Are you concerned that your website is polluting the environment and harming the planet? Then look no further than Green Geek hosting. The GreenGeeks web hosting review will show that the eco-minded company, hosts some of the best eco friendly websites.
GreenGeeks has become a well-known name in the WordPress hosting industry, with their environmentally friendly responsible platform. The Green Geek hosting platform has been designed with a mindset of no waste and maximum use of resources.
It has been designed in such a way, that every aspect is as energy efficient as possible.
Green Geeks web hosting reviews will look at what is green hosting and how GreenGeeks incorporate it, as well as their hosting plans.
Disclosure : I do have affiliate links on this site. If you click on any and make a purchase, it will not cost you anything more and will help me to bring you more reviews. These are my own opinions based on my experience and research.
The GreenGeeks Web Hosting Review
Green Geeks is an eco-minded, green energy, web host, and was founded in 2008. It is the leading eco-friendly, green web hosting provider. Trey Gardner is the CEO and the company is privately owned.
The goal of GreenGeeks is to be as environmentally friendly as possible. They offer 1-click WordPress install, managed updates, enhanced security, free CDN, free site migration and the choice of more than 5 different data center locations.
Data centers are located in Chicago, Montreal, Toronto, Amsterdam and Phoenix.
The eco friendly website hosting options are backed by their 300% renewable energy commitment. Currently power more than 600,000 websites, with customers in more than 150 countries.
Green Geeks invest in renewable energy, thus, keeping their operations carbon neutral. They put back into the grid, 3 times the energy they consume. This is done in the form of renewable energy.
Renewable energy is matched via Bonneville Environmental Foundation (more about that below).
So, if you want one of the best eco friendly websites, then choose Green Geek hosting. Thereby helping the environment, at the same time as getting a web hosting solution.
Before we continue with the GreenGeeks web hosting review, let’s have a look at what is green hosting.
What Is Green Hosting?
The web hosting industry has a huge negative environmental impact, mainly because of the astronomical amounts of energy they use. The primary way in which web hosting providers can give back to the environment, is through carbon offsets or renewable energy.
Green hosting is an eco friendly hosting solution that reduce their carbon footprint by using different eco-minded technologies and processes.
Renewable energy is produced using naturally occurring resources, such as wind, sunlight and water. No fossil fuels are required, thus resulting in highly efficient, clean energy.
Renewable Energy Certificates (REC) are generated by companies that specialize in creating renewable energy. RECs are tradeable in the USA and represent proof that 1 Megawatt-hour (MW h) of electricity, was generated from an eligible renewable energy source.
A web host can buy renewable energy certificates (RECs), thereby certifying that they have helped to generate a certain amount of renewable energy.
And of course the money that the company gets that is selling the RECs, can be used to cover operational costs, as well as investing in additional green energy initiatives.
How GreenGeeks Use Green Hosting
Green Geeks mitigates their environmental impact by purchasing wind energy credits at a rate of 3 times the amount they consume. They also use energy efficient hardware for their servers, which are placed in data centers.
Green Geeks work with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) in Portland, Ohio. BEF is a Green-e partner. They tell BEF how much personnel, servers, etc. they have. Together with wind farms, they then calculate their annual energy consumption and carbon footprint.
Through BEF, they then buy 3 times more RECs than they have consumed, thereby putting energy back in the grid. This is their commitment to the environment and the best eco friendly websites they host.
GreenGeeks is a recognized United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) green power partner.
Also work with One Tree Planted, thus planting trees across the globe. One tree will be planted for every web hosting account that they make provision for on their hosting platform.
Green Geeks web hosting reviews found they have an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau (BBB).
What Green Geek Hosting Offers
GreenGeeks offer Shared, VPS, WordPress, eCommerce and reseller hosting on their specially engineered hosting platform. It is designed for the fastest, most secure and scaleable hosting available.
Reliable web hosting allows you to have top quality hosting, while also benefitting the environment.
A Weebly website builder is available, which is a drag and drop website builder. Or you can use a content management system like WordPress.
Launch your website and online store with Green Geeks. If you use WordPress, can use a plugin like WooCommerce.
Green Geeks use SSD storage so sites load faster, and LiteSpeed Cache so the read/write speed is very impressive. It has CDN that speeds up load time, by saving a copy of your page on the server that is closest to your customer.
Green energy websites are energy efficient, without compromising proficiency. The best eco friendly websites are hosted by GreenGeeks. So let’s have a closer look at their hosting plans in the GreenGeeks web hosting review.
Features of Green Geek Hosting Plans
Key Features at a Glance:
- Unlimited web storage space.
- Unmetered traffic count.
- Unlimited websites (except for the Lite Plan)
- 300% energy match.
- SSD storage.
- SSL certification.
- Free domain for the first year.
- Free website migration.
- Zero day vulnerability fixes.
- Built-in scaleability.
- 24/7 support.
- 30-day money back guarantee.
- Free CDN and LiteSpeed Cache.
Host your website on the 300% green hosting platform. You can feel good that you are making a difference and using an eco-minded web hosting service.
