A2 Hosting vs Inmotion: Which Web Host Will Work Better for You?

Last Updated on May 2, 2023 by Ewen Finser

In this A2 Hosting vs. InMotion comparison review, we’ll be looking at two web hosts, to find out which one will help support your new business website and take your business to the next level.

You wouldn’t be looking at this review if you didn’t realize how important it is for your business to have a strong presence on the internet. There are a lot of different hosting providers out there on the market, all claiming to offer what you need. So how do you find the best host for your website?

The first answer comes down to reading reviews and comparisons like this one. So, what should you be looking for? The three key functions a web host provides is a domain, a server, and good storage space. You’ll also need them to provide you with support, with security, with scalability, and with speed.

In this article, we’ll be comparing A2 Hosting with InMotion to see how they measure up in these crucial elements.

The bottom line is this: We think that A2Hosting is the better web host, but it really is a photo finish. Both A2 Hosting and InMotion offer an excellent service across a range of packages, with incredible hardware, great performance and reasonable pricing. Read on to find out more about both platforms.

In this article we’ll be looking at the main differences between A2 Hosting and InMotion. We’ll examine key features of each, and then compare their pros and cons. We’ll have a look at their customer service and also what competitors there are in the market. We’ll finish up by explaining why we think A2 Hosting is the best.

Main Differences between A2 Hosting vs InMotion

The Main Differences Between A2 Hosting vs InMotion are:

• A2 Hosting is slightly cheaper on Shared and VPS packages, whereas InMotion is slightly cheaper on WordPress and Dedicated Server Hosting.
• A2Hosting offers an optional Turbo Server feature to boost speeds, whereas InMotion offers Max Speed Zone Technology.
• A2 Hosting gives an anytime money-back guarantee including return on unused time, whereas InMotion offers a full 90-day money-back guarantee period.

Similarities Between A2 Hosting and InMotion

There are a lot of similarities between these two email marketing platforms. Both have:

• Great options for pre-installation of WordPress
• cPanel hosting and functionality
• Very responsive and helpful customer support
• Free data backup
• Free SSL certificates
• High speed, responsive servers
• A choice of data center locations
• Impressive money-back guarantees

Now, let’s look at these two products in detail.

What is A2 Hosting?

A2 Hosting is a US company specializing in web hosting for WordPress sites. It began business all the way back in 2001, known initially as Iniquinet. Two decades of experience in web hosting means that A2 Hosting is well known for its great performance, super customer service, and cheap hosting.

Offering a range of packages from Shared Hosting, which is suitable for beginners, bloggers, and startups (those with relatively low traffic on their websites), through to VPS Hosting, specialized WordPress Hosting, and then Dedicated Server Hosting which is designed for higher traffic websites. In addition, A2 Hosting also offers reseller hosting which means that you can make money as a hosting provider yourself.

A2 Hosting is extremely flexible, allowing you to host a wide range of web-based applications and types of website, including Linux, Drupal, WordPress, Joomla and Magento.

What is InMotion?

InMotion is also a well-respected web hosting brand founded in 2001, with high performance, and offering superb reliability and award-winning technical support.

InMotion also offers the same range of packages from Shared Hosting through to Dedicated Server Hosting and also offers the option of Managed Hosting.

In Managed Hosting, you can have more powerful hosting options, but your host will take care of the technical aspects like software updates, security, and other maintenance tasks.

Features of A2 Hosting

An outline of the key features of A2 Hosting:

• Unlimited SSD (solid-state drive) space and transfer
• Anytime money-back satisfaction guarantees.
• 99.9% uptime commitment
• Round the clock support
• Free SSL certificate
• Free site migration and automatic backup.

Ease of use

Like many other web hosts, A2 Hosting comes with a straightforward cPanel-based management system. If you’re familiar with this system, you’ll be in a comfortable territory.

However, the cPanel is pretty intuitive and even if you’ve never set eyes on it before, you’ll soon have a grasp of the main functions.

