Trey Gardner founded GreenGeeks in 2008, and it has since grown to provide hosting services for over 300,000 websites. It has data centers in the Netherlands, Canada, and the U.S. Gardner had a solid background, having worked with many different web hosting companies such as Hostpapa, Globat, iPage, iPowerweb, StartLogic, Lunarpages, Dot5Hosting, and now GreenGeeks.
Two large claims are made on GreenGeeks website:
- 100% customer satisfaction
- 99.9% uptime
This begs the question, how true are these claims? Is GreenGeeks good? Does it really have excellent support and wind-powered uptime, or is it just “hot air”?
We decided to see for ourselves and grabbed a Shared Plan from GreenGeeks in the summer of 2015. We ran basic WordPress website tests for more than two years. The following sums up what we found to be true.
General Overview and Hosting Info
After a couple of years of testing, we found GreenGeeks to be one of the best available green web hosts. It produced an average speed of 445 ms from February 2018 through 2020, with an average uptime of 99.98% during the same time.
It provides a solid 24/7 chat support that comes live with the following apps: Joomla, WordPress, WHMCS, and PrestaShop. GreenGeeks offers such features as email accounts, storage, a free domain in your first year, and unlimited bandwidth.
GreenGeeks offers several hosting plans, including Shared, WordPress, and Reseller. It provides one single free site transfer. GreenGeeks plans pricing starts at $2.95 a month and increases from there.
Advantages of Using GreenGeeks Hosting
In addition to being powered by green energy, GreenGeeks has a wide range of advantages. These include excellent support, solid uptime, and a mission-driven service. Some of the details supporting the advantages of hosting with GreenGeeks are:
Above Average Uptime
Is the bold claim of 99.90% guaranteed uptime an empty boast, or is it capable of living up to this amazing statement?
In more than two years of analysis, we found that GreenGeeks can claim to keep an average uptime that is solid – 99.98% solid, in fact! During two years of tracking, GreenGeeks managed to have only 4 hours of downtime over 46 different outages. The last 12 months proved to be an especially solid uptime, with their average holding a solid 99.9-100%.
Here is GreenGeeks’ hosting average over the last 12 months:
- February 2019 – 100% average uptime
- March 2019 – 99.99% average uptime
- April 2019 – 100% average uptime
- May 2019 – 100% average uptime
- June 2019 – 100% average uptime
- July 2019 – 100% average uptime
- August 2019 – 100% average uptime
- September 2019 – 100% average uptime
- October 2019 – 100% average uptime
- November 2019 – 99.99% average uptime
- December 2019 – 100% average uptime
- January 2020 – 100% average uptime
Page Loading Time Is Excellent at GreenGeeks
During our two-year review and testing process, we checked GreenGeeks’ page loading times. The speed is surprisingly better than the average in the industry, at 445ms. This makes GreenGeeks sit comfortably in the top 10 of the fastest web hosts we have reviewed.
The following chart shows the average page loading times for each month and the previously mentioned average uptimes.
| Month | Average uptime (%) | Average loading time (ms) |
| February 2019 | 100% | 550ms |
| March 2019 | 100% | 526ms |
| April 2019 | 100% | 425ms |
| May 2019 | 99.99% | 361ms |
| June 2019 | 100% | 348ms |
| July 2019 | 100% | 339ms |
| August 2019 | 100% | 345ms |
| September 2019 | 100% | 422ms |
| October 2019 | 100% | 347ms |
| November 2019 | 99.99% | 358ms |
| December 2019 | 100% | 263ms |
| January 2020 | 100% | 317ms |
Quick Answers and Solid Support
Enough emphasis can’t be placed on the excellent customer support from GreenGeeks. Within minutes we were able to connect with a customer support agent. They answered our questions concisely and quickly.
We ran into one snag along the way, however. There were some grammar mistakes made during the chat. With previous experiences, we noticed this, as well. It is possible customer support is outsourced to those who don’t have English as their primary language. Alternatively, its customer service reps may just be stretched too thin and overworked.
Whichever case, we were more than satisfied and happy with our experience. With a little research, we see that many other clients appreciate GreenGeeks’ excellent customer service.
Its response team is available 24/7, offering a vast extent of knowledge and experience, helping customers get answers to their questions quickly. GreenGeeks also has a wide selection of information in the form of articles. These cover things from reseller hosting, general hosting, sales questions, VPS hosting, video tutorials, billing questions, and so much more. If you prefer doing it yourself instead of questioning a customer service rep, you can find many answers here. The search option makes it possible for you to find your solution in the previous categories. The archived information also helps you get answers if the live chat from GreenGeeks is down for some reason.
Website Migration and Domain Name
When you use GreenGeeks, you get free domain transfers. Also, name registration is free for your domain. If you get your domain name through GreenGeeks, you can keep it free as long as you continue with its services. There are some specifics on that, which you’ll read more about it in the disadvantages portion.
For those who have a website already hosted someplace else, GreenGeeks will help you transfer the site to its hosting for free.
Environmentally Friendly
A core component of GreenGeeks’ business model is the claim that it is green. What does that mean in regard to hosting? Here is the scoop:
To make up for the energy it uses to power your website, GreenGeeks purchases three times the amount in wind energy credits. GreenGeeks replaces well over 615,000 kWh yearly via this method. Just to give perspective, an American uses about 12,000kWh every year of electricity, on average.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency or EPA recognizes GreenGeeks as a Green Power Partner, providing proof of the company’s eco-friendly policies.
GreenGeeks Offers Money-Back Guarantee for 30 Days
If you are unsatisfied with your move to GreenGeeks, you have 30 days to get a full money-back refund, with no questions asked, on the majority of its hosting plans.
