A2 Hosting vs Bluehost Web Hosting Comparison – 2024 [Updated]
A2 Hosting and Bluehost both are pretty well-known web hosting companies. Both companies are about approximately two decades old. A2 Hosting was started way back in 2001 and Bluehost was started In the year 2003.
Both of them have worked their way up to the top. Bluehost provides shared, VPS and dedicated hosting solutions while A2 hosting provides a much larger array of hosting solutions such as shared web hosting, a fully scalable product line featuring Reseller, VPS and dedicated server solutions.
Plans and Pricing comparison
For the sake of comparison. we will be starting with shared hosting plans provided by both web hosts. Prices for all the plans by both the web host range from as low as $3 to as much as $14 per month. Since shared hosting plans are most suitable for small to medium scale websites and businesses, Shared web hosting plans provides the best value for money to all the customers. Though different hosts have different criteria for evaluating the needs of their customers so the prices vary a bit and the specifications provided for the prices also vary a little bit.
Here we will compare the plans provided by both web hosts in shared hosting category along with their features side by side
Bluehost
| Features | Basic | Plus | Choice Plus | Pro |
| Websites | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Disk space | 50 GB | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Monthly Price | $3.95 | $5.95 | $5.95 | $13.95 |
A2 Hosting
| Features | Lite | Swift | Turbo |
| Websites | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Disk space | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Monthly Price | $3.92 | $ 4.90 | $ 9.31 |
Except for some specific features, both Bluehost and A2 hosting provide some common features for all the plans such as a free domain manager, resource protection, scalability and free SSL certificates powered by let’s encrypt.
A2 Hosting has a special feature called Turbo which is only available in the Turbo plan and provides up to 20x faster Hosting. A2 hosting also has any time money-back guarantee so if you are not happy with their service you can get your money refunded without any questions asked policy.
Features Comparison
Generally, the features provided by different hosts depend upon the plan but in the shared hosting category, most hosts provide somewhat similar features. To appeal to the customer Hosts may provide extra features for a certain category of applications such as Bluehostprovides better services for WordPress than most other hosts out there. To get a better idea of what all features both host provide we will be comparing the features side by side
Bluehost
Similar to other hosts, Bluehost also provides different types of plans which constitutes different features where the basic features from the base plan are carried forward in each Superseding plan.
- Hosting for 1 website.
- 50 GB SSD disk space.
- Unmetered bandwidth.
- Free SSL certificate.
- Standard performance
- 1 free domain
- 25 subdomains
All these basic features are provided with the basic plan but as we proceed further to the more advanced plans such as the plus, Choice Plus and Pro we get to see much more advanced features such as domain privacy, Spam Experts, Site Backup – CodeGuard Basic, Dedicated IP, Office 365 free for 30 days, Unlimited SSD storage and unlimited bandwidth.
Other than these plan-specific features some other features that Bluehost provides are integrated domain manager, resource protection that temporarily reassigns resources if extra performance is required in any case by the website, SSL certificates and $100 worth marketing credits that can be used to promote your website.
A2 Hosting
A2 hosting also provides different features for their different tier of plans
- 1 Website
- 5 Databases
- Unlimited Storage
- Unlimited Transfer
- cPanel Control Panel
- Free SSL & SSD
- Turbo
- Free & Easy Site Transfer
- Anytime Money Back Guarantee
Other than basic features that are provided in the light plan A2 hosting also provides better specifications as we go up. In higher plans, you get hosting for more websites and twice the resources including unlimited websites databases and storage. The turbo plan especially has a Turbo feature which provides 20X the performance of the preceding plans.
A2 Hosting also provides any time money-back guarantee and easy site transfer if you want to transfer your website to some other host.
Comparing A2 Hosting and Bluehost in terms of plans and features Both provide kind of similar plans and features for a somewhat similar price and therefore it is a personal preference of the user to choose among these two.
Performance Test
Performance is one of the most important aspects to consider before buying a web host plan. Performance test evaluates different aspects of a web server such as the server speed, page loading and transfer speed, time taken to connect to the webserver, response time and availability.
Here we will be conducting a performance test on two websites, out of which one is hosted on A2 hosting and the other one on Bluehost.
A2 Hosting
The tests were performed with a test server located in North America. With a total page size of 427 kb A2 hosting managed to secure Grade Point of 85. The achieved load time is 2.40 seconds which is not bad considering that a total of 52 requests were made within that time
Bluehost
The same test server was used to conduct a performance test on a website hosted on Bluehost which produced results as given above. With a page size of 633 kb and a load time of 1.48 seconds, a total of 54 requests for made which according to the testing website needs to be minimized does Bluehost manage to score a grade point of 79.
Comparing results from both the tests we can say that Bluehost and A2 hosting performed somewhat equally. Both web hosts are equally good in terms of performance and slight variation in results is expected due to variability in the content of the websites.
Time to First Byte Test (TTFB Test)
Time to first byte is the time taken to fetch the first byte of data on the client’s machine from the web host after the request for the same has been sent to the server. TTFB is a simple way to test the responsiveness and speed of the server.
