A2 Hosting Review: Why It’s the Preferred Choice for Many Users! (February 2026)
With some of the best loading speeds I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing, A2 Hosting is a performance beast – even on cheap plans. There are multiple options to boost your website even further, ensuring that your visitors will always enjoy a pleasant and easy browsing experience. The support is nothing to write home about, but hey, you can’t have everything.
Table of Contents
A2 Hosting Review: Why It’s the Preferred Choice for Many Users!
| 🏆Performance Grade | A |
| ⏱️Uptime Guarantee | Yes |
| 🔒Free SSL | Yes |
| 🔧Hosting Types | Shared, VPS, Dedicated Server, Cloud, Reseller Hosting, WordPress |
| 💡Basic Plan Features | Storage: 150 GB SSDBandwidth: 2 TB |
| 💲Starting Price | $2.59 |
Is This Industry Giant Still Worth Your Time?
The well-known hosting provider A2 Hosting has been around forever, but that is no guarantee of quality. In fact, the opposite is more often the case. In recent years, once mighty names like GoDaddy and HostGator have become the butt of many jokes, and rightly so: their services have declined to the point of absurdity.
Expecting little, as I usually do, I set out to see what has become of A2 Hosting in 2023. Is the company using its considerable size and resources to the benefit of its users, or is it just another uncompetitive service feeding on brand recognition?
After signing up and testing hosting for a few months, I can say that there is still a lot to like about A2 Hosting. It’s an extremely easy to use service and, in some respects, it’s absolutely great.
However, not everything is perfect. Read on to understand what A2 Hosting lacks and what that means for you.
Powerful Tech That Hides Behind Confusing Terminology
I count on you to remember that we are talking about a hosting company, so let’s agree to call it “A2” from now on.
Anyway, understanding the exact characteristics of A2 is not a simple task. It seems that the company employs some very creative minds, and these guys gave a unique name to every little part of the service. There are SwiftServers, Turbo Servers, Turbo Boosts, A2 Site Accelerators, special A2 Optimized software, and the list goes on.
Is a SwiftServer faster than a Turbo Server, is a Boost better than an Accelerator? And since A2 is just a hosting provider (and not a developer of hosting technologies), what technology really works behind the scenes?
I’m here to clear it all up. Let’s start with the basic shared hosting plans. They are all cPanel-based, which means you can easily access important features and use the popular one-click Softaculous to install WordPress, Joomla and other CMS (content management systems).
I signed up for the first plan, Startup, which is classified as the aforementioned SwiftServer. Simply put, A2’s SwiftServers are basic Apache-based servers. It’s a classic technology, but there are better ones available today.
The Startup plan comes with 100 GB of SSD storage, an unlimited bandwidth allowance and can support a single website. The more advanced plan, Drive, has unlimited space and can support unlimited websites.
One interesting thing about A2 is that it is very honest about the amount of RAM (the memory needed to run processes) included in the plans. While most hosts save this kind of information, A2 points out that Startup comes with 0.7 GB, while Drive has 1 GB of RAM.
That means both can easily handle landing pages, blogs, portfolios, and other basic logic pages. The drive may be strong enough for some WooCommerce websites, but you’ll be pushing it to its limits.
A free SSL certificate is available with all plans, which firmly makes A2 one of the good ones. Your visitors’ data, privacy, and connection will be protected, and the padlock will appear in the address bar. I tested the certificate’s strength through Qualys and got A+, the highest possible rating.
I won’t cover in depth here, but VPS plans are also available, and they are definitely worth your time if you find yourself in need of more power. That could be because you become oh-so-popular and are dealing with an endless barrage of visitors or because you are running heavy processing tasks like e-commerce or personal account-based projects.
So far, so good? So far, so good. Let’s dig a little deeper.
“Up to 20 times faster,” goes the slogan. My goodness, I wonder what ancient magic is hidden here and why other hosting sites don’t use it as well. As you’ve probably guessed, there’s no secret sauce, and I’m willing to bet your website won’t be 20 times faster.
It just so happens that the A2 editors have had a stroke of genius. LiteSpeed is a new, much faster web server technology that is rapidly replacing Apache (let’s recap: the basic Swift server). It also enables very efficient server-level caching, which can greatly increase speed. While other vendors simply list LiteSpeed as one of its many features, A2 has built an entire brand around it.
Who else has LiteSpeed? Hostinger, GreenGeeks and InterServer, to name a few. Hostinger does it really well, while the others have been using it with varying degrees of success.
This is all a bit sneaky, and I agree that A2 doesn’t win points for openness. Still, I’m going to commend it for really utilizing the power of LiteSpeed and combining it with equally impressive hardware. These plans may not reduce load times 20x, but they are much more powerful than the SwiftServer plans.
The A2 Optimized Plugin
Next up is A2 Optimized, which supposedly guarantees you “6x faster page loads”. Ah, more magic! This time, we’re talking about a WordPress plugin developed by A2. About. It’s a plugin inspired by the One Ring of Sauron, one that links other plugins together and in the dark links them.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. You will get a pre-configured WordPress installation that will already include important plugins like Jetpack and W3 Total Cache.
While these plugins are well-known in the industry (and any WordPress user can install them themselves), it takes some time and effort to get the job done.
It’s nice to see that A2 saves us a few hours of setup and installation and creates a platform that allows us to easily manage all the different plugins. It’s not “6 times faster”, but it’s definitely a good thing.
Automatic Server Backups
You’re a responsible adult, so you obviously know that backups are important. However, not all backups are the same, and it’s important to understand which type is relevant to you.
All A2 plans allow you to use the cPanel management panel to perform full on-demand account backups, and Softaculous itself can be used to perform on-demand backups of the CMS itself, be it WordPress or other.
What is missing is the option to schedule automatic backups, as it is very easy to forget to do them yourself. Or simply be too lazy to do it. This option is only available in the more advanced plans, but it makes things much easier.
A2 Uses a Tried-And-True Interface, So There’s No Funny Business
It is not that difficult to make a website hosting service user-friendly. In fact, there is a solution available on the market that has been developed for this exact purpose. It’s called WHMCS, and it really works.
It’s not the best and most beautiful user experience ever created, but it sure gets the job done. Because it is expensive, many companies choose to avoid it altogether and instead develop “custom account areas”. 90% of the time, these are horrible failures.
Luckily, A2 had no qualms about buying WHCMS and making their life much easier. The system handles everything from registration and billing to account management and integrations with cPanel.
With this in mind and the A2 Lexicon I’ve created for you in the Features section, I’m confident you’ll choose the plan that’s right for you.
Activating Your Account with A2 Hosting
After choosing your plan, you will be transferred to the WHMCS part of the service, where things are no longer confusing. However, just because they are not confusing does not mean they are easy.
Unfortunately, my payment was canceled immediately after signing up. Apparently, the “fraud alert” systems didn’t want me at all – maybe because I try so many hosting companies. Since I didn’t know what to do and the service wouldn’t give me a hand, I had to talk to the helpdesk.
It was a two-day trip, where I had to send them a brief personal history and a scanned copy of my real passport before they relented and activated my account. It wasn’t exactly the bed of roses I was expecting.
Connecting Your Domain and Installing WordPress
Fortunately, after finally activating, the hard part was behind me. Connecting my domain was a piece of cake, as WHMCS lists the name servers of the plan in the clearest possible way, right on the plan page. Just copy and paste them into your domain registrar and your domain and hosting will be connected in no time.
Installing WordPress is just as easy, thanks to the one-click Softaculous installer. Choose WordPress, enter your dream name and account details for your new website, and you’re done.
The only thing to keep in mind is that to enjoy all the presets A2 has already made for you, you must install the “WordPress – A2 Optimized” version, and not the basic version.
