Hosting.com (formerly A2 Hosting) Review: A Great Option for First-Time Site Owners

8.2/ 10
SCORE

Hosting.com (formerly A2 Hosting)

Buy at A2 Hosting

Pros

• Low introductory pricing
• Plenty of storage on shared hosting plans
• Wide variety of plans
• Auto-install WordPress tools make it easy to set up a site
• Lots of security features even on the lowest-cost plan

Cons

• High renewal cost
• Inconsistent customer service for support tickets and phone

Hosting.com is an independent web hosting company with affordable plans for websites of all shapes and sizes, from first-time hobby blogs to enterprise-level business sites. The big question is: How does it stack up against well-known web hosting companies like GoDaddy?

I researched Hosting.com’s plans and pricing, then purchased a plan to test its ease of use, performance, security and customer support. I used our system for testing web hosting to structure my tests and ensure similar accuracy to our other web hosting reviews.

Note from the editor: A2 Hosting recently became Hosting.com and changed its plan structure. We’ve updated the pricing section to reflect this and spoken with customer service to confirm that most of the hosting infrastructure remains the same as it was when we conducted our A2 Hosting review. However, we have not conducted a full re-review, so your experience may vary. Re-tests and a full review overhaul are planned in the coming months.

Hosting.com plans and pricing: Variety and value

Hosting offers numerous web hosting types, including shared hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS — virtual private server — hosting, dedicated hosting and reseller hosting.

Shared hosting is the best option for beginners, so I’ve done a detailed breakdown of these plans and provided basic information about the other hosting types to help you choose the best plan for your site. I’ve left out reseller hosting because it’s intended for folks who want to sell web hosting plans, not people who want to create their own website.

I’ve also compiled basic information about these hosting types into the following table:

Shared hosting

Shared hosting, listed on the Hosting.com site as “web hosting,” stores numerous websites on one physical server, allocating a limited amount of the server’s resources — like bandwidth and processing power — to each site. Splitting server maintenance costs also allows companies to offer shared hosting for affordable prices, making it ideal for first-time website builders.

Hosting.com offers five shared hosting plans using its own server management system and five plans that use cPanel for server management. All of these plans include:

• Free SSL certificate
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Perpetual security: daily Kernel updates, DDoS protection, firewall, brute-force protection and virus scanning
• Optimized installation process for WordPress and other popular content management systems
• Auto-updates for core WordPress software
• Anycast DNS — domain name system — for improved loading speed
• 99.9% uptime guarantee
• Free site migration
• Email hosting for unlimited email addresses
• NVMe, Turbo-optimized drives for improved site speed
• LiteSpeed-enhanced servers
• 24/7 customer support

Plans for regular shared hosting and cPanel hosting have the same prices and specs, as listed below:

All prices are based on a one-year term.

Managed WordPress hosting

WordPress hosting is a type of hosting optimized for WordPress, a content management system — CMS — used to create and maintain landing pages, blog posts and other content. This hosting type always comes with preinstalled WordPress or a guided WordPress installation process and may include other features like automatic WordPress updates and preinstalled themes or plugins. WordPress hosting plans from Hosting.com (and most other web hosting companies) also include the same features as regular shared hosting, such as a free domain for the first year and SSL certification.

Hosting.com offers two types of WordPress hosting: basic «Hosting for WordPress» and managed WordPress hosting. The first option is regular shared hosting with pre-installed WordPress and plugins including Jetpack, All In One SEO, WP Forms, Monster Insights and Optin Monster. This basic WordPress hosting starts at $3 per month ($9 per month on renewal) with a one-year contract, while the most expensive plan in this category costs $7 per month for the first year and $18 per month on renewal.

Managed WordPress hosting includes pre-installed WordPress with all of the plugins included in the basic WordPress hosting plans, plus automated updates for all plugins as well as the core WordPress software. The most affordable managed WordPress plan starts at $12 per month ($28 per month on renewal), while the most expensive option costs $30 per month to start and $60 per month on renewal.

VPS hosting

VPS hosting involves partitioning one physical server into several virtual servers with dedicated resources. These hosting plans typically have more storage, processing power and bandwidth than shared hosting. You’ll also get more server customization options, such as the ability to choose your server’s operating system.