There are some exceptions, though. We will cover these more in depth in the disadvantages section.
Backups Done Every Night
The truth is that sometimes accidents happen. Maybe it’s a malicious intent hacking into a site or a self-inflicted problem. In addition to SSH access, GreenGeeks provides nightly backups for free. You can rest easy knowing that even in the event something goes wrong, your data gets backed up regularly.
Other Security Measures
Real-time security scanning, an SSL secure server, Spam Assassin protection, and automatic brute force detection are offered for added security measures in addition to your directories having password-protection.
GreenGeeks Is Proud of Several High-Quality Server Locations
There are four superior locations that GreenGeeks provides data centers.
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Phoenix, US
- Chicago, US
- Montreal, Canada
To get the best SEO results for your website, you want to choose your server location carefully. Additionally, the closer your server, the faster your speeds will be.
GreenGeeks promises up-to-date servers meeting the following specifications:
- Server parts are name brand
- Gigabit connectivity
- Won’t be oversold
- No desktop hardware necessary
- Intel Xeon Processors that are energy efficient and latest generation
- SSD or Solid State Drive Acceleration
- Several Fiber GigE Tier 1 Backbones with connectivity to BGP4 Gigabits.
- 64 GB DDR# ECC-Registered Memory minimum
- Maximum redundancy and performance through RAID-10 SSD Storage Arrays
In addition, each data center includes the following features:
- Humidity and temperature sensors throughout the facility with automatic temperature and climate control systems
- Rack-level locking system with man-traps, key card security, and biometrics systems
- SAS 70 Type 1-certified and audit reports are available upon request
- On-site diesel generator, battery backup, and automatic transfer switches are included in the dual-city power grid feeds
- Technicians and SingleHop data center engineers are on 24/7 and do remote monitoring
- Pre-fire detection mechanism included in the FM 200 fire suppression system that is server-safe
GreenGeeks does all this to go the extra mile ensuring your data is stored in the best servers and protected with the highest-quality options.
Free CDN
Everyone who browses the web interacts with a CDN or content delivery network on a regular basis. It doesn’t matter if they are on social media, shopping, or reading news sites.
You will be happy to know the CDN offered by GreenGeeks is Cloudflare-powered. This is particularly good news for site optimization and for those who have a global reach. Even better is that it is totally free!
Cloudflare allows for content to be cached by users, and the servers nearest the visitor’s website are used to deliver. This results in a much faster web surfing experience for those on your website.
Disadvantages of Using GreenGeeks Hosting
The truth is there is no perfect web host; everyone has some good qualities and a few lesser ones. Even with all the advantages of GreenGeeks, there are some things to consider before finalizing your decision.
Pricing Manipulation That Is Industry Standard
The tried and true pricing practice that is industry-standard is used by GreenGeeks. It advertises a monthly rate of $2.95 on its site, which is low. It’s not until you sign up that you learn you have to stay for three years and pay in advance to get these deals. If you go back to paying monthly, it is $9.95 every 30 days.
Questionable Refund Policy
It is common practice for web hosts to offer a free domain name when you sign up for a new account with them. After this, the cost can range from $3.00-$9.99 yearly. This is all fairly standard. It is the fine print that you need to be concerned with.
If you end up using the money-back guarantee and you have received a domain name for free, your refund gets reduced by $24.95 for the registration fee of your domain name. That makes the registration slightly less than free, and there are strings attached to the money-back guarantee.
Quick Facts About Hosting Plans and GreenGeeks Pricing
The following chart shows you the various hosting plans and pricing at a glance.
| Lite | Pro | Premium |
| $2.95/mo | $5.95/mo | $11.95/mo |
| 1 website | Unlimited websites | Unlimited websites |
| 1-click App Installer | 1-click App Installer | 1-Click App Installer |
| Unlimited web space | Unlimited web space | Unlimited web space |
| Unlimited data transfer | Unlimited data transfer | Unlimited data transfer |
| Free domain name in 1st year | Free domain name in 1st year | Free domain name in 1st year |
| Free wildcard SSL | Free wildcard SSL | Free premium wildcard SSL |
| Standard performance | 2x performance | Free dedicated IP |
| PowerCacher Included | 4x performance | |
| PowerCacher Included | ||
Shared Hosting
GreenGeeks only offers one shared hosting plan, unlike many other web hosts. The plan is only $2.95 a month, but you have to pay for three years up front; otherwise, it’s $9.95 a month. This plan provides unlimited data transfer, unlimited webspace, unlimited email accounts, and support for unlimited domains and MySQL database. This plan offers free nightly backups and a domain name. Storage is powered by RAID-10SSD for optimal performance.
Hosting for WordPress
This is basically the same as its hosting plan that’s shared but tailored to WordPress. We plan on testing it very soon and offering feedback. The following are some of the key features:
- Simple process for signing up
- Accepts PayPal and credit cards for payment
- Offers free domain
- Hidden clauses/fees: You risk account suspension if it uses more than 75,000 files, 20 connections that are concurrent, or 1GB of memory/1 CPU core. If suspended, there will be a $15 fee.
- There will not be upsells
- Account activation is quick
- Common cPanel for dashboard experience
- 1-click installation of popular apps including Joomla and WordPress
Is GreenGeeks Recommended?
One of the things we love best about GreenGeeks is that it offers more than just web hosting; it has a bigger mission. Though it may not be the best host, GreenGeeks offers quality customer support, solid uptime, and competitive speeds. These advantages, combined with its green mission, make it worth considering.
Just understand that the lowest rate only comes with long-term signup and prepayment, and, as with any other web host, read through the fine print before signing up.