Interestingly, during registration you can choose to have WordPress pre-installed on your plan, but if you do, you won’t get the A2 optimized version. Go figure.
Excellent Performance, Even on the Basic Plans
We have been promised fast, turbocharged servers. We’ve been promised 2x faster performance, then 5x faster, then 20x. Anything less than instant load would be a bit of a disappointment at this point.
So what’s the verdict? While the speeds are not “instant”, A2 really delivers, as long as you choose your data center well. There are four, one in Michigan (in the city of Ann Arbor, or A2, hence the company’s name. Mystery solved…), one in Arizona, one in the Netherlands, and one in Singapore.
The average load speed in my GTmetrix tests was 1.3 s, which is especially impressive considering I was using the basic hosting plan, not the turbo servers. The uptime recorded over two months is currently a perfect 100%, which is truly amazing.
I’m going to go over the performance methodology and explain the results in detail, but if you’re short on time, feel free to skip straight to my experience with A2 support.
I built and designed the website around a standard WordPress theme called SimpleShift. It’s a one page landing page advertising an imaginary product, the standalone shoes, but other than that it’s a pretty close website to what I could build. HD images, text, effects, a subscription form and much more. As such, my test results can tell you a lot about what to expect.
I extended A2 the opportunity to optimize my website, as I do with all hosts, and received a message with optimization suggestions. I followed the ones that are simple and you can easily implement yourself, and my website was tested in its optimized form.
GTmetrix
GTmetrix tests the loading speed of a website at one of its many test locations around the world. I chose the one in Dallas, Texas, which was closest to my data center.
After running several tests over a long period of time and meticulously aggregating the results, I came up with an average load time of 1.3 s. Need some context to understand that?
Well, in our global web hosting comparison project, this figure places A2 as the second fastest web host. Better than premium options like Liquid Web, better than Hostinger, and second only to the amazing (and expensive) Kinsta.
The fastest load speed recorded for A2 was 1.1s, which is even better news, and the slowest speed was 1.6s. Now that’s not slow. SiteGround, a host that was once considered quite good, was no faster than 1.4s.
Overall? Fantastic. Here’s one of these phenomenal performance tests:
Sucuri Load Time Tester
Sucuri’s tool is used to measure load speeds across multiple global locations, giving you an idea of how your website is performing around the world. The thing is, it’s had a few glitches lately and some web hosts actively block their requests.
I can’t say for sure if this is the situation with A2, but my Sucuri test results don’t make much sense otherwise. After running many tests and averaging the results, I got 4.285s for the fastest location, 5.05s for the slowest location, and a measly overall average speed of 4.836.
That’s really horrible. That’s really horrible, but GTmetrix and other users’ experiences tell a completely different story.
I present you with one such test, but my suggestion is not to take it too seriously. The problem seems to be in Sucuri.
UptimeRobot
A2 guarantees a 99.9% uptime figure but actually does even better. I’ve been using the UptimeRobot tool to monitor A2’s uptime for almost three months now, and so far, I haven’t observed a single downtime.
Yes. Perfect uptime, ladies and gentlemen. A beautiful 100%. I don’t expect it to be like this forever, but to see such stability over such a long period is an extremely comforting sign. Few hosts, if any, manage to be so reliable.
A2 Hosting “Guru Crew” Was a Disappointment
On paper, it looks promising. “24/7/365 Guru Crew,” available via phone, live chat, email, and support tickets. What can go wrong? Unfortunately, just about everything.
Why? Because while being available is a good start, experience level counts for a little more. Actually, a lot more. What A2 did was cut costs, and cheap doesn’t buy “guru” support. The service has been almost completely outsourced to a third party in India and is staffed by amateurs. At best, they are well-meaning amateurs trying to help. At worst, they are just there for the sake of being there.
