Great Shared Hosting for Flarum - Siteground and A2 Hosting

010101

Update: I’m no longer using A2 hosting which is the provider this thread was originally about. I switched to Siteground. I’ve updated this thread’s title to include Siteground. A2 is still a good option, no major complaints. I switched because I thought for a moment I was done managing a website and canceled my services. Then a few months later I decided to start up again with a new Flarum installation and a new host. It was a fresh start. I had used Siteground a long time ago. They’ve made a lot of positive (in my opinion) changes since I last used them and so I decided to give them another try.

I may or may not come back and update this post should I switch again. At the time of typing this update it was September 2021 and I was still with Siteground. I currently have no plans on switching again anytime soon. 😌 More thoughts are here.

Here’s what this post originally said:

I do not work for this company and I do not make any money if you were to sign up. But, this is a popular topic here at Discuss Flarum... people asking if there are good shared hosting companies Flarum will run on. So, I thought I'd speak up and give my suggestion. And I know that there are approximately two other threads here talking about A2 Hosting. But, they are older threads, plus third time's a charm. Or something like that.

I signed up for A2 Hosting originally just to host a WordPress blog. Then I discovered Flarum. It turned out, this host already had everything I needed. SSH access, and anything else Flarum needs to run.

I've used this host for over a year now. In the past, with other hosts, by now something goes wrong which makes me not like the host. But so far, no issues with A2. They are reliable, and my websites run fast. They aren't owned by any creepy, bad mega companies either (that I know of).

Plus, I know for sure my how to install Flarum on shared hosting instructions work with this host. Because I made these instructions while installing Flarum with this host.

I think that's about it. They have other plans too that I haven't tried yet like VPS, dedicated servers and all that jazz. And, they haven't been in the news lately about being hacked. That's always good. 🙂

andreherberth

Want to give them a shout out again myself.
A2 Hosting is quite decent, and should be recommended.

It is worth to mention that 3 dollars (3 euros in my case) a month is after discounts. In example, if you go by monthly payment, it's only around 3 dollars for the first month, moving up to around 10 dollars (10 euros in my case) afterwards.
If you pay for a year or 3, the discount lasts out the subscribed time.

A2 is not very cheap if you disregard their discounts, but they run those very often. Also, the feature set is way above the cheaper hosts, and for many, it is a good stepping stone before moving to a VPS.
But. notice that HTTP/2 or SPDY is not available on the lite and swift plan,
https://www.a2hosting.com/web-hosting/compare

Personally, I would recommend the Turbo plan. Especially if you manage to clock in at one of their discounts (And have the option to pay for several years at once)

010101

andreherberth A2 is not very cheap

Thanks for the reminder. I forgot about that because I paid for multiple years up front. And, that's why I paid for multiple years because I knew the cost would go up. You're right, after your first month, or after your first few years, however you paid, the cheapness goes away. I removed that "it's cheap" sentence from my original post.

So come to think of it, if I ever switch from A2, it will most likely only be because I can't afford it anymore. Although it's funny how I and others think about web hosting costs sometimes. Even the full price of $10/mo for "turbo," isn't bad when you think about other costs people are willing to pay for without batting an eye. Cable TV costs, mobile phone costs, and other subscriptions are higher than this.

[deleted] I've used A2 before in the past. Sadly, ONCE was enough.

That's too bad. I did recently see some negative posts about them from around 2017 which was before I signed up. Maybe they improved since you used them. I think anyone can have a bad experience with any company. I've been with several hosting companies. What I've found is, even ones others highly recommended to me, had things about them that I didn't like. I've only had to contact A2's tech support a couple times in a year and each time they helped quickly. And like I said, my sites are fast without extra caching. Faster than with other shared hosts I've used.

Let me put it this way, even if I ever switch hosts, I would always recommend A2 as an option to people. Because, compared to other similar types of hosts, they offer more features and I notice the speed difference (at least with their turbo plan, I haven't tried a lower plan). And, if I ever switch hosts, I'm sure it would be due to being cheap and thinking that I can find something cheaper. Ha! But, I would probably be disappointed if I ever switch to something cheaper. Either the host would be slower, or it would be harder to set things up.

[deleted]

I've used A2 before in the past. Sadly, ONCE was enough. Awful service, over subscribed, and practically non-existent support. And this was supposed to be the turbo plan.

Cancelled after one day.

