GreenGeeks sets itself apart from other web hosting services via its eco-friendly approach. It matches 300% of its power consumption with renewable energy credits and plants a tree for every customer hosting plan purchase. That’s a potential point in the company’s favor if you’re concerned about how your carbon footprint impacts the environment. It’s more than just window dressing, though. GreenGeeks is an affordable service with varied hosting plans ideal for individuals and small businesses. However, it lacks cloud and Windows server options. If you need those hosting types, check out Editors’ Choice winners AccuWeb, Ionos, and Liquid Web.
How Green Is GreenGeeks?
GreenGeeks’ energy angle is perhaps its most immediately noticeable element, which it accomplishes through several means. First, GreenGeeks purchases renewable energy certificates (RECs) from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, equal to 300% of the energy it uses. These RECs are sourced from new, 100% renewable resources that are Green-e Energy Certified. In addition, GreenGeeks works with the One Tree Planted organization to plant a new tree per client. The web host claims to replace more than 615,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy annually. To put that in perspective, the average US household uses 10,791 kWh per year.
(Credit: GreenGeeks/PCMag)
Shared Hosting Plans
GreenGeeks offers shared hosting, an entry-level hosting tier that stores your website on a server with other websites. Think of an apartment building, with your site sharing the complex with many other tenants. As a result, the sites split the server’s cost and resources. The upside? Shared web hosting is low-cost web hosting. The downside? Sharing server resources can adversely affect your website’s performance if one of your server neighbors gets a viral traffic hit.
GreenGeeks’ shared hosting has three plans: Lite, Pro, and Premium. Lite (starting at $12.95 per month) covers a single website and gives you 25GB of storage and 50 email accounts. The Pro plan (starting at $17.95 per month) has unlimited websites, 50GB of storage, and unlimited email. Premium (starting at $29.95 per month) offers 100GB of storage and a dedicated IP address. GreenGeeks offers discounted rates for annual commitments and first-time subscriptions.
All shared plans have several useful, free features, including a domain name (with an annual plan), SSL certificate, data backups, site migration, and caching for swift load times. GreenGeeks supplies each package with unlimited data transfers, which is a nice buffer if your website enjoys a traffic surge.
Like all of GreenGeeks’ hosting packages, the shared servers run on Linux. If you’re unsure which operating system should power your website, check out our explainer.
These shared plans have handy features and competitive rates, but HostGator tops them. Its shared packages include unlimited email, storage, and monthly data transfers with all plans. Plus, it has Windows options for SQL servers or apps written in .NET.
WordPress and WooCommerce Plans
WordPress is a popular, easy-to-use content delivery system (CMS) that powers approximately 40% of all websites. Like many web hosting services, GreenGeeks offers WordPress-focused plans with multiple site-enhancing plug-ins.
Likewise, WooCommerce is an e-commerce platform for WordPress that facilitates the creation of online stores and businesses by providing all the management systems you need to run them. If you want a website with a shopping cart, checkout page, inventory management, payment system, and order processing, you’ll want WooCommerce.
GreenGeeks’ WordPress and WooCommerce plans follow the same naming and pricing as its shared plans and include the same features. The only notable difference is the one-click WordPress installation, which makes setting up and launching a site easy. WooCommerce works the same way.
GreenGeeks’ WordPress and WooCommerce plans are competitively priced compared with other services. However, A2 edges out GreenGeeks due to unlimited storage across the board. This will benefit anyone uploading large media files accessible to others.
(Credit: GreenGeeks/PCMag)
VPS Hosting Plans
For more server muscle, GreenGeeks offers VPS plans. VPS is similarly structured to shared servers, but there are fewer hosting installations per server. This means your site leverages more resources—perfect for big traffic hits.
GreenGeeks’ VPS plans are divided into three categories based on RAM allocation. The 2GB tier ($39.95 per month) has 2GB of RAM, four vCPU cores, 50GB of SSD storage, and 10TB of monthly data transfers. You also get a free SSL certificate, website transfer, and Softaculous script license. Next up the ladder is the 4GB plan ($59.95 per month). It bumps the RAM to 4GB and storage to 75GB of SSD storage. The high-powered 8GB tier ($109.95 per month) boosts resources with 8GB of RAM, six vCPU cores, and 150GB SSD storage.
All VPS plans are fully managed and feature 24/7 monitoring, so the GreenGeeks team will address issues as soon as they arise.
GreenGeeks’ narrow VPS scope keeps its plans simple, but they may not necessarily be your best option. For example, Hostwinds offers a wide range of managed and unmanaged VPS services, with RAM configurations ranging from 1GB to 96GB—and with reasonable prices. Meanwhile, Hostinger has specialized, gaming-focused VPS plans if you want to build a Minecraft server.
Reseller Hosting Plans
Want to sell server space? GreenGeeks has three reseller categories based on the number of cPanel accounts. GreenGeeks’ reseller hosting servers are white-label offerings, so you can rebrand the cPanel and services with your company logos.
