You may have noticed that we offer both Windows and Linux Hosting service options. Which one of these options should you choose depending on your computer's operating system? You may be relieved to learn that It actually doesn't matter what your computer's operating system is. You can choose Linux or Windows Hosting whether your computer's operating system is Windows, Linux, Mac or another option. Your hosting account's operating system is NOT dependent on your computer's operating system. That means if you a Windows operating system for your computer, you can choose either Windows or Linux Hosting for your A2 Hosting account.

Now that you know that you can host with either Linux or Windows regardless of what your computer's operating system is, you may now be wondering which OS option you should choose for your A2 Hosting account. What we recommend doing is looking at the requirements for the software you are looking to run on your hosted account. This is one of the best ways to decide which operating system you should select.

• If the software you want to use requires solutions like PHP, MySQL, Apache, Perl, Python or PostgreSQL, you'll most likely want to choose Linux for your A2 Hosting account operating system.
• If the software you want to use requires solutions like ASP, ASP.NET, MSSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Windows Server or .NET Core, you'll want to choose our Windows Hosting selection.

Whether this is the first site you've ever hosted or the one-hundredth site, our website hosting services are loaded with tools to make your experience as easy as possible.Your first step to get started with A2 Hosting is to choose your hosting solution and your domain name. If this is your first site or if you are a beginner, we recommend our Shared Hosting solutions. These are affordable plans loaded with intuitive tools to help you get your site up and off the ground quickly and easily. Essentially Shared Hosting is a perfect way for you to dabble with our web hosting services at an extremely affordable price. Visit our Service Comparison page to see a complete breakdown of our Shared, Reseller, VPS and Dedicated server options. We also offer a comprehensive Getting Started guide to help you along the way!

One of the reasons that we're confident you'll have an easy time hosting your site with us is because your A2 Hosting account includes a user-friendly control panel. Your control panel provides you with all the tools you'll need to manage your software, websites, email, databases and more. You'll receive an email providing you with login details explaining how to access your control panel. If you sign up for a Linux Hosting account, you'll receive access to the cPanel control panel and if you choose one of our Windows web hosting services, you will receive access to the Plesk control panel. Both of these control panels are graphical and extremely intuitive!

The next step to getting started is selecting what software you would like to use to power your site. Are you running a content-based site? You may want to consider using a CMS like WordPress, Drupal or Joomla. Are you looking to run a forum site? phpBB, SMF and MyBB are all popular forum software options. You'll want to install the software you want to use onto your hosted account. Don't worry! This may sound complicated, but we make it easy at A2 Hosting with our 1-click software installers! cPanel users get access to the 1-click software installer Softaculous in their control panel while Plesk users get the Applications option.Use these tools to install software solutions to your account in a matter of minutes! Best of all, you'll have hundreds of software options to choose to add to your account from within these 1-click installers!

Of course if you still have questions about getting started, the A2 Hosting Guru Crew Support team is standing by to help! Just contact us via live chat, email us or call us. We're available around the click to help!

We won't give away all the ingredients to our special speed recipe, but we'll show you a few reasons why we're faster than competing hosts. All of our speed optimized solutions make up our SwiftServer platform. Our SwiftServers are available on each of our hosting solutions. Here are a few of the features that make up our SwiftServers:

• What really makes our service faster is our Turbo Servers option featuring up to 20X faster page loads compared to competing solutions. Our Turbo Servers feature a drop-in, speed enhanced Apache alternative, more resources per user and fewer users per server. Our Turbo Servers also offer a number of caching solutions that can be easily configured in our exclusive A2 Optimized tool. Caching solutions improve page performance by storing key pieces of your website in memory, instead of having to load each portion of your page each time your site is accessed.
• Originally, our SwiftServers started with Solid State Drives (SSDs). We were actually one of the very first hosts to offer SSDs. Unlike old fashioned hard disk drives (HDDs) that use old fashioned spinning disks to access information, SSDs use flash technology to improve page loads by up to 300%. Each of our Web Hosting solutions includes SSDs for free!
• Latency is a measure of the amount of time it takes data to be sent from one point to another. Reducing latency can help improve your page load speeds. How can you reduce latency? By hosting your data closer to your visitors. You can do that at A2 Hosting! Choose to host on the A2 Hosting global data center closest to your audience!
• Our Managed Hosting solutions feature a free content delivery network (CDN). Our CDN is a group of globally located, connected servers that determines the fastest and most efficient route to deliver your website to your visitors.
• Are you interested in our Shared Web Hosting plans? You should consider using our Performance Plus feature! Performance Plus increases the resources included with your account to ensure your site continues to run quickly even during traffic spikes!