Green Geeks Web Hosting Reviews of Plans
Prices are affordable and plans include numerous useful features. They offer several hosting plans, suitable for beginners to large companies.
- Web Hosting: Lite is $2.49 / month, Pro $4.95 / month and Premium $8.95 / month.
- WordPress Hosting: Lite is $2.49 / month, Pro $4.95 / month and Premium $8.95 / month.
- Managed VPS Hosting: 2GB is $39.95 / month, 4GB $59.95 / month and 8 GB $109.95 / month. Here you can see al the features of each plan.
- Reseller hosting: RH25 $19.95 / month, RH50 $24.95 / month and RH80 $34.95 / month. These are all the features included in each plan.
Do be aware that these special prices all refer to a 3-year term. At the end of the term, the plans renew at the regular price.
So, why choose GreenGeek Hosting? You can do your part to help the environment and choose eco-friendly web hosting.
Pros: What I like About GreenGeeks
GreenGeeks is a reliable and popular web host service provider, and if you are starting a blog, then they are beginner friendly. This is what I like about them:
Solid uptime performance:
Uptime is one of the most crucial factors to consider when choosing a web hosting service. GreenGeeks deliver an average uptime of 99.95%.
Uptime shows the reliability of a web host, but directly affects the experience that website visitors have. It also affects the bounce rate, which can potentially mean loss of profits if visitors click away.
Speed:
Speed is crucial when it comes to website performance. Very fast page loading time of less than one second. The longer it takes for a page to load, the higher the chance that visitors will click away.
GreenGeek’s load speed is faster than the industry average, clocking in at around 477 ms (milliseconds). GreenGeeks give their users the option to enable caching, to further enhance page load time. WordPress users can also install a WordPress caching plugin.
Eco friendly and Sustainable:
Green energy websites are better for the environment. GreenGeeks have strong values that care about the planet. They purchase 3 times the wind energy credits, to compensate for the energy they used to power your website.
By hosting with GreenGeeks, you can help to support renewable energy. Recognized green power partner with the EPA
Packed with fantastic features:
GreenGeeks hosting has all the features you need to build a website. Server hardware is branded and servers are based on Supermicro rack mountable servers, powered by the most power-efficient Intel processors.
Very affordable:
We can see in the GreenGeeks web hosting review that they offer competitive prices. It is good value for money for the features that are offered.
Superb support:
When you look at what customers say on Green Geeks web hosting reviews, they rave about the top-notch support. They are very quick to respond to queries and never mind the issue, expert help is provided. 24/7 support is via live chat and email, and via phone Monday to Sunday 9 am to midnight EST.
WordPress expert support specialists are available for managed WordPress customers. They will help you set up your WordPress site and assist with any WordPress specific issues.
Negative comments mainly complain about automatic re billing and exceeding file limits.
Extensive Knowledge Base:
Have an extensive knowledge base where users can search for answers to their questions. GreenGeeks have loads of categories and sub categories to search in. These include general hosting, VPS hosting, reseller hosting, sales questions, billing questions, video tutorials, and much more.
This feature is great if you prefer self-help, rather than seeking assistance from a customer service representative. If you don’t find your answer within the categories, you can search in the search bar.
This is over and above live chat, email and phone support
Free domain name and migration:
Free website migration if you want to move your website to Green Geeks. If you are currently hosting with another services, they will transfer your website to their servers for free.
They also provide a free domain registration transfer for the first year.
30 day money back guarantee:
If you move over to GreenGeeks and you are not happy, there is a 30-day money back guarantee on most hosting plans. (There are some exceptions as you will see in cons).
Security and Nightly backup:
In the event of anything bad happening and your site crashes, GreenGeeks provide free nightly backups. This is in addition to SSH access.
They offer additional security measures of real-time security scanning, automatic brute force detection, SSL secure server, Spam Assassin protection and the ability to have password protected directories.
Multiple high quality server locations:
5 different data centers. The closer the server is to your location, the faster the speed will be.
So, choose a server location close to you. This can have a huge positive impact on the SEO of your site.
Free CDN:
Content Delivery Network (CDN) is powered by Cloudflare and is free. Cloudflare allows users to cache content and use servers closest to website visitors, to get it delivered.
Thus, surfing the web is much faster for those that visit your best eco friendly websites.
Cons: Where They Can Do Better
As with all good things, there are always downside aspects that you should be aware of before making a final decision:
- Higher renewals: this is an industry standard practice that you get a very low rate ($2.49) that is advertised. This low rate though is only applicable if you sign up for 36 months. The shorter the sign-up term, the higher the cost.
- $3.95 per month biennially.
- $4.95 per month for an annual plan
- $10.95 for monthly billing.
- Phone support is not available between midnight EST and 9 am. Personally this would not be a problem for me as live chat and email support are available.
- Refund policy has some strings attached to it. GreenGeeks offers you a free domain name when you join. Should you request a refund, the fee for the domain name registration, will be deducted. ($13.95 if it is a .com site) This though is another standard industry practice, but you do need to be aware of it.
- Set-up fee for monthly billing: If you opt for monthly billing, there is a $15 set-up fee. If you pay for a year or more, there is no fee.
