A Small Orange Hosting Reviews

<Introduction>

With a high-speed hardware and customer-centric approach, A Small Orange has been helping website owners build a successful online presence through various hosting plans that are optimized for their needs.

A Small Orange is moved by an astute purpose to deliver what is important and discard the extra. Their hosting plans come with limited bandwidth and storage, but then they are priced accordingly. They know that the majority of websites do not need unlimited space or bandwidth; so why not charge customers only for what they use? This brilliant concept by A Small Orange enables customers to stretch every dollar and squeeze out maximum benefits from their hosting plan.

ASO aims to enhance their customers’ experience with a concoction of technical innovations, such as an easy-to-use cPanel and integrated templates and tools. The techies at ASO have also built their own WordPress templates to give customers the prerogative to create a website that’s unique to their specifications.

A Small Orange is rated highly by customers and critics alike. Because the company emphasizes customer-relationships and homegrown web hosting, one can expect warm welcomes and reliable services at a pocket-friendly price.

Their data centers are conveniently located in the states of Texas and Michigan, from where they deliver the best possible connectivity and speed.

When it comes to customer support, A Small Orange is a caring host. With ASO’s 24/7 responsive support, you will never find yourself stuck in a bad hosting situation for a long time.

Great pricing, excellent service and strong assurance of support are everything a customer needs and everything ASO provides.

Orange Hosting Server Performance

A Small Orange is one of those hosting providers that invest free-handedly in their infrastructure so that their users may get the most of their hosting money. The company builds an experience that doesn’t discriminate between shared and dedicated plans and nor does it burn a hole in your pocket. The focus remains on maintaining high-performance servers that make page loads 15x faster than the conventional ones.

A Small Orange Average Hosting Uptime

What do you get when you combine speed and reliability? If you have a term for it, A Small Orange has it. With an average hosting uptime of 99.9%, your customers will always find your website up and running, despite the amount of traffic it receives. As long as you have an adequate hosting plan to cover your needs, you will never have to face the unfortunate event of your website going down.

Webpage Speed test

We heard a lot about how SSD servers make conventional servers look 15 times slower and how they enhance user-experience like never before. Out of curiosity and not just duty, we ran multiple webpage speed tests to finally believe what A Small Orange claims. Here are the results of speed tests in front of you, and we are sure you’d be amazed too.

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Server Response Time

A lot of things in the hosting framework are related to each other, much as the same way SSD servers to response time. With more powerful SSD servers, A Small Orange delivers excellent server response time. Don’t just take our word for it; have a look at the results below:

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Choice of server locations

The physical location of servers largely determines the performance of your website. A Small Orange manages servers at two distinct locations: Dallas in Texas and Dearborn in Michigan. The choice of servers helps clients pick the suitable one for the best ever speed and reliability.

Resource protection / Security Options

Various security features converge at the core of A Small Orange and permeate through every hosting plan they offer. With SPAM and virus filters, rest assured that your website won’t fall prey to any unauthorized access, which means every transaction taking place on your website as well as customers’ details stored on your database are protected from the prying eyes.

Cloudflare

ASO offers free Cloudflare Content Delivery Network set-up to ensure fast access to your website. Cloudflare speeds up your website and protects websites from online threats. You will have complete peace of mind in the knowledge that your website will be up and running with ASO’s automated security systems watching over 24/7.

Hotlink protection

A Small Orange provides hotlink protection to prevent other websites from directly linking to files and images on your website. When someone else uses a full URL of any desirable image of your website on theirs, in a way, they will be living off your bandwidth. Hotlink protection is a great feature to save your bandwidth from being exploited by other websites.

SSL Certificate

While many hosting providers offer free SSL certificate as standard across their hosting plans, A Small Orange puts a price on it. Available for $39.95/year with ASO, if you get it from a third party at a lower price and want to run it on your ASO hosting plan, there’s no problem at all.

SSH access

ASO enables its VPS and Dedicated hosting users to share root access with other users through SSH, wherein the said user is not required to disclose login credentials. It’s a useful feature when you want to outsource your website management to an expert but doesn’t want to divulge account details for security reasons.

Two-factor authentication

They do provide two-factor authentication in their VPS account, but unfortunately, it is not available in a shared hosting plan. So if you are a prestigious, high-paying customer of ASO, you will get an extra layer of security in the account log-in process.

