Hosting.com Speed Review: How Fast Is Their Shared Hosting?
Hosting.com, formerly known as A2 Hosting, is one of the most popular web hosting companies in the USA with over 700k customers and 3 million websites hosted. Basically, they are trusted by many people.
But do they actually stand out and provide premium service, or are they like most other hosting companies that just make big claims without delivering? This article will help you find out.
How Fast Is the Shared Hosting Plan of Hosting.com?
Well, it depends a lot. The speed depends on the size and structure of your website—how many plugins, images, and tools you are using.
- If your website is heavy, it doesn’t matter which shared hosting plan you choose—your site will definitely load slower.
- For a light to medium website, Hosting.com can perform surprisingly well.
👉 In my experience, a website with around 3–5 pages fully loaded in about 1.2 seconds, which is faster than the majority of shared hosting websites out there.
The site I tested was drprincesingh.com, and it was hosted for 2 months on Hosting.com’s shared hosting plan before I switched to Cloudways.com.
Here are some of the Test Results screenshots:
Why I Moved to Cloudways
So, why did I move to Cloudways?
Cloudways is not like other shared hosts. They offer cloud servers, which means:
- You have more control over your website.
- 100% uptime is almost guaranteed.
- Better speed performance because you are not sharing resources with hundreds of other sites.
In shared hosting, you are basically sharing one server with many websites. This also means that if one site gets a high amount of traffic, your site can slow down drastically.
That’s why it’s very important to move to a host like Cloudways once your website starts getting 10,000+ visitors per month—especially if you have a WooCommerce store or an image-heavy site.
💡 You may sign up with my Cloudways link (I do not show ads on my website, so this helps me keep writing blog posts like this).
A2 Hosting (Hosting.com) Speed Criticism
According to Reddit, many users claim that A2 Hosting (before rebranding as Hosting.com) had better speed and support. After the revamp, some believe the quality has gone down.
- Negative feedback: Users said their websites became slower and support wasn’t as strong as before.
- Positive feedback: Others argue Hosting.com still provides better speed than competitors like HostGator, Bluehost, and Hostinger.
In my own experience, I did notice a slight decline in quality—I won’t lie. But has the performance gone down completely? Not really.
👉 Again, it all depends on how heavy your website is.
Positive Reviews of Hosting.com Speed
- r/HostingReport – A user praises the infrastructure: “Their servers are solid, uptime is great, and I’ve never had any major technical issues with the service.”
Reddit Source - HostAdvice summary (based on Reddit feedback) – Positive consensus on performance: “Performance: Hosting.com offers stable and reliable speeds across its shared and VPS plans, which Reddit users frequently commend for uptime and …”
HostAdvice - ThemeIsle roundup referencing Reddit – They highlight Hosting.com’s value: “Hosting.com has emerged as the best in the cheap WordPress hosting category.”
Reddit Source
Negative Reviews of Hosting.com Speed
- r/webhosting – A user expresses disappointment after an acquisition: “Our websites got very slow, support is pretty bad.”
Reddit Source - r/HostingHostel – A more general take on value and speed: “Overall it is reliable but speed & value wise they are no longer top class.”
Reddit Source - Mention via ThemeIsle analysis – A subtle nod to performance concerns when compared to top-tier hosts: While not directly negative about speed, the article notes: Hosting.com is a top shared WordPress provider—but implicitly suggests speed/value may trail behind higher-end options like Cloudways or Kinsta.
Higher Renewal Costs
Though Hosting.com is still better than popular web hosts like Bluehost and HostGator, no one can deny the fact about their higher renewal costs.
Even the smallest shared hosting plan renewal cost, if you include the domain as well, is above $120 per year, which is much higher than other generic web hosts.
👉 To be honest, I would never renew at such a high price—not because I dislike Hosting.com, but because I can get a better web host like Cloudways for only $11 per month.
With Cloudways, at least I don’t have to share a server, and I can increase RAM and the server’s overall strength once my website begins to get some love from search engines.
How Important Speed Is For A Website?
Nowadays, unless you have a very bad web host, your blog should do fine in terms of speed. Even a decent host can provide a loading time of under 3 seconds. And that’s critical—because if your website doesn’t load within 3 seconds, it’s basically game over. You’ll never outrank those big websites.
Hosting.com certainly guarantees a loading speed of less than 3 seconds, but there are some conditions. Your site has to be optimized a little bit—for example, you must be using optimized images.
- Images above 1 MB either need to go or be compressed.
- Too many unnecessary plugins can also slow down your site.
Looking at one of my client’s websites, the site was overloaded with unoptimized images and tons of extra plugins. It was taking an eternity to load. I did basically nothing complicated—I just installed an image optimization plugin, removed some extra plugins that were causing delays, and boom—the site started loading much faster.
By the way, this website was hosted on Hosting.com’s shared hosting plan.
I just want to say: Hosting.com is fast—faster than many big brand hosts like Bluehost and HostGator.
But if you want your website to load in the blink of an eye, you need a better host like Cloudways.
👉 My advice: stick with Hosting.com when you’re starting out, but move out of these generic hosts once you begin to get decent traffic.
Conclusion
Hosting.com (formerly A2 Hosting) is still a reliable shared hosting provider with decent speed and uptime. For smaller websites or beginners, it delivers solid performance—often faster than big-name hosts like Bluehost and HostGator. However, like most shared hosting companies, it comes with limitations: performance drops on heavy websites, higher renewal costs, and reliance on optimization from your side.
If you are just starting your blog or running a small business website, Hosting.com can be a good choice. But as your site grows, especially beyond 10,000 monthly visitors or if you’re running a WooCommerce or media-heavy site, upgrading to a cloud host like Cloudways is the smarter move.
👉 Final word: Hosting.com is a great entry-level hosting solution, but for long-term growth and top-tier speed, you’ll eventually need to move to a more scalable hosting provider.