You can easily log in to your cPanel from the A2 Hosting website:

A 1-click Softaculous installer automates the whole app installation process too and you can integrate with website builders such as WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. There are lots of manageable options to help you if you are new to web hosting.

Security

To protect your website A2 Hosting offers a Perpetual Security initiative which includes round-the-clock network monitoring, HackScan protection, and a free SSL certificate. KernelCare is also included in all packages – this is a software extension allowing the platform to update security every day without having to reboot the servers.

In addition, a dual firewall and several other security features are already in place with A2 Hosting. A wide range of articles to help you ensure the security of your website is included in the knowledge base.

Speed and Reliability

Following a customer survey, where A2 Hosting customers said that the things that mattered most to them were loading times, customer support, and reliability, A2 Hosting made some changes and were the first in the market to offer solid-state drives (SSD).

With SSD storage available across the range of packages, A2 Hosting offers quick response websites. They also use full-stack optimization to increase page loading speeds.

On their Shared Web Hosting package, the best performance is only available on the Turbo plan, where storage is boosted with the Turbo Servers and caching technologies are optimized. The A2 Site Accelerator should boost your site speeds by up to 20 times.

Migration to A2Hosting

A2 Hosting offers free site migration and aims to get your old site migrated across to A2 Hosting within 24-48 hours. A dedicated site migration portal allows you to provide all the necessary information, and they do the rest:

Features of InMotion

InMotion offers:

• Free SSL certificates for all plans
• Automatic backups
• Easy pre-installed WordPress with free premium WordPress themes and plugins
• Fast speeds with the ability to choose your data center and SSD drive storage and 90-day satisfaction guarantee
• Reseller hosting plan

Ease of use

Every InMotion package comes with a very simple control panel where you can manage your account and click to add in different options.

InMotion shared hosting packages offer very easy to use drag and drop builders and one-click installation of over 400 apps.

Security

A wide range of security options are available directly on the InMotion servers including automatic scanning for malware and a custom firewall.\ In addition, free SSL certificates are available to all users. All except the cheapest plans also offer automatic offsite backups.

A wide range of articles in the knowledge base and on the InMotion blog give advice on how to keep your website as secure as possible.

Speed and Reliability

On the shared hosting packages, load times and responsiveness are pretty good, even with multiple users logging on, though it starts to slow down a little when you pass 25 users.

UltraStack servers have really improved these shared hosting services.

Hosting is fast, secure, and reliable with 99.99% uptime on the network. You can choose your exclusive Max Speed Zones, allowing you to opt for the optimal data center for Business Hosting and VPS.

Migration to InMotion

There are a few different options available from manual copying and moving of files or a managed WordPress migration plugin which allows you to make the transfer from within your dashboard.

Free transfers are available to your account if you have fewer than three websites, but if you want to move more sites, there is a charge of $10 per site. This is very simple to do and can be done with no downtime at all.

A2 Hosting vs InMotion – Support

A2 Hosting has around the clock support team there to help you by raising a ticket, email support, live web chat or on the phone.

In the Managed WordPress hosting you get access to WordPress experts employed by A2Hosting. They will automatically patch and update your WordPress platform and plugins and you have access to turbo servers and automatic backups as well as WordPress caching and unlimited websites.

InMotion has a customer support base with a lot of options. You can get in touch with them by phone, live chat or by submitting a ticket.

In addition, they have a great knowledge base on their website and a wide range of video tutorials on their YouTube channel as well as an active user community where you can ask any question you need.

However, despite customer feedback that the customer service team is knowledgeable, and helpful, it also suggests that it isn’t always that easy to get in touch with them.

A2 Hosting vs. InMotion – Pros and Cons

A2 Hosting Pros

• Turbo servers offering up to 20x faster service.
• Great support team round the clock and based in the USA
• Free account migration
• Money-back customer service guarantee
• 99.9% uptime commitment
• SSD drives

A2 Hosting Cons

• Not the cheapest choice on the market – and turbo servers come only with the pricier plan.
• All the plan prices are set with an increase in renewal.