My first experience with A2 support was before I registered. I wanted to have a live chat with sales agents to get an idea of what to expect but ended up being redirected to a contact form instead. After trying again and choosing “tech support,” I was put on hold for 15 minutes before connecting with an agent.
This guy wasn’t very quick to respond, which made me think he was juggling dozens of other conversations in the meantime. Although he tried to help me, it ended up being quite confusing.
I asked him which plan I should use to host a simple landing page. He suggested the expensive unlimited plan and not the basic one that was appropriate for my situation. I asked about the resources I would get with each plan, and he gave me no answer.
He then promised me that a US server would serve Australian visitors well (no, it won’t). My simple question about whether backups were included caused him to send me a tutorial on how to use them. It was not a good start.
After signing up, I wanted to get help connecting my domain and installing WordPress. The average wait time to speak to an agent was an hour. At one point, it was almost two hours.
Sometimes I would get through to an agent, but by the time I realized it, they had disconnected and started the queue again. Every time that happened, I would let out a silent scream and proceed to reason with the chat that had already ended.
I ended up getting help with domain name servers, but in the end, I had to do most of the work myself.
Things got a little better when I used the ticketing system to ask for help optimizing my website. The agent recommended that I activate the CDN and directed me to a few A2 tutorials on installing plugins to improve performance.
Not what I would call “expert advice,” but at least I got something. Overall, the ticketing service seemed to be the place to get more professional help.
How can we sum up A2’s support? It’s not the worst I’ve seen, but it’s a little above horrible. Waiting more than 5 minutes to get support is a lot. Waiting almost an hour is ridiculous. The support itself is on the same level as doing a Google search, which I wouldn’t be surprised to hear is what these guys actually do.
Always Good Value for Your Money
Well, the support was disappointing…. Luckily, things are getting better again with pricing. A2 is not the cheapest hosting, but it is always affordable. With prices starting at $2.99 per month, anyone can sign up and enjoy hosting. As with most hosts, prices get better and better as you subscribe for longer periods of time.
More advanced hosting options, such as LiteSpeed’s Turbo plans, are priced higher. However, they offer a great combination of affordability, resources, and power, so they are able to support larger and more heavily trafficked websites.
One really cool thing A2 does is that in addition to providing the industry standard 30-day money-back guarantee, they also provide a pro-rated refund at any time. What does fancy Latin mean?
It means that even after the first 30 days have elapsed, you can request a refund, and you will be reimbursed for the remaining portion of your contract.
For example, you can sign up for three years and get the best possible price but request reimbursement six months later. Then you will be reimbursed for the remaining two and a half years. Fair? Super-fair. No other provider does this.
As for payment terms, you can choose from monthly, annual, semi-annual, or three-year options. However, there is no reason not to choose the tri-annual option and take advantage of the refund if needed.
A2 does not offer free domains, and buying one from the company is quite expensive. You should purchase your domain from Namecheap, save a lot and simply connect it to your hosting account.
What about payment options? The usual credit cards and PayPal, although you can also use Skrill or do a money transfer, if you are that person. It seems that using credit cards often triggers fraud alerts, so PayPal would be my recommendation.
