2017 GreenGeeks Review: Our Expert Rating (4.1/5.0 Stars)
Operating out of California, GreenGeeks stands out partly because they offer their clients top-drawer web hosting services and mostly due to their use of clean energy to do it. And this cuts across all areas of their business operations too. Having been in this industry for a decade, they have amassed quite a following of eco-conscious clientele and even the admiration of those who are not yet on the bandwagon.
Currently, GreenGeeks has a client base of over 35,000 customers that span over 150 countries. The site offers a wide range of hosting options ranging from shared to reseller to dedicated to VPS and even WordPress hosting. What’s so good about their plans is that they encompass the needs of individuals, startups, enterprise corporations, non-profits and even those of conglomerates with complete ease.
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In our GreenGeeks review, we’ll dive deeper to reveal what really makes them and breaks them as well. So read through to the end to find out.
Ratings
- Features 4.4/5.0
- Performance 4.4/5.0
- Reliability 4.5/5.0
- Ease of Use: 4.0/5.0
- Pricing 3.8/5.0
GreenGeeks Hosting Review
If there’s something else unique about GreenGeeks Hosting it's that they're among the few web hosts that have the end user as the primary motivator for everything they do. From investing in SSD drives that guarantee outstanding speeds and load times to excellent customer service, the site is able to retain its clients and keep more coming.
The fact that they give you the most preferred resources on their shared plan shows that they want to facilitate their user's success. Clients love them even more for their scruples. Giving back clean energy 3 times the amount they have used, is no mean feat. It shows a purpose driven company as opposed to a profit driven one.
Their cPanel provides easy management of your website with its feature rich interface. Further, they also offer unlimited secure email accounts which you can create and manage. Pricing is great but only when you start out. Renewal fees are pretty high while the rest of the hosting options are also relatively expensive. More on this later in my GreenGeeks hosting review.
Pros
Performance
Usually, this is always the determining factor for most clients looking up a web host. GreenGeeks has ensured they rank among the best hosting providers when it comes to speed, reliability, and uptimes. They host your account on SSD RAID-10 storage array which guarantees impeccable speeds, load times and consistency. This is all in addition to the nightly backups they provide so that your data is always at hand should anything bad happen to your site. Also, they offer unlimited secure email accounts which you can create and manage.
Customer Support
It is a 24/7/365 affair with GreenGeeks customer support. Always at hand to support, with impeccable response times, the customer support team is knowledgeable and professional. The wait time for a call to be picked can be as little as 30 seconds.
Money Back Guarantee
Once on GreenGeeks, it only takes a matter of hours before you can see the quality of services offered. The site, however, understands the need for a longer period to test out their products hence the 30-day money back guarantee period.
Great Pricing
It costs as little as $2.95 per month to get started on a hosting plan at GreenGeeks. With this amount, you have unlimited domains on one account, secure IMAP/POP3 email accounts, free domain name registration or transfer and free website migration among other perks.
Cons
No Manual Backup Option
While clients appreciate the daily backup offered by GreenGeeks, in many GreenGeeks.com reviews, most suggest that they would like an option that lets them carry out the backup themselves. The cPanel on GreenGeeks doesn't have the backup wizard option. This leaves most users reliant only on the backups from GreenGeeks.
Pricing
Since the pricing varies from one tier to another, what may be a great intro price for one plan does not reflect as such on other plans. With GreenGeeks, the shared plans are very affordable, however, VPS and dedicated plans do come at a heftier price. The renewal rates on shared hosting after sign up also go up by a large margin.
Limitation To Unlimited Resources
In most of the GreenGeeks.com reviews, this is the issue with the most complaints. The limitation GreenGeeks places on their unlimited resources leaves many users who didn't have prior knowledge of this issue in dire straits when their website is suspended. While it is an industry standard to put a cap on unlimited resources, the lack of transparency means users do not have all the information they require to make an informed choice.
Top Features of GreenGeeks Hosting
Features-Rich Plans
GreenGeeks offer incredible features that enhance your web hosting experience. For example, the CloudFlare can help to optimize your website's performance. Essentially, this translates to a faster load time on technologically enhanced gadgets like smartphones and tablets. Other significant features bundled into their plans include:
- Unlimited Data transfer & web space
- Secure IMAP and POP3E email accounts
- Unlimited domains
- Free website building tools
WordPress users in particular, whether a novice or expert, have a chance to enjoy their feature-rich WordPress hosting service that promises unmatched performance and reliability. If you would love to find out how to install WordPress on GreenGeeks, please watch the following video:
Excellent Uptimes
GreenGeeks have an impeccable up time track record. In fact, a record of a down time by their servers is almost nonexistent. While most hail this aspect as terrific for businesses, it is equally important for individuals who want a consistent online presence.
Website Migration
For clients who already have their website hosted by another web host, the process of website migration can be daunting, to say the least. GreenGeeks help you to migrate your website to their hosting platform at no extra cost. Their team will professionally handle it for you and you are guaranteed no downtime.
Clean Energy
The concept of using green energy in web hosting is not new or unique to the industry. GreenGeeks interpretation, on the other hand, surpasses all the other Web hosts efforts. Not only do they pump back into the grid 3 times the amount of energy they consume, it is all clean energy harnessed from their wind farms.
Impeccable Resources
Shared hosting plans have access to the most popular resources on GreenGeeks. For example, the cPanel on their site is an enhanced version. Standard features like softaculous, email accounts, and MySQL among others are readily available across all plans. Their shared hosting has access to SSH, automatic backups, and security features that make it developer friendly. You also get marketing and SEO tools for free and free site building tools.
Conclusion
GreenGeeks has earned the title of being the leading clean energy web host. In fact, the irony lies in the fact that it is an eco-friendly champion in a city renown across the world for smog and air pollution. As more companies join the bandwagon of green energy, we can only hope they maintain the same level of professionalism in reliability, customer care and general service standards as GreenGeeks.
But as we saw in this GreenGeeks review, due to their high renewal fees and expensive VPS and dedicated plans, the company is likely not to be an ideal option for the person looking to start out on a budget. For this reason, you may want to try out a better alternative preferably HostGator because they offer affordable hosting options and match them with plenty of features and impeccable performance.
All in all, with all they have accomplished in 9 years, GreenGeeks have proven they are a world class company.
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