In Motion Pros

• Fast hosting – choose your data center and SSD drives for all
• Affordable price
• Free domain
• Private SSL certificate and daily backup
• 90-day money-back satisfaction guarantee
• 99.9% uptime guarantee
• Free transfer of up to 3 websites.

InMotion Cons

• There’s no monthly billing available on starter plans so you have to pay for one or two years in advance.
• All the plan prices are set with an increase in renewal.
• To prevent fraud, you have to verify your purchase by phone, which can be difficult if you aren’t in the US.

A2 Hosting vs InMotion – Pricing

There are four main packages available in both A2 Hosting and InMotion, and they offer several price tiers within each package. The packages are:

Shared Web Hosting

This is the cheapest type of package and means that you are sharing the server with other users. Best for smaller businesses, there are flexible features available that means this will work with a wide range of website types.

WordPress Hosting

This is like shared web hosting, but all the features are optimized for WordPress websites. There are extra tools to improve your security and performance.

VPS Hosting

VPS Hosting is an awesome proposal because it gives you the reasonable rates of shared servers, while offering the functionality of Dedicated Server Hosting. They do this by providing isolated resources within the server for each user.

Depending on the type of user you are, you can opt for Managed VPS hosting, with dedicated server environments along with managed installation and upgrade of core apps; Unmanaged VPS hosting, for experienced web developers who would prefer to upgrade and manage their own apps, with a choice of up to 15 operating systems; or the Core option, supplementing managed service with root access if desired.

Dedicated Server Hosting

Like VPS hosting, dedicated server hosting comes in different packages. Unmanaged gives you the most flexibility, allowing extensive administration controls. This really is best for experienced developers who will be working with a command-line interface. If you don’t have the skills for this then you would be much better with the Managed hosting.

A2 Hosting

Shared Web Hosting

• Lite – starting at $2.94 per month – comes with a free SSL certificate, 25 email accounts, 1 website and 5 subdomains, spam protection, and network monitoring.
• Swift – starting at $4.90 a month – all the above plus unlimited email accounts, free automatic backups, unlimited websites and databases.
• Turbo – starting at $9.31 per month for all the features above, plus Turbo servers, HTTP/2 support, Gzip compression, cache capabilities and A2 optimized Site Accelerator.

WordPress Hosting (Managed)

• Managed 1-site – starts at $11.99 per month
• Managed 3-site – allows you up to 3 WordPress websites and domains and 25GB RAID-10 storage.
• Managed Unlimited – starts at $36.98 per month and allows you unlimited WordPress sites, unlimited domain add-ons and 40GB RAID-10 storage.

VPS Hosting

• Power+ – starting at $25 per month for free site transfer, root access, free SSL, 4 CPU cores and 2 TB data transfer, 75 GB of storage and 4 GB RAM.
• Prestige+ – starting at $35 per month for all the above but 6 CPU cores, 3 TB data transfer, 100 GB storage and 6 GB RAM.
• Pinnacle – starts at $50 per month with all the above, but 8 CPU cores, 4 TB data transfer, 150 GM storage and 8 GB RAM

Dedicated Server Hosting (core servers)

• Sprint – starts at $141.09 per month for free site transfer, root access, free SSL, 2 CPU cores, from 10TB data transfer and from 2 500 GB storage instances and 8 GB RAM.
• Exceed – starts at $207.49 per month for all the above plus 4 CPU cores, from 15 TB data transfer, from 2 1TB storage instances and from 16 GB RAM.
• Mach – starts at $290.49 per month for all the above with 8+ CPU cores, from 20 TB data transfer, from 2 1 TB storage instances and from 16 GB RAM.

InMotion

Shared Web Hosting

• Launch – starting at $5.99 per month for free SSL certificate, 10 email accounts, up to 2 websites, security suite and 50GB SSD storage.
• Power – starting at $8.99 per month for free SSL certificate, 50 email accounts, up to 50 websites, 100 GB SSD storage and security suite.
• Pro – starting at $14.99 per month for free SSL certificate, unlimited email accounts, up to 100 websites, 200 GB SSD storage, security suite and ProSupport SLA

WordPress Hosting (Managed)

• WP-1000S – starts at $6.99 per month for 1 website, suitable for 20,000 monthly visitors with 40 GB SSD storage.
• WP-2000S – starts at $9.99 per month for up to 2 websites, suitable for up to 50,000 monthly visitors with 80 GB SSD storage.
• WP-3000S – starts at $12.99 per month – free domain, 3 websites, suitable for 125,000 monthly visitors with 120 GB SSD storage.

