When you’re comparing two big-name, long-standing host companies, it can be hard to find each company’s individual traits and characteristics. When both companies offer a wide variety of packages, similar uptime guarantees, and customizable options make the decision even more challenging.
Once you understand what your business needs for your Web site, it will be much easier for you to make a decision about the ideal Web site host. Comparing the company’s features, speed, uptime, and downtime, and fitting the option into your budget, will help you make the best possible decision.
A2 Hosting has consistently been a top-ranked choice for hosting quality since starting in 2003. Several sources count their unlimited disk space and unlimited bandwidth as highly valued features.
- Pricing: A2 Hosting offers multiple hosting options.
- Shared Hosting: Packages typically start $7.99, but A2 Hosting offers a coupon code that drops the price to $3.92 per month.
- VPS Hosting: The entry-level package starts at $5 per month.
- Reseller Hosting: Starting at $19.99 before any coupons, but their available codes usually drop the price to $13.19 per month.
- Dedicated Hosting: The pre-discounted price of $119.99 month drops to $99.59 per month after the coupon is applied.
- Customer Support: A2 offers 24/7 customer service through phone calls, server tickets, or live chats, customers praise their service.
- Speed: The SwiftServer high-performance platform allows A2 Hosting them to offer Turbo packages, which load your pages up to 20 times faster. A2 Hosting also offers solid-state drives on all customer accounts.
- Value: The company includes SSD, cPanel access for all shared hosting customers, and a wide variety of customizable options for their hosting and reselling clients.
- Features: They have a high level of security with anti-virus protection, automatic server-based backup, cPanel included, and multiple choices for software, platform integrations and more to fit each business.
- Downtime/Uptime: A2 Hosting promises customers 99.9 percent uptime, and allows customers to choose their data center from privately-owned sites in Michigan, Amsterdam, and Singapore.
With more than 14 million customers around the world, GoDaddy has been providing high-quality customer service for nearly 20 years. With extremely reasonable prices in multiple countries and a 99.9 percent uptime, GoDaddy is a very popular choice for many different clients.
- Pricing: GoDaddy has very low prices and runs sales and specials frequently. There are several levels for their hosting options.
- Shared Hosting: They offer Linux and Windows hosting plans that start at $3.99 on sale; typically the plans start at $7.99 per month.
- Cloud Hosting: Your first month is free, and then a 20GB plan caps at $5 per month; with the highest plan, you get 80GB for no more than $80 per month.
- Reseller Hosting: They offer two reseller programs: a basic plan for up to 25 customers that starts at $8.99 per month and a pro reseller program that supports unlimited customers starting at $14.99 per month.
- Dedicated Hosting: Dedicated IP plans start at $5.99 per month.
- Virtual Private Servers: Linux plans start at $24.99 per month, on sale from $29.99 per month; Windows plans start at $34.99 per month, down from $39.99 normally.
- Customer Support: GoDaddy offers 24/7 phone support for a wide variety of locations and languages. They also have instant chat and a detailed database where you can search for information. There are active customer forums and blogs for additional help.
- Speed: GoDaddy isn’t the fastest host on the market, but they provide a solid speed performance.
- Value: GoDaddy has many years of experience. Their prices are extremely low and they provide quality customer service and strong features for clients around the world. Some packages may also offer advertising or stock photos.
- Features: In addition to their support for Web site building and their expertise in domain auctions, they provide hosted email, Web site, logo, and eCommerce Website design, along with do-it-yourself tutorials, security and other hosting and server options under their Pro program.
- Downtime/Uptime: GoDaddy doesn’t publish much on their downtime and uptime rates, but they do guarantee a 99.99 percent uptime, staying with industry standards. They have data centers and locations around the world and have a solid history of consistently good service.
What’s Best for You?
While they are both hosting companies that are geared toward small businesses, there are some big differences between A2 and GoDaddy. They both have unique features and specialties that allow them to provide services for large and small businesses and have programs that can accommodate users of all strengths and abilities.
GoDaddy is a good entry-level option for those with limited budgets or little experience. They have programs for resellers, affiliates, and non-profits. They host more than 65 million domains, providing transfers, new extensions, personal domains, and bulk search services. The do-it-yourself Website builder is designed to help a new user get up and running in a short amount of time.
A2 is better geared for mid-sized companies that have experienced staff and some knowledge of Web design and hosting needs. More than 30 customized hosting packages and a wide variety of features for the price point make A2 a solid, reliable option.
To explore more hosting options check out our A2 Hosting vs. Siteground post.
Last Updated on April 30, 2018 by Jake