Load Test

ASO’s 15x fast and powerful servers keep your website from crashing down in an event of unexpectedly high traffic. More traffic usually means more success, and your website can’t afford to go down while you are opening champagnes. Therefore, choose a hosting provider that can handle insane traffic throughput and keep your website afloat at all times. Here’s a result of the load test that we ran on one of the dummy websites hosted on ASO by sending virtual users to the site.

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A Small Orange Hosting Features

A Small Orange is a feature-rich host that makes no mistake when it comes to shaping their customers’ experience. Continuing to provide high performance and reliability with 15x faster servers and anti-SPAM protection, this hosting provider has its basics straighten up. When it comes to advanced features, you get 1-click WordPress installation, NGINX support and a lot more features coming your way.

Beginner-Friendly Web Host / Easy to Use

A Small Orange caters for beginner website owners and marketers who want premium features with a user-friendly interface. With an integrated cPanel on all hosting plans, A Small Orange ensures administrative convenience and makes managing and updating your website a piece of cake.

Backups & Restore

Thanks to RISoft Bare Metal Restore, you can take advantage of daily backups and rollbacks up to 7 days. A Small Orange delivers a complete, feature-rich experience and also protects your data should catastrophe strikes. Data is the new currency and you can’t afford to lose it. With ASO’s daily backups, you can heave a sigh of relief knowing that your data is safe under all circumstances.

Flexible Hosting Choices

Not every website starts small and nor does it remain stagnant. Websites grow with growing traffic and business expansion or change into a completely different experience for users. Therefore, a website cannot go on to perform the way you want with a one-size-fits-all hosting plan. This is where A Small Orange offers flexible hosting choices to steer your website in any which direction you want.

Integrations and Apps, and eCommerce Features

Add-ons always make you feel positive about your hosting experience long as they are thrown in for free. A Small Orange offers 1-click app installations and various eCommerce features to help your website sell and communicate better.

Migration Policy

A Small Orange allows you to move your website to a better hosting experience without charging any additional fee. If your current host is not living up to your expectations and customer support seems sluggish and inefficient, A Small Orange will welcome you with arms wide open.

Upgrade Policy

A Small Orange has a seamless upgrade policy that allows you to transfer your website to a different plan without a hiccup. The switch takes place in a snap – you won’t be able to tell when it happens. Also, there are no additional charges for letting you upgrade to a better experience. You will have to pay the package price only.

Unlimited Hosting or Not

A Small Orange believes that you don’t really need unlimited bandwidth or storage, because your website may not always perform to its full potential, putting all the unlimited bandwidth and storage to shame. This is why, the company offers limited storage and bandwidth optimized to your needs, along with unlimited websites to help you build a wider network.

SSD storage

A Small Orange never fails to impress customers and makes peers drop their jaws, with 15x faster servers which are built on super-efficient SSD Storage. The hardware they deploy is of enterprise standard, which positions this hosting provider a step ahead of its competitors.

Support NGINX and HTTP/2

A Small Orange never misses a chance to give the responsive experience you came looking for. With the support of NGINX, A Small Orange makes your website highly responsive and reliable. Now as far as HTTP/2 is concerned, you don’t get it.

Customer Support

Customer support is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year via live chat and email. Unfortunately, they do not offer support via phone.

Support Documents  / Video Tutorials / Guides / How To’s

If you don’t have the patience to wait for your customer representative to respond, you can get answers to your query by entering relevant keywords in the search box of A Small Orange’s official website. The link will take you to an extensive database, which is updated regularly to provide any which hosting-related information you came looking for.

Live chat support

ASO’s Live chat support is something you can count on. Live chat support means a satisfactory response given instantly, and that’s exactly what you get with A Small Orange. You can also get a print of your chat or have it sent to your email inbox for future reference.

Phone Support

Phone support is not provided by A Small Orange, which is one of the drawbacks of using this hosting service. But if you are fine by Live Chat or email tickets and hardly picks up your phone to lodge a complaint or get a query resolved, who cares whether phone support exists or not?

Ticketed email system

A Small Orange has put in place an efficient email ticketing system which is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for customers and non-customers alike. The email ticketing is highly responsive and spots on. At the receiving end of your emails are knowledgeable technicians who look into your hosting-related problems and revert with a solution within 60 minutes.

User forum

You can create a free account on A Small Orange and get access to a multi-dimensional knowledge-base, wherein hosting experts and current ASO users answer all your hosting-related queries. You can also configure your email address to have relevant replies sent directly to your email.