[deleted]

010101 Maybe they improved since you used them. I think anyone can have a bad experience with any company

Exactly that. Personally, I don't have that much faith in Trustpilot etc - even though there are 5 star reviews, there's always those that provide a one star and seem to have a negative experience. Personally, I prefer recommendations from peers in the industry (such as here and yourself as a great example) - but, having used A2 for a relatively low-level project, and seeing their poor (and very over subscribed) performance myself, I immediately backed off.

tankerkiller125

[deleted] Like you I also only trust other people in the industry and what their opinions are, I've used a wide range of host over the past several years but so far DigitalOcean VPS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud are my favorite. I've used AWS in the past and didn't have to bad of an experience with them but I'm not a fan of them overall.

010101

tankerkiller125 Everybody mentions Digital Ocean. Maybe one day I'll try them. It's hard to find real reviews though. For example, a quick Google search of comparing A2 Hosting and Digital Ocean brings up various reviews. But, were those sites paid for those reviews? Possibly. A couple say A2 is just as good or better than the low end Digital Ocean plans. But again, I'm always skeptical about reviews on the Internet. I can only go by my personal experience and so far, a year+ in, A2 is the best or one of the top web hosts I've used for the price. And I've hopped around a lot. All hosts say they have fast hosting. But, A2 is the first host to say it, and every time I go to my 5 different websites they truly load fast. I'm sure there are days when they are slow though.

What worries me about the cloud/VPS hosts like Digital Ocean is, the low end plans which would be what I get, might be a little slower than what A2 gives me. My sites loading FAST is my #1 priority. Followed by price which is... umm... also #1. Those two are tied as far as priorities.

That's right, I want something for nothing. I want a screaming fast website, but I don't want to pay a ton. Mainly because I'm the only person in my family who cares about web design / web building. So, it's hard to get budgeting support if you are the only person in a family who cares about something and there are a ton of other more important expenses. Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent.

In short, I hear the Digital Ocean talk, but I'm scared to take the plunge when everything "just works" out of the gate at A2.

tankerkiller125

010101 My sites load very fast, (less than 2s for flarum on average, less than 1s for static content) I pay for two $10 DigitalOcean VPSs one is my Mail/Error server and the other is my web server. Personally I love their service just because I don't have to deal with other BS, their entire goal is to support developers, that's their entire mission. The only BS you may have to deal with (on brand new accounts) is getting SMTP port 25 open, but even that is pretty easy.

matteocontrini

010101 well, DigitalOcean pretty much invented the affordable VPS cloud market. They launched years ago with plans starting from 5$ (with hourly billing!) while still providing a very high-quality offer (SSD, unlimited bandwidth, limited CPU sharing, great control panel, fast deployment, etc.). A2 Hosting, I never heard of it, but hosting is another world which I'm not really into

datitisev

010101 Everybody mentions Digital Ocean. Maybe one day I'll try them.

I myself have used OVH (Canadian), DigitalOcean, Vultr, and Hetzner (German). My experience with OVH isn't necessarily great, but their prices are cheap. DigitalOcean and Vultr are largely the same, especially since DO dropped their prices to match Vultr's (both starting @ $5/mo). However, Hetzner has the most competitive prices compared to the rest, starting at 2.49 EUR/mo. While I don't exactly know CPU performance comparisons, and iirc they don't use ECC memory, that's probably one of the best prices for a VPS, especially if you just need a simple forum.

I do agree with matteocontrini in that if you are a beginner, it's probably a terrible idea to start with a VPS. If you have decided to try it out, however, a cheap one that has all the features you need is probably a good idea, especially if it works well.

Just wanted to give my two cents if someone was looking here for a VPS hosting recommendation. If one has some experience (or is willing to experiment with a VPS), paying $10/mo is probably too much for a simple forum.

010101

matteocontrini tankerkiller125

This could help me and others in the future when deciding between a "traditional" web host and something like Digital Ocean... If you have time, this would be really good if one of you laid this out:

Pretending you never used something like Digital Ocean before. You just signed up. How many steps and/or what steps are involved with getting Flarum running?

I ask because, with a traditional web host like A2, everything is ready. Composer is installed. Any PHP version you need is ready. You can install a free SSL cert. in a couple clicks... And so on.

How much harder is it do you think for a novice to get going at Digital Ocean?

I tried a random cloud host once, and just to get WordPress running and not crashing all the time, it was rough. And I don't even remember the company, just a random start up cloud hosting company. Experiences like that stick with me and keep me with "traditional" hosts where there is very little setup involved.

