Looking for a hosting service that matches your expectations and requirements within your budget? We know it might sound difficult, However, it is possible with us. To help you out with dilemma, we present you a detailed comparison of A2Hosting and SiteGround. Both offer comprehensive and high-powered hosting solutions for both novice and experienced site owners. Their features are almost similar, hence, it can be difficult to pick one. Therefore, we decided to educate you on these two hosting services. Read this A2 Hosting vs SiteGround differences article to understand which one would work better for you.

A2 Hosting vs SiteGround: What are they?

A2 Hosting and SiteGround are great hosts to compare to each other. They both appear almost similar, but upon a closer look, you can spot some major differences between both. In this article, we are going to shed some light on the comparison of these two fastest web hosting companies, so you can decide between A2 Hosting vs SiteGround which one suits your WordPress site better. Let’s dig into what makes them different.

What is A2 Hosting?

A2 Hosting vs SiteGround web hosting

A2 Hosting was first introduced in 2003 and is still going strong in the web hosting industry. Even though its services are considered a bit expensive than average web hosting services, however, some experts still favor A2 Hosting because of the unique features it offers. In this article, we will introduce you to the unique features of A2 Hosting.

What is SiteGround?

siteground

SiteGround was first introduced in 2004 by some IT professionals in Bulgaria. It offers a ton of web hosting options like unlimited bandwidth, speed, impeccable customer, and remarkable services. Overall affordable plans and super-friendly tech support, and feature-rich services for instance, make it one of the popular web hosting companies.

A2 Hosting vs SiteGround: Which one to use and when?

When to use A2 Hosting?

a2hosting graph usage

When you are a small business, eCommerce company, or an individual, who wants a reliable web hosting with wide-variety of features offered for the lower price, then A2 hosting is the solid, reliable solution for you. It can offer more than 30 different customized hosting packages, including options for CRM, scheduling, CMS, education, auction, eCommerce, and web development.

When to use SiteGround?

siteground graph usage

When you are a developer who wants more customization and flexible options, then SiteGround is the solution for you. Or when you are a marketer and even a little fluctuation in uptime can have a big impact on your SEO ranking, then go for siteGround, because it’s known for its consistent uptime.

A2 Hosting vs SiteGround: How to get them?

A2 Hosting  Installation

  1. Visit a2hosting and choose the plan you want for your site
  2. Then, choose your domain name. You can either register a brand or transfer your existing one and update the nameservers.
  3. Then you will see a bunch of options (extras) you need to configure like SSL certificate, priority support, dedicated IP address, billing cycle, etc.
  4. After that, review your details.
  5. Then, fill your personal details, payment info, make the payment, and Checkout.
  6. Now, log into your A2 Hosting cPanel
  7. Click on WordPress A2 optimized link located in the Softaculous App Installer section.
  8. You will be redirected to the WordPress installation section, click on the Install button to install it.
  9. Now, fill the installation details and click on the install button.
  10. Now, you need to fill out some details regarding your protocol, domain, directory, site name, site description, admin username, admin password, admin email, language preference,  and other advanced options. Click on the Install button to install it.

SiteGround Installation

  1. Signup with Siteground.
  2. Go to  User Area> My Accounts> Manage Domain to set up your domain
  3. Then add a new domain or transfer your existing domain in the Account setup wizard and click Confirm.
  4. Now, Go to User Area → My Accounts → Go to cPanel → MAIL section → Email Accounts to set up your mail
  5. After that, log in to your cPanel → Security tab → Let’s Encrypt to install SSL Certificate for your website
  6. Finally, fiddle around a little to understand the working of various SiteGround tools like Site Admin tool, SG-Git tool, Automatic updates, SiteGround Staging etc.

A2 Hosting vs SiteGround: What are some useful features?

What are A2 Hosting  features?