Billing practice –  whether users can refund or cancel account easily or not

Nobody likes to lose a customer, and the hosting industry is no different. But making it easier for users to leave if they want to indicates courtesy. A Small Orange won’t get you locked in lengthy contracts or create any fuss about you leaving at your convenience. The company offers a 90-day money-back guarantee. Till then, you can explore their services all you want.

Price

While every website owner tries to save a buck in every sphere of their business, website hosting is where a significant amount can be saved in the long run; hence, pricing is important. A Small Orange is not a cheap hosting service. It’s a bit expensive – charges more as compared to mainstream hosts but has several features to back it all up. We would say their hosting is reasonably priced for the service that you get.

Free Trial

A Small Orange does not offer a free trial on any of their hosting plans, but there’s something you would cherish more – 90-day money-back guarantee with ‘no questions asked’ easy cancellations.

Renewal Rates

Like most hosting providers out there, renewal rates are going to be higher than what you would pay initially. But you won’t feel the pinch as by then your website will have grown by leaps and bounds.

Cross- & Up-selling Practices

A Small Orange lets you install various web application scripts through cPanel to enrich your hosting experience. Their cross and upselling practices are provided on an as-and-when-needed basis.

Money-Back Guarantee

A Small Orange is so confident about its services that it offers a 90-day money-back guarantee to its customers. However, customers are pretty much satisfied with what they get and pay for.

A Small Orange Hosting Plans & Features

A Small Orange has an extensive variety of offers to let customers choose suitable hosting plans and features to shape their online presence. From one-size-fits-all Shared hosting to business-specific cloud VPS and Dedicated plans, there’s something for everyone. Talking about features, you will get SSL certificates and an easy to use a website builder to create a personalized web experience for your users.

Plans

A Small Orange offers Shared, Reseller, Cloud VPS and Dedicated plans to meet your individual hosting requirements. There are a few things that come as standard regardless of the plan you choose, and that’s what defines the core values ASO sticks to. For instance, the company promises 24/7 customer support, 99.9% uptime and SSD powered servers across all hosting plans.

Let’s have a look at each hosting plan to know more about A Small Orange.

Shared Hosting

A Small Orange provides four progressive hosting plans to nurture your website in the shared ecosystem. With blazing-fast SSD servers which are 15x faster than conventional servers, the performance is too high for the price of shared plans.

Here are four shared hosting plans offered by A Small Orange:

Small Plan is the best-selling among all the above-mentioned shared plans because it offers a feature-price balance that resonates with a majority of website owners out there. A Small Orange deploys enterprise-only hardware to give top-notch speed, reliability, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee to their customers using shared plans. Their shared hosting also supports various programming languages to enable tech-savvy customers to make the most of it.

Cloud VPS Hosting

When hosting gets advanced and feature-rich, the prices go up. However, with an extensive choice, you can pick a hosting plan that meets your requirements and fits your budget. Cloud VPS hosting offered by A Small Orange is available at various price points. Have a look at the options below:

VPS Cloud Hosting by A Small Orange throws in scalability and myriads of features so you can shape your hosting experience as you may please. VPS hosting is backed by first-class data centers and high-performance SSD servers to keep the speed and reliability quotient high. VPS Cloud is no doubt a sizable investment with high dividends.

Reseller Hosting

If you have a customer-base looking for a fully managed, reliable hosting service, give them the best of A Small Orange and take full credit along with profit. Impress your clients with ASO’s 15x faster SSD servers and many other features based on their requirements and budget preference. A Small Orange will also render their 24/7 customer support to your clients, which means that you are spared of the headache.

Here are three Reseller Hosting plans offered by A Small Orange.

Further, if you buy their Reseller hosting plan for more than a year, you will get a free domain for the first year.

With ASO’s Reseller hosting, you can take full control of what you want to offer to your clients at the price they prefer. With the same enterprise-standard hardware and 99.9% uptime assurance, Reseller hosting is nothing lesser of other end-user plans.

Dedicated Hosting

When it comes to the ultimate in hosting and best in class, A Small Orange offers Dedicated Servers to users who want complete space and bandwidth of their own. Dedicated servers are likened to the business class on a flight where you get VIP treatment, premium features and enough room to stretch your back. You can expect the same for your website with dedicated servers. Whether you want Single CPU servers or multiple ones, there are various options to choose from.

Have a look at different dedicated server plans that come with a single CPU configuration.