Do you still have a question about our web hosting services? We have an answer! Just visit our Contact page for assistance now!

After contacting our esteemed support team, appropriately named the Guru Crew, you'll see that the quality of support we offer is just one of the clear advantages of choosing A2 Hosting for your web host needs! Best of all, our support is available 24/7/365!

We have carefully handpicked our support team selecting only the best and brightest brains in our industry. That way users like you get only fast, knowledgeable and accurate answers to your questions. Whether you prefer to speak via live chat, via email or on the phone, we've got you covered! If you have a question pertaining to a software or another solution that we're unfamiliar with, rest assured that we'll do our due diligence to research that solution for you. We'll quickly let you know how that solution can be supported by our server and make it available to you if possible.

Are you a user who prefers to find answers to your own website hosting questions? We've got you covered there as well! That's because we have a Knowledgebase loaded with answers to the most commonly asked questions (and not so common questions) by our customers. We've also spent countless hours loading our knowledgebase with helpful, step-by-step guides complete with screenshots and images to help you along the way. It's going to be a truly invaluable resource for you!

Not only does A2 Hosting make it easy to get your WordPress site up and running, but we've loaded your account with features that make it easy to manage your account. These features include:

• A2 Optimized WordPress - At A2 Hosting, your WordPress install comes pre-configured with the very best speed and security settings. A2 Optimized is a result of a tendency for WordPress users to load their sites with speed and security plugins. Unfortunately, this often actually has the opposite intended result. A WordPress site with too many plugins is often actually slower and less secure. As a result, our expert team of optimizers tested a number of WordPress configurations to determine the most secure and fastest settings. That way you can spend more time building your site, writing content and promoting it instead of worrying about speed and security. Let A2 Hosting do that! We're here to do the heavy lifting!
• Pre-Installed WordPress - When you sign up for your A2 Hosting account, you get the option within our shopping cart to have WordPress installed for you. That way you don't have to worry about downloading install files and uploading them to your server. Instead. your WordPress install will be there ready for you and your site! Prefer to install WordPress yourself? You can do that too! You can even setup WordPress with 1-click by using Softaculous in your cPanel control panel.
• Recommended WordPress Requirements - To run a WordPress site, WordPress recommends that you choose a hosting company with the best versions of PHP, MariaDB and HTTPS. We've got you covered at A2 Hosting! In fact, our company's roots began by offering the latest and best versions of the most popular web development software. While development technology has changed through the years, our commitment to being the premier web development hosting company has not. We even offer free SSL Certificates so your site can be HTTPS-enabled for no additional cost!
• Managed WordPress Hosting Option - Do you want to take your WordPress site to the next level? Choose our Managed WordPress Hosting option! This turnkey solution has been created from the ground up specifically for your WordPress site. Our Managed WordPress Hosting includes:
  • Turbo Optimized Servers for up to 20X faster page loads compared to competing WordPress Hosting providers.
  • The easiest WordPress site backups.
  • User-friendly WordPress site staging allowing you to test updates to your site before they are published live to your audience.
  • Free JetPack Personal license featuring daily automated backups, Photon image CDN, lazy loading images, brute force protection and more!
  • Comes pre-installed with WP-CLI making it easy to manage your WordPress sites from the command line.
• Free WordPress Website Migration - Are you ready to experience the A2 Hosting Difference? We'll migrate your website from your existing hosting provider for free! Let our expert team, who spends everyday migration sites to our servers, move your site for a 100% worry-free experience.
• Anytime Money Back Guarantee - We're so sure that you'll love our WordPress Hosting and Web Hosting service, we'll offer you a full, 100% hassle-free refund if you determine that we're not the right hosting provider for you. We just don't think it will happen!

