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If you are planning to buy A2Hosting, and you want to know the performance of A2Hosting shared plans, then you are in the right place. In this blog post, We will test the speed and performance of A2Hosting shared hosting hosting with 10+ different and extensive tests.
Let’s Get Started!
A2Hosting
A2Hosting was established in 2001 in Ann Arbor, Michigan and was known as Iniquinet back then. Currently, A2Hosting is the most known name in the shared hosting and WordPress hosting. A2Hosting offers Shared hosting, VPS hosting, Reseller hosting and dedicated hosting.
In this particular blog post, we will talk about A2Hosting shared hosting plans.
Plans & Pricing
A2Hosting offers four different shared hostin plans. Startup, Drive, Turbo Boost, and Turbo Max. With the Turbo Boost and Turbo Max plan, you will get Turbo servers, NVME storage, and LiteSpeed servers (Best for high traffic websites). A2Hosting recommends the Turbo Boost plan and also to test the NMVE storage and LiteSpeed servers, I choose the Turbo Boost plan.

Testing Environment
To test A2Hosting speed and performance, I bought a plan. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will already know that I create the same testing website when I perform speed tests. After buying the plan, I installed WordPress and connected it with my domain which I bought from NameCheap.
I do not want to run tests on a blank website, so I installed Blocksy Theme and one of its demo websites called ‘Tasty.’ I have to install four additional extra plugins with the demo website: Blocksy Companion, WP Forms Lite, Stackable, Recipe Card Blocks by WPZOOM.
Hosting: A2Hosting
Plan: Shared – Turbo Boost
Server Location: Arizona (US West Coast)
WordPress Version: 5.8
Themes: Blocksy (Active), Twenty twenty One
Plugins: Blocksy Companion, WP Forms Lite, Stackable, Recipe Card Blocks by WPZOOM
After setting this testing environment, I did not perform any extra optimizations like caching, Image compressing, modification, or any other kind of speed improvement. It would be best if you always did these optimizations to improve your website, but I wanted to know the actual performance of A2Hosting without any optimizations.
Quick Disclaimer:
I want to inform you guys that all the results are honest and authentic in this blog post. Also, this blog post is not sponsored by A2Hosting or any other hosting. To do these kinds of tests, I have to spend a lot of money from my pocket, So I would like to request that if you want to buy A2Hosting or any other hosting, please use our affiliate links. You will get an extra discount, and this website will earn a small amount of commission from it. So, we can do more feature speed tests, reviews, and comparisons without any sponsors.
Now, without wasting your precious time, let’s start testing.
TTFB Test
TTFB stands for time to first byte. To put it simply, this is a measurement of how long the browser has to wait before receiving its first byte of data from the server. The longer it takes to get that data, the longer it takes to display your page.
TTFB depends on the Hosting server, Themes, and plugins. But most of the part is played by the hosting server. If hosting using a high-performance server, you will get low TTFB, and if hosting uses a standard specifications server, it will be high.
Most of the hostings stores your website files in a single location. From that server, the hosting will send all the files to the visitors. If your hosting server is located in the USA, your website will get very low TTFB in the USA, Canada, and European countries. But it will be much higher in Asia and Australia.
Therefore when you buy hosting from any of the providers, try to choose the nearest server location from your website’s audience. (not closest to you but closest to your website users)
When visitors come to your website, the browser will send all the requests and ask for the required files to the hosting server. After that, hosting will send an initial reply to the browser. Now, the time between browser requests and hosting initial response will be called TTFB.
Your website will load fast if your hosting TTFB is low. Means, as low is the TTFB of your website, visitor have to wait for less. By this, the bounce rate of your website can decrease drastically.
TTFB can be different from location to location and time to time. Therefore, we will do multiple tests from multiple worldwide locations. So, we can get the best accurate value. In the TTFB test, we will use three different tools and will take five different results.
KeyCDN TTFB Test
TTFB test one is done from KeyCDN Tools. This tool will measure the TTFB from 10 different worldwide locations. I have taken three different results of this test from different other days.
Server Location | Test 1 | Test 2 | Test 3 | Average |
---|---|---|---|---|
Frankfurt | 866 ms | 564 ms | 699 ms | 709 ms |
Amsterdam | 594 ms | 618 ms | 649 ms | 620 ms |
London | 603 ms | 617 ms | 627 ms | 615 ms |
New York | 358 ms | 326 ms | 352 ms | 345 ms |
Dallas | 236 ms | 254 ms | 222 ms | 237 ms |
San Francisco | 243 ms | 225 ms | 232 ms | 233 ms |
Singapore | 784 ms | 696 ms | 718 ms | 732 ms |
Sydney | 708 ms | 655 ms | 646 ms | 669 ms |
Tokyo | 589 ms | 480 ms | 528 ms | 532 ms |
Bangalore | 959 ms | 831 ms | 795 ms | 861 ms |
Global Average | 594 ms | 526 ms | 546 ms | 555 ms |
GT Metrix TTFB Test
TTFB test two is done from GTMetrix. I have done seven different tests to measure the TTFB from seven different locations.
