Compare Hosting Providers on October 13, 2022 by Manoling Martinez

There are lots of web hosting providers out there. 

So much so, it can be a bit of a hassle to pick just one. 

This is why, to help you, we’re comparing web hosts side by side. 

And today, we’re going to look at an A2 Hosting vs FatCow comparison review.


Owner

Bryan Muthig (CEO)

Newfold Digital

Basic Plan

Startup

Original FatCow Plan

Price

$2.99/mo

$4.08/mo

Free Domain?

Yes

Yes

Average Uptime

100% (August 2023)

99.90% (August 2023)

Average Speed

288 ms (August 2023)

1,426 ms (August 2023)

One-Click WordPress Installation?

Yes

Yes

Free SSL?

Yes

Yes

Number of Sites

1

Unlimited

Free Email?

Yes

Yes

Free Backup?

On higher plans

Yes

Moneyback Guarantee

30-days

30-days

Support Channels

24/7 Live chat, phone, and email

24/7 live chat and phone

Control Panel

cPanel

cPanel

Space

100 GB

Unlimited

Free CDN?

Yes

No

Migration Services

Yes

Yes

Overall Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Get Hosting

Other Plans

WordPress Hosting, VPS Hosting, Dedicated Hosting, Reseller Hosting

WordPress Hosting

Cell

*Uptime and Speed data from Pingdom and Hrank


As you can see, both web hosts offer great features in their most basic Shared Hosting plans. But we want to find out which is the better one for YOU. 

So let’s get comparing! 

A2 Hosting vs FatCow - A Side By Side Comparison 

Since A2 Hosting and FatCow offer many services, we’ll keep this comparison simple by comparing the most basic Shared Hosting plans.

We’re going to compare the two with these categories: 

  • Uptime and performance
  • Website building
  • Migration services
  • Products and Features
  • Security
  • Pricing
  • Customer Support

May the best web host win! 

Uptime and Performance

Since you’ve been looking for a web host, you’ve probably heard of the word ‘uptime’. Uptime is simply the rate at which your site is accessible. In other words, it’s when your site is up and running. 

To consider a web host reliable, it should have an average uptime of at least 99.9%. 

For A2 Hosting, this seems to be an easy feat as their uptime average is at 100% (August 2023).

A2 Hosting also offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, which lets you receive credits if the web host falls short of this SLA. 

As for FatCow, its uptime average is at 99.90% (August 2023).

So you can trust that both A2 Hosting and FatCow are reliable providers. 

We only wish that the same excellent results would continue with site speed, but unfortunately, FatCow needs a lot of improvement in this area. 

At the moment, FatCow’s average speed is at 1,426 ms (August 2023).

A2 Hosting, on the other hand, has speeds as impressive as its uptime rate. Today, your site can load as fast as 288 ms (August 2023) with A2 Hosting. 

WINNER: A2 Hosting. This web host delivers in both uptime and site speed.


Website Building

We all love FREE site builders. 

It’s convenient, economical, and exciting to use. 

Sadly, A2 Hosting doesn’t offer this. Instead, its site builder, A2 SiteBuilder, comes as an add-on. The simplest plan starts at $2.99 a month. 

Now, don’t be fooled by the cheapness of it. This basic plan only lets you do one web page and lets you choose from just 10 templates. 

So if you want more features, you have to get the more expensive site builder plans. 

Then, you have FatCow, which comes with a FREE drag-and-drop site builder. It also has dozens of templates to choose from, accompanied by a photo library. 

You can also use their website builder to create an eCommerce-ready website. 

But despite all that, both A2 Hosting and FatCow also have a 1-click WordPress installation, in case you prefer to use that. 

WINNER: FatCow. FatCow has a 1-click WordPress installation, as well as a FREE drag-and-drop site builder.


Migration Services

Transferring your website to your new web host? 

Then it’s a big PLUS if your new web host offers to migrate your website for you. 

Thankfully, both A2 Hosting and FatCow offer FREE site migration services to their new users. 

WINNER: Tie. Both web hosts have FREE site migration services.


Products and Features

What is inside A2 Hosting and FatCow’s basic Shared Hosting plans? Let’s compare them.


Domain

FREE for a year

FREE for a year

Email Address

Unlimited

Unlimited

SSL Certificates

FREE

FREE

Control Panel

cPanel

cPanel

Storage

100 GB

Unlimited

Site Builder

Starts at $2.99/mo

Free

Backups

FREE on higher plans

Free


FatCow Shared Hosting only has one plan. So if you’ll notice, there are a lot of unlimited features available.

This makes it an ideal plan for small and medium businesses. This is also a good choice for those who are slowly transitioning to bigger teams. 

What we especially love in FatCow’s plan is that you already get free backups and unlimited storage space. 

A2 Hosting’s basic plan is not bad either. Aside from the absence of a free site builder, the basic plan has all the essentials and enough storage space for small businesses. 

WINNER: FatCow. When it comes to having more features in the basic plan, FatCow’s Shared Hosting plan comes out on top.


Security

Security features may be a difficult topic to talk about, so let’s keep it simple. 

As a site owner, the feature you will love to have is an SSL certificate, firewall protection, and malware scanning. 

Both web hosts have FREE SSL certificates in all of their plans, so that’s a big plus. 

As for firewall protection and malware scanning, only A2 Hosting offers these services for free in its Shared Hosting plans. 

For FatCow, however, you get spam filtering in your mailboxes. 

WINNER: A2 Hosting. This web host has more useful security features included in its basic plan.


Pricing

In the table above, you might have noticed the huge difference in prices between the basic plans of A2 Hosting and FatCow. 

In this section, we’ll also look at the other services and how much they might cost you.


Shared Hosting

$2.99 - $12.99/mo

$4.08/mo

WordPress Hosting

$11.99 - $41.99/mo

$3.75 - $6.95/mo

VPS Hosting

$39.99 - $59.99/mo

--

Dedicated Hosting

$105.99 - $135.99/mo

--

If we’re only looking at the most basic Shared Hosting plans, A2 Hosting is definitely more affordable. 

However, this might not be the case if you look at the other plans and services. The edge of FatCow is that it generally has more affordable plans. It has fewer add-ons, too. 

WINNER: A2 Hosting. Sure, FatCow has cheaper plans and fewer add-ons, however, A2 Hosting offers the most affordable plan.


Customer Support

And finally, we go to customer support. Customer support is one of the most important features simply because you never know when your site encounters a problem or when questions pop up. 

A2 Hosting and FatCow have amazing customer support teams with live chat and phone lines available 24/7. 

Winner: Tie. Both web hosts have 24/7 lines available to all of their customers.


A2 Hosting vs FatCow - The Verdict

Winners board:

Uptime and Performance

A2 Hosting

Website Building

FatCow

Migration Services

Tie

Products and Features

FatCow

Security

A2 Hosting

Pricing

A2 Hosting

Customer Support

Tie


Which is the better web host?

From our winner’s board, we see that A2 Hosting has more wins. 

It excels in uptime and performance, security, as well as pricing. 

However, that’s not to say that FatCow isn’t great, too. 

As we saw, it offers a lot of freebies in its basic Shared Hosting plan. Plus, you can always count on them for good customer support. 

So it’s up to YOU to decide which is the better one. 

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