When you start a website, you will need a reliable host. Fortunately, there are tons of reliable hosts out there, and in this article, we’ll take a look at two of them—DreamHost and A2 Hosting. Both A2 Hosting and DreamHost are independently owned hosting companies, and they’ve been around for a long time. DreamHost was founded back in 1997, while A2 Hosting got in the business a little later, in 2001.
Which one of these hosts is better for you? Should you go with DreamHost or A2 Hosting? Read on to find out.
DreamHost vs A2 Hosting Comparison Chart
| Host | DreamHost | A2 Hosting |
| Â |  |  |
| Price | Check Price at DreamHost.com | Check Price at A2Hosting.com |
| Sites | Starter: 1 site Unlimited: Unlimited | Startup: 1 site Drive: Unlimited Turbo Boost: Unlimited Turbo Max: Unlimited |
| Storage | Starter: 50GB Unlimited: Unlimited | Startup: 100GB Drive: Unlimited Turbo Boost: Unlimited Turbo Max: Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Free Domain | Yes | No |
| Free SSL Certificate | Yes | Yes |
| Site Migration | Free (via plugin) | Free |
| Site Builder | Yes | Yes |
| Email Accounts | Starter: additional $1.67/month Unlimited: Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Customer Support | 24/7 Tickets Live Chat Phone Support Callback | 24/7 Tickets, chat and phone |
| Money Back | 97 days full money back guarantee | Anytime money back 30 days – full refund Prorated refund after 30 days |
Performance
Both hosts perform very well when it comes to speed and uptime.
DreamHost has a 100% uptime guarantee and with this guarantee, you are entitled to a refund of one day’s worth of hosting for every hour that your website is down. A2 Hosting, on the other hand, has a 99.9% uptime guarantee and their policy states that for every hour that your site is down, you will get a refund that is equivalent to 5% of your monthly fee.
While both hosts have good guarantees, you still want a host that has minimal downtime. That said, both hosts perform very well when it comes to uptime. Both DreamHost and A2 Hosting were able to maintain an average uptime of 99.95%. This is around industry averages, so they are performing within the acceptable standard.
Another factor to consider when choosing a host is speed. Speed refers to how fast your webpages load for visitors. Needless to say, you want a host that can give you fast load times.
Page load times for DreamHost is around 500-600ms, while the average for A2 Hosting is 750-850ms. Both are good, as they can load pages in under a second. However, DreamHost is a little faster, so that should be a consideration.
Features
A2 Hosting offers more features.
Aside from the standard features like free SSL certificates, free domain, SSD storage and more, hosts come with exclusive features that separate them from the competition. In this section, we’ll take a look at some of these exclusive features, so that you can determine which host offers the features that you will need. Let’s start with DreamHost.
DreamHost
- 97 Days Money Back Guarantee – With DreamHost, you can request a full refund as long as you are within the 97 day limit. This is an industry leading money back guarantee.
- Custom Control Panel – DreamHost’s custom control panel is very easy to navigate and it won’t take you a while to get used to it. Many prefer it over standard control panels like cPanel and Plesk.
- Remixer Site Builder – DreamHost’s Remixer site builder is easy to use, and it will definitely help out users that don’t have any experience when it comes to web design.
- Free Domain – Domain names are cheap, but getting one for free is always nice, even though it’s only for 1 year.
A2 Hosting
- Free Site Migration – Moving an existing site can be stressful, especially if it is your first time. With A2 Hosting, you’ll be able to move your site for free, and they will do it for you.
- Turbo Servers – The Turbo Servers are only available on higher priced plans. These servers will improve the performance of your site as they are equipped with the latest and fastest AMD Epyc CPUs and NVME drives for storage.
- Perpetual Security – Basic and advanced security features like firewalls, brute force defense, DDoS protection and more, are provided to you by A2 Hosting with their Perpetual Security.
- A2 Site Builder – Just like DreamHost, A2 Hosting has their own site builder that’s easy to use.
Both hosts have their own set of exclusive features, you just need to choose which one offers the better deal for you. We think that A2 Hosting’s features trump DreamHost’s offerings.
Ease of Use
A2 Hosting uses cPanel, while DreamHost has their own proprietary control panel.
DreamHost uses a proprietary control panel instead of the industry standard cPanel. This custom control panel is easy to use and navigate, and it is not as cluttered as cPanel. If you are used to using cPanel, it might take a while to get used to their control panel.
As for A2 Hosting, they still use cPanel as their control panel. If you are a seasoned cPanel user, you will be at home with A2 Hosting.
Both hosts have their own site builders that make it easy for beginners and veterans to make websites. With these site builders, you can change themes on demand, customize images, add Youtube videos and more. Both are intuitive and easy to use.
Plans
A2 Hosting offers four shared plans, while DreamHost has two.
Both DreamHost and A2 Hosting offer several hosting packages such as VPS hosting, dedicated servers, cloud hosting, shared hosting and more. When it comes to pricing, they are not too far off from each other—both offer affordable hosting plans. In this comparison, we’ll take a look at their shared hosting plans.
DreamHost offers two shared plans—Shared Starter and Shared Unlimited. The Shared Starter plan is the basic plan that is limited to only 1 website, and it doesn’t come with a free email. With the Shared Unlimited plan, you can have as many sites as you like and you also get unlimited emails.
A2 Hosting has four shared plans—Startup, Drive, Turbo Boost and Turbo Max. The Startup plan is limited to 1 website and 100GB of storage while the rest has unlimited storage and sites. The Turbo Boost and Turbo Max come with A2’s Turbo Servers and more features, so these two are the better plans.
Verdict
A2 Hosting provides better value, especially with their higher priced plans.
You won’t go wrong with either DreamHost or A2 Hosting, however, if you have the budget, you should definitely choose A2 Hosting’s higher priced plans. Their Turbo Servers can greatly improve your site’s performance, and they come with more features such as Perpetual Security, free migration and more.
If you are on a budget, you should definitely consider DreamHost’s Shared Unlimited plan. It comes with a 97-day money back guarantee, a free domain and it is cheaper than A2 Hosting’s shared Drive plan.
FAQs
Yes, DreamHost is a good host. They have affordable prices and their performance when it comes to speed and uptime are very good.
No, DreamHost is independently owned, just like A2 Hosting.
While both are very good hosts, A2 Hosting has the advantage because they offer more performance features such as their Turbo Servers, NVME storage and more. A2 Hosting’s Perpetual Security is also a nice addition to their hosting packages.
Yes, they are one of the best and most popular hosts, especially for people looking for shared hosting.