I do agree though, if you have a popular website, you need something better and more flexible than shared hosting. That's always been my attitude. I tell myself that if a lot of people ever start visiting my sites, I'd consider something like Digital Ocean.

010101

Thanks everyone! matteocontrini datitisev tankerkiller125

All of this definitely could help someone else in the future. I won't rule out VPS / Digital Ocean type services. Maybe one day I'll feel like trying a service like that out. Sounds like it definitely depends on how confident you are with server management and other things. Or, if you have time and willingness to learn. Or, maybe you know how but just prefer traditional hosting regardless.

matteocontrini

010101 Pretending you never used something like Digital Ocean before. You just signed up. How many steps and/or what steps are involved with getting Flarum running?

010101 How much harder is it do you think for a novice to get going at Digital Ocean?

I wouldn't recommend it for someone that doesn't have previous experience in managing a Linux server. It's definitely a good way to start learning it, but there's a lot of things that could go wrong.

Hostings are managed and they take care of maaany things, like setting up the server securely (servers are shared so I'm not saying that they do that for every customer), configuring all the software, together with reasonable PHP/MySQL/Apache settings, solving random Linux issues that inevitably arise with time, taking care of upgrading the system components, applying security patches, etc.

Also, it's not true that VPS cloud providers are always and automatically better at managing high traffic. An hosting might be perfectly fine if you pay for the resources. It's likely going to cost you more, but with all the advantages of a managed solution. With a VPS you'll also have to take care of things like DDoS attacks (DigitalOcean has a very annoying policy about that), while you obviously don't need to think about that with a hosting.

Radu

Yes, they provide great services but the renewals will kill you—they will ask you almost double compared to the first year. I recommend Interserver because they give you SSH access and the prices are extremely low, and most important the renewals have the same price. I gave up on A2 Hosting long time ago...

010101

Radu I might change my tune when it comes time to renew since I know I’ll have to start paying double when renewal time comes. But, maybe they’ll cut me a deal. 😉

Also, my multiple websites are blazing fast with A2. In the past, I’ve had some kind of issue with every host I’ve tried. With A2, no issues, it automatically had everything I needed installed ready to go, and my sites load fast, and it’s compatible with Flarum which is now a hosting requirement for me.

But again, we’ll see... if I can’t afford the renewal cost when it’s time (I’ve still got 2 years left before renewal) I may end up switching. I hope that doesn’t happen though because despite what others say, A2 has given me the best hosting I’ve had yet. And I’ve tried, probably close to 10 different web hosts over the years.

I’m starting to think you get what you pay for is very true. Yes, A2 can get a little expensive after the promotional price depending on the package you choose, but it’ll be bad if I switch and then my websites are slow. 🥺

Radu

010101 I had many problems with A2, but anyway, if everything works fine for you that's great.

[deleted]

Radu I used A2 for about an hour not so long ago as they touted themselves as being blazingly fast with great support. In fact, they were entirely the reverse. Hugely oversubscribed, slow as f***, and dreadful support.

Contact cancelled immediately 😠

010101

Radu That email looks fake. Does that say yahoo.com? And there’s nothing wrong with a host sending that kind of email alert although I suspect that’s a spoof and didn’t come from A2 Hosting.

[deleted] Yeah, that’s what you’ve said. That’s a shame they were so bad when you signed up. I get blazing fast speed just like they advertise.

All I can do is give a recommendation based on my experience so far.

Another thing is I paid for 3 years up front. I was fortunate at the time to be able to do that. I realize it’s sometimes not feasible to pay for multiple years like that. It’s cheaper per month that way when you break it down, and I don’t have to worry about paying them anything for almost 2 more years; I’m 1 year into being their customer.

I’ll definitely post here and share if I ever experience anything negative over the next two years.

Radu

[deleted] I used it for 1 year and the support was great for me to be honest, but as you said they are not that fast as they claim to be and the renewal price after 1 year just killed me. With that kind of money, you can get way better services. I hate this strategy, crazy cheap the first year then triple the price—why the f not right?! 😆

jordanjay29

Radu I dislike companies that pull this stunt, they think it will discourage people from price shopping because of the sunk cost fallacy. And it works to an extent, but causes such immense frustration and resentment that customers are quick to flee when the rage pot boils over.

[deleted]

Radu exactly right

Radu

jordanjay29 You gotta love the idea of "Terms & Conditions" that nobody reads, and the fact that they "reserve the right" to modify those terms as many times as they please.