Need better performance and speed? Try their multiple CPU configurations. Here are two options to choose from:

Now there’s a trade-off between disk space and speed in each plan. If you want more speed, you’ll have to compromise the space and vice versa. This gives you the flexibility to make a decision based on what’s more important to you.

Another benefit of choosing dedicated servers is that you can focus on strengthening your core business while tasks like set-up, maintenance and monitoring will be handled by the company itself.

A Small Orange Other Services

Weebly Website Builder

Build your website your way with an easy to use website builder by A Small Orange. This site builder comes with drag and drops features and unlimited pages. Feature-rich site builder enables you to put slideshows and audio/videos on your website to create a wonderful experience for your users. With hundreds of mobile-friendly templates, you can personalize your website without ASO branding anywhere on the pages.

Clementine Managed Hosting

Managing a server can be difficult, and you might not have time for it. This is where ASO’s managed hosting saves the day for you. Their managed hosting starts at $50 per month, which includes 2 CPU cores, 2 GB RAM and 30 GB SSD storage with 1 TB monthly bandwidth. By paying $50 a month, you are freed from server administration and updating software. Since trained professionals of A Small Orange will be handling your servers, you can expect them to handle all of it better than anyone else.

Verdict

A Small Orange is driven by a purpose to deliver speedy and secure performance to its customers. All of their hosting plans are based on a technology that utilizes SSD servers. As a result, customers get 15 times faster page loads and a reliable platform to host their website.

A Small Orange keeps people first, whether it’s employees or customers, anyone and everyone at A Small Orange is treated with respect and is listened to. That’s one of the factors that might not matter at the surface, but deep down, it plays an important role in ensuring quality service and customer satisfaction.

Pros

• 90 Days Money Back Guarantee

That’s the kind of assurance you can rarely expect from a hosting provider in today’s highly competitive environment, but A Small Orange is confident about their services to a point where they are ready to give their customers ample time to try first and then make a decision.

• Weebly Website Builder

You can choose from over 100 templates to design your website, which will run smoothly on both desktop and hand-held devices.

• 99.9% Uptime and a free domain with annual plans
• Pay only for what you use

Cons

• No unlimited bandwidth and disk space
• ASO’s reins are held by EIG, which does not share the same value and outlook towards customers as ASO does.

Faqs

Q1: Do I get Windows hosting with A Small Orange?

Ans: ASO is a Linux-only hosting provider. You do not get Windows hosting with any of their plans.

Q2: Does A Small Orange provide unlimited bandwidth and disk space?

Ans: No, you will not get unlimited bandwidth and disk space with any hosting plan. However, the amount of bandwidth and storage you get is sufficient for your website to sustain and thrive.

Q3: Is there any Site Transfer fee if I switch to A Small Orange from a different host?

Ans: No. There’s no transfer fee whatsoever. You will have to pay only for the plans and additional services you choose.

Q4: Do I get an SSL certificate with ASO?

Ans: Yes. A Small Orange offers an SSL certificate as standard with every hosting plan, and you do not have to pay any additional price for it.

Q5: Can I host my Magento website on A Small Orange?

Ans: Yes, you can host your Magento site on A Small Orange.

Q6: Does A Small Orange take automatic backups?

Ans. Yes, they do offer weekly, daily and monthly backups, along with rollbacks up to 7 days, which means you will never lose your precious data even in the worst case of catastrophe.

Q7: How many email accounts do I get with A Small Orange?

Ans: You can have unlimited email accounts should you choose a suitable plan.

Q8: Will I get CDN with ASO hosting?

Ans: Unfortunately, ASO does not provide CDN. If you wish, you can use third-party CDN. There won’t be any problem running third-party CDN on any ASO hosting plan.

Q9: Does A Small Orange offer a Money-back guarantee on all packages?

Ans:  A Small Orange offers 90-day money-back guarantee to win its customers’ trust. If you don’t like their services in the first 90 days, you will get a full refund without any questions asked.

Q10: Can I have a reseller hosting plan with A Small Orange?

Ans:  A Small Orange is widely trusted for offering reseller hosting plans at different levels. Depending on your clients’ needs, you can offer them the benefits of ASO hosting while making a profit.

Q11: How many programming languages does ASO support?

And: Because they support Linux server, so, except asp.net like PHP, Perl, HTML, MYSQL, they support all programming languages.

Q12: How can I contact A Small Orange Support?

Ans:  A Small Orange provides customer support via live chat and email ticketing only. There’s no phone support with ASO, which is one of the few drawbacks this company has been heaving for a long time.