Hosting.com offers unmanaged and managed VPS hosting plans. Unmanaged plans start at $5 a month ($10 per month on renewal) for 80GB of storage (enough for at least 800 pages) and 1TB of data transfer, which ensures smooth operation for up to one million monthly visitors. Managed plans start at $38 a month for the same amount of storage and bandwidth, with the main advantages being that Hosting.com fully configures and maintains the software for these servers, with an emphasis on high-quality infrastructure that allows them to offer an above-average 99.95% uptime guarantee for these plans.

Dedicated hosting

Dedicated hosting allocates an entire physical server to one customer. This gives you full control over your server’s configuration, plus complete access to its storage, processing power and other resources.

Hosting.com offers two types of dedicated servers: virtual dedicated servers and physical dedicated servers. Virtual dedicated servers are pre-configured and managed by Hosting.com so you don’t have to worry about choosing specs or configuring server software yourself; these plans start at $249 per month for 800GB of storage (enough for at least 8,000 pages) and unlimited bandwidth. Physical dedicated servers are custom-built and can use either a managed hosting model (where Hosting.com configures and maintains server software for you) or an unmanaged hosting model (where you maintain server software yourself). You must contact Hosting.com to set up a custom plan and get pricing for physical dedicated servers.

Hosting.com ease of use: Perfect for first-time website owners

For the next stage of this Hosting.com review, I looked at how easy it is to perform crucial tasks on Hosting.com: purchasing a plan, account management and website and server management.

Purchasing a plan

Hosting.com’s purchase process is the smoothest I’ve encountered so far; HostGator, GoDaddy and DreamHost were more complicated. You can do everything on one page: enter your account information, choose a domain and add your billing information.

The best part? Not a single upsell in sight. This is a breath of fresh air after the aggressive upsells — which often include preapproved add-ons — I’ve encountered when purchasing plans from companies like HostGator.

The worst part? There’s no mention of renewal pricing. You can see the renewal prices on the page where you select a plan but I’d like to see it here too. Unfortunately, web hosts often obscure renewal pricing. For example, HostGator only displays renewal pricing in small text during checkout; it’s not on the plans page. So, this is more of a strike against web hosting as a whole than a strike against Hosting.com specifically.

Account management

The Hosting.com account dashboard is great. You can access your cPanel, view your website and see basic use statistics on the main page. You can also quickly access billing, domain management and customer support from the top menu.

Website and server management

One of the first things I noticed when I logged in to Hosting.com was the TurboHub for WordPress. The plan comes with “optimized auto-install for WordPress,” so I assumed I’d find the install option here.

I was wrong — the TurboHub is only for sites you’ve already installed WordPress on — so I logged in to cPanel. All of the auto-install options were clearly displayed here:

The installation process wasn’t quite one-click — I had to confirm my URL and WordPress account information — but I managed to set up WordPress in a few minutes. Hosting.com also provided a startup wizard to help me get the site itself set up:

The setup wizard includes some great design templates and suggestions for important pages to auto-create. You can also select a goal for your site, and the installer will auto-install plugins for you.

Inside WordPress, you’ll see the Site Assistant:

This Site Assistant offers a welcome tour for people unfamiliar with website creation and quick access to key areas of WordPress, including the auto-installed plugins. I love how beginner-friendly this whole process is. It takes a few more clicks than installing WordPress with HostGator or GoDaddy, but it has the advantage of automatically setting up essential website pages and plugins for you so you can start building your content right away.

With my site set up, I returned to TurboHub for WordPress. Here, you can view your WordPress sites, including critical warnings. You can also set up auto-updates for WordPress and conduct essential plugin management.

Server management is mostly performed through cPanel, the server/file management program used by most web hosts. This makes it very easy to use if you’ve worked with another web host and fairly simple to learn if you haven’t.

Overall ease of use

Hosting.com has the simplest and most effective purchase process I’ve encountered in my web hosting reviews, an intuitive dashboard where you can access everything you need in one or two clicks and fantastic tools for getting started with WordPress.