Larger packages are available on request.

VPS Hosting

• VPS-1000HA-S – starting at $29.99 per month for cPanel and WHM, free SSL, 3 dedicated IPs and 2 TB bandwidth, 75 GB of storage and 4 GB RAM.
• VPS-2000HA-S – starting at $49.99 per month for cPanel and WHM, free SSL, 4 dedicated IPs and 5 TB bandwidth, 150 GB of storage and 6 GB RAM.
• VPS-3000HA-S – starting at $83.99 per month for cPanel and WHM, free SSL, 5 dedicated IPs and 6 TB bandwidth, 260 GB of storage and 8 GB RAM.

Dedicated Server Hosting (core servers)

• Essential – starts at $139.99 per month for 5 dedicated IPs, automated backup services, 4 CPU cores, from 6 TB data transfer and from 1 TB SSD and 16 GB RAM.
• Advanced – starts at $189.99 per month for 10 dedicated IPs, automated backup services, 4 CPU cores, from 10 TB data transfer and from 1 TB SSD and 32 GB RAM.
• Elite – starts at $259.99 per month for 15 dedicated IPs, automated backup services, 6 CPU cores, from 12 TB data transfer and from 1 TB SSD Primary and 2 x 1TB SSD secondary and 64 GB RAM.

It is worth noting that all these are starting prices based on payment for 2 years up front and with an increase on renewal.

Are there any alternatives to A2 Hosting or InMotion?

Alongside these two excellent web hosting platforms, there are plenty of others to choose from. Here are three more to think about:

Bluehost

Owned by the same company that owns HostGator (below), Bluehost is another WordPress recommended and partnered webhost. They offer a wide range of plans and good customer service at a reasonable price.

There are some key reasons why people choose to use Bluehost. One is that they come highly recommended and have served millions of customers. Another is that they are so flexible, allowing you to upscale your business and your website, adding resources and making the most of their open source technology.

Explore our Bluehost vs Squarespace comparison.

Squarespace

The difference between Squarespace and the other web hosts mentioned here is that where they are web hosts that include access to website builders, Squarespace is a website builder that also includes hosting. That might sound like semantics, but it makes a difference.

The key differences are scalability and ease of use. To begin with, Squarespace is intuitive and easy to use, but it does have some design limitations, whereas Bluehost allows you to use any website builder (most use WordPress) to design and customize your website the way you want it.

Squarespace is a more expensive option, but if you want a particular look to your website and you’re happy with the way Squarespace does it, then it is a great option for a sleek and modern website. Check out our Bluehost vs Squarespace comparison.

Hostgator

Set up in 2002 and rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau, HostGator is at the less expensive end of the web hosting spectrum, but it still boasts a great server uptime guarantee of 99.9%. Hostgator is also linked with the Weebly website builder, offering a free and easy way to create your website.

In fact, despite being at the lower price point, Hostgator is flexible, has excellent customer support and is pretty reliable. They are popular enough that they host more than 8 million sites worldwide. Not a bad option at all if you are on a budget.

Check out our A2 Hosting vs HostGator comparison.

FAQs About A2 Hosting vs InMotion

Our Verdict: A2 Hosting vs InMotion

There’s not much between A2 Hosting and InMotion. Both offer great value on their various packaging, both offer great service, and free SSL certificates. Getting started on InMotion is a little easier, and they are slightly cheaper in some of their packages.

However, the slightly better customer service and security options and the anytime money-back guarantee on A2 Hosting demonstrates their confidence in their product and allows them to just pip InMotion at the finishing post.

These really are both outstanding web hosts, their incredible speed, security and reliability and supportive customer service make them both very well worth investment.