, HTTP/2, and free CDN, to boost the response time. On average, SiteGround takes 673 ms to load.
Their Service Level Agreement (SLA) also guarantees an uptime of 99.99% annually. If your uptime falls below the benchmark, you become eligible to receive benefits. The company compensates you as follows:
You receive one month of free web hosting services for uptime networks from 99.99% to 99.00%. For every additional 1% drop below 99.00% uptime network – you receive an extra month of free web hosting services.
However, there are certain conditions in this policy. You will not receive any compensation when:
- There is scheduled maintenance.
- There is emergency maintenance.
- The company resolves any hardware or software issue within an hour.
- The IP address or DNS changes cause downtime, about which the company had notified you, but you failed to set your configurations accordingly.
- There is a malicious attack by a hacker, DDOS (Distributed Denial of service) attacks, or other similar events.
- Your configuration or the use of third-party apps causes downtime.
- You exceed the highest resource allocation of your hosting plan.
- There is downtime due to the violation of the TOS.
- There is downtime during upgrade/downgrade of your Cloud Hosting or Dedicated Server resources.
- There is downtime during technical support request(s).
- Occurrence of any event and condition beyond the company’s control
Winner
It is a tie. Considering that you sign up for each hosting provider’s best sellers, A2 provides faster speed. They host your site on their Turbo servers and deliver performance at 20 times speed. However, its uptime keeps on fluctuating and is a risk for businesses. SiteGround may perform a bit slower than A2, but the uptime is much more consistent.
So, if you want a fast website, there is no better option than A2 hosting. But if you are looking for a reliable site, SiteGround has the upper hand.
Round Two: A2 Hosting Vs. SiteGround – Usability
Both A2 Hosting and SiteGround offer the easy-to-use cPanel with simple layouts. You can control your hosting account and tune up the settings straight from their control panel. Moreover, both the hosting providers offer one-click installers for WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and other CMS (Content Management System). This feature will help you set up your site in an instance.
Winner
The usability round goes to SiteGround.
Both hosting providers have cPanel, which makes it easy to get on with building the site. However, SiteGround integrates Weebly and also offers free migration. Thus, it is easier to get along with SiteGround.
Round Three: A2 Hosting Vs. SiteGround – Notable Features
Both of the hosting companies offer various features based on their hosting plans. This section will look at the features that give each hosting provider an advantage over the other.
A2 Hosting Features:
Here are the features where A2 Hosting has the upper hand:
1. Linux and Windows Hosting
A2 supports both Linux and Windows hosting. You can choose between your hosting based on your preference. Unlike A2, SiteGround and most other hosting providers support only Linux hosting. This is a significant advantage of A2 over SiteGround.
HostGator is another web hosting company that offers Windows hosting.
2. Anytime Money-Back Guarantee
Most of the hosting providers, including BlueHost, have a 30-day money-back policy. DreamHost pushes it to 97 days. However, with A2 hosting, you can get a refund for any unused services at any time. There is no time limit to it.
There are a few catches to this policy:
- Any refund request beyond 120 days will receive payment via PayPal.
- Terminated accounts due to violation of Terms of Service are not refundable.
- Additional services such as migration fees, set-up fees, and domain name registration are not refundable.
You can check their money-back guarantee for further information.
3. The choice for Management Level
You can choose the management level for the dedicated hosting and VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting service with A2. The pricing plan differs according to the plan you choose. However, SiteGround only offers managed hosting plans.
SiteGround Hosting Features
Now let’s look at the features where SiteGround excels:
1. Multiple Startup Features
If you choose the minimal startup plan, you get multiple features such as:
- Unmetered traffic
- WP auto-updates and backups on demand
- Free WP installation
- Free CDN
- Unlimited database and
- WP-CLI and SSH
2. Built-in Security
SiteGround offers free daily backup for your site. You will also get free backup restores on a bit more expensive plan.
Winner
SiteGround has the edge over A2 in round three. A2 offers versatile features as well as performance building any website. SiteGround also offers the same features, but it is also proactive when it comes to security. Thus, the winner is SiteGround.
Round Four: A2 Hosting Vs. SiteGround – Customer Support
Both A2 Hosting and SiteGround offer 24/7 customer support. You can connect with the technical team via phone, live chat, and email. Moreover, they provide extensive documents along with high-quality tutorials and guides.
Winner
This round is a tie between A2 Hosting and SiteGround.
Round Five: A2 Hosting Vs. SiteGround – Hosting Price
Here, we will look at the hosting plans of each hosting provider.
