Whether you’re looking to create a site to market your business online or are trying to create a blog on baseball, you’ll first need to select a web host.
And with the number of available hosts, you might not be sure which one to pick.
To help you out, we’re going to compare 2 well-known, US-based hosts - GreenGeeks and Nexcess.
GreenGeeks | Nexcess | |
Owner | Kaumil Patel (Co-Founder) | Liquid Web |
Basic Plan | Lite | Spark |
Price | $2.95/mo | $13.30/mo |
Free Domain? | Yes | No |
Average Uptime | 99.99% (August 2023) | 99.97% (August 2023) |
Average Speed | 459 ms (August 2023) | 444 ms (August 2023) |
One-Click WordPress Installation? | Yes | Yes |
Free SSL? | Yes | Yes |
Number of Sites | 1 | 1 |
Free Email? | Yes | Yes |
Free Backup? | Yes | Yes |
Moneyback Guarantee | 30-days | 30-days |
Support Channels | 24/7 technical support, live chat, telephone, email tickets | 24/7/365 WordPress experts through phone and live chat |
Control Panel | cPanel | Client Portal |
Space | 50GB | 15GB |
Free CDN? | Yes | Yes |
Migration Services | Yes | Free |
Overall Rating | 3.7/5 stars in TrustPilot (based on 447 reviews) | 4.5/5 stars in TrustPilot |
Get Hosting | ||
Other Plans | WordPress Hosting, VPS Hosting, Reseller Hosting | Managed Magneto Hosting, Managed WooCommerce Hosting, Cloud Hosting, Enterprise Hosting |
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So GreenGeeks vs Nexcess, which web host is better?
Let’s find out!
GreenGeeks vs Nexcess - Side by Side Comparison
To compare, we’ll be looking at these 7 important features:
Uptime and performance
Ease of use
Migration services
Products and features
Security
Pricing
Customer Support
Let’s get into the details.
Uptime and Performance
Both hosts rank highly when it comes to reliability, with uptime scores well above your average web host.
As of now, GreenGeeks' uptime average is [greengeeksup], while Nexcess’ average goes up to 99.97% (August 2023).
With these high scores, you’re guaranteed your site will experience hardly any downtime.
With both hosts, you’ll also get features intended to boost performance for faster loading speeds.
One feature is their SSD storage space. This promises 20X faster loading speeds when compared to traditional HDD storage. This way, even data-rich content such as HD videos loads SUPER quickly.
Another feature is the free CDN. This optimizes data flow by connecting your site visitors to the nearest available data server. And yes, this boosts loading speeds.
While both hosts offer a variety of different server locations, they’re mostly centered in North America and Europe, with Nexcess providing an additional Australian server.
Nexcess does provide a few extra features such as bot detection to reduce loading times by prioritizing actual visitors when allocating resources.
Nexcess also offers image compression to reduce the size of your content without affecting its quality.
WINNER: Nexcess. Though they are somewhat similar in uptime and performance, Nexcess goes a step further by providing a higher uptime average and more performance features.
Ease of Use
With numerous features to ensure simplicity, even beginners can use GreenGeeks and Nexcess.
Both hosts offer one-click software installs. With this, you can easily add functionality to your site without having to have any prior coding or technical knowledge.
Managed WordPress solutions are also on offer, which allows for seamless plugin integration. There will be no bugs or glitches if you’re planning to use this CMS.
When it comes to site design, Nexcess offers the Quebly site builder. This allows you to create a unique site in no time, with plenty of themes to choose from.
Additionally, Nexcess offers stencil support. This allows you to customize your own designs, perfect if you’re an artist looking to showcase your talents.
GreenGeeks, on the other hand, has a drag-and-drop site builder. You don’t need any design experience to use this. Plus, they use the traditional cPanel.
WINNER: Tie. Both hosts make creating your site as easy as can be, so both beginners and experts can give it a go.
Migration Services
Transferring your site to either one of their servers?
Well, you can avail of their migration services! And yes, you read it right, it’s for FREE.
And because the experts are in charge, there is near zero downtime when you migrate to their platform.
One downside to Nexcess, though, is that they only offer this for WordPress websites.
WINNER: GreenGeeks. You get to migrate 1 website for FREE, no matter the CMS. So you can just sit back and let the technical team do the dirty work.
Products and Features
With GreenGeeks most basic Shared plan, you already get unmetered transfer and 50GB storage space. This is more than enough to support a small to medium website.
On the other hand, Nexcess only offers 15GB of space on its most basic Managed WordPress plan. Moreover, you’re only allowed 2TB of bandwidth.
On the bright side, Nexcess does offer greater storage space, going up to 800GB, on its higher-priced plans.
Looking to keep in touch with your visitors and/or clients?
Both hosts have free email support. While GreenGeeks gives you 50 emails, Nexcess allows you unlimited emails.
Another plus for GreenGeeks is that they offer a free domain name, saving you $10-$15 on your first year of service.
Additionally, GreenGeeks ensures your site is carbon negative, with its sustainability pledge that sees it purchase 300% of your site’s energy usage in the form of energy credits. What’s more, for every user, they even plant 1 tree.
These are awesome features if you want to stick to your ethos.
As for products, you can avail of Shared, WordPress, VPS, and Reseller Hosting with GrenGeeks, while Nexcess offers Managed WordPress, Managed Magneto, Managed WooCommerce, Cloud, and Enterprise Hosting.
Winner: GreenGeeks. With more freebies in its most basic Shared plan, along with its sustainability promise, GreenGeeks takes the cake here.
Security
A range of different features is provided by both hosts to ensure your site and its visitors remain safe.
Both offer free SSL certification. This encrypts your users’ sensitive information so it’s unreadable by any hacker. And yes, that’s even if they manage to intercept the data.
DDoS protection is also offered by both hosts, putting up a firewall between your site and hackers. This means that the hackers can’t flood your site with bots in an attempt to take it down.
What’s more, both hosts offer daily backups, ensuring that the latest version of your site is available if you ever face any data loss.
Nexcess even includes site scanning and threat detection to contain and remove malware from your site.
Both hosts enforce 24/7 server monitoring so your data security, along with backup power, keeps running despite an outage.
WINNER: Tie. As both prioritize safety measures, it’s hard to pick a winner here. Just know that, whichever host you go for, you’re in good and secure hands.
Pricing
When it comes to pricing, GreenGeeks offers cheaper plans with its Shared and WordPress Hosting both ranging between $2.95 to $10.95 per month.
GreenGeeks’ VPS and Reseller Hosting solutions range from $39.95 to $109.95 and $19.95 to $34.95 a month, respectively.
Nexcess, on the other hand, offers its Managed WordPress Hosting from $13.30 going up to $699.30 a month. This is even at a reduced price if you pay monthly for the first 6 months.
Nexcess’ Managed Magento and WooCommerce Hosting are priced between $34.30 to $594.30 and $13.30 to $699.30 a month respectively.
Customizable Cloud and Enterprise Hosting solutions will be priced depending on the number of resources you select.
WINNER: GreenGeeks. If we’re talking about the most basic plans, then GreenGeeks is miles cheaper, with its Lite plan only $2.95, compared to Nexcess’ Spark plan at $13.30.
Customer Support
Great news! Both hosts offer 24/7 chat support.
As for phone support, Nexcess offers it 24/7, too. However, GreenGeeks is only available during the day (US time)
This could be a problem if you decide to use GreenGeeks, especially if you’re in another time zone and you prefer calling a service rep.
When it comes to response times, Nexcess shines with a customer service rep usually responding within minutes. While GreenGeeks has great service, they aren’t able to compare to Nexcess’s response speeds.
On the plus side, both hosts offer knowledge hubs filled with informational articles and guides. This can help you deal with routine problems without having to wait on customer support for a response.
WINNER: Nexcess. With 24/7 live and phone support, as well as SUPER fast response times, you can get your inquiries answered in no time.
Conclusion
Winners board:
Uptime and Performance | Nexcess |
Ease of Use | Tie |
Migration Services | GreenGeeks |
Products and Features | GreenGeeks |
Security | Tie |
Pricing | GreenGeeks |
Customer Support | Nexcess |
So which web host is better?
As you can see from the table above, GreenGeeks has more winners.
However, the better option will actually depend on what YOU are looking for.
So if you prioritize constantly high uptime and performance, as well as fast-to-response customer support, then you’ll love Nexcess.
However, if you’re looking for more freebies and a cheaper option, as well as a sustainable host, then GreenGeeks will definitely suit you more.