TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    A2 Hosting

    Score10 out of 10
    N/AA2 Hosting in Ann Arbor provides business website hosting, featuring free site migration, unlimited SSD, isolated dedicated servers, and related features.N/A

    WP Engine

    Score7.4 out of 10
    N/AWP Engine is a website hosting service built to host WordPress for companies of any size, with features such as daily backups, firewall,SSL, and proprietary caching technology.

    $35

    per month

    Pricing
    A2 HostingWP Engine
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Startup
    $35
    per month
    Core
    $400
    per month (annual contract)
    Enterprise
    Custom
    *Per Month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    A2 HostingWP Engine
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—Discount available for annual billing on the Startup plan.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    A2 HostingWP Engine
    Considered Both Products
    A2 Hosting
    No answer on this topic
    WP Engine
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    89%
    Would buy again
    17 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    84%
    Delivers good value for the price
    16 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    84%
    Happy with the feature set
    16 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    83%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    15 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    89%
    Implementation went as expected
    17 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    A2 HostingWP Engine
    Small Businesses
    AccuWebHosting.Com
    Score9.9 out of 10
    Flywheel
    Score4.7 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    Rackspace Managed Hosting
    Score9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    AccuWebHosting.Com
    Score9.9 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    A2 HostingWP Engine
    Likelihood to Recommend
    1.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.5
    (31 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    3.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    Availability
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    1.0
    (2 ratings)
    7.7
    (6 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    A2 HostingWP Engine
    Likelihood to Recommend
    A2 Hosting
    Never would I recommend this company to anyone. [In my experience] they are total nightmares to deal with and depend on. You can't depend on them at all. Plus, [I feel that] they lie and manipulate the search queries based on lies (they do NOT have radio hosting yet they have ads saying that they do).
    Read full review
    WP Engine
    I am an enterprise user of WordPress and host over 7000 sites with WPEngine. Areas that I think they are well suited for include customers that need enterprise-level support and uptime and have more complex needs than a simple blog. They also manage scale well with a variety of isolated install options that you can scale up or down depending on your contract needs. They also provide premier support for enterprises and have highly knowledgable Technical Account Managers that provide a significant value add. If I were to look at where it isn't as appropriate for usage I would focus on the low-end needs and say while they do support small sites, there are options out there for cheaper hosting that lack the support a WPEngine gives you.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    A2 Hosting
    • the hosting hardware they provide is decent when you consider the price
    Read full review
    WP Engine
    • I love the database backups and how quickly & easy it is to restore from an old backup point. This gives me & my clients confidence that any change can be rolled back.
    • The built in caching & CDN mean that I have to spend less time worrying about the speed of the server & site. The caching has some side-effects that take getting used to (on-page dynamic PHP code sometimes needs to be moved to API endpoints), but this is true for most caching systems.
    • They have really good support for multiple environments. It's very easy to have separate production & staging environments. It's also very simple to deploy from staging to production, making product launches and large scale website copy changes much easier to coordinate.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    A2 Hosting
    • [In my experience] customer service is awful.
    • [From what I've seen] they don't care about clients.
    • [In my situation their] first reaction is always to blame it on the unmanaged factor.
    Read full review
    WP Engine
    • I'd like to see WP Engine offer their own monitoring solution. When I say monitoring, I mean specific use cases that may end up being something you could script. This would keep customers from having to pay for additional services like Pingdom, New Relic, etc.
    • I would like to see some proactive analysis done by WP Engine on their customer sites - at least on their home pages, and offer up suggestions. This kind of goes along with the other example.
    • Finally, it would be nice to see a "lighter" offering, perhaps a plan that costs $49 for those who want to host only a few sites, or even 1 site.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    A2 Hosting
    Never would I use this service. I canceled 7 accounts I believe so far. [In my opinion] it's a waste.
    Read full review
    WP Engine
    I was in a situation where I had to bolt Wordpress on to an existing infrastructure that could not support it. If I ever end up in that situation again, please kill me. Other than that reasonably common use case, I don't think it offers a lot of value over robust shared hosting, virtual private server (VPS) or dedicated servers.
    Read full review
    Usability
    A2 Hosting
    [In my opinion] it barely works.
    Read full review
    WP Engine
    From the onboarding and in the days afterward, it was very easy to get into the platform and begin creating important websites and configuring user options. The interface is easy to navigate, and the platform pages load quickly. Since the platform is built for Word plus press, it has features including backup, staging, maintenance mode, and direct WP-Admin login to make configuration and site management faster. We have never had any issues on the billing side of the account.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    A2 Hosting
    they are only technically available but having someone say hello, i'm here to help, immediately is not real responsive if they actually never address the issue being reported. we don't contact support for the bland greeting, we are actually trying to solve a business process interruption
    Read full review
    WP Engine
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    A2 Hosting
    They are only good if you never update your website and i mean never. Otherwise their main performance diffrentiator is turbo web hosting, their highest shared hosting plan. When caching is working it performs well reducing load times by half, but as soon as you add a new page to the site, the updates don't show up until you clear the cache manually from multiple locations (wordpress a2optimized plugin, cpanel etc..). As they make updates to the turbo hosting A2optimized plugin, they do not test them properly and do not handle customer feedback about them, instead they are in denial and try to immediately convince the customer there is no issue at all! the old developer joke when they don't want to fix feedback: it works on my machine!
    Read full review
    WP Engine
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    A2 Hosting
    In my opinion they are unresponsive, rude, incompetent, and untrustworthy to boot.
    Read full review
    WP Engine
    Support is generally great. Enterprise support is fantastic, with little to no wait times. I find that chat support can almost always take care of the problem without escalating to a ticket for a higher level of troubleshooting. The chat support for many other hosting providers can only handle basic issues. This is a big bonus for us to get quick and helpful answers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    A2 Hosting
    [In my experience] it was a mess from the start and created problems ever since day one.
    Read full review
    WP Engine
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    A2 Hosting
    No answers on this topic
    WP Engine
    While we still use GoDaddy for some services, WP Engine definitely has been a major upgrade for our WordPress hosting. In addition to faster load speeds, WP Engine has been more adept at allowing us to manage a high number of websites without straining the system. We have never used Network Solutions for our own hosting needs, but when we do interact with them on behalf of our clients, their systems always seem to be clunky and hard to use, and they often overcharge customers by selling them products they do not need.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    A2 Hosting
    I believe they do not care about addressing failures when they occur. Starting out with a working service counts for nothing if you can't maintain it, fix issues when reported, and actually take the extra step to prevent them from happening again. You have to care about quality and customer service, and A2 couldn't care less
    Read full review
    WP Engine
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    A2 Hosting
    • [In my experience] they have upheaved my entire business many times by not having working servers.
    • [I feel like] they have inconvenienced us many hours with tech calls over stupid things.
    • [In my opinion] they have wasted so much time and man hours.
    Read full review
    WP Engine
    • WP Engine reduces our time investment and upkeep costs which increases our margins.
    • WP Engine simplifies site management with a built-in development server, which saves us headaches.
    • WP Engine itself is positioned as a premium service, which allows us to use their branding as a tool to close sales.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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