GreenGeeks Hosting
Pros
- Free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate
- Affordable price
- Multiple data centers
- Free domain name and website migration
- Environmentally friendly
- Ability to contact support via chat
- HTTP/2, PHP7, SSD
Cons
- Refund policy is not no questions asked
- Pricing plans are somewhat misleading
- Only one free backup restoration per month
GreenGeeks web hosting service is one of the best green web hosting providers available to users. That is why in this post, I will take a more in-depth look at the GreenGeeks pros and cons.
As hosting provider, they are one of the leading web hosts which consumers can look to for their website needs and online visibility profile. By using GreenGeeks as your web host, you can host multiple domains and any website you see fit.
Additionally, they have excellent and prompt customer support for their customers. GreenGeeks has a lot of good things going for them. Including great download speeds, uptime, good security, and top-notch performance.
Table of Contents
GreenGeeks Pros
Here are some of the advantages of using GreenGeeks as your hosting provider.
Security & Uptime
Security is the main concern for many website owners. They want a host that can provide them with the security measures needed to avoid data being stolen, websites being hacked, personal information being stolen, etc.
Internet users also want assurance that their website will be up and running at all times. GreenGeeks excels at these measures, and their service includes:
- Hardware & power redundancy
- Container-based technology
- Hosting account isolation
- Proactive server monitoring
- Real-time security scanning
- Automatic app updates
- Enhanced SPAM protection
- Nightly data backup
Their container-based approach means your resources are contained so that no other website owner can negatively impact yours with a spike in traffic, increased demand for resources, or security breach.
Also, CMS (content management systems) such as WordPress or Joomla are updated frequently and automatically to decrease the likelihood of security threats due to your site being vulnerable. Every GreenGeeks customer receives nightly backups of their websites.
Each customer also receives a vFS (Secured Visualization File System) with their hosting account. This system helps fight against malware and virus threats to your website. That way no other account can access yours and cause security issues.
If something is found, it is immediately isolated from damaging your site any further. GreenGeeks updated spam protection service is available for you to use to reduce or eliminate any spam to your website.
Servers are monitored continuously so all problems are identified before they affect customers and their websites. This helps maintain 99.9% uptime.
Good Load Time
Slow loading websites lead to lost viewers. Internet users are impatient, and they do not want to sit and wait for a page to load on their computers.
If a website takes more than a few seconds to load, then potential traffic to your site moves on. There are many things you can do on your website to optimize its performance. Having your web host to help you outputs your mind at ease.
GreenGeeks knows how vital load times are to you and your customers, and they employ all of the latest and updated technology to make sure your website loads rapidly.
This technology includes:
- SSD Hard Drives which are much faster than typical HHDs;
- Servers that load all of your information and website over 50 times faster;
- GreenGeeks uses a built-in caching technology for their customer’s sites, that is custom made;
- They offer integration with free CloudFlare CDN service which caches your content and data, then delivers it faster to users on your website;
- For faster page loading in-browser, HTTP/2 is used, which improves client-server communication;
- They employ PHP 7 support for their customers so users can take advantage of the latest technology.
Remember, websites loading speed is essential for better user experience.
Excellent Support
They provide help via chat, but you can also find answers to most of your questions by typing in words or a phrase into their search window. On the GreenGeeks website, you will find an extensive database with answers to the questions you are seeking.
Their support team is available 24/7, but they also offer other ways for customers to get the answers they need by visiting their blog full of helpful articles. The different categories they offer articles in are billing, sales, hosting, reseller hosting, VPN hosting questions, video tutorials, etc.
Free Domain Name & Website Migration
GreenGeeks offers customers a free domain name as well as easy website transfers/migrations from the different host provider. You can get your domain name through GreenGeeks, and it will remain free for as long as you are a user of their services.
If you already have your domain name, they can help you transfer it to their server free of charge.
Environment Friendly
GreenGeeks is one of the few web hosts available that are environmentally friendly. GreenGeeks is a recognized Green Power Partner with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
That means their hosting hardware is energy efficient. Their data centers that house the servers were explicitly made to be eco-friendly.
To make up for the amount of energy that their data centers use for the servers, GreenGeeks purchases what is called ‘energy credits’ three times the amount of energy that they use at the data centers.
Thanks to their eco-friendly customers, they replace at least 615,000 kWh of energy annually to the environment. Website owners are given green certification badges to display on their website to help bring more awareness in protecting the environment.
Their entire framework is powered with 300% renewable and clean energy in mind. Making them one of the top green web hosting providers.
Backups
GreenGeeks offers free website backups to their customers as well as SSH user access. GreenGeeks performs daily disaster recovery backups of their hosting platform. The backups are retained for 24 hours and then replaced with the most recent backup.
They don’t backup VPS and Dedicated Servers. The purpose of backups is to protect against data loss due to hardware or software failure.
Customers do not have access to the backups. If you need to recover files, they offer one free restoration per month, per account. Additional restores are available at $25 per restore.
Multiple Datacenter Locations
They have four data centers located around the world for you to choose from based in Chicago and Phoenix in the United States, Toronto in Canada, and Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
By choosing a server closer to your location, you will have faster speeds, and location can have an impact on your website SEO.
GreenGeeks promise to their customers is that they will keep all data centers and servers up to date on all of the following specifications:
- Gigabit connectivity.
- They will never oversell.
- Energy efficient Intel Xeon processors.
- Registered memory will have a minimum of 64 GB DDR3 ECC.
- No desktop hardware whatsoever.
- BGP4 Gigabit connectivity to several Fiber GigE Tier 1 Backbones.
- SSD acceleration.
- Raid 10 SSD storage arrays giving your website maximum performance.
e-Commerce Capabilities
No matter which hosting package you decide to purchase, they all come with e-commerce capabilities for your website. This means that you can open an online store to sell your products and services. When you sign up for your website with GreenGeeks, you will receive free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate.
The certificate will ensure that when your customers visit your website, their information will remain confidential, including any financial information they enter when making a purchase.
Wildcard SSL certificates are the best ones you can get. Plus, they can be used for any subdomains you have under your main domain.
For websites that need shopping carts, they can be installed easily with one-click software included on the site. GreenGeeks websites are also PCI compliant, which helps secure your site even more.
Cons of GreenGeeks
As with any business, there are pros and cons. Be sure to make a note of the following drawbacks before you make your final decision on using their web hosting services.
Industry Standard Price Manipulation
GreenGeeks follows the tried-and-true industry standard practice of advertising a super low monthly rate of $2.95 on their website for shared hosting plans, only for you to find out that you have to sign up for three years in advance to get it.
However, you are allowed to sign up for just one year, or two. But in case of signing for one year, the price will increase to $4.95 a month. Should you decide that you want to pay monthly until you make your decision to use them or not, your monthly amount increases to $9.95 a month.
Another thing to keep in mind is that if you sign up for monthly service, the setup fee is $15.00. New customers are the only ones who qualify for prices of $2.95, $3.95, and $4.95, which are introductory prices.
Once you’ve built your website and it’s time to renew it after your first term, the price will increase to $9.95 a month. The introductory offers will only last until your first term is up.
While this practice is common in today’s web hosting market, it’s important to alert users upfront. A lot of customers don’t realize they are going to pay higher prices.
No matter what hosting service you choose to go with, be sure to read and understand all of the terms of service included in your purchase. In other words, you must read the fine print.
Questionable Refund Policy
GreenGeeks offers a 30-day money back guarantee to customers that are not happy or satisfied with the service, no questions asked.
Not included in the refund policy is the setup fee, domain name fee, or transfer fees whether or not you paid for them when you set up service. These are unfortunate fees that not everyone is prepared for.
