A2 Hosting vs Bluehost Hosting Comparison

After 3 years of testing, let’s compare A2 Hosting vs Bluehost and find out how they’ve performed so far…

A2 Hosting vs Bluehost – Testing Method

  • Prior to testing, I have setup identical content on all 8 Live Test Sites
  • Each week over 80,000 speed & uptime tests are run using independent tools, GTmetrix & Pingdom
GTmetrix Logo 50Pingdom Logo 50
  • Test results below are from 04 Apr 2016 to 22 Dec 2018

Test #1: Speed

The GTmetrix Speed Test checks how long it takes for a website to fully load using a desktop internet browser. This test is then repeated every hour throughout the week (1,340 times).

  • A2 Hosting’s Speed was impressive in 2016, and they typically found themselves in the top 2 of our 8 hosts. Unfortunately, their extremely poor uptime performance led to their removal on 28th Jan 2017. Read below for more details.
  • Bluehost’s average speed was poor across 2016 & 2017, consistently finishing in the bottom 2 hosts. However, in 2018, there has been a massive turnaround, as they have been our 4th fastest host in both H1 & H2 2018.
  • Bluehost is currently 4th, while A2 is 9th in our Speed Rankings.
A2 Hosting vs Bluehost Speed Test Results - Apr 2016 to Dec 2018

H2 2018 Results

A2 Hosting vs Bluehost Speed Test Chart - Jul 2018 to Dec 2018
A2 Hosting vs Bluehost Speed Test Results - Jul 2018 to Dec 2018

H1 2018 Results

A2 Hosting vs Bluehost Speed Test Chart - Jan 2018 to Jul 2018
A2 Hosting vs Bluehost Speed Test Results - Jan 2018 to Jul 2018

H2 2017 Results

A2 Hosting vs Bluehost Speed Test Chart - Aug 2017 to Dec 2017
A2 Hosting vs Bluehost Speed Test Results - Aug 2017 to Dec 2017

H1 2017 Results

A2 Hosting vs Bluehost Speed Test Chart - Jan 2017 to Aug 2017
A2 Hosting vs Bluehost Speed Test Results - Jan 2017 to Aug 2017

2016 Results

A2 Hosting vs Bluehost Speed Test Chart - Apr 2016 to Dec 2016
A2 Hosting vs Bluehost Speed Test Results - Apr 2016 to Dec 2016

Test #2: Uptime

The Pingdom Uptime Test confirms that the website is actually accessible to visitors. This test is then repeated every minute throughout the week (80,640 times).

  • A2 Hosting performed extremely poorly when it came to Uptime. This was especially evident in Q4 2016, where downtime was a whopping 575 minutes, which is almost 10 hours. This continued into 2017, with a further 939 minutes downtime in just 3 weeks. This unbelievably bad performance resulted in A2 Hosting being replaced by Namecheap for future testing.
  • Bluehost performed poorly when it came to Uptime across 2016 & 2017. But once again 2018 is a different story, recording just 6 minutes of downtime in H1 2018 and 8 minutes in H2 2018. It is a remarkable result when you consider the past performance, but amazingly Bluehost is the best performing host for uptime in 2018.
  • Bluehost is currently 4th and A2 is 10th in our Uptime Rankings.
A2 Hosting vs Bluehost Uptime Test Results - Apr 2016 to Dec 2018

A2 Hosting vs Bluehost – Overall Test Results

The Overall Ranking accumulates the results from the speed & uptime tests to determine the #1 Host.

  • Even though A2 Hosting were able to perform impressively when it came to loading times in 2016, their weakness was always poor uptime. This became a serious problem in Q4 2016 and continued into 2017. Unfortunately, this led to A2 being unable to compete with our other hosts, and ultimately requiring them to be replaced.
  • Bluehost was consistently the slowest of our active hosts across 2016 & 2017. Combined with a less than stellar uptime resulted in it being 8th Overall at the end of 2017. But the big news of 2018 is the miraculous turnaround of Bluehost’s speed and especially it’s uptime performance. This has led to a massive jump in the overall rankings.
  • Bluehost is currently 4th and A2 is 10th in our Overall Rankings.
A2 Hosting vs Bluehost Overall Test Results - Apr 2016 to Dec 2018

How do A2 Hosting & Bluehost compare to our 8 other Hosts?