A2 Hosting vs DreamHost (March 2024) – “What’s the Real Story?”

A2 Hosting Review Rating
DreamHost Review Rating

This comparison between A2 Hosting and DreamHost focuses in large part on the WordPress hosting features and performance of their hosting plans. A2 Hosting emphasizes their optimized WordPress hosting environment in their hosting packages, while DreamHost has long been associated with WordPress. Please note that in this particular hosting comparison we’re referring to DreamHost’s shared hosting plan—not their DreamPress managed hosting plan.

WordPress Feature Comparison
Included with Hosting Plan

A2 Hosting DreamHost
Preinstallation Feature Included  
Auto Updates Feature Included Feature Included
Auto Data Backups Feature Included  
On Demand Backup and Restore Feature Included  
Website Staging Feature Included  
Optimized Caching Feature Included  
WordPress Security Feature Included  
Managed WordPress Available? Feature Included Feature Included

A2 Hosting vs DreamHost: Website Speed

A2 Hosting and DreamHost both provide excellent website speed. In our testing, A2 Hosting produced faster speed results. In my personal use with A2 Hosting and DreamHost, I’ve had faster websites with A2 Hosting’s optimized WordPress environment and their Swift and Turbo Servers.

While it’s a close call, A2 Hosting is the winner in this category. See some of our speed test results from GTmetrix below:

A2 Hosting Speed Results

DreamHost Speed Test Results

A2 Hosting vs DreamHost: Differences

Advantages of A2 Hosting over DreamHost:

  • A2 Optimized Environment for Faster Website Speeds
  • Proactive Perpetual Security
  • Choice of 4 Data Centers
  • Turbo Server Option for up to 20x Faster Speeds
  • A2 Optimized Environment for WordPress
  • Server Rewind Backups
  • Quadruple Redundant Network
  • Preinstallation of Optimized WordPress
  • Anytime Money Back Guarantee

Advantages of DreamHost over A2 Hosting:

  • WordPress.org Recommended
  • Free Domain plus Privacy
  • Remixer Website Builder
  • 97 Day Money Back Guarantee

A2 Hosting vs DreamHost Details

The Winner

Category A2 HostingA2 Hosting DreamHostDreamHost Comments
Data Centers Winner   A2 Hosting has data centers on 3 different continents.
Server Hardware Winner   A2 Hosting Turbo Servers can provide up to 20x faster loading. Both Turbo and Swift Servers include solid state drives (SSDs).
Network Winner   A2 Hosting provides a quadruple redundant network.
Account Sign Up/Provision Winner   WordPress Pre-Installed
Control Panel Winner   A2 Hosting’s client area provides direct access to cPanel.
Speed and Performance Winner    
Security Winner   A2 Proactive perpetual security includes firewall, brute force defense, virus scanning, and security monitoring. Free SSL.
Data Backup Winner   A2 Server Rewind Backups are performed daily and you can restore data from the past 30 days.
Developer Tools Winner   A2 Hosting is currently supporting PHP 8.0
WordPress Winner   A2 WordPress environment optimized for speed and security. WordPress can be pre-installed when you sign up.
Website Applications Winner   A2 Hosting provides 400+ applications via cPanel
Advertising Credits Winner   Free Bing/Yahoo Credits
Customer Support Response Time Winner   Normally around 15 Sec.
Customer Support Issue Resolution Winner    
Money Back Guarantee   Winner DreamHost offers a 97 Day Money Back Guarantee.
Price/Value Winner   $3.92 – $9.31 mo.

For starters, A2 Hosting gets the edge. A2 provides cPanel as your control panel interface, while DreamHost uses their own text based control panel. We definitely prefer cPanel for its intuitiveness and ease of use. With DreamHost, we found it difficult to wade through and find the features we wanted at times. Also, it’s hard to distinguish the features you have and other links that are upsells to services. With A2 Hosting, you can also choose between three levels of hosting, while at DreamHost there is one shared hosting plan available. For those website owners that don’t need a premium level of hosting features, it’s often beneficial to be able to pay a lesser price for just what you really need for your site.

Both A2 Hosting and DreamHost provide quality hardware features such as solid state drives for faster page loading. And, they’re both viable choices for hosting WordPress sites. However, we prefer A2 Hosting’s optimized WordPress environment that includes enhanced speed and security. A2 Hosting can also preinstall WordPress for you. DreamHost is now promoting its more expensive DreamPress managed WordPress hosting package. Between these two hosts, when it comes to non-managed WordPress hosting, we prefer A2 Hosting.

Both A2 Hosting and DreamHost include some nice extra features. For example, A2 Hosting includes CloudFlare CDN and Attracta SEO tools. DreamHost includes SSL/TLS certificates. Additionally, A2 Hosting and DreamHost have two of the best money back guarantee offers. DreamHost provides a 97 day money back guarantee, while A2 Hosting gives you a prorated anytime money back guarantee after a 30 day full refund period.

My personal experience with website performance has been better at A2 Hosting than with DreamHost. Also, the customer support response time has been faster at A2. While we consider DreamHost to be a quality web hosting provider, in this comparison we would favor A2 Hosting.

A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting

Started Business: 2003
BBB Rating: A+
Data Center Location: Michigan, USA; Arizona, USA; Amsterdam, EUR; Singapore, Asia

Price: $2.99 mo. – $12.99 mo.
Unlimited Bandwidth: Yes
Unlimited Storage: Yes
Unlimited Email: Yes
Host Multiple Domains: Yes

Hosting Interface: cPanel
Server Uptime: 99.9%
Refund Period: Anytime
Dedicated Hosting Available: Yes

Free Extras:
Attracta SEO and Marketing Tools
Free HackScan and Security Tools
Free Solid State Drives (SSDs)
Free Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificates
Patchman Enhanced Security Tool
Integrated ManageWP Account

Advantages of Choosing A2 Hosting:

  • A2 Optimized Environment for WordPress
  • Optional Turbo Server available for Faster Page Loading
  • Choose Linux or Window Hosting
  • Perpetual Security
  • Environment Friendly FutureServe Green Hosting
  • Quadruple Redundant Network
  • Free Server Rewind Backups
  • Website Staging for WordPress and Joomla
  • QUIC Protocol Support (Turbo Servers)
  • Free website transfer.
  • cPanel and Softaculous interfaces.
  • They offer phone, email, and chat support.
  • Fast and responsive live chat support.

Click here to see more details on A2 Hosting

dreamhost
DreamHost

Started Business: 1997
BBB Rating: A+
Data Center Location: Irvine, CA; Ashburn, VA; and Hillsboro, OR

Price: $2.59 mo. – $3.95 mo.
Unlimited Bandwidth: Yes
Unlimited Storage: Yes
Unlimited Email: Yes
Host Multiple Domains: Yes

Hosting Interface: DreamHost Control Panel
Server Uptime: 100%
Refund Period: 97 Days
Dedicated Hosting Available: Yes

Free Extras:
CloudFlare CDN
Free Let’s Encrypt SSL
Free Domain with WhoIs Privacy

Advantages of Choosing DreamHost:

  • Optimized WordPress Hosting
  • WordPress Partner since 2005
  • 100% Uptime Guarantee
  • Remixer Website Builder
  • Cloud Storage Services Available

Click here for more details on DreamHost

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Recommendation

For most websites, in this comparison we would recommend A2 Hosting. See our A2 Hosting review ratings below:

A2 Hosting Review Ratings

Features - 100%
Speed and Performance - 98%
Customer Support - 98%
Value - 99%

99%

Excellent !

A2 Hosting

User Rating: 5 ( 1 votes)

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