- TTFB test results are not always 100% accurate as of the variation in the location of the test server and the client can produce considerable impacts on the test result.
- The closer the test server and client are geographically the better the TTFB speeds will be and vice-versa.
Since we can never get the ideal conditions for the TTFB test, so just to get a fair estimate of the TTFB speeds of both the web hosts we will run a test from the same test server location.
A2 Hosting
The test results for A2 hosting :
- Minimum first-byte time – 020 sec (Singapore server)
- Maximum first-byte time – 74 sec (Tokyo server)
- Minimum total time – 026 sec (Singapore server)
- Maximum total time – 40 (Brazil server)
Bluehost
The test results for Bluehost :
- Minimum first-byte time – 330 sec (Dallas server)
- Maximum first-byte time – 73 sec (Bangalore server)
- Minimum total time – 400 sec (Dallas server)
- Maximum total time – 87 (Bangalore server)
Comparing the test results we can clearly see that both the web hosts got a similar performance grade in terms of TTFB but upon deeper inspection, we can see that the minimum first-byte time for A2 hosting was lower than that for Bluehost. Similarly, the maximum total time was also less for A2 hosting as compared to Bluehost.
Though the differences are minimal and since these are not ideal test results so we can say that both the hosts did an equally good job in terms of TTFB test.
Uptime
Uptime is the time period for which a web host is online and functioning properly without any errors. The host should be able to serve user requests and handle web traffic and if it does so then it can be said that the host is up and time for which this process is active is termed as uptime.
Uptime is the single most important factor to consider before purchasing a plan on any web host. If the uptime is not good for a particular host then rest assured you can be sure that your website will face downtimes and won’t be accessible for the period when the servers are down.
Though nowadays most web hosts give a 99% uptime guarantee but to have a surety we will compare the uptime statistics of A2 Hosting and Bluehost for the past few weeks.
A2 Hosting
From the uptime statistics, we can see that A2 hosting had three instances of downtime in the past 6 weeks. All three downtime sessions lasted just for 1 minute. The uptime ratio even at the time of downtime was above or equal to 99%. So we can say that A2 hosting does keep its promise of delivering 99% uptime.
Bluehost
Bluehost had 2 downtime sessions out of which one lasted for 45 minutes while the other one lasted just for a minute. During the first downtime, the uptime ratio went down to 96% which is lower than what is promised. But the problem was fixed sooner than later.
From the uptime statistics of the past few weeks for both web hosts, we can say that both hosts did a good job of providing maximum uptime without major downtimes. Though A2 hosting has smaller downtimes but we cannot conclude it being superior to Bluehost just based on the data from the past few weeks.
Customer Support
A web host cannot be good without good customer support. Most people ignore the aspect of considering customer support service before investing their money into a web host but it is not a good practice.
Good customer service is a very important aspect as you might be tech-savvy but no one knows when you’ll need the help. Most web hosts promise 24/7 customer support but the reality is quite different. The response time of your queries may not necessarily be as good as you might expect.
Here we will compare the customer support systems of both A2 Hosting and Bluehost.
A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting provides fast and responsive customer support 24/7. The customer support team is very knowledgeable and tries to help the customers to their full extent.
- A2 Hosting provides multiple ways to contact the customer support team such as a phone call, live chat or by raising a ticket.
- A2 hosting has a huge database of FAQs on different subjects such as billing, MySQL, DNS, SSL, cPanel, A2 portal, and Plesk.
- You can also browse the guides on different resources such as WordPress, cPanel, WHMCS, Magneto, etc.
- A2 Hosting allows you to pay in your local currency if you are uncomfortable paying in other currencies.
- All the major payment options such as Visa, American Express, Mastercard, Union Pay, and PayPal are accepted. A2 Hosting also accepts payments via Net Banking powered by CCAvenue.
Bluehost
Blueshost gets a mixed review in terms of customer services. Some customers report positive and fast solutions to their issues by their respective customer support agents while some did not have that great of an experience.
Anyhow, Bluehost does provide 24/7 customer service with several features such as –
- Bluehost provides multiple ways to contact their customer support team such as by live chat, Ticketing system or by a phone call.
- Bluehost also has a huge knowledge base of pre-answered questions regarding a huge variety of common errors and services. WordPress, Email, domain, account, Control panel are some of the areas covered in the knowledgebase
- Bluehost accepts all the major payment methods such as credit card, PayPal and Net-banking.
Comparing between A2 hosting and Bluehost in terms of customer service, both hosts provide good customer services and tend to satisfy most people.
Conclusion
A2 Hosting and Bluehost both provide good hosting services for a reasonable price. Both hosts have somewhat similar pricing but Bluehost tends to provide better specifications for the same price as A2hosting. But Bluehost tends to overload you with excessive add-ons which are in some cases actually required for the full functionality of your website. This can be a problem if you are on a tight budget. So overall it comes down to the user’s choice and requirements.
Also Read: