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GreenGeeks is an American web hosting supplier with 55,000 prospects, managing 600,000 web sites, and has a prolonged 16 years of expertise in green hosting.
The corporate goes effectively past easy energy-saving; it calculates its power consumption annually, then pays for thrice that in inexperienced power and places it again into the grid. That is not simply carbon impartial, it is carbon lowering.
As well as, GreenGeeks has one other easier and extra easy solution to showcase its environmental credentials: for each internet hosting account arrange on the platform, the corporate crops one tree.
What forms of internet hosting does GreenGeeks provide?
GreenGeeks presents low value shared hosting, best for private customers and easy enterprise web sites.
WordPress and WooCommerce hosting lets you construct something from a private weblog to a small net retailer.
VPS (Digital Personal Server) internet hosting is a strong expertise which provides your website entry to extra CPU, RAM and different system sources. It is a sensible alternative for big or high-traffic websites, the place prime speeds are very important, and downtime might be a catastrophe.
It’s price noting right here that GreenGeeks doesn’t have a dedicated server plan, most likely as a result of the corporate does not see it as a really eco pleasant choice. The above-mentioned managed VPS vary is the best choice with GreenGeeks if you need added capability on your web sites.
Subsequent, we’ll break down GreenGeeks’ varied internet hosting sorts, discover out what they’ve to supply, and which may be the very best resolution for you.
GreenGeeks shared internet hosting
Go for shared internet hosting and your web site is saved on a single net server together with a number of others. The advantage of one of these internet hosting is it is easy to make use of, and since everybody shares the server prices, it may be very low cost. However the drawback is all websites share the server’s CPU, RAM, community connection and extra, so you do not get the very best stability or speeds.
GreenGeeks starter shared internet hosting plan, the Lite plan, greater than covers the fundamentals, with 25GB storage, unmetered bandwidth, free SSL, a free area, a free migration to import your present website from one other host, nightly backups, and top-quality industry-standard internet hosting instruments, together with Softaculous to robotically set up WordPress and 150+ different apps, and cPanel for all of your different internet hosting administration wants. What’s extra, it additionally presents 50 electronic mail accounts, which is a lot better than IONOS providing only one electronic mail account on all its shared internet hosting plans.
It is a respectable bundle with sufficient energy for private customers and small web sites, and is priced low within the first yr at $2.95. Nonetheless, it’s effectively price noting that prices bounce to $12.95 on renewal, at little greater than the very best of the competitors.
The mid-range ‘Professional’ plan provides 50 GB storage and help for limitless web sites (the Lite plan helps solely a single web site), together with on-demand backups (save a replica of your website everytime you like) and a WordPress restore device. It is extra succesful, and at $4.95 a month in yr one, $17.95 on renewal, it is also competitively priced.
The Premium plan is aimed toward small companies with excessive site visitors websites or net shops. It provides further sources and high-end business-friendly extras, together with premium SSL and sensible object caching (a intelligent expertise which makes use of the Memcached and Redis instruments to speed up web site speeds). It is a succesful bundle price contemplating for demanding websites, and appears pretty priced at $8.95 a month in yr one, $29.95 on renewal.
GreenGeeks WordPress internet hosting
WordPress is likely one of the hottest web site creators round, and it is easy to see why. Its enormous vary of add-ons can deal with essentially the most superior of enterprise and net retailer initiatives, but it is also accessible sufficient for house customers to construct easy household websites.
GreenGeeks’ WordPress hosting is basically the shared internet hosting plan – similar names, similar costs – with slightly further give attention to some useful WordPress-related options.
The plans embody free migration of your WordPress website from a earlier host, as an illustration. You get on-demand WP backups, with computerized updates of WordPress and its plugins, and 99.9% uptime. GreenGeeks makes use of the LiteSpeed server and LS Cache plugin to optimize pace. Unusually, the corporate does not simply provide to scan your web site for malware: the web site says it’s going to additionally assist clear your website if something malicious exhibits up.
The malware pledge is uncommon for a price range internet hosting plan, however in any other case there aren’t any actual surprises right here. If you happen to’re proud of GreenGeeks’ shared internet hosting and solely want the WordPress fundamentals, these plans have you ever lined. But when not, check out DreamHost’s professionally managed WordPress internet hosting vary. Right here, you get a high-performance cloud server surroundings, help for as much as a million guests a month, specialist WordPress help, 1-click staging for simpler web site testing, and glorious safety, too.
Whereas it’s admittedly not as low cost as GreenGeeks (the starter DreamPress plan is $16.95 billed month-to-month on a yearly subscription), it’s superb worth for cash for accelerated efficiency and business-critical websites. Even higher, DreamHost is beneficial by WordPress.org – the makers of WordPress. It’s because DreamHost has significantly contributed to WordPress’s growth within the final 10 years.
GreenGeeks VPS internet hosting
A VPS (Digital Personal Server) is one bodily server divided into a number of smaller non-public items. Every will get its personal set of server sources, not shared with different customers, making for a much more highly effective setup. A great VPS can run a big weblog with tons of of 1000’s of holiday makers month-to-month.
GreenGeeks has solely three VPS plans. All confusingly listed with ‘particular costs’. Once I requested GreenGeeks they instructed me there may be nothing particular about these costs in any respect they usually’re not prone to change for some time.
The most cost effective plan is $69.95 for 4 GB RAM, 4 vCPU, 75 GB SSD storage, and cPanel. The following plan up is $125.95 for 8 GB RAM, 6 vCPU, and 150 GB Storage. The very best tier plan is $179.95 for 16 RAM and 6 vCPU.
There are a number of positives right here. As I discussed, these are managed plans, which suggests GreenGeeks maintains the server for you (updating the operating system, putting in safety patches, monitoring the service for points). A robust set of options contains free SSL, a free migration, cPanel server administration, and the wonderful Softaculous to robotically set up WordPress or 150+ different apps. All plans have a beneficiant 10TB bandwidth allowance, and costs are low contemplating what you get. Safety is implausible, too, with DDoS safety, customized safety guidelines, and real-time 24/7 monitoring.
If you happen to’re in search of a decrease to mid-range VPS, or new to one of these internet hosting and not sure precisely what you want, GreenGeeks is effectively price contemplating. However with solely three plans, and no configuration choices, there’s not a number of alternative, and plenty of customers will likely be higher off elsewhere.
InMotion Hosting which options on our checklist of the best VPS hosting services, has a far wider vary of plans, and is pretty customizable, too. The most cost effective ‘Important’ VPS is priced at $20 a month on a 2-year time period and comes with 2 vCPU, 2GB RAM, 40GB SSD storage, and 10TB bandwidth, in addition to sturdy security measures. What’s extra, you additionally get help for limitless web sites, 24/7/365 help from educated professionals, and a class-leading 100% community uptime and energy assure – that is considerably higher than GreenGeeks’ 99.9% uptime.
GreenGeeks inexperienced internet hosting
GreenGeeks has been a ‘Inexperienced Energy Associate’ since 2009, acknowledged by the USA Environmental Safety Company. A spotlight of GreenGeeks is that no matter which plan you select – shared, devoted, VPS, or reseller – you’re going to get a 300% inexperienced power match. Which means that it places 3 instances the power that it consumes again into the grid. For this, it has partnered with Poland’s Bonneville Environmental Basis (BEF).
As the very best green web hosting provider, GreenGeeks additionally crops one tree for each internet hosting account it provisions – that is because of its partnership with One Tree Planted. So, in case you are environmentally-conscious and wish to make a distinction on the earth by lowering carbon emissions, there’s hardly an choice higher for you than GreenGeeks.
Does GreenGeeks have an internet site builder?
GreenGeeks’ shared internet hosting packages embody a free model of the Weebly website builder. Nonetheless, it is not put in by default, and we did not see it talked about within the dashboard, so many customers could by no means even notice it is accessible. However if you happen to increase a help ticket, GreenGeeks will activate the free model for you. You even have the choice to make use of SitePad or RVSitebuilder, however Weebly is what GreenGeeks advertises, and it’s additionally the one we advocate.
Weebly works very like many different web site builders. Select a beginning web site design from a collection of round 100; then customise fundamentals like colours and fonts, if you happen to like, or simply drag and drop blocks of content material onto the web page – textual content, pictures, kinds, maps, extra – after which add your personal textual content and pictures, simply as you’ll in some other editor.
That is straightforward to make use of, and has a number of extra options than we would anticipate for a free device. Moreover, there is no restrict on the variety of pages your website can have, and you’ll even create a tiny net retailer for as much as 5 merchandise.
Weebly Free is a enjoyable app, and might be good for, say, permitting your youngsters to construct their very own private websites. However the primary templates, restricted options and Weebly advert on every web page footer imply this is not one thing we would advocate for critical use. And though you would pay to improve, Weebly is not the best website builder round, and we would advocate you take into account some alternate options.
Can I construct an internet retailer with GreenGeeks?
GreenGeeks has a WooCommerce hosting vary which may be very able to constructing a top-quality net retailer (WooCommerce is likely one of the finest ecommerce platforms round). As with GreenGeeks’ WordPress vary, although, that is actually simply the shared internet hosting vary beneath, with the identical names, options, and costs.
This is not essentially an issue. The plans can robotically set up WooCommerce for you inside seconds, and it actually does have the ability to deal with even the biggest and most demanding shops. Nonetheless, as a result of these are general-purpose shared internet hosting plans, GreenGeeks does not give you any useful ecommerce extras or specialist WooCommerce help.
That makes these extra appropriate for skilled customers with some ecommerce expertise, who’re comfortable to arrange and study WooCommerce largely on their very own. Plus, you too can buy a devoted IP handle on your eCommerce retailer via GreenGeeks – for as little as $48/yr.
If that is not you in any respect, there are different choices. As we mentioned above, web site builders should not solely the simplest solution to create a website, however many additionally help including an internet retailer. Most builders have solely a fraction of the ability of WooCommerce, however they’re sufficient for a lot of shops. HostGator’s Gator web site builder and Hostinger’s website builder can construct primary shops for a number of {dollars} a month, whereas GoDaddy and Wix value extra however embody many further options.
How straightforward is GreenGeeks to make use of?
The GreenGeeks management panel launches with a easy startup wizard, providing you with helpful recommendation on migrating or constructing your website, then getting it up and operating.
Elsewhere, the management panel is refreshingly easy. Technical language is stored to a minimal, and sensibly-named choices in a left-hand sidebar (Internet hosting, Domains, Safety, Help) make it straightforward to seek out what you want.
Even whenever you drill all the way down to extra difficult areas, GreenGeeks does its finest to maintain life easy. Create an electronic mail account at DreamHost, as an illustration, and it prompts you with 12 choices, together with some chances are you’ll by no means know existed (do you wish to get each day warnings in case your Inbox is almost full?) GreenGeeks simply asks you to enter an electronic mail handle and password. You possibly can nonetheless tweak extra superior settings; they’re simply not displayed up-front.
Better of all, GreenGeeks gives customers with top-quality, industry-standard instruments to handle all essentially the most complicated duties, together with Softaculous to robotically set up WordPress and different apps, and cPanel to maintain it operating easily and carry out duties corresponding to establishing electronic mail accounts, area administration, SEO instruments configuration, and extra.
Internet hosting can nonetheless be difficult at instances, and you will have the occasional difficult problem to beat. However that is the identical with each supplier, and GreenGeeks does a greater job of simplifying the method than most.
How briskly is GreenGeeks?
Internet host efficiency issues, even for easy and low site visitors initiatives. In case your website is gradual or usually down then you definately’ll annoy your guests—and a few could go away and by no means come again.
To learn the way a supplier performs, we join a shared internet hosting bundle, arrange a easy WordPress website utilizing an ordinary template, then run varied exams and evaluate the outcomes with others. (Though this provides us helpful data, remember that we’re evaluating primary shared internet hosting plans; our outcomes cannot inform us something a couple of supplier’s VPS, devoted or different plans).
We measure a bunch’s uptime through the use of Uptime.com to test our take a look at web site each 5 minutes over 14 days. GreenGeeks scored an ideal 100%, which suggests Uptime.com was in a position to entry our take a look at web page each time it tried (that is zero fails out of three,744 tries).
Uptime.com additionally logs how lengthy it waits for the server to reply to a request. GreenGeeks was speedy at 0.302 seconds (some suppliers took a second or extra), and even higher, response instances had been very constant, various by solely 0.032 seconds throughout all 3,744 exams (solely GoDaddy and SiteGround scored higher in our final 15 exams). That is excellent news, because it suggests GreenGeeks’ shared servers aren’t overloaded, they usually have sufficient sources to deal with the web sites they’re internet hosting.
Nonetheless, it’s effectively price noting that GreenGeeks formally presents a 99.9% uptime assure, which is admittedly respectable, however rivals corresponding to InMotion Internet hosting provide a rock-solid 99.999% uptime assure; then there are Liquid Internet and DreamHost that knock it out of the half with 100% uptime assure.
We test web site efficiency through the use of GTmetrix to load a take a look at WordPress website and calculate how lengthy it takes to load the principle web page content material (in technical converse, it is referred to as Largest Contentful Paint, or LCP). The decrease your LCP, the snappier and extra responsive your website feels, and the extra seemingly it’s that your guests will stick round.
GreenGeeks’ LCP was an honest 0.691 seconds, just like prime names like Bluehost (0.603) and GoDaddy (0.667), and much forward of price range suppliers corresponding to Area.com (1.5 seconds) and iPage (1.6 seconds).
Lastly, we use the net service k6 to measure how our take a look at WordPress website handles many guests on the similar time. GreenGeeks fractionally underperformed right here, with our website ready to deal with a peak 19 requests per second and a median of 15 (most suppliers managed a peak 20 and a median of 15). However that is not a distinction you are prone to discover in actual life, and total GreenGeeks carried out very effectively.
What’s GreenGeeks help like?
GreenGeeks presents 24/7 help through reside chat, electronic mail tickets, phone, and an internet site knowledgebase.
The help website is not very effectively organized, and it may be tough to seek out the content material you want. Happily, there are fairly a number of helpful all-in-one tutorials overlaying varied subjects, which ought to suffice for many customers.
For instance, the Getting Began with GreenGeeks information hyperlinks to articles on registering and establishing domains and DNS, creating electronic mail accounts, constructing your web site, and managing your payments and accounts. That is good to know and can level you in the proper course.
If the knowledgebase doesn’t be just right for you, then you’ll be able to at all times contact the help staff. We raised some take a look at inquiries to see the way it carried out, and the outcomes had been glorious.
Live chat responses had been fast and useful, and even choosing ticket help (usually extra applicable with complicated issues) did not go away us ready for lengthy. GreenGeeks’ free Weebly model is not enabled by default, as an illustration, and you have to increase a help ticket to ‘activate’ it.
We did, and GreenGeeks learn our request, activated Weebly and replied to tell us, all in only a fraction below 50 minutes. What’s extra, basic queries through electronic mail have round 10-20 minutes of wait time; that is a really acceptable response time, and suggests to us that GreenGeeks has loads of help employees accessible to cope with questions as they arrive.
Ultimate verdict
GreenGeeks’ has glorious shared internet hosting, with the options and pace to deal with most private and plenty of SMB websites, in addition to reasonably priced costs. It is admittedly weaker on WordPress and ecommerce, and the VPS internet hosting plans do not have as a lot energy as a few of its prime rivals, however there’s nonetheless loads to love right here.
As an illustration, GreenGeeks is fingers down your best option for anybody after an eco-friendly internet hosting supplier. It’s additionally very straightforward to make use of, has nice buyer help, presents a variety of safety instruments, and efficiency is fairly neat, too. The very best half is that each one of its plans include a 30-day money-back assure, which means you’ll be able to attempt it on for dimension with out risking a single penny.
GreenGeeks FAQs
What fee sorts does GreenGeeks help?
GreenGeeks accepts fee through card solely.
Does GreenGeeks provide refunds?
GreenGeeks has a easy 30-day money-back assure for all its foremost internet hosting merchandise, whatever the size of subscription. Not like some suppliers, there is no 30 days for this internet hosting product vary, 15 days for that, one thing else once more for month-to-month plans (GoDaddy solely provides you 48 hours for subscriptions of lower than a yr). It is 30 days and that is that.
There are some restrictions for add-on merchandise. You will not get your area registration or SSL certificates charges again, as an illustration, however that is frequent to most hosts. (Though, as a plus this time, GoDaddy does provide refunds on some area purchases.)
Extra considerably, renewal charges aren’t included. At SiteGround, you’ll be able to cancel 15 days after renewing, and the corporate offers you all however your first month’s charges again. At GreenGeeks, the small print warns you have to cancel your account not less than 5 days earlier than the renewal date ‘to make sure the billing date can cease any renewal fees’, and if you happen to overlook, and also you’re charged, you have no proper to a refund.
Does GreenGeeks have an uptime assure?
GreenGeeks claims to supply a ‘99.9% uptime assure’, however that is not more than a hope, or a objective. In case your website is down for greater than 0.1% (or 43.83 minutes a month), you will not get any type of compensation.
Some hosts do considerably higher. SiteGround additionally has a 99.9% community uptime assure, as an illustration, but when your downtime is definitely 99%, you may get a month of free internet hosting, and there is one other free month for each additional 1%.
The place are GreenGeeks’ information facilities?
Enroll with GreenGeeks and you’ll select whether or not your website will likely be hosted in its US, Canadian, Netherlands or Singapore information facilities.
That is higher than many suppliers, and excellent news for efficiency. In case your web site has a primarily European viewers, as an illustration, internet hosting your website within the Netherlands means guests are nearer to your server, robotically providing you with slightly further pace.
What’s my GreenGeeks IP handle?
Log into the GreenGeeks management panel.
Click on Internet hosting, discover your internet hosting account within the checklist and click on Handle.
Your web site server’s IP handle is displayed as ‘IP’ within the Server Info panel.
What are GreenGeeks’ nameservers?
GreenGeeks shared internet hosting nameservers are chi-ns1.websitehostserver.internet, chi-ns2.websitehostserver.internet and ams-ns1.websitehostserver.internet.
How do I cancel a GreenGeeks product?
You possibly can cancel a GreenGeeks internet hosting plan from the website cancellation request form.
Select the service you’d wish to cancel, full and submit the shape. You may obtain an electronic mail from GreenGeeks, click on the Affirmation hyperlink, and your request is processed inside seven days.
Though this sounds easy sufficient, there are a few potential gotchas.
First, the corporate robotically renews your bundle 24 hours earlier than the internet hosting date, so do not go away this till the final minute.
And second, whenever you’re prompted to enter your electronic mail handle within the cancellation type, you have to enter the identical handle linked to your GreenGeeks account. If you happen to do not, the cancellation will not be accepted, and if the renewal date is shut, there’s an opportunity you may be billed once more earlier than you notice there’s an issue.