RH-25 ($34.95 per month) is the starter package, and it comes with 25 cPanel accounts, 60GB of SSD storage, and 600GB of monthly data transfers. RH-50 ($49.95 per month) has 50 cPanel accounts, 80GB of SSD storage, and 800GB of monthly data transfers. RH-80 ($69.95 per month) is GreenGeeks’ most robust plan. With it, you get 80 cPanel accounts, 160GB of SSD space, and 1600GB of monthly data transfers. All reseller plans include free SSL certificates and cPanel migrations.
These are good reseller plans, but Hostwinds edges out GreenGeeks thanks to its unlimited storage and monthly data transfers.
Dedicated Hosting Plans
If you need beefier hosting, GreenGeeks has four capable dedicated server plans. Dedicated servers are the costliest web hosting type, but they offer impeccable flexibility, power, and reliability. After all, you have an entire server dedicated to your website.
The ground-level option, Entry Server ($169 per month), includes an Intel Atom 330 Dual Core CPU, 2GB of RAM, 500GB of storage, five IP addresses, and 10,000GB (9.7TB) monthly data transfers. Next up is Standard Server ($269 per month), a package that builds upon Entry Server with a 3.1Gz Xeon E3-1220 CPU, 4GB of RAM, and two 500GB storage drives. The penultimate Elite Server ($319 per month) has a 3.2GHz Xeon E3-1230 CPU (with Hyper-Threading) and 8GB of RAM. The top-tier package, Pro Server ($439 per month), bumps your server specs to a 2.0GHz Xeon E5-2620 CPU (with Hyper-Threading) and 16GB RAM.
These are fine servers, but if you need more options or are building a website using Microsoft’s operating system as a foundation, look at AccuWeb, which offers several strong tiers, game-focused servers, and the choice of Linux or Windows operating systems.
No Cloud Hosting Plans
Cloud hosting is a configuration that spreads resources across multiple servers (traditional hosting pulls resources from a single server). It lets you easily increase server needs when necessary. For example, if one server is compromised, the others keep your site running while problems are fixed. Unfortunately, GreenGeeks does not offer cloud server hosting.
If you want the flexibility of cloud servers, check out DreamHost and Ionos. DreamHost accommodates smaller cloud server setups, whereas Ionos scales tremendously high, making it a better choice for big businesses.
(Credit: GreenGeeks/PCMag)
Building a GreenGeeks-Powered Website
GreenGeeks’ user-friendly dashboard and one-click WordPress installation made it incredibly easy to create a website. If you don’t want to dabble too much with shopping around for a suitable theme, which can be a bit daunting, GreenGeeks includes a handful of pre-made website templates. We have a WordPress theme guide if you choose that avenue.
You select Hosting from the dashboard to see your accounts and access the cPanel for backend work. You can install WordPress from there if you didn’t sign up for a WordPress-specific package, and find DNS information to optionally connect your hosting with a domain from another registrar. Other software and advanced features, like LiteSpeed web cache manager and file manager, exist in the cPanel. So, you can edit and modify site files to your heart’s content.
It is worth noting that the free one-year domain name is only included when purchasing an annual plan. If you purchase hosting on a month-to-month basis, you must snag a domain from GreenGeeks or a domain registrar.
Customer Support and Uptime
You can reach the team via live chat, email ticketing, or telephone. Calling hours are from 9 a.m. to 12 a.m., Monday through Sunday. This is quite good, considering that phone support is becoming uncommon. Of course, 24/7/365 support phone support would be ideal, especially when you need a voice in your ear during an early-morning server crisis. Live chat and ticketing are available around the clock.
My experience with all three support options was great. The crew was friendly and informative, providing whatever information I asked of them. When I asked about connecting a domain from a different registrar to my server, support informed me that it could make the necessary changes if I was unfamiliar with the process, which was a nice touch. There was a slight delay in response time depending on when I contacted live support, with five minutes being the longest wait for the live chat.
All server plans promise a 99.9% uptime guarantee, which is on par with other web hosting services. I observed no connectivity or loading issues when testing GreenGeeks’ dashboard, cPanel, or our test site.
All plans include a 30-day money-back guarantee, though DreamHost has a lengthy 97-day period for its shared hosting packages. However, you cannot cancel a subscription directly from your account settings. Instead, you must submit a ticket, which is less convenient than I would have liked.
Verdict: Good Hosting That’s Good for the Environment
Your carbon footprint is probably not the first thing that comes to mind regarding web hosting, but GreenGeeks’ hook makes it stand out compared with competing services. It offers more than eco-friendly grandstanding; GreenGeeks is a high-quality web hosting service with feature-rich plans. Though lacking Windows or cloud server options, GreenGeeks has the many tools an individual or small business needs to start their online venture, making it a good choice if you’re also trying to do good for the environment. That said, for a wider selection of extremely well-rounded server plans, check out Editors’ Choice winners AccuWeb, Ionos, and Liquid Web
The Bottom Line
GreenGeeks is a dependable web host with strong plans, dependable customer service, and a green energy investment for a better future.
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About Gabriel Zamora