A2 Hosting Web Hosting
| Plan Name | Storage | Bandwidth | Number of Sites | Price | More details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Startup | 100 GB SSD | 700 MB | 1 | $2.99 | More details |
| Drive | Unlimited SSD | 1 GB | Unlimited | $5.99 | More details |
| Turbo Boost | Unlimited NVMe | 2 GB | Unlimited | $6.99 | More details |
| Turbo Max | Unlimited NVMe | 4 GB | Unlimited | $14.99 | More details |
A2 Hosting VPS Hosting
| Plan Name | Storage | Bandwidth | CPU | RAM | Price | More details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RUNWAY 1 – Unmanaged | 150 GB SSD | 2 TB | 1 CORE | 1 GB | $2.99 | More details |
| RUNWAY 2 – Unmanaged | 250 GB SSD | 3 TB | 2 CORES | 2 GB | $7.99 | More details |
| RUNWAY 4 – Unmanaged | 450 GB SSD | 4 TB | 4 CORES | 4 GB | $9.99 | More details |
| SUPERSONIC 8 – Unmanaged | 150 GB NVMe | 2 TB | 2 CORES | 8 GB | $29.99 | More details |
| SUPERSONIC 16 – Unmanaged | 250 GB NVMe | 3 TB | 6 CORES | 16 GB | $59.99 | More details |
| SUPERSONIC 32 – Unmanaged | 450 GB NVMe | 4 TB | 8 CORES | 32 GB | $89.99 | More details |
| LIFT 4 | 150 GB SSD | 2 TB | 2 CORES | 4 GB | $39.99 | More details |
| LIFT 8 | 250 GB SSD | 3 TB | 6 CORES | 6 GB | $54.99 | More details |
| LIFT 16 | 450 GB SSD | 4 TB | 8 CORES | 16 GB | $67.99 | More details |
| MACH 8 | 150 GB NVMe | 2 TB | 2 CORES | 8 GB | $59.99 | More details |
| MACH 16 | 250 GB NVMe | 3 TB | 6 CORES | 16 GB | $89.99 | More details |
| MACH 32 | 450 GB NVMe | 4 TB | 8 CORES | 32 GB | $99.99 | More details |
A2 Hosting Dedicated Server
| Plan Name | Storage | Bandwidth | CPU | RAM | Price | More details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hyper 1 | 2×1 TB | 6 TB | 4 CORES | 16 GB | $106 | More details |
| Hyper 2 Intel | 2×1 TB | 10 TB | 10 CORES | 32 GB | $136 | More details |
| Hyper 2 AMD | 2×1 TB | 10 TB | 8 CORES | 32 GB | $136 | More details |
| Hyper 2 Turbo Intel | 2×1 TB NVMe M.2 | 10 TB | 10 CORES | 48 GB | $166 | More details |
| Hyper 2 Turbo AMD | 2×1 TB NVMe M.2 | 10 TB | 8 CORES | 64 GB | $166 | More details |
| Hyper 3 AMD | 2×960 GB U.2 | 15 TB | 16 CORES | 64 GB | $426 | More details |
| Hyper 3 Turbo AMD | 2×960 GB U.2 | 15 TB | 16 CORES | 64 GB | $456 | More details |
| Warp 1 | 2×1 TB | 6 TB | 16 CORES | 16 GB | $156 | More details |
| Warp 2 Intel | 2×1 TB | 10 TB | 10 CORES | 32 GB | $186 | More details |
| Warp 2 AMD | 2×1 TB | 10 TB | 8 CORES | 48 GB | $186 | More details |
| Warp 2 Turbo Intel | 2×1 TB NVMe M.2 | 10 TB | 10 CORES | 32 GB | $216 | More details |
| Warp 2 Turbo AMD | 2×1 TB NVMe M.2 | 10 TB | 8 CORES | 64 GB | $216 | More details |
| Warp 3 AMD | 2×960 GB U.2 | 15 TB | 16 CORES | 96 GB | $476 | More details |
| Warp 3 Turbo AMD | 2×960 GB NVMe U.2 | 15 TB | 16 CORES | 64 GB | $506 | More details |
A2 Hosting Cloud Hosting
| Plan Name | Storage | Bandwidth | CPU | RAM | Price | More details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Runway 1 | 150 GB SSD | 2 TB | 1 CORE | 1 GB | $2.59 | More details |
| Runway 2 | 250 GB SSD | 2 TB | 1 CORE | 1 GB | $7.99 | More details |
| Runway 4 | 450 GB SSD | 2 TB | 4 CORES | 1 GB | $9.99 | More details |
| Supersonic 8 | 150 GB NVMe | 2 TB | 2 CORES | 8 GB | $29.99 | More details |
| Supersonic 16 | 250 GB NVMe | 3 TB | 6 CORES | 16 GB | $59.99 | More details |
| Supersonic 32 | 450 GB NVMe | 4 TB | 8 CORES | 32 GB | $89.99 | More details |
A2 Hosting Reseller Hosting
| Plan Name | Storage | Bandwidth | Backup | Number of Sites | Price | More details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kickstart | 60 GB SSD | 600 GB | – | Unlimited | $17.99 | More details |
