A2Hosting and Inmotion are among the best hosting providers in the market today and perform better than many other hosts.

In this article, I compared both web hosts’ features, ease of use, customer support, performance, and pricing, and A2Hosting came out on top. Still, depending on what you need, Inmotion may be a better choice for you.

Read on to learn more about each so you can decide for yourself!

Overall Comparison – A2Hosting vs Inmotion

Winner: A2Hosting

Overall, A2Hosting wins with cheaper plans, more features, and a global network of servers. Regardless, Inmotion is still a strong A2Hosting competitor. Read on to learn more about the two services.

About A2Hosting and Inmotion

	In 2001, Bryan Muthig started A2Hosting with a mission to help people thrive on the internet. Today, A2Hosting is one of the most popular web hosts, known for its excellent speed and performance. The company has data centers on 4 continents and powers over 5 million websites globally.
	InMotion Hosting was founded in the same year as A2Hosting with a mission to bring tools and outstanding customer service to people looking to grow online. It has since amassed over 570,000 customers globally with the company servers and customer support all based in the US.

Round 1: Hosting features – Key Hosting Features and Services

Key A2Hosting Features

With A2Hosting’s shared hosting plans (except Startup), you get unlimited bandwidth and disk storage (high-performance SSD), and it’s the same with all WordPress plans. The turbo VPS hosting plan gives you unlimited bandwidth and 150GB NVMe SSD storage.

Also included in most plans are a free SSL certificate and domain, free daily backups, one-click app installation (WordPress included), free site migration, and the A2 Site Builder, a tool that lets you design your website with ease using drag-and-drop.

Key Inmotion Features

Like A2Hosting, Inmotion offers unlimited bandwidth and storage on most of its plans. They offer more disk storage in their highest VPS plan but for more price (see next section).

In addition to the above features, they offer free SSL certificates and domain, 1-click app integrations (WordPress included), free site migration to A2Hosting, and finally an intuitive page builder for designing your website.

And the winner is… A2Hosting

Both A2Hosting and Inmotion offer NVMe SSD storage on nearly all plans, which is awesome for high performance. A2Hosting wins this round with more features overall.

Round 2: Prices & Plans

A2Hosting Pricing Plans

A2Hosting offers different kinds of hosting, and each of them has at least one turbo plan (specifically built for speed). Here are the various plans and their suitable use cases:

• Shared hosting – for small websites that don’t expect a lot of traffic in the near future
• VPS hosting – for fast-growing websites that often experience spikes in traffic
• WordPress hosting – specifically optimized for WordPress sites
• Dedicated hosting – for huge companies with large traffic and data volumes needing dedicated resources
• Reseller hosting – for entrepreneurs that want to rent out hard drive space and bandwidth
• Email hosting – for hosting services that want to rent out and operate email servers

Inmotion Pricing Plans

Compared to A2Hosting, Inmotion’s plans are quite limited (no email and cPanel hosting). Their five main hosting categories are:

• Shared hosting – suited for small service websites
• VPS hosting – fast-growing websites needing more resources
• WordPress hosting – tailored for WordPress sites
• Reseller hosting – for entrepreneurs starting their own hosting business
• Dedicated hosting – best for sites with huge traffic and data transactions

And the Winner Is… A2Hosting

A2Hosting wins this round with more hosting services than Inmotion.

Round 3: Website performance (Uptime & Speed)

Two important metrics to look out for when choosing a host is server uptime and speed. Basically, uptime tells you how long the server stays active for in a time period while the server speed is measured as the time it takes for the server to send the first byte of data. Onto A2Hosting vs Inmotion.

A2Hosting Uptime & Speed

Using GTMetrix and PageSpeed Insights, we ran different tests on A2Hosting and both tests returned excellent results.

On GTMetrix, A2Hosting scored 90% performance with a TTFB of 0.097s.

With PageSpeed Insights, the results were slightly lower with A2Hosting scoring 88% in performance and a TTFB of 0.6s.

You should know that these values will vary depending on the user’s location and the distance between them and your server.

Inmotion Uptime & Speed

We ran separate tests for Inmotion and the results were quite decent too.

With GTMetrix, the Inmotion-based site we tested got a TTFB of 0.44s and an overall performance of 73% (both lower than A2Hosting’s scores).

With PageSpeed Insights, Inmotion had a better performance of 88% but a lower TTFB of 0.7s (which is still quite decent).

And the Winner Is…A2Hosting

A2Hosting wins this round with superior server speeds and performance. Keep in mind that speed is relative – A2Hosting might perform better in certain areas outside the US (due to its global network of servers) and slower than Inmotion in the US (Inmotion’s servers are all US-based).

Round 4: Customer Support – Who Has the Best Support System?

A2Hosting customer Support

A2Hosting offers one of the most reliable supports among all web hosts. You can contact A2Hosting’s support team through live chat, telephone, email, socials (Twitter), or by submitting a ticket.

