You’ve certainly taken a turn in the right direction by choosing an eco-friendly solution for your business or blog. However, you must also wonder, what is the best green web hosting provider for my business?
Believe it or not, there are several eco-friendly web hosting providers, but many of them only claim to be having a low carbon footprint. In reality, many of these providers are simply running scams to make you buy their hosting service for cheap rates and suffer at the hands of low performance.
Thankfully though, I have done the work for you, and can safely say that the following 5 green website hosting services are legit and offer good performance too!
- GreenGeeks
- A2 Hosting
- Inmotion Web Hosting
- HostPapa
- iPage
But wait… which one is the best of the bunch?
Obviously, we need just one of these providers for hosting our new website, but which one? Don’t worry, I’ve done that for you as well, so you can sit back, relax, and make your decision with confidence.
We are going to hold a competition between these 5 green web hosting providers, and will be giving each hosting provider rating out of 5 based on five categories:
- Eco-Friendliness
- Pricing
- Performance
- Convenience
- Extra Features
The final verdict will decide which of these is the best green web hosting service.
Let’s Begin!
GreenGeeks
Perhaps undoubtedly the greenest web hosting provider on this list, GreenGeeks claims to run on 300% renewable energy, investing three times as much into renewable energy for each unit of energy consumed. GreenGeeks also has some of the most attractive packages out there for both bloggers and small business owners.
Pros
- Extremely high page response times
- 99.9% uptime
- Multiple data centers to choose from
- A free domain name for the first year
- Unlimited storage and email accounts
- Great customer service
- Free SSL certificate
- Very few upsells
- Free CDN
- Free backups
Cons
- User interface confusing at the start
- High renewal price after the first billing period
- A limited number of plans
Pricing
Ratings
| Eco-Friendliness | Pricing | Performance | Convenience | Extra Features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4 | 5 |
A2 Hosting
Another great green web hosting service is A2 hosting. They have been in the market for quite some time now, and are working actively for reforestation in their area. They are purposely situated in Ann Arbor, one of the most eco-friendly cities in the United States, and have also recently introduced the “FutureServe” hosting initiative to lower their carbon footprint by reducing emission from their servers.
Pros
- Very fast load times
- Variety of hosting plans
- Storage starting from 100 GB
- Unlimited email addresses
- Great customer service
- Excellent uptime
- Extra security via firewalls and regular scanning
- Free SSL
Cons
- Limited concurrent connections to the website
- Confusing sign-up process
- Few upsells during checkout
- No Free domain for the first year
- High priced renewal after First billing period
Pricing
Ratings
| Eco-Friendliness | Pricing | Performance | Convenience | Extra Features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4 | 4.5 |
InMotion Web Hosting
InMotion web hosting is a fast-growing hosting provider that offers a unique solution for helping the environment. They have created the first eco-friendly data center in Los Angeles, USA, which uses Outside Air Cooling technology to cool down the data center instead of using large air conditioners running 24/7. This allows them to reduce the carbon footprint by about 2000 tons a year, giving them a spot on our list of the best green web hosting providers.
Pros
- Great uptime at 99.95%
- 90-day money back guarantee
- Free website transfer
- Free SSL certificate
- Unlimited Bandwidth
- Excellent customer service
- Free Domain
Cons
- Slow load times
- Only one email account on the cheapest package
- Only 10GB storage on starter package
- Very limited email storage
- WordPress hosting relatively expensive
- Servers only in the US
- A few upsells
Pricing
Ratings
| Eco-Friendliness | Pricing | Performance | Convenience | Extra Features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 4 | 3 |
HostPapa
HostPapa is one of the most eco friendly web hosting providers on this list. The company is committed to contributing towards a greener world and has successfully been able to run all its resources from data centers to their office spaces on 100% renewable energy including solar and wind power. They are also currently working with multiple green foundations and purchasing green energy certificates to further commit to the eco-friendly cause.
Pros
- Free domain
- Great load times
- Host 2 websites even at the cheapest package
- 100GB SSD storage
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Free CDN
- Good uptime
- Free training
- Free SSL certificate
Cons
- High priced addons
- No free backups
- Limited email accounts
- Limited email storage
- Sub-par customer support
- The free trial does not include set up costs, which are charged if you decide to cancel
- A huge amount of other hidden charges
Pricing
Ratings
| Eco-Friendliness | Pricing | Performance | Convenience | Extra Features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 4 | 4.5 | 3 | 4.5 |
iPage
iPage owes its green web hosting status to purchasing renewable energy certificates (RECs) on a regular basis. They have been generating electricity from a renewable source to power their data centers, and claim to have purchased enough REC to reduce the carbon footprint by 200%. It is also the cheapest green web hosting site on our list, but it comes with a catch
Pros
- Probably one of the cheapest reliable web hosting services in the market
- Free domain for the first year
- Free SSL certificate
- A lot of free add-ons
- Good uptime speeds
- Friendly customer support
Cons
- Upsells literally everywhere
- No cPanel
- No free website migrations
- Very limited support
- Very slow load times
- Limited memory
- Unnecessary plugins installed on WordPress hosting
- Very confusing user interface
Pricing
Ratings
| Eco-Friendliness | Pricing | Performance | Convenience | Extra Features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.5 | 5 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3 |
The Final Verdict
Fifth place
InMotion Hosting was once one of the best green web hosting providers, and with the introduction of their new Outside Cooling technology, they certainly were looking towards a bright future. Unfortunately, the company has seen a rather significant dip in service, and although their cheapest package is lower than most other providers on this list, the features are even less than what iPage offers!
Fourth place
iPage initially seems to be the most obvious choice to make; with its price being less than $2 a month, it is easily the cheapest one on the list. However, the limited functionality and the annoying upselling on every single page doesn’t exactly paint a good image. But hey! If you’re getting something for just $1.99, there are going to be a few downsides to it.
Third place
HostPapa isn’t really bad with the features it offers for the price; in fact, they are probably more than what is offered by the rest of the service providers on this list. The big downsides, however, are the shady hidden costs and below-average customer service. If I cancel a plan during my trial period, I expect to receive ALL my money back, and not get scammed by being charged $25 dollars for a setup fee that wasn’t even mentioned clearly!
Second place
This was a tough one, A2 and GreenGeeks both offer great features at similar prices, and have very few upsells (if any) and have excellent performance. The only deciding factors that separate the two, are the free domain registration and a relative difference in storage space offered, and therefore, A2 Hosting comes at second place on the list. Well played!
And The Winner!
With unlimited storage, unlimited email accounts, great uptime, customer service, free extra features, and a carbon footprint lower than all other hosting providers on the list, GreenGeeks is our winner for the best green web hosting provider on the planet! To check out the deals on GreenGeeks, click on the button below and receive a special discount of up to 70% on hosting plans.