Server Location | TTFB |
---|---|
Vancouver, Canada | 451 ms |
Hong Kong, China | 910 ms |
London, UK | 584 ms |
Mumbai, India | 1.2 s |
San Antonio, TX, USA | 351 ms |
Sydney, Australia | 1.1 ms |
São Paulo, Brazil | 936 ms |
Global Average | 790 ms |
Fast or Slow TTFB Test
TTFB test three is done from Fast or Slow. Fast or Slow will measure the website TTFB and Speed from 18 worldwide locations. This is the heaviest test from all of the tests.
Server Location | TTFB |
---|---|
S Africa | 1099 ms |
Sweden | 981 ms |
India | 999 ms |
France | 773 ms |
England | 610 ms |
Ireland | 662 ms |
S Korea | 844 ms |
Bahrain | 1014 ms |
Japan | 636 ms |
Brazil | 693 ms |
Canada | 436 ms |
Hong Kong | 783 ms |
Singapore | 916 ms |
Australia | 741 ms |
Germany | 733 ms |
USA (VA) | 388 ms |
USA (OH) | 391 ms |
USA (OR) | 390 ms |
Global Average | 727 ms |
Here is the end of the TTFB tests, now we will start the Speed Test.
Speed Test
We will measure the website’s fully loaded time and some core web vitals in the Speed test. The website’s fully loaded time and core web vitals can depend on Hosting servers, Themes, Plugins, and testing page content. But, as I told you before, We used the same testing environment to avoid the Theme, Plugins, and testing page content.
Google PageSpeed
If you want to rank higher in Google search, you should strictly follow the Google Core web vitals. You can measure these parameters from the Google PageSpeed Insights tool, which is the official testing tool of Google.
Therefore, we will do our first speed test in Google PageSpeed Insights. Speed Index and Time to Interactive are parameters we should follow. Google PageSpeed Insights results are not consistent. Therefore, I will conduct three different tests on separate days to get the most accurate results.
Mobile
Metrics | Test 1 | Test 2 | Test 3 | Average |
---|---|---|---|---|
Score | 93 | 90 | 92 | 91 |
First Contentful Paint | 2.5 s | 2.5 s | 2.5 s | 2.5 s |
Time to Interactive | 3.0 s | 3.0 s | 3.1 s | 3.0 s |
Speed Index | 3.2 s | 4.5 s | 2.6 s | 3.4 s |
Total Blocking Time | 110 ms | 110 ms | 140 ms | 120 ms |
Largest Contentful Paint | 2.5 s | 2.5 s | 2.5 s | 2.5 s |
Cumulative Layout Shift | 0.003 | 0.003 | 0.003 | 0.003 |
Desktop
Metrics | Test 1 | Test 2 | Test 3 | Average |
---|---|---|---|---|
Score | 98 | 98 | 98 | 98 |
First Contentful Paint | 0.7 s | 0.7 s | 0.7 s | 0.7 s |
Time to Interactive | 0.7 s | 0.7 s | 0.7 s | 0.7 s |
Speed Index | 1.2 s | 1.5 s | 1.2 s | 1.3 s |
Total Blocking Time | 0 ms | 0 ms | 0 ms | 0 ms |
Largest Contentful Paint | 0.8 s | 0.7 s | 0.9 s | 0.7 s |
Cumulative Layout Shift | 0.001 | 0.001 | 0.001 | 0.001 |
Pingdom Test
The second speed test is done with Pingdom from seven different worldwide locations. Load time is the factor that we will consider in this test.
Server Location | Load time | Page Size |
---|---|---|
Tokyo – Japan | 2.17 s | 1.9 MB |
Frankfurt – Germany | 2.45 s | 1.9 MB |
London – UK | 1.95 s | 1.9 MB |
Washington D.C. – USA | 1.03 s | 1.9 MB |
San Francisco – USA | 1.08 s | 1.9 MB |
Sydney – Australia | 2.56 s | 1.9 MB |
São Paulo – Brazil | 2.86 s | 1.9 MB |
Global Average | 2.01 s | 1.9 MB |
GTMetrix Test
The third speed test is done with the GTMetrix tool from seven different worldwide locations. GTMetrix is based on Google PageSpeed Insights. You should look up to Fully Loaded time. I have taken seven different tests from all of the seven locations of GTMetrix. At last, you will see the global average results.
Server Location | Performance | First Contentful Paint | Time to Interactive | Speed Index | Fully Loaded Time |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Vancouver, Canada | 93% | 1.1 s | 1.2 ms | 1.1 ms | 1.3 s |
Hong Kong, China | 72% | 1.9 s | 2.1 s | 2.0 s | 2.5 s |
London, UK | 87% | 1.4 s | 1.4 s | 1.4 s | 1.7 s |
Mumbai, India | 57% | 2.4 s | 4.1 s | 2.5 s | 4.1 s |
San Antonio, TX, USA | 98% | 786 ms | 962 ms | 839 ms | 1.0 s |
Sydney, Australia | 64% | 2.0 s | 2.4 s | 2.4 s | 3.5 s |
São Paulo, Brazil | 70% | 1.9 s | 2.1 s | 2.0 s | 2.5 s |
Global Average Fully Loaded Time: 2.37 s
KeyCDN Speed Test
The fourth speed test is done with KeyCDN Tools. There are ten different worldwide locations in the KeyCDN Testing tool. We can measure the website load time, page size, requests, and performance grade with this tool. Page size, requests, and performance grade will be quite the same in all of the tests.