The one issue I encountered was brief confusion about TurboHub for WordPress but I figured out where to go quickly and still got my site up in a few minutes. This means Hosting.com gets a 9/10 ranking for ease of use.

Hosting.com performance: Some of the best in the biz

Server performance dictates how consistently and easily users can interact with your site. I spent one week testing two critical indicators of server performance on my test site: uptime and site speed. I also looked at the performance tools offered to Hosting.com users.

Performance tools

Hosting.com takes several measures to optimize server performance, including using an advanced CloudLinux operating system and data centers with multiple 10 gigabits per second carriers to ensure consistent bandwidth. Hosting.com also uses NVMe storage, which is faster than regular SSD storage, and a combination of Litespeed and proprietary caching technology to boost server speed.

Every user also gets:

• Choice of data center location: Hosting.com has data centers in the US, Europe (Amsterdam) and Singapore. To improve site speed, you can choose the data center closest to your target audience.
• Anycast routing: This is an advanced domain name system — DNS — management technique where a single IP address is shared among numerous servers. This builds in redundancy so that if one server goes down, your site pulls data from another server and stays functional.

These are great tools for ensuring consistent performance. The anycast routing is particularly impressive, as most web hosting companies I’ve researched don’t offer this as a built-in feature.

Uptime

Uptime is the amount of time your site spends online. Hosting.com offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, promising that sites won’t spend more than 10 minutes down per week because of server issues. I connected my test site to BetterStack for one week to see if Hosting.com lives up to this guarantee.

My test site experienced no downtime at all during my week of uptime monitoring, suggesting that Hosting.com does more than live up to its guarantee — it manages its servers well enough to avoid downtime as much as possible.

Site speed

Site speed is the amount of time it takes your site to load. Most experts recommend a site loading time of two seconds or less, as bounce rates increase 32% when a site’s loading time goes from 1 to 3 seconds.

I used WebPageTest to test my Hosting.com site’s speed for various locations over the course of five days, testing at a different time each day. This helped me understand how users in other parts of the world would experience my test site, an important consideration if you’re hoping to reach an international audience.

This data helped me determine the following average loading speeds, measured in seconds (remember, the ideal loading time is less than two seconds; lower is better):

Based on these numbers, I determined that Hosting.com has:

• An average mobile loading speed of 3.07 seconds
• An average desktop loading speed of 2.03 seconds

Together, this gives Hosting.com an overall average loading speed of 2.55 seconds. This is notably higher than GoDaddy’s 2.29 seconds and technically higher than HostGator’s 2.41 seconds but still under three seconds. Moreover, these speed tests were conducted on an A2 Hosting plan without Turbo servers. Since becoming Hosting.com, the company has moved entirely to Turbo servers, which use NVMe storage and multiple forms of caching to improve site speeds. This mean you may experience faster site speeds than I did if you purchase a Hosting.com plan now.

Overall speed

With fantastic uptime and solid site speed, Hosting.com lands an 8/10 ranking for performance.

Hosting.com security: Top-notch security features for all plans

Security is one place where Hosting.com stands out. Even the most basic shared hosting plan comes with a variety of security features:

• Automated daily kernel updates
• DDoS protection
• Firewall
• Brute-force defense
• Virus scanning
• Server hardening
• 24/7 security monitoring

Most web hosting services I’ve reviewed only include a basic firewall and sometimes DDoS protection with their lowest-tier plans. Some, like GoDaddy, don’t even offer that. However, Hosting.com’s lower-tier plans lack automated backups, a feature you’ll get on lower-tier plans from top-ranking web hosts like SiteGround and Hostinger. Hosting.com also lacks 24/7 security monitoring, although this isn’t as notable because only a few web hosts offer it. Still, these two missing features mean Hosting.com can only earn a security ranking of 8/10.

Hosting.com customer support: The weakest link

After testing Hosting.com’s basic functionality, I tested two aspects of its customer service: the knowledge base and direct communication.

Knowledge base

The Hosting.com knowledge base features a prominent search function and clearly laid-out categories for important information.

The tutorials are well organized, with numbered steps, images and clear language to help even the newest website creator accomplish key functions of site and server management. The only issue is a lack of video tutorials — I looked at about half a dozen articles and didn’t see a single video for visual learners.

