GreenGeeks Review 2021

GreenGeeks has over 40k customers and is on a mission to become one of the most eco-friendly web host providers in the world.
Founded in 2008, GreenGeeks is one of the most unique hosting providers in the market right now. It has a list of many essential features in areas such as speed, security, support, and reliability.
But will it be a suitable host for your company?
Take a look at our GreenGeeks review of 2021 as we assess every area of the hosting provider and evaluate if they really are a valid option for your business.
Pros
Cons
Summary
Is GreenGeeks right for you? Yes, it is a good hosting provider for small to medium-sized businesses. Even fairly larger corporations can give it a try after analyzing the hosting requirements. It is highly reliable and provides good customer support. The few cons should not mask the fact that it is a great hosting provider.
A Complete Review of GreenGeeks
1. Hosting Plans & Packages
A. Web Hosting
The web hosting plans of GreenGeeks will be suitable for small to medium personal and business websites. There are three plans all of which include unlimited bandwidth and SSD storage. It also comes with other features such as a free SSL certificate, secure FTP accounts, SSH, and Perl and Python support. They also provide free domain name registration for the first year of service.
B. WordPress Hosting
WordPress hosting plans are similar to the web hosting ones and share similar pricing. They do not offer any elaborate WordPress plans. This plan is just optimized for the CMS so it is best suited for WordPress websites.
C. VPS Hosting
The VPS plans of GreenGeeks will be a perfect choice if you want total control over the resources and root access. Depending on the plans you’ll get the RAM, vCPUs, and storage. In addition, all of the VPS plans have advanced security, dedicated IP, Intel Xeon Processors, 24/7 monitoring, and more.
D. Reseller Hosting
Reseller plans are a good option if you want to develop a hosting business or resell it to your clients. GreenGeeks will give you a WHMCS license to manage bill accounts. You will also get access to tools such as Git, Drush, SSH, WP-CLI, and PhpMyAdmin. On top of all this, you will get a brandable reseller panel login, good support, and advanced security.
E. Additional Products
- E-commerce hosting - Dedicated hosting to create a fully functional e-commerce website with WooCommerce, Magento, PrestaShop, and OpenCart which starts at $2.49/month
- Drupal hosting - For Drupal websites with all the necessary hosting features which starts at $2.49/month
- Joomla hosting - Features specifically to easy manage Joomla websites which starts at $2.49/month
- cPanel hosting - Simplifies the process of hosting websites to the website owner or the end-user which starts at $2.49/month
2. Main Features
A. Website Migration & Domain Transfer
If you already have a website and want to switch to GreenGeeks hosting, you don’t have to worry about the switch. You can purchase any of the hosting packages and request to their support team for migration and they will take care of the rest. They can also do a free domain transfer if you need it. All these services are offered free of charge with zero downtime during the transition.
B. Email Options
GreenGeeks hosting plans have email services where you can set up an unlimited number of personalized email accounts. In addition, you will be able to access your emails safely through the IMAP and POP3 servers.
C. Website Builder
If you don’t have a website, you can make use of the GreenGeeks website builder to create one. The builder has many customizable responsive templates and drag-and-drop editing tools that can be used on CMS platforms such as WordPress. Through this builder, getting your website up and running could be as simple as just changing the text and images. Overall, the GreenGeeks hosting and website builder can be your one-stop solution when it comes to setting up your website.
D. Content Delivery Network (CDN)
GreenGeeks offers a free CDN that is powered by Cloudflare. This is amazing news for your website optimization especially if you have a global audience as your target. The best part is this CDN allows you to cache content and use servers that are close to your site visitors. This means that surfing will be much faster for people visiting your website.
E. Security
GreenGeek’s plans come with a free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt. Like most hosting providers it offers spam protection and proactive server monitoring to shield your website from attacks and malware.
You can also upgrade from the free SSL certificate to the premium AlphaSSL Wildcard SSL certificate which comes with 256-bit encryption. To fight malware GreenGeeks provides a Secured visualization File System (vFS) to each customer.
