The main concept of the company was to provide quality shared hosting service at an affordable price to small and medium sized businesses, with the additional effort to make it environmental friendly. GreenGeeks is committed to the green business practice, purchasing three times more wind energy credits than their servers are subtracting from the power grid, to compensate their negative effect on the environment.
GreenGeeks is a pioneer of eco-friendly hosting, offering 300% green web hosting powered by renewable energy; that is, for every unit of power consumed, GreenGeeks will purchase threefold of that amount in renewable energy, sending it back to the grid to offset their carbon footprint. It is estimated that by 2020, the hosting industry will surpass the aviation industry in environmental pollution, therefore, GreenGeeks have embraced wind energy powered web hosting.
To allow their clients to grow, GreenGeeks has introduced other types of hosting plans such as virtual servers, reseller hosting and dedicated servers.
GreenGeeks Overview
GreenGeeks was established by Trey Gardner in 2006. Since then, the company has become the most popular eco-friendly web hosting in the USA and in the world. The company hosts over 300,000 websites, serves over 35,000 customers, and uses multiple datacenters, of which two are located in the US (Chicago, Phoenix), one in Canada (Toronto), and one in The Netherlands (Amsterdam).
Throughout the years, GreenGeeks has won various industry awards for best green web host, but also for their shared hosting service, reseller hosting, and best support.
Their commitment to green energy, however, is not the only remarkable aspect of their hosting services, they also offer various hosting plans that include the whole spectrum of hosting services, thus, meeting the hosting requirements of both individuals and business users.
GreenGeeks Plans & Pricing
GreenGeeks offers their customers a single shared hosting plan, followed by multiple dedicated, VPS, and reseller hosting packages. The shared hosting plan and other entry-level hosting plans are placed similarly to other similar offerings of the industry, while more advanced options may have slightly higher prices than the industry average.
Shared hosting (Ecosite Starter) costs $3.95/month allowing you to host unlimited domains on one account, and offering unlimited SSD web space and unlimited data transfer. The 1-click installer feature allows you to install various popular applications like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and over 150 more applications. A free domain name, 99.9% uptime and the scalable “Elastic” platform for easy resource upgrades are just some of the perks included with the package.
Update on shared hosting: GreenGeeks recently (2018) has introduced two new shared plans. The Ecosite Pro plan starts at $6.95/month and includes all the basic features that come with the Ecosite Starter plan, plus the PowerCashe technology and double performance. This plan is suitable for growing websites that require more speed and performance.
The Ecosite Premium plan is great for high traffic small business websites as well for online stores. This plan is PCI compliant, which is a must if your website is processing online payments. This plan starts at $16.95, comes with all the basic features and four times more performance.
Every shared hosting plan includes a free domain name and free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate, which has become an industry standard these days.
VPS hosting is represented through 5 packages ranging from $39.95/month to $159.95/month. All VPS plans are provisioned in the US on blacklist-free IPs, and come with 99.99% uptime guarantee, free nightly backups, and cPanel/WHM license included. Resource wise, you can get up to 8 GB RAM, 125 GB SSD RAID-10 Storage, 3,000 GB premium bandwidth, and 4 cores CPU.
Dedicated servers at GreenGeeks start at $169/month and go as high as $439/month. 5 IP addresses and 10,000 GB transfer are included with all plans. As for other server resources, GreenGeeks’ dedicated servers can offer up to 16 GB DDR 3 Memory, 2x 500 GB SATA Drive, and Xeon E5-2620 2.0Ghz w/HT.
Reseller hosting plans range from $19.95/month to $99.95/month. All reseller hosting plans come with unlimited cPanel hosting accounts, provisioning in US or Canada, up to 200 GB SSD web space, and 2,000 GB premium bandwidth. GreenGeeks offers a 100% white label hosting platform for resellers, allowing them to brand their control panel to reflect their brand and use private nameservers. Hosting resellers also have access to 150+ apps, a free hosting billing system, free eNom domain reseller account, a free website builder and other perks like a 30-day money-back guarantee.
GreenGeeks Hosting Features
So far, we’ve discussed the hosting types available at GreenGeeks, their pricing, and some of their features. Next up, let’s see what other features complete GreenGeeks’ hosting plans:
- Free migration service;
- Free website builder tool with over 500 templates;
- Free marketing and SEO tools;
- 99.9% service uptime;
- 30-day money-back guarantee;
- 24 x 7 customer support;
- Nightly backups;
- Free domain name registration with shared hosting accounts;
- 1-click installer;
- Zero-day vulnerability and real-time 24/7 security monitoring;
- Solid State Drive RAID-10 Storage Array’s;
- Built-in caching and content delivery network;
- SSH access;
- eCommerce ready hosting (PrestaShop, Magento, ZenCart);
- PCI compliant hosting;
- Tier-1 bandwidth, 1 Gb/sec connections on premium multi-gigabit network;
- Multiple support options.
GreenGeeks Customer Support
GreenGreeks offer their customers multiple ways to contact customer support – phone, live chat, and email support. Email support and live chat are available 24/7, while phone support is available Monday through Sunday during specific work hours. GreenGeek specifies that via email, the average resolution time for an issue is 15 to 20 minutes. Support pages also include 100s of articles, FAQs and How-to’s, as well as step by step website tutorials.
GreekGeeks is popular among customers thanks to their reliable hosting and flawless customer service. Nevertheless, let’s see if there are any disadvantages that you need to consider before you sign up for one of their plans.
Pros & Cons of GreenGeeks
With an industry experience of over 15 years, GreenGeeks is a hosting provider that is viewed favorably by most customers and hosting review sites. As for its pros and cons, here’s what you need to know:
Pros
- Environmentally conscious hosting (good for organizations that support renewable energy)
- Affordably priced shared hosting plan
- Multiple hosting types providing room for your website to grow
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Great support options
- SSH access and cPanel management
- PCI compliance
- Free migration service
Cons
- Slightly above average pricing on advanced plans
- No Windows based hosting options
If you’re looking for Linux-based cPanel hosting plans, GreenGeeks may be a hosting provider right up your alley. You can start with a scalable shared hosting plan and move towards more resource abundant plans as your site grows.
GreenGeeks is also a good option for hosting resellers, who are looking for a 100% white label hosting platform, coupled with SSD storage, premium bandwidth, 99.9% service uptime and other perks useful for web design companies or web developers looking to diversify their services with web hosting packages.
GreenGeeks Review Conclusion
GreenGeeks is a reputable hosting provider with a great shared hosting option and various hosting packages for more advanced needs. Eco-friendly hosting is one of GreenGeeks main selling points tapping into a customer base that values environmental consciousness. Apart from its green hosting services, GreenGeeks is also valued for their reliable service (99.9% uptime) and 24/7 customer support.