Customer Support:

A2 Hosting has a strong tech support staff that is friendly and knowledgeable and are available to help you 24×7 they offer various communication means to reach out to them including live chat, server ticket, emails, and helpline calls. In addition to that, they seem to offer the best customer services in the web hosting industry. Moreover, you can choose the closest server to you to enhance your services. In the past, they had huge issues related to slow response time, however, with time they’ve recovered to best.

a2hosting customer support

Speed:

A2 Hosting incorporates a SwiftServer high-performance platform that lets them offer Turbo packages. These turbo servers are known to offer 20x faster loading speeds with less customers on each server and more resources allocated to individual accounts. Moreover, they incorporate solid state drives with all of their hosting accounts that allows them to perform thousands of input/output functions each minute. As a result, you get adequate speed.

Value:

With great security features, 99.99% uptime guarantee, free Cloudflare CDN, A2 hosting will certainly add some greater value to your website. Considering their pricing structures, A2 Hosting offers tremendous value, undoubtedly. They offer included SSD, cPanel access for all shared hosting customers, and so many other options are available to fit any need.

a2hosting response time

Unlimited bandwidth:

A2 Hosting offers unmetered bandwidth, it means your visitors can transfer as much data from elsewhere to your newly hosted website, without paying an extra penny. Moreover, you can seek assistance from their experienced support staff for successful migration of your site.

Free site migration:

An average web hosting company can charge you between $49 and $149 for migration of your site. However, with A2 hosting, you get free site migration and detailed assistance from their technical support team.

a2hosting free site migration

One-click WordPress installs:

Install WordPress easily and get started right away with their one-click WordPress installs. Their turbo servers can deliver 20x faster loading websites and A2 site accelerator 1-click caching. Moreover, WordPress comes pre-configured with A2 hosting for security and speed.

Perpetual security:

Security is always a major concern for any website or online business because web security threats can result in potential business loss. With A2 Hosting, enjoy free HackScan protection to protect your website against hackers, KernelCare rebootless kernel updates, virus scanning, brute force protection, dual fire, and so much more for the ultimate in site security. You may check best WordPress security plugins and WordPress firewall plugins.

A2Hosting Server Location

Another good thing about A2Hosting is that their servers are placed in different geographical areas across the world, as following:

  • Arizona, USA
  • Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • Michigan, USA
  • Singapore, Asia

their exclusive data centers are reliable, high powered, and highly-managed by their highly-qualified team of engineers. They are monitored 24x7x365, therefore, it is suffice to say that they’re well-managed and secured.

a2hosting server locations

A2Hosting Trust Pilot Reviews

a2hosting trustpilot reviews

What are SiteGround features?

High speed hosting:

If you go for an average inexpensive web hosting service, you are often provided with overloaded servers with mediocre performance. However, SiteGround is designed for offering high speed. Moreover, It incorporates Solid State Drives (SSDs)  for faster reading and writing operations on mechanical hard drives. Furthermore, SiteGround incorporates Cloudflare CDN  services which can make your site faster for your visitors from all across the world. Then, there is a custom caching feature for the most popular open source CMSs (content management systems). All of these features are in-built in SiteGround for the high performance of hosting services. You can use website speed test tools to check speed.

Control Panel:

Its most plans come with cPanel. This is the most interactive UI, which allows you to do things like transfer files to your web hosting environment, manage your email accounts, check your website’s resource usage, handle billing, and so much more. Moreover, the one-click installer of SiteGround offers easier installs of things like CMS, add-ons, plugins, themes, etc.

siteground control panel

Free SSL certificates:

SSL certificates is an essential for a secure website. SiteGround offers a free SSL certificate with all hosting plans from Let’s Encrypt SSL. It will not only secure your website but will also help you rank well on SEO.

siteground free ssl certificate

Free backups:

You get free automatic backups with SiteGround’s every hosting plan. Even with the cheapest one, you get a free backup of your site daily. Having a backup is a good plan to recover from unfortunate events that can result in data  loss. There are many WordPress backup plugins.

siteground free backup

Comprehensive Customer Support:

To contact their customer support, you just have to go to the control panel and a few more clicks. You can reach out via calling their helpline or online live chat. You can also create a server request and can expect the response within 1 minutes. Overall, their customer support is great.

siteground customer support

Uptime and Performance:

Uptime and performance remain the key points while deciding on a web hosting company. SiteGround guarantees an uptime of 99.99% for all their hosting plans. On the other hand, their average response rate is 431 ms, which makes it clear that their performance is clearly better than a lot of their competitors.

siteground response time

SiteGround Server Locations

Currently, SiteGround offers six main hosting server locations as follow:

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Chicago, USA

Eemshaven, Netherlands

London, Uk

Singapore

siteground data centers

in Iowa, Eemshaven, London and Singapore, they have shared and cloud accounts. Whereas in Chicago, Amsterdam and Singapore, they have dedicated servers. These servers are constantly monitored, secured, and upgraded by their highly qualified team of system administrators.

