After 3 years of testing, let’s compare Web Hosting Hub vs A2 Hosting and find out how they’ve performed so far…
Web Hosting Hub vs A2 Hosting – 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
- 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).
- Web Hosting Hub’s speed was inconsistent across 2016 & 2017, with ranking swings from 4th to 7th then back to 4th again to finish off 2017. Unfortunately, their speed has fallen right away in 2018, so much so that they have received the unwanted title of slowest host in H1 2018 and 2nd slowest in H2 2018.
- 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.
- Hub is currently sitting in 7th place, with A2 in 9th in our Speed Rankings.
H2 2018 Results
H1 2018 Results
H2 2017 Results
H1 2017 Results
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).
- Web Hosting Hub have been erratic when it comes to Uptime. Their performance has typically landed them in the bottom half of our hosts across all 3 years of testing.
- 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.
- Hub is currently ranked 6th, while A2 is 10th in our Uptime Rankings.
View the Weekly Uptime Tests
Web Hosting Hub vs A2 Hosting – Overall Test Results
The Overall Ranking accumulates the results from the speed & uptime tests to determine the #1 Host.
- The performance of Web Hosting Hub across 2016 & 2017 would be best summarized as promising but inconsistent. Unfortunately their 2018 results have been a noticeable step backward in both speed and uptime. This has led to Hub dropping further in our rankings.
- 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.
- Hub is currently 7th and A2 is in 10th in our Overall Rankings.