F. Green Hosting
If going green is one of the highest priorities for your company, then GreenGeeks should be on top of your list. They stand out among other green hosts because they offset energy usage by 300%. Their website claims that they are one of the most environmentally responsible hosting companies in the world.
Plus, they are recognized by the Green Power Partners of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. They also provide Green Website Tag so you can showcase to your website visitors that you care about the environment.
3. Speed
GreenGeeks invests in the latest speed technology to give amazing speed.
- SSD hard drives where site’s files and databases are stored
- qBuilt-in caching technology (combines in-house cache Powercacher with LiteSpeed Cache)
- Latest network protocol such as HTTP3/QUIC
- PHP 7 support
Lastly, they monitor websites regularly which means it offers a 99.9% uptime which is quite impressive as they live up to the promise offered on their website.
4. Data Centers
GreenGeeks has 5 data centers - Chicago (US), Phoenix (US), Toronto (CA), Montreal (CA), and Amsterdam (NL). In addition, all these data centers are backed by dual-city grade battery backup, automatic temperature, climate control, 24/7 staff monitoring, biometric and key card security, and FM 200 server-safe fire safety.
5. Ease of Use
All GreenGeeks customers will gain access to cPanel control which is one of the most popular in the market as it is intuitive and easy to use. Through this you can access your domains, email accounts, check users, add software to your server, and much more. Apart from this, cPanel includes additional SEO tools, additional spam protections, search function, and Sofaculous app installer (1-click installation for CMS).
You will also receive nightly backups, so there is no need to worry about data loss. Plus, it also has WHMCS licenses (billing software), backup restores, manual backup requests, complete PCI compliance, and more. Click here to view the complete list of addons.
6. Help and Support
GreenGeeks offers 24/7 technical support, live chat support, and telephone & email tickets. They also promise that the average time of support ticket resolution will be around 15-20 minutes.
Also, like most of the hosting providers, GreenGeeks provides an extensive knowledge base full of articles and tutorials if you want to leave more.
7. Pricing
At first glance, GreenGeeks will look like a reliable provider of inexpensive hosting. And technically they are good!
Like most hosting provides GreenGeeks offers a cheap introductory price. But, you will get the $2.49 per month price only if you agree to subscribe for 3 years. If you go for a monthly subscription, you will be paying around $5.25 per month. And if you are new to GreenGeeks and want to test things until you are sure, the charges may even go as high as $9.25 per month!
GreenGeeks provides a 30 days money-back guarantee. However, the setup fee, transfer, and domain name registration fee will not be refunded. Deducting for the domain name is reasonable, but even for setup and transfer seems quite unfair.
Verdict
Here’s an overview of our GreenGeeks review 2021.
- Great performance with 99.9% uptime
- Uses latest speed technologies (CDN, caching, etc) to improve performance
- Green hosting
- Free nightly backups
- Secure and reliable data centers
- Good support with proper documentation and help videos
- Easy to use website builder with plenty of customizable templates
- 30-day money-back guarantee with a catch
- Pricy renewal
GreenGeeks Review 2021 - Takeaways
- Strengths - Performance and help resources
- Complaints - Pricing
- Best for - Small-to-medium sites. It may be suitable for large companies, but the needs must be accessed.
In conclusion, GreenGeeks is an adequate web hosting provider that offers good support. They provide a variety of useful features to make your website safe and secure. Not to mention, the hosting provider is environmentally conscious too.
However, before signing up, you need to consider few things. Beware of the pricing and the money-back guarantee. Also, pricing is not what it seems and if you are not cautious you may end up spending more.
Plus, you must not take the ‘unlimited’ feature literally. If your website exceeds the computing resources, things will be automatically slowed down. This also means that if you face a sudden traffic spike, they might notify you about the situation, suspend your account, or ask to upgrade your plan.
So, if GreenGeeks is really a hosting provider you want to consider, thoroughly check all the offers and features to ensure they will provide you with the best hosting experience at the price you are willing to pay.
Note - All the images and screenshots in this article were taken from the GreenGeeks website. We do not own the images.