Shared Hosting Plan of A2 Hosting
| Startup (Starts at $2.99 per month) | Drive (Starts at $4.99 per month) | Turbo Boost (Starts at $9.99 per month) | Turbo Max (Starts at $14.99 per month) |
|---|---|---|---|
| One Website | Unlimited Websites | Unlimited Websites | Unlimited Websites |
| 100GB SSD Storage | Unlimited SSD Storage | Unlimited NVMe Storage | Unlimited NVMe Storage |
| Free Site Migration | Free Site Migration | Free Site Migration | Free Site Migration |
| Money-Back Guarantee | Free Automatic Backups | Free Automatic Backups | Free Automatic Backups |
| Unlimited Email Accounts | Money-Back Guarantee | Turbo performance (up to 20x faster) | Turbo performance (up to 20x faster) |
| Unlimited Transfer | Unlimited Email Accounts | Money-Back Guarantee | 5X More Resources |
| 24/7 customer support (Live Chat, Phone, and Email) | Unlimited Transfer | Unlimited Email Accounts | Money-Back Guarantee |
| Easy Control Panel (cPanel) | Easy Control Panel (cPanel) | 24/7 customer support (Live Chat, Phone, and Email) | Unlimited Transfer |
| Free SSL Certificate | 99.9% Uptime Guarantee | Easy Control Panel (cPanel) | 24/7 customer support (Live Chat, Phone, and Email) |
| Free Cloudflare CDN | Free SSL Certificate | 99.9% Uptime Guarantee | Easy Control Panel (cPanel) |
| Free Website Builder | Free Cloudflare CDN | Free SSL Certificate | 99.9% Uptime Guarantee |
| Website staging | Free Website Builder | Free Cloudflare CDN | Free SSL Certificate |
| Option to choose data center location | Website staging | Free Website Builder | Free Cloudflare CDN |
| Option to choose data center location | Website staging | Free Website Builder | |
| Option to choose data center location | Website staging | ||
| Option to choose data center location |
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 |
Other Hosting Plans – Side By Side Comparison
| Managed WordPress Hosting Plan | VPS Hosting Plan | Reseller Hosting Plan | Dedicated Server Hosting Plan | Cloud Hosting Plan | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SiteGround | $6.99 to $14.99 per month | – | Starts at $42 per year | Starts at $269 per month | $80 to $240 per month |
| A2 Hosting | $2.99 to $14.99 per month | $5 to $50 per month | $13.19 to $40.91 per month | $99.59 to $290.49 per month | – |
Winner
As seen in the above table, A2 hosting plans are more affordable than SiteGround hosting plans. The starting price of A2’s dedicated hosting server plan is much lower than that of SiteGround. That is because SiteGround offers only a managed dedicated server plan while you can choose the management level in a2 hosting.
Also, a2 offers a VPS hosting plan at an affordable price, while SiteGround does not have a VPS hosting plan at all.
A2 hosting is the winner of round five.
A2 Hosting Vs. SiteGround – Our Verdict
Clearly, SiteGround hosting wins two out of five comparison rounds and ties in the next two. SiteGround provides multiple hosting plans at affordable prices, including dedicated servers and cloud hosting. The performance of SiteGround is more reliable and consistent than A2s. So, if you want an affordable hosting plan with stable performance, we recommend SiteGround hosting.
Having it said, A2 delivers super-fast performance. Using the turbo server, A2 increases the site speed by almost 20 times as compared to other hosting providers. Their customer service is also prompt and friendly.
For stable performance, go with SiteGround. For fast performance, go with A2.
Here are our other review articles on DreamHost, BlueHost, and SiteGround. Check them out.
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
Q. When to use SiteGround hosting?
If you want a reliable hosting service with 24/7 customer care service, SiteGround is the perfect option.
Q. Which SiteGround plan is the best?
SiteGround’s GrowBig hosting plan is the most popular, as well as company-recommended. You can sign up for this plan at $9.99 per month. Here are the features you get in the GrowBig hosting plan:
• Unlimited Websites
• 20 GB storage
• ~ 25,000 monthly visits
• Unmetered traffic
• Free WP installation
• Free WP migration
• Free SSL certificate
• Daily backup
• Free CDN
• Free Email account
• WP-CLI and SSH
• Unlimited databases
• 30-days money-back guarantee
Q. When to use A2 hosting?
If you want an ultrafast performance and better features for your site at an affordable price, A2 hosting makes a perfect option.
Q. Does A2 offer Windows hosting?
Yes, A2 hosting offers both Windows as well as Linux hosting. Other hosting solutions like HostGator also offer Windows hosting.
Besides A2, there are other companies as well that offer Windows hosting. Here is a list of the best Windows Hosting Providers in 2022. Check them out.
