GreenGeeks Review 2023 – The Best Eco-Friendly Host

When thinking about ways to practice sustainability, web hosting isn't the first thing that comes to mind.

However, web hosting is a potent polluter accounting for 2% of the world's carbon emissions!

It's no wonder then why eco-friendly hosting providers, such as GreenGeeks, have started cropping up, intending to provide sustainable hosting that doesn't compromise on reliability.

But is GreenGreeks really as reliable as they say they are?

In this article, we’ll look review GreenGeeks. We’ll look into its pros, cons, and features to give you the complete picture. This way, you can see if it’s the web hosting for YOU. 

Let's get into it.

About GreenGeeks

Established in 2008, GreenGeeks founder, Trey Gardner, had a mission to provide safe, clean, and sustainable hosting to sites around the world.

As part of its climate change commitment, the company gives back 300% of the energy consumed by its business as renewable energy. This is an addition to the eco-friendly data centers and offices GreenGeeks have created.

Since then, they've gone from strength to strength - hosting over 600,000 sites and serving over 50,000 customers in 2023, all while netting approval from regulators along the way.

GreenGeeks Review

In this review, we’ll look at GreenGreeks’:

• Pros and cons

• Performance and uptime

• Products and features

• Website builder

• Security

• Customer support

• Packages and pricing

Let’s get into the details. 

GreenGreeks Pros

If you get GreenGreeks as your host, these are the benefits you can expect:

• Eco-friendly

• Great speed

• Free site migration

Eco-friendly

Sustainability being the founding ethos of this provider, GreenGeeks has been recognized as a Green Power Partner by the Environmental Protection Agency EPA since 2009.

GreenGeeks purchases 3 times the wind power credits they use, amounting to over 600,000 kW hours a year. With this, you’re actually getting carbon-negative hosting.

So with GreenGeeks’s hosting services, any site owner that practices green marketing or sustainability will be able to stick to their commitment and advertise their eco-friendliness. All these while receiving great speed and performance. 

Great speed

Speaking of speed, you can be sure GreenGreeks has excellent performance with an average speed of 459 ms (August 2023).

This means that your site will get a lower bounce rate. Since the page loads fast, visitors won’t grow impatient and click away. 

And with low bounce rates, you have a better chance of ranking on the first page of Google. This is especially useful if you’re considering improving your SEO.

What’s more, loading speed is improved by the free CDN and SSD storage they provide in every package. 

Now, what do CDN and SSD mean? 

CDN or Content Delivery Network is a feature where your web host stores your data in all of its servers so that it can deliver your content to the audiences closest to them.

And since speed is affected by how close you are to a data center, this is a good thing to have. 

On the other hand, SSD refers to Solid-State Drive. This is a faster version of the traditional storage devices which gives optimal performance to your website. 

Plus, it comes with an LSCache caching that can enhance your site’s load times by optimizing load and data saving.

Free site migration

Looking to transfer your site to GreenGreeks?

Great news! 

You’ll get access to free site migration no matter what package you sign up to. Plus, GreenGeeks’ professional tech team will handle the whole process for you.

GreenGreeks Cons

As you might expect, GreenGreeks comes with its downsides as well. Here are some of the cons:

• No 24/7 phone support

• Not the best international presence

• High renewal costs

No 24/7 phone support

Unfortunately, with GreenGeeks, you'll only be able to contact their customer support from 9:00 AM – 12 MN EST. 

This can be a problem if you encounter any late-night troubles that need the help of a support team. And, it can be particularly inconvenient if your time zone doesn’t match up. 

The good news is that GreenGreeks now offers 24/7 live chat. This isn’t as responsive as phone support, but it’s still better than nothing. 

Not the best international presence 

GreenGeeks best service the needs of North American and Western Europe as they have servers in the US, Canada, and Amsterdam.

If you’re not from there, your site may suffer from slower speeds, especially if your visitors are coming from Asia, Oceania, or Africa. 

High renewal costs

While GreenGreeks offers affordable starting prices, renewing your package often costs more than double what you paid when you first signed up.

While jacking up renewal prices is normal in the industry, you could say that GreenGeeks is a bit too gung-ho when it comes to raising your fees, with the basic package costing around 4X more than what you pay initially.

Performance and Uptime

As we already discussed, GreenGreeks has excellent performance, with speeds reaching 459 ms (August 2023). 

Unfortunately, we can’t say the same for their uptime. 

At only 99.99% (August 2023), you will experience more website downtime than you might hope. 

Now, you might be asking, “99.99% (August 2023)? That’s not low at all!”

Sure, it still has a high percentage. But if you want your site constantly online and available, you should aim for an uptime of 99.98% or 99.99%.

So, to be sure, GreenGreeks doesn’t have the worst uptime; it doesn’t have the best either. 

Products and Features

With GreenGeeks’ basic plan, you’ll get 50GB of SSD storage space, unlimited file transfer, 10 email addresses, and support for a single site. (You get even more of these with their other plans and packages.)

For a small or medium-scaled site, the storage space is more than enough to host your content along with a few videos and images.

However, if you’re looking for more space to support your heavy storage needs, then their Pro Shared Package has unlimited storage, emails, and sites.

For a site with heavy traffic, you can opt for GreenGeeks’ VPS packages. 

Unlike the shared hosting packages, this option provides virtually dedicated server resources that keep you protected from the demands of other sites. This translates to faster speeds and better reliability despite the increased traffic.

Reseller packages are also provided. This is recommended for online eCommerce websites. 

GreenGeeks also have WordPress hosting which is basically Shared hosting specifically made for WordPress sites. It has the same prices and features as the Shared hosting, but the plan is optimized for WordPress.

To know more about how to build a website with these plans, you can check this tutorial:

All GreenGeeks packages come with the industry-standard 30-day free trial, so you’ll have ample time to be familiar with their services before you decide to take the plunge.

Website Builder

When it comes to designing your site, GreenGeeks has a built-in website builder called Weebly. 

All packages come with a Weebly website builder that allows you to select from a wide array of industry-specific themes with drag and drop functionality. 

If you’re migrating from another host, you’ll be happy to know that GreenGeeks includes the traditional cPanel, so there will be fewer adjustments in learning how to manage your site.

Plus, with Softaculous, installing apps is a cinch with 1 click downloads. This makes it so quick and convenient.

Security

With every GreenGeeks package, you’ll get free SSL certificates to keep your site safe while giving your visitors confidence.

What’s more, GreenGeeks monitors its websites 24/7. They will notify and fight any virus that enters. 

You’ll also get DDoS protection with GreenGeeks’ firewall that prevents hackers from taking over your site. 

For data loss protection, they have free nightly backups included in all of their packages. Your site data will remain secure and available in the event of data loss. 

Even better, GreenGeeks has state-of-the-art security systems that monitor their servers 24/7 to protect your data with advanced fire and water damage detection systems.

Customer Support

While you’ll get access to live chat and email 24/7, phone support is set and is unavailable at night (depending on where you live). 

This can pose a bit of a problem, especially for businesses that still operate at nighttime and need phone support for instant results. 

Don’t want to deal with customer support?

If so, you can access GreenGeeks’ knowledge hub that contains numerous informational articles on web design, troubleshooting, site management, and much more.

Packages and Pricing

GreenGeeks’s pricing is economical and is in line with the pricing standards set by its competitors. 

As you can see, they offer different plans in each hosting package. 

Despite not having a dedicated server, they still have many great packages that can fit any website, whether a small blog or a big online business. 

I have to warn you, though, that the prices listed here are introductory prices, meaning, you only get these prices the first time you register. And as one of the cons I mentioned, expect a high renewal fee whenever your plan needs resubscribing.

Wrap-Up

So there you have it - a detailed review of GreenGreeks. 

We highly recommend it, especially if you’re concerned about the environment, looking for fast speeds, and many features and packages. 

GreenGreeks is certainly the best eco-friendly web host. But is it the web host for you?

We hope we have helped you answer that.