A2 Hosting Review

Established in 2001, A2 Hosting is one of the oldest hosting services. Originally launched as a hobby business, A2 Hosting soon started to show immense potential as internet and websites became more and more ubiquitous. Today A2 hosting the best Web Hosting Companies in Canada offers a complete range of services including shared web hosting, fully scalable product line that features reseller, VPS and dedicated server solutions.

Features

Global Servers – A2 Hosting has servers all over the world so you can choose to host your website on the closest server location for speedy performance.

SSD Storage – The hosting company gives you the option to host your sites on SSDs instead of hard drives. This allows for a 300% increase in performance.
Free SSH – While many Web Hosting Companies in Canada sell Secure Shell or SSH as an add-on, you can get it completely free of cost with A2 Hosting.
Free SSL – A2 Hosting also brings you free Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificates to ensure your website remains secure.

Latest PHP Version – You get the support for the latest PHP versions and other most popular software.

Pricing

Just like the services of other Web Hosting Companies in Canada, A2 Hosting also offers three different plans namely Lite, Swift and Turbo.

Lite Plan costs $3.92 per month and can be used for one website. Apart from that the package includes support for 5 databases, unlimited storage and transfer, cPanel control panel, and free SSL and SSD.

Swift comes at $4.90 per month and you can host unlimited websites. This plan comes with unlimited databases, storage, and bandwidth. The Turbo plan is priced at $9.31 a month and includes performance enhancements such as A2 Site Accelerator.

Performance

A2 Hosting takes additional steps to ensure there is a limited number of customers on shared hosting servers and also employs additional caching features which assist in storing required data in visitors’ browsers. With these clever initiatives, A2 Hosting delivers speeds that are 1.5 times faster than industry average. If you are hosting your website on A2 Hosting, expect it to load in an instant without any hiccups whatsoever.

Apart from that, another critical aspect of performance is reliability which is measured through assessment of uptime. Downtime can result in direct loss to the business and the less of it your website has to endure it the better. Not any Web Hosting Companies in Canada can ensure 100% uptime but 99.94% is the industry average and A2 Hosting almost meets that average.

Security

A2 Hosting brings a security service called HackScan which is quite helpful in ensuring security through thwarting hacking attempts and cyber-attacks. The service is completely free of cost and also offers dual web hosting firewall, round the clock monitoring, brute force defense, and virus scanning. The HackScan is basically a complete package that ensures your website and data remains protected from malignant software and hackers. With HackScan you have the peace of mind that your website is in safe hands, or should we say, safe servers.

In addition, A2 Hosting offers a range of SSL certificates to the clients which means all the data sent to and from your website’s visitors’ devices remains secure through high level encryption. Moreover, the SSL certificate also marks your website as secure exponentially increasing the odds of a visitor trusting your service.

Customer Support

Customer service matters in every industry but in web hosting where time is of essence, importance of instant support is truly vital. If anything goes south and you need technical assistance, your hosting service should be there to help you out. And that’s where A2 Hosting impresses as well with its US based super friendly and highly cooperative customer support. The customer reps are accessible round the clock and you can get in touch with through whatever means you have including live chat, email, telephone, and ticket submission.

A2 Hosting customer representatives go out of their way to find the solution to your problem and answer to your question. They’re not sitting there to dole out canned replies or read a script from a template, instead they are knowledgeable and understanding and try to help you out with real solutions. Moreover, the customer support is also highly responsive so you can expect them to get back to you within a matter of minutes.