The live chat option is available to everyone (not just customers) and the response time is fast. I tried chatting with an agent and it took a few seconds for them to respond, check the screenshot below.

Furthermore, A2Hosting provides a blog, knowledgebase, FAQs section, and a YouTube channel where customers can learn more about their products and services.

At the time of writing, it’s been a while since they posted on YouTube, but their tutorials are all up-to-date.

Inmotion customer Support

Like A2Hosting, Inmotion provides support to customers via live chat, telephone, email, and tickets. Anyone can hop on a live chat with an agent through the live chat option on their website.

The screenshot below shows my conversation with an agent via live chat:

After I sent the first message, they responded instantly, but not as quickly as A2Hosting. Their customer support agent was very professional too.

You might want to figure things out by yourself. In that case, you can visit their blog and knowledgebase, read tutorials & product guides, or go through their forum and YouTube channel.

And the Winner Is…A2Hosting

This is a close one. Though Inmotion provides more support channels for customers, I choose A2Hosting as the winner of this round due to their better responsiveness via live chat.

Round 5: Ease of use – Which Platform Is Easier to Use?

A2Hosting Ease of use

A2Hosting features a beautiful user interface. On their homepage, they boldly highlight their best offers with navigation links to the rest. Even those new to web hosting will find the UI easy to navigate.

For site management, A2Hosting offers the good old cPanel which is where you upload files, access your database, turn on security features and make backend tweaks.

Inmotion Ease of use

Inmotion’s UI is more minimalistic than A2Hosting with less clutter and an overall visually appealing layout. The homepage is also rich with features you’ll love.

As for the admin, Inmotion offers a branded cPanel that includes everything you need to effectively manage your site — from file manager and spam filters to support center.

And the Winner Is Inmotion

Both Inmotion and A2Hosting offer beautiful and user-friendly interfaces but I personally like Inmotion’s custom admin panel better, and for that reason, Inmotion wins this round for me.

Round 6: Security – Which Platform is More Secure?

A2Hosting Security

A2 comes equipped with security mechanisms like SSL encryption, firewalls, DDoS protection, automatic backups (except for Startup) and 2-FA authentication.

Backups are implemented on all plans except the most basic shared plan. A2Hosting’s SSL certificates are issued by Let’s Encrypt and DDoS protection is done using Immunify 360, a powerful tool for combating brute-force attacks and other malicious activities. Other features in the pack include Kernel updates, HackScan, Brute Force defense, and Barracuda spam filters.

Inmotion Security

Like A2Hosting, Inmotion doesn’t joke with security. All of its plans include SSL certificates, DDoS protection, malware scanners, and enhanced password protection.

Inmotion doesn’t offer free and automatic backups like A2Hosting. Instead, their backups are offered as a paid add-on. Furthermore, you get Hack operations, Advanced Policy, firewalls, and a patching application to secure your websites from malicious attacks.

And the Winner Is… A2Hosting

No doubt, Inmotion offers excellent security features, but A2Hosting wins this round due to its free and automatic backups.

Round 7: Server locations

When choosing a web host, it’s important to consider where the host company’s servers are located because they impact how quickly your site will be shown to users.

Server locations affect loading speed, and a higher loading speed leads to higher SEO, decreased bounce rate, and more business for you.

A2Hosting Server location

A2Hosting has four data centers — two located in the United States (Arizona and Michigan), one located in Asia (Singapore), and the last located in Europe (Amsterdam).

Inmotion Server location

Inmotion has two data centers and both are located in the US:

• Ashburn, Virginia (East Coast US)
• Los Angeles, California (West Coast US)

And the Winner Is… A2Hosting

A2Hosting has a global server network that spans three countries and continents. This gives it better global availability than Inmotion whose servers are located just in the US.

A2Hosting vs Inmotion: Final Recommendations

When to Choose A2Hosting?

A2Hosting, the winner of this contest, is widely favored for its excellent speed, performance, and security, but there’s more to them.

Choose A2Hosting if:

• You want some of the fastest SSD technology (NVMe AMD server from their turbo plans)
• You want some of the best multi-year pricing plans on the market
• You want to be able to choose your server location
• You want reliable customer support
• You want free website migration
• You want free automatic backups (available on all plans except Startup)
• You want reliable cloud storage with a top-notch security pack that includes Brute Force protection, patching app and other features.

When to Choose Inmotion?

Inmotion offers some of the best hosting plans for growing blogs and businesses. Over 500,000 customers use Inmotion because of their excellent hosting services.

Here are some good reasons to choose Inmotion:

• You have a growing blog or website and want flexibility
• Your audience is based in the US and Europe
• You’re on a small budget and looking for the best value for your money
• You want excellent customer support
• You to want free website migration