Though deducting domain name fees may seem reasonable (since you get to keep the domain name when you leave), it doesn’t seem fair to charge people the setup and transfer fees if they were ultimately unhappy with the services being provided. Especially if GreenGeeks is going to offer a money back guarantee with no questions asked.
GreenGeeks Hosting & Pricing Plans
GreenGeeks has now not only revamped their Shared Hosting platform, but they have also expanded their hosting lineup.
Previously, they offered one all-inclusive hosting plan. Now, they have joined most other web hosts in having three different levels of Shared Web Hosting plans. There are pros and cons to the new structure. On the plus side, you can now get their hosting for only $2.95 mo.
And, your hosting plan still allows you to host multiple websites. But it will be missing some of the features that the pro and premium plans include.
Most website owners can make do with the starter level shared hosting package because as you can upgrade anytime. For most new and personal website owners, the Starter entry-level plan is more than sufficient.
WordPress Hosting: Their WordPress hosting is basically the same as their shared hosting plan, but it seems to be especially enhanced for WordPress.
- Free domain? Yes.
- Ease of Signup: Easy signup process.
- Payment Methods: Credit Card, PayPal.
- Hidden Fees and Clauses: You are not allowed to use more than 100% of a single CPU or 1GB of memory. If you use 75,000 files or 20 concurrent connections or you risk your account being terminated. Another aspect to keep in mind is that if you do not pay your invoice within four days of its due date, your account could be suspended and you’ll also need to pay a reconnection fee of $15.
- Upsells: No upsells.
- Account Activation: Quick account activation.
- Control Panel: cPanel (check differences between vDeck vs cPanel).
- Installation of Apps: 1-click install tool to easily install popular apps and CMSs.
GreenGeeks Comparison With Other Hosting Providers
- NAME
- SSD INCLUDEDSolid state drives provides increased performance and reliability over mechanical hard drives.
- FREE DOMAIN
- DISK SPACE
- BANDWIDTH
- EMAIL SPAM FILTERING
- SUPPORT
- FREE WEBSITE TRANSFERDoes hosting company provide free site migration from another hosting provider
- FREE BACKUPS
- MONEY BACK GURANTEE
- ADVERTISING CREDITS
- FREE WEBSITE BUILDER
- WEBSITES SUPPORTEDHow many websites can you have
- PHP 7 SUPPORTED
- SSH ACCESS
- PARKED DOMAINS
- SUB DOMAINS
- FTP ACCOUNTS
- MALWARE PROTECTION
- FREE SSL
- LETS ENCRYPT INTEGRATION
- CLOUDFLARE INTEGRATION
- CPANEL
- HTTP/2 ENABLED SERVERS
- PRICE
- INMOTION SHARED WORDPRESS HOSTING LAUNCH PLANLaunch plan
- If you already have a domain, you will geta credit that can be used to transfer your existing domain from another registrar.
- UNLIMITEDCertain restrictions apply
- UNLIMITEDCertain restrictions apply
- PHONE,TICKET,LIVE CHAT
- Applies to accounts consisting of 3 or fewer databases and/or websites. Accounts wishing to transfer more than 3 items will be charged $10 per additional item to be transferred.
- 90 DAYS
- $100 of Google Adwords credits, $75 of Bing advertising credits and $75 of Yahoo advertising credits and a free Yellow Pages business listing
- 2
- 6
- 25
- You will need to install it manually
- $4.89/MONTH
- BLUEHOST SHARED HOSTING BASIC PLANBasic plan
- 50
- UNLIMITED
- PHONE,TICKET,LIVE CHAT
- They charge $149.99
- 30 DAYS
- 1
- 5
- 25
- You will need to install it manually from 3rd party
- You will need to install it manually
- $3.95/MONTH
- SITEGROUND WORDPRESS SHARED HOSTING STARTUP PLANStartup plan
- 10
- UNLIMITED
- PHONE,TICKET,LIVE CHAT
- For 1 website
- 1 copy
- 30 DAYS
- 1
- UNLIMITED
- UNLIMITED
- $4.65/MONTH
- NAMECHEAP SHARED HOSTING VALUE PLANValue plan
- Free .website domain and free WhoisGuard
- 20
- UNLIMITED
- TICKET,LIVE CHAT
- Twice a week
- 14 DAYS
- 3
- UNLIMITED
- 50
- 50 users
- You can manually add Lets Encrypt free certificate
- You need to manually add
- Not out of the box
- $0.82/MONTH
- NAME
- SSD INCLUDEDSolid state drives provides increased performance and reliability over mechanical hard drives.
- FREE DOMAIN
- DISK SPACE
- BANDWIDTH
- EMAIL SPAM FILTERING
- SUPPORT
- FREE WEBSITE TRANSFERDoes hosting company provide free site migration from another hosting provider
- FREE BACKUPS
- MONEY BACK GURANTEE
- ADVERTISING CREDITS
- FREE WEBSITE BUILDER
- WEBSITES SUPPORTEDHow many websites can you have
- PHP 7 SUPPORTED
- SSH ACCESS
- PARKED DOMAINS
- SUB DOMAINS
- FTP ACCOUNTS
- MALWARE PROTECTION
- FREE SSL
- LETS ENCRYPT INTEGRATION
- CLOUDFLARE INTEGRATION
- CPANEL
- HTTP/2 ENABLED SERVERS
- PRICE
- GREENGEEKS MANAGED WORDPRESS HOSTING
- If you already have a domain, you will geta credit that can be used to transfer your existing domain from another registrar.
- UNLIMITEDCertain restrictions apply
- UNLIMITEDCertain restrictions apply
- PHONE,TICKET,LIVE CHAT
- That includes 1 free site or cPanel transfer, so if you have a few sites in a single cPanel account they could move them all over for free
- 30 DAYS
- Free SEO and Marketing tools and $20 BidVertiser ad credit as well as coupon for Google AdWords for $75 in credit when you spend $25
- UNLIMITED
- UNLIMITED
- UNLIMITED
- You can manually add Lets Encrypt free certificate
- You can manually add Lets Encrypt free certificate
- $3.95/MONTH
- IPAGE SHARED WORDPRESS HOSTING WP STARTER PLANWP Starter
- UNLIMITED
- UNLIMITED
- PHONE,TICKET,LIVE CHAT
- 30 DAYS
- Google AdWords offer ($100 value) when you spend $25, Bing search credit ($100 value, Yellowpages.com listing, One toll-free phone number (US only)
- UNLIMITED
- UNLIMITED
- UNLIMITED
- THEY USE VDECK PANEL
- $3.75/MONTH
- A2HOSTING SHARED LITE PLANLite plan
- UNLIMITED
- UNLIMITED
- PHONE,TICKET,LIVE CHAT
- 30 DAYS
- Free Bing/Yahoo Ad Credits, iContact Email Marketing Trial
- 1
- 25
- 5
- $4/MONTH
NOTE: Above mentioned information may be inaccurate as time goes hosting providers change their plans and pricing models. Check official sites for most accurate details.
GreenGeeks Pros & Cons Summary
Finding best cheap WordPress hosting is not easy task. GreenGeeks is a more than adequate web host, and it works great for new website owners. It’s simple and easy to understand, and a huge plus is that they are environmentally friendly. Eco-conscious users will appreciate their efforts.
Their security measures are top-notch, and they do not disappoint. GreenGeeks customer support is spot on and always available for users. Also, their large variety of features is great for new website owners, as well as veteran website owners.
The main aspects to keep in mind are their costs. Should you sign up and decide you do not want to use their services, it could cost you more money to cancel then to stay with them for your entire term.
You have to be careful when choosing website hosting provider. If GreenGeeks is not what you are looking for, then check my Cloudways review, HostArmada review, or WP Engine and 10Web.io all in one platform which offer great managed WordPress hosting (see my 10Web review). You can also go with free WordPress web hosting, but I would highly recommend paying for hosting as there are many affordable providers.
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