Server Location | Test 1 | Test 2 | Test 3 | Average |
---|---|---|---|---|
Frankfurt | 1.89 s | 1.95 s | 1.87 s | 1.90 s |
Amsterdam | 1.87 s | 2.04 s | 1.97 s | 1.96 s |
London | 1.94 s | 1.95 s | 1.98 s | 1.95 s |
New York | 1.15 s | 1.14 s | 1.18 s | 1.15 s |
Dallas | 1.14 s | 1.1 s | 1.13 s | 1.12 s |
San Francisco | 1.22 s | 1.34 s | 1.4 s | 1.32 s |
Singapore | 2.46 s | 2.57 s | 2.49 s | 2.50 s |
Sydney | 2.08 s | 2.28 s | 2.2 s | 2.18 s |
Tokyo | 1.92 s | 1.92 s | 1.82 s | 1.88 s |
Bangalore | 2.83 s | 3.02 s | 2.72 s | 2.85 s |
Global Average | 1.85 s | 1.93 s | 1.87 s | 1.88 s |
Fast or Slow Speed Test
Test 5 is done with Fast or Slow from 18 different worldwide locations. In these results, we measure website interactive time. The Time to Interactive (TTI) metric measures how long it takes a page to become interactive to the site visitor.
Vital | Score |
---|---|
Performance Score | 89 |
First Contentful Paint | 64 |
Speed Index | 91 |
Largest Contentful Paint | 87 |
Time to Interactive | 96 |
Total Blocking Time | 100 |
Cumulative Layout Shift | 100 |
Server Location | Interactive |
---|---|
S Africa | 3003 ms |
Sweden | 2618 ms |
India | 3318 ms |
France | 2265 ms |
England | 2007 ms |
Ireland | 2224 ms |
S Korea | 2337 ms |
Bahrain | 3408 ms |
Japan | 1838 ms |
Brazil | 2356 ms |
Canada | 1354 ms |
Hong Kong | 2424 ms |
Singapore | 2742 ms |
Australia | 2682 ms |
Germany | 2461 ms |
USA (VA) | 1388 ms |
USA (OH) | 988 ms |
USA (OR) | 1014 ms |
Global Average | 2246 ms |
All of the above tests are done where there was no live traffic on the website. To measure the performance of real-time hosting performance we have to do a load test.
Load Test
In the Load test, we will send some visitors to the testing website, and after the test, we can see the load handling performance of the hosting. To do the load test, I conducted two different tests. In the first test, I sent 100 virtual users to the website. In the second test, I send 250 virtual users to the testing website.
Response Times | 100 Visits/Minute | 250 Visits/Minute |
Average | 411 ms | 566 ms |
Minimum | 342 ms | 415 ms |
Maximum | 807 ms | 998 ms |
Success | 100 | 250 |
Final Results
- Global Average TTFB: 555 ms
- Global Average Load Time: 1.88 s
Conclusion
Overall, A2Hosting is one of the most reliable and fastest shared hosting in the market. With the 4 worldwide datacenters, you can use A2Hosting for your any website. Also, NVME storage and LiteSpeed servers will help to load your website faster.
If you like this blog post, please share this article. If you have any suggestions, doubts, or queries, please let me know in the comment section. I will reply to you as soon as possible. If I have made any mistakes, please let me know.
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Please suggest a hosting company which fulfils my following requirements,
1. Great speed (All USA, Europe and India) website front page will be heavy (4 to 10mb, images and may be even a video, its a tourism business) [Most probably traffic will be low, max a few hundred a day].
2. I am a complete beginner so want a great support, would even need hands on support by host. (Managed WordPress). Also a very easy website building tools.
3. Budget at least for the first year i would want cost to be around 10$, and for the following years if we pick up customers then 30-40$ would be ok.
I have short-listed a few, please suggest which is best
1. a2 hosting (i believe great speed. Not sure about support) PLAN: TURBO BOOST
$10.99/mo.
2. Greengeeks (budget friendly, also i believe great speed, Not sure about support) PLAN:Pro $6.95/mo.
3. Cloudways (i believe unmatched speed, but i think this is COMPLECATED for a pure beginner. Not sure about support. Also email is complicated and additional expense with cloudways) Plan: Vultr or digital ocean premium or high frequency plans.12$ or13$/mo.
4. Siteground (Not sure this has consistent speeds, hearing lot about great support and user-friendly) Growbig plan 7$/mo.
5.Fastcomet (Not sure this has good speed, I have experienced customer support and c-panel of this, support is good not great(live chat), also c-panel and all is slightly complicated. They even did hands on support but I need more better support and ease-of-use from anyone else.) Plan: FastCloud Extra $5.95/mo.
Hello danish, I think A2Hosting will be the best choice for you.