Direct communication

I reached out to Hosting.com via live chat and was directed immediately to a real human who helped me resolve a minor tech issue in about 15 minutes. There was no long chain of AI prompts or aggressive upselling. So far, so great.

Next, I looked at the Support options in the menu above my client area. I was impressed by the variety of options here, including a specific section for requesting a site migration. I also appreciated the drop-down menus guiding you through creating a support ticket to ensure your ticket is sent to the right support team.

I submitted a ticket at 2:35 p.m. ET and received a response about 10 hours later. The response provided great resources to help me address the issue I raised — creating site backups — but the lengthy wait time was disappointing. I can only hope it was funneled into a non-urgent task list and that critical issues will be addressed faster.

Next, I called Hosting.com and spent half an hour on hold. The hold music was regularly interrupted by a message telling me to switch to live chat for better service. This frustrated me, as users who call are probably doing it because they prefer phone service, and every time the music stopped to relay the message, I expected someone to answer. By the time I did speak with a person, I was enormously frustrated. But my frustration ended there; the representative I spoke to was polite and helpful, answering all of my questions quickly.

Overall

My experience with Hosting.com’s customer service was inconsistent. The knowledge base is easy to navigate and provides comprehensive resources. Live chat representatives are fast and knowledgeable. Phone and email support, on the other hand, are frustratingly slow, although the representatives who assisted me were quite helpful. This inconsistent experience lands Hosting.com an 8/10 customer support ranking.

Reputation

On Trustpilot, Hosting.com nets a 4.6 out of 5 star rating. However, a full 11% of Hosting’s nearly 3,000 Trustpilot reviews are one-star, with the majority citing poor customer service. This suggests that Hosting.com’s customer support is inconsistent, especially when customers are attempting to deal with complex issues.

The Hosting.com page on the Better Business Bureau website shows 17 complaints to the BBB in the past three years, with six of them closed. Although this isn’t ideal — ideally, there would be no complaints left hanging — it doesn’t warrant a warning on the Hosting.com BBB page, which is something I’ve seen on BBB pages for other popular web hosting companies, like HostGator.

Hosting.com value: Plans jam-packed with features

I considered one final question to wrap up my Hosting.com review: How does its value compare to other popular web hosts?

I gathered some basic data about the plans offered by three popular web hosts — HostGator, DreamHost and GoDaddy — and compiled it into the table below:

Here’s how the value shakes out based on this data:

• Hosting.com offers average introductory pricing with a similar rate to HostGator and DreamHost. This rate is a whole $4 less per month than GoDaddy’s introductory pricing.
• Renewal pricing is slightly above average, starting at $12 a month. This is $2 more per month than GoDaddy and HostGator starter plans and a full $8 more per month than DreamHost’s basic shared hosting plan.
• Hosting.com offers above-average storage amounts, starting at 15GB — twice as much as the closest competitor, DreamHost, offers on its basic shared hosting plan.
• Hosting.com offers many security features, including perma-free SSL certification, a firewall, DDoS protection, brute-force protection and malware scanning.
• Hosting.com offers quick setup tools, including an optimized auto-install for WordPress, a setup wizard and a site assistant.

Overall, Hosting.com’s long-term costs are higher than competitors’ prices because of the high renewal pricing, but it’s only a couple of extra dollars a month, and the additional storage, excellent server performance and additional security features are worth the cost. This earns Hosting.com an overall value score of 8/10.

Hosting.com: Is it right for you?

So, should you choose Hosting.com? Well, before we get into decision-making, let’s revisit how Hosting.com stacks up in all the categories we’ve looked at:

• Ease of use: 9/10
• Performance: 8/10
• Security: 8/10
• Customer support: 8/10
• Value: 8/10

This gives Hosting.com an overall ranking of 8/10 — a higher ranking than other popular hosts, like GoDaddy and HostGator — and makes Hosting.com one of your better options for hosting a website. However, you can get better customer service from SiteGround if you’re willing to pay a premium or, if you’re on a strict budget, save some money while still enjoying a remarkably simple site setup process by choosing Hostinger.