GreenGeeks offers website builder, web page hosting, VPS (private virtual machines, i.e., root access), and reseller services. Their product is the pretty much same as other web hosting packages in that it takes knowledge of cPanel to use it. So it’s not a beginner's platform. Read our GreenGeeks review below.
OverviewGreenGeeks, the US-based company, does not target any particular customers. They take all comers and provide unlimited bandwidth and storage so that big websites could host there. To accommodate that they subscribe to CloudFlare CDN (content delivery network).
GreenGeeks offers a website builder for drag and drop website page building. But most users will probably install a CMS product, like WordPress, instead of doing that, as the whole point of a website builder is simplicity and GreenGeeks are not simple enough for that kind of user. Nor is anyone who uses cPanel as the interface, but it is a good interface for ordinary users, and the most common.
Tech Specs
GreenGeeks uses the Apache for a web server for hosted domains. Those are run on virtual machines on the Singlehop Cloud. Using a cloud company is a real thing. It does not mean, for example, that small business is trying to position itself as a big company.
After all, Netflix does not even have their servers (they use Amazon.). A private cloud provides better service than maintaining your data center as those companies specialize in doing nothing but that. So their security is going to be top notch and their redundancy thorough.
Key FeaturesGreen Geeks, the experts suggest, is a diamond in the rough, but billing issues cloud the waters, and there are rumors about questionable backup procedures and domain transfer problems. On the other hand, the same experts agree they get far fewer negative issue reports than for most other web hosts.
Cons
Pros
Consumer reviews testify to Green Geeks as an efficient, friendly, reliable, consistent and technically effective host. If praise is somewhat restrained, it is probably because Green Geeks is just doing its job and its customers are free to get on with theirs. Apart from issues around refunds and hidden costs, wideGreen Geeks receives the thumbs up for all the standard features offered by web hosts.What are the main features that impel customers to drag themselves from work to put virtual pen to paper in praise of Green Geeks?
While user reviews of Green Geeks on the internet are overwhelmingly positive, the same billing-related complaints keep coming up from disgruntled customers and, given their otherwise good track record; it is curious that Green Geeks has not addressed them.
Refunds are not returned in full and often delayed
Real cost of hosting being hidden
Reliability & UptimeThe company claims a 99.9% uptime. Any offer higher than that is just plain silly and not even possible, usually, and moot in some cases. Website viewers are going to have their problems due to problems with their machines and internet connection.
That said, there is plenty of redundancy at GreenGreeks. SingleHop has 5 data centers in the USA and one in Europe, all with battery backup.
Features & Tools Here is a list of functions that represents the collective sum of what web hosting customers might need and whether or not GreenGeeks provides those.
| Feature | Overview |
|---|---|
| cPanel | |
| Disk Space | unlimited |
| Bandwidth | unlimited |
| Database Support | MySQL |
| Free Domain | No. Right up front you have to enter your domain name and either buy that or indicate that you will update your DNS records for an existing domain. There is no way to practice or host it on their site temporarily. So make sure you spell your domain name correctly. |
| WordPress Hosting Packages | No. They host WordPress but do not market that as a focus. |
| Multiple Domains | Yes. You can host other domains under the same account. You set that up under cPanel as explained here. |
| Data Backups | They do nightly backups. But they have turned off the way people usually backup and download their site to their computers for extra safe keeping. They have disabled the backup tool on the cPanel calling it “very resource intensive.”
Instead, they instruct the user to download their home folder using FTP, which is going to be awkward for some people without the skills to do that, particularly since they would need to know how to zip the folders up as well. Also, FTP should be disabled on most servers as it is subject to brute force attack and as such is a security risk. |
| SSD (Solid State Drives) | All their hosted domains are on SSD drives. That is faster than magnetic disks since there are no moving parts. So it should provide some boost to speed, but it might not be discernible to the user as disk seek time was only a small part of the ecosystem when you considered that the latency inherent in the internet and people’s own pegged smartphones and virus-laden PCs. |
| Oneclick App Installer | They use a tool called Softaculous to provide assisted installation of, for example, the following:
Joomla, WordPress, PrestaShop, OpenCart, Drupal, phpBB, SMG, Magento, WHMCS, MyBB, Dolphin, Moodle |
| Email Accounts | Yes. unlimited. Hosted companies always say that, to suggest you are getting something for free. But who would need an infinite number of email accounts? |
| Security Features | Most of their more advanced security features come with an added fee. An example of that increases DDOS (distributed denial of service) protection. That could be because they might be farming that out to a 3rd party, to hold the DNS records, like Pro temporarily. DYN, which is one of those companies that can handle surges in this kind of traffic surge, because they have massive server farms.