SiteGround Trust Pilot Reviews

siteground trust pilot reviews

What are some pros and cons in A2 Hosting vs SiteGround?

Pros of A2 Hosting

  • Free shared SSL certificates
  • Uses SSD drives
  • Guaranteed 99.9% uptime
  • 24x7x365 Multiple channel tech support including phone, online chat, email, and server ticket
  • Faster loading of website
  • Unlimited email accounts
  • Unmetered bandwidth and data transfer
  • Free migration
  • One-click WordPress installs
  • Free server rewind backups and other other added security
  • Full refund within 30 days

Grab a2hosting

Cons of A2 Hosting

  • A bit expensive than average web hosting services
  • Limited hosting plans for Windows hosting

Pros of SiteGround

  • Cloudflare CDN
  • Free SSL certificate via Let’s Encrypt
  • Daily automatic backup for free
  • Optimized plans suitable for different business size and industry
  • Custom caching for different CMSs
  • Uptime guarantee of 99.99%
  • Impeccable tech support with faster response rate
  • Remarkable compatibility with WordPress
  • Free website migrations

Grab Siteground

Cons of SiteGround

What is A2 Hosting vs SiteGround Pricing?

A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting offers a clear pricing option with lowest price point starting at $3.92 for shared hosting. They offer various hosting plans including shared hosting ($3.92-$7.99), VPS hosting ($5), Reseller hosting ($13.19-$19.99), and Dedicated hosting ($99.59-$119.99). A detailed pricing list of the different hosting plans offered by A2 Hosting is as given below:

a2hosting pricing

SiteGround

SiteGround pricing is optimized. It is affordable, suitable for an entry-level website. However, experts like it for extras that come with a little higher plans. It offers a wide number of hosting plans including shared hosting, reseller hosting, cloud hosting, and dedicated hosting. A detailed pricing list of the different hosting plans offered by SiteGround is as given below:

siteground pricing

A2 Hosting vs SiteGround Comparison Table (2020)

a2hosting vs siteground differences

Key differencesA2 HostingSiteGround
Introduced in20032004
Types of customer supportPhone, Live chat, ticket serverPhone, Live chat, ticket server, Emails
Data centers location
  • Michigan, USA
  • Amsterdam, Neitherland
  • Singapore, Asia
  • Chicago Illinois,
  • Amsterdam Netherlands,
  • Singapore
  • London, UK
Cheapest plan$3.92 a month-Starter Plan$3.95 a month-Starter Plan
Data storage capacityUnlimited10GB-30GB
Unlimited EmailsYesYes
Multiple domain hostingYesYes, but not available with cheaper plan
Control PanelcPanelcPanel
Money-back guaranteeAnytime30-days
Windows HostingLimitedNo

How does A2 hosting compare with other web hosting?

A2 hosting vs Bluehost

How does SiteGround compare with other web hosting?

SiteGround vs Hostgator

A2 Hosting vs SiteGround: Which is your Pick?

Both A2 Hosting vs SiteGround offer some unique features which are not found in any other hosting service. After all factors are considered you can clearly see that SiteGround is the winner. It offers great compatibility with different CMS and offers custom caching. Its tech support is friendly and knowledgeable with an average response rate of 10 minutes. Moreover, it offers budget-friendly plans and with some extra bucks, you can get extra features, which makes it even great. On the other hand, A2 Hosting is also a decent web hosting provider. It offers the ease of use and set up and scalability. The only bad point about A2 Hosting is that its plans are slightly expensive, however, the difference is slight. When it comes to dedicated hosting, A2 Hosting will make a better choice.