| Launch | 100 GB SSD | 1 TB | + | Unlimited | $22.99 | More details |
| Grow | 170 GB SSD | 1.7 TB | + | Unlimited | $29.99 | More details |
| Scale | 270 GB SSD | 2.7 TB | – | Unlimited | $39.99 | More details |
| Turbo Kickstart | 60 GB NVMe | 600 GB | – | Unlimited | $22.99 | More details |
| Turbo Launch | 100 GB NVMe | 1 TB | – | Unlimited | $29.99 | More details |
| Turbo Grow | 170 GB NVMe | 1.7 TB | – | Unlimited | $39.99 | More details |
| Turbo Scale | 270 GB NVMe | 2.7 TB | – | Unlimited | $49.99 | More details |
A2 Hosting WordPress Hosting
| Plan Name | Storage | Bandwidth | Number of Sites | Backup | Price | More details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RUN | 50 GB SSD | Unlimited | 1 | + | $11.99 | More details |
| JUMP | 250 GB SSD | Unlimited | Unlimited | + | $18.99 | More details |
| FLY | Unlimited NVMe | Unlimited | Unlimited | + | $28.99 | More details |
| SELL | Unlimited NVMe | Unlimited | Unlimited | + | $41.99 | More details |
Conclusion
To be sure, the secret jargon A2 has developed is a bit confusing, but after reading this review, you should be able to understand it all. As such, A2’s only real weakness is its help desk.
What does this mean for you? If you’re hosting your website for the first time and you tend to struggle with the technology, you should expect a bit of a learning curve. A service with better support, such as GreenGeeks or FastComet, might make your life easier.
However, if you’re willing to try troubleshooting on your own, A2’s superior performance, great features, and streamlined experience are fantastic reasons to sign up.
If you’re still not sure if A2 Hosting is the right solution for you, you can read about some recommended competitors in my comprehensive (very comprehensive) comparison of the best web hosting services.
FAQs
Is A2 Hosting cheaper than Hostinger?
A2 Hosting’s shared hosting plans are very affordable, but Hostinger manages to be slightly cheaper. That said, Hostinger lacks A2 Hosting’s generous pro-rated rebates. If you’re looking for a good deal, check out our coupons page for the latest offers.
How easy is it to cancel A2 Hosting?
It’s very simple. First, click the “Services” button at the top of your hosting control panel, then select “My Services” from the drop-down menu. Click on the “Manage” button next to the plan you wish to cancel, followed by “Request Cancellation” on the left side of the screen. Refunds will be processed automatically.
Which of A2 Hosting’s shared hosting plans is best for a blog?
A2 Hosting’s budget Startup plan is perfect for a growing blog and offers impressive loading speeds for its price. This plan also allows you to easily install WordPress, which is pre-configured and fully optimized.
Does it matter where you host your website?
The choice of hosting provider is very important. Web hosting providers can differ a lot from each other, especially in terms of performance and features. Our list of the best web hosting services in 2026 is the perfect place to start.
Henry Sprung is an e-commerce tech blogger with several years of experience in online retail. Alex’s blog focuses on topics such as online marketplaces, payment processing, and digital marketing for e-commerce businesses. Henry’s expertise in e-commerce provides valuable insights into the latest trends in online retail and how businesses can use these platforms to grow their sales. He is a valuable resource for online retailers and entrepreneurs looking to start their own e-commerce businesses.
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