GreenGeeks also provide OWASP, which are a setup rules for the open source http://www.modsecurity.org/ firewall for their enterprise customers. Their basic plans have the basic stuff that you would normally expect from an antispam engine for their email and the ability to block IPs based on a range or specific IP address. But you can do that yourself with standard tools. For example Bulletproof security WP plugin alerts you when someone is trying to brute force attack your login. So they let you update the Apache security file .htaccess plus you can do that through the cPanel. |
| Website Builder | Yes, but you have to pay a minimum of $3.96 per month to use it.
Their menus are so sparse that it make it almost impossible to find anything including the builder. So here is the link. Their menus are so clean and sparse because nothing is listed there. So to find anything use Google and write using Google search syntax like this: site:greengeeks.com Website Builder |
| eCommerce Solution | More or less. You can set it up, but you have to have to set up your merchant account, SSL certificate, and payment gateway yourself. In other words, they do not work with a partner who has all of that ready to go. Magento’s template says they are PayPal-ready, but PayPal is not a payment gateway, meaning not a company like Stripe that collects credit cards and works as a temporary bank providing you with a merchant account.
Regarding the software they have wizards to install different eCommerce engines. |
| Malware & Spam Protection | Yes. For all pricing levels. |
| Shopping Carts | There are several. We set up Magento as explained below. |
| Programming Languages Support | Not many: PHP, Perl, Python. |
| Site Statistics | No. They just point you to different SEO tools and WordPress plugins to collect that. Of course you can use Google Analytics. No one needs anything other than Google Analytics, which is the best tool there is. |
| Site Backups | Once per day, at night. This is confusing as in their pricing they say they do offer backups. And as we said above in cPanel they do not let you create a backup and download it. |
| CDN services | CloudFlare. |
| Additional features & tools |
|
Plans & Pricing And here are their advertised prices, but there are many additional fees as shown below.
| Ecosite Starter | $8 | |
| Ecosite Pro | $10 | Going up in price, you get more memory and faster disk I/O which makes one wonder why they offer SSD drives if they are then going to limit your I/O. |
| Ecosite Premium | $20 | As noted above, plus you can get a dedicated IP here. That does not matter as your CNAME record points to a name server so who needs a dedicated IP? |
Add-ons Prices
| SSL | $50 per year |
| Website Builder | $4 per month and up. |
| Cloudflare | Of course you have to pay for this as they have to pay Cloudflare. It is sold as Free, Pro, Premium, and Enterprise topping out at $250. |
Customer Support | Phone | They list their phone number so presumably they answer it. |
| Support email | Yes. We had to open a ticket when I got charged for three years to write this review. |
| Chat | Someone came online quickly with no waiting. |
| Knowledge Base | Yes. Again it is not where you would expect to find it, i.e., the support menu. So here is the direct link. |
| Video Tutorials | Yes. There are lots of those here. |
| Support Forum | No. |
| Additional Options | Nothing beyond what is listed here. No premium priority system. |
| Is it provided on a 24/7 basis? | That’s what they say pointing out that it is English-speaking Americans working from the USA. |
| Professional attitude of customer supports | agents |
| Speed and accuracy | We had not problems accessing the site during the time we were working on it. No error messages. |
| Competency and expert advice | Awards include Top Web Host 2012, Webhost Magazine and Buyers Guide Editors Choice. In short, they have a whole pageful. |
| Reliability | Singlehop guarantees 100% with a 5% credit if they do not meet that. But that is for GreenGeeks. GreenGeeks in their terms of service they offer a guarantee of 99.9&% uptime but with no financial rebate for downtime. |
Ease of Use We installed WordPress and Magento to see if that was easy. Once we were done with our review, it was very easy to cancel service using that form.
WordPress and Magento Quick Install
Conclusion Even given that their customer dashboard is extremely sparse, and you will search all day for their knowledge base or how to add services, this is an excellent product. That they use a cloud provider for virtual machines which means they have delegated the most important task of keeping those working for a company who is best qualified to do so.
And they use CloudFlare, which means there should be no latency for users around the world due to distance, which is the absence of that can be up to 500 ms (0.5 seconds). Of course that helps for cached static content, like graphics, and HTML.
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