You may be looking through our selection of hosting services and packages while wondering which one you should sign up for. That's understandable! To make your decision easier, it's important to remember:

• Our hosting packages are fully-scalable! That means that as your site grows, we have a hosting solution that can grow with you. We offer seamless migrations so when your site is ready for that more powerful hosting package, our team can easily move your site into that other website hosting solution.
• We can help you decide! Our 24/7/365 Guru Crew Support team is standing by if you have questions about which website hosting service you should choose. Just contact us via live chat, phone or email.
• Each hosting package is backed by our Anytime Money Back Guarantee! That means if you determine the hosting solution you originally chose doesn't fit your specific needs, we'll give you a full, hassle-free refund. The bottom line is we want to work with you to ensure you're satisfied with the hosting service!

With these features out of the way, here is a breakdown of our website hosting to help you decide which one you should ultimately choose.

• Shared Hosting - Our Shared Hosting is the perfect solution if you're starting a new site, have a lower traffic/growing site or have a small personal site or blog. Our Shared Hosting is extremely user-friendly thanks to the award-winning cPanel control panel. Whether this is your first website or you've hosted a hundred sites, you'll love cPanel. Use its intuitive graphical interface to manage your websites, files, domains, databases and more! Use our Shared Hosting to host Drupal, WordPress Joomla or any number of other software options!
  • Managed WordPress Hosting - While you absolutely can host WordPress on our Shared Hosting, our Managed WordPress Hosting service was designed from the ground up specifically to power your WordPress sites. You get pre-configured WordPress security and performance (20X faster Turbo Servers) right out of the box! Your account also comes loaded with features like a free personal Jetpack license, automated, daily WordPress backups, WordPress staging, WP-CLI and more!
• VPS Hosting - When you want more power than Shared Hosting, choose a virtual private server (VPS). Through the use of virtualization technology, your VPS resources are partitioned off from other users for enhanced speed and power. A VPS is a great solution if you run a medium-size blog or business site, have a popular blog or are looking to run more intensive software solutions. Our VPS comes in two flavors including:
  • When you choose our Managed VPS Hosting, you'll get the same ease of use found with our Shared Hosting plans. That's because it includes the cPanel control panel. You'll also get the advantage of comprehensive server management from our expert Guru Crew Support team!
  • Choose our Unmanaged VPS Hosting solution if you're an expert developer who wants full control over your server, root access and is comfortable working with the command line.
• Reseller Hosting - Are you looking to host your own customers or launch your own web hosting company? Consider this turn-key hosting solution. Each of your customers will get their own cPanel control panel. You'll get access to the WHM control panel giving you the ability to manage your customers, create hosting packages and more!
• Dedicated Server Hosting - This is the ultimate hosting solution! With Dedicated Server Hosting, all of the server resources are yours and yours alone. No other customer is hosted on your server. Dedicated Servers are perfect for your business sites, eCommerce sites, running a site that gets thousands of daily visitors or when you need to run the most intensive software.

It's obvious that A2 Hosting cares about your website's speed. That's why our goal is to offer the industry's fastest hosting service. After all, your site's speed has a direct impact on your bounce rate, visitor satisfaction, SEO rankings and most importantly your conversion rate. However, there are a number of other hosting website features we focus on to ensure you get the best service possible.

• Ultra-Reliable Service - At the end of the day when hosting websites, what you likely care about the most is whether you can depend on your hosting provider. If you can't depend on your host because of downtime and unreliable service, your audience can't purchase from you. That means they can't read your new blog post. They can't find your contact information to reach out to you. These are lost opportunities. Make sure to maximize your opportunities. Choose A2 Hosting!  We use the best hardware, software, processes and networks, built by expert engineers to offer your ultra-reliable hosting. That means you can depend on A2 Hosting with your site! We even back our website hosting with our 99.9% Uptime Commitment!
• Developer Friendly - Back in 2003, when we first began hosting websites, our focus was to offer support for the very best software. In fact, we were one of the very first website hosting options to offer PHP 5. That's really how we made a name for ourselves! While technology has changed over the years, our dedication to supporting the very best software has not. At A2 Hosting, you get support for the best versions of PHP, MySQL, MariaDB, Node.js, Apache and so much more!
• Guru Crew Support - Do you have any questions about our services? You'll get to experience first-hand the expert hosting website support from our 24/7/365 Guru Crew! We've hand-picked our team so you get access to the support team! Just contact them via live chat, phone or email with your questions. They'll be happy to help with your website hosting questions!