Additional Promises
GreenGeeks make these promises to customers that servers will be kept up to date with the following specifications.
- The latest generation energy-efficient Intel Xeon processors.
- Minimum of 128 GB DDR3 ECC-Registered memory.
- BGP4 Gigabit connectivity to several Fiber GigE Tier 1 Backbones.
- RAID-10 SSD storage arrays to provide maximum performance and redundancy
- Solid State Drive (SSD) acceleration
- Gigabit connectivity.
- Never oversold.
- Name brand server parts.
- No desktop hardware whatsoever.
With GreenGeeks you can rest assured that your data is stored on high-quality, state-of-the-art servers. Data centers all have a server-safe fire suppression system, with early fire detection mechanism.
Automatic climate and temperature control system, with humidity and temperature sensors is located throughout the facility.
Do I Recommend GreenGeeks?
Yes, I certainly do. They provide solid speed, brilliant uptime and super customer support. They have a bigger mission than simply being a web host. Green Geek hosting wants to make a difference to their environmental impact by providing the best eco friendly websites.
They provide you with green tags to put on your website, to help spread awareness and environmentally friendly practices.
Websites pollute the environment, and that is harming the planet.
If sustainability is important to you, you cannot go wrong with GreenGeeks
The GreenGeeks Web Hosting Review: Final Thoughts
The web hosting industry is a bigger environmental polluter than the airline industry. You can lessen your web hosting’s impact on the environment, by choosing GreenGeeks.
Feel good to have your money supporting a sustainable business. If you want one of the best eco friendly websites, then host with GreenGeeks.
Recommended for small to medium-sized sites, WordPress and eCommerce sites. If you have an eCommerce site and need help to choose a theme, this post on the 9 Best Free Shopify Themes Templates will help you decide.
GreenGeeks is a very good hosting solution for small businesses. If you have very high traffic volume though, you might want to upgrade to a high performance plan.
You might find this post on 3 Best Website Hosting Service Providers helpful to compare hosting providers.
Wealthy Affiliate also offers world-class hosting, combined with affiliate marketing training, if you want an all-inclusive package.
If GreenGeeks is not for you, then have a look at the BlueHost review.
If you have any experience with GreenGeeks, or any questions about Green Geeks web hosting reviews, then please them below in the comments and I will get back to you
Oh wow, I had never really thought about what my website might be doing to the environment. Online businesses seem so green, but is that only an illusion?
Thanks for educating people about the environmental concerns that arise when building websites and online businesses. I know that many of us want to make better choices wherever possible, and it’s great to know about this option with GreenGeeks.
Few people realize the environmental damage that running websites, have. So it is awesome that a company like GreenGeeks is addressing that issue.
Green Geek sounds like a winning option for environmentally services. Their commitment to an eco friendly footprint is remarkable. That fact that they purchase three times what they use is another feather in their cap. However, I did see or understand how they passed those benefits on to the customer. Perhaps I am mistaken, but the customer costs appears to be the same as traditional hosting. Nonetheless, I would be interested in learning since this is the first time that I have heard about eco-friendly web hosting.
GreenGeeks is certainly an eco-minded company with a commitment to mitigate their carbon footprint. The benefit to the customer is knowing they have one of the best eco friendly websites that doesn’t leave a negative footprint.
Wow, that’s something I didn’t know was a thing lol. Eco Friendly web hosting. Pretty cool. It sounds like they give out some pretty reliable hosting as well. In the online business world having a reliable hosting services is an absolute must. Helping the environment out at the same time is priceless.
You gave some very good info that I think a lot of people would want to know these days. A lot of times we don’t think how much our techy world is affecting the world we live in. So it’s good to know that we are going in the right direction with services like this.
GreenGeeks have a reliable, fast, secure web hosting service, and it is pretty cool that they are helping the environment at the same time.
I was never truly aware of the harm to the environment that websites could cause. I wish that I had known about this sooner because I just as I am sure others do scroll through the internet and not even think that these websites are affecting the environment. I am really glad that I came across this article and I feel that I have learned a lot not only about the pollution that websites cause but also how to combat it. I appreciate how thorough this site explains this concept and makes it clear what the problem is and explains how we can work to make it better.
I think most people are not aware of the environmental damage that running a website has. To be able to mitigate our carbon footprint, by using an eco friendly web hosting service like GreenGeeks, is indeed awesome.
Even if you are not environmentally minded, this looks like a pretty good deal, even for the premium package. If you are green-minded than this is the perfect option if you want a web hosting service and still grow and support your online business. Thanks for reviewing this service. I will definitely keep it in mind for the future.
If you want one of the best eco friendly websites, then using Green Geek hosting, makes it possible.
I kept thinking, as I read through this article, “ok but what is the catch?”
I was amazed to reach the end of your review without reading anything that seems like it would deter me from using GreenGeeks Web Hosting.
Honestly, I am ashamed to admit that I had no idea this green web hosting idea was even a thing, nor did I consider how traditional hosting companies cause unwanted environmental effects.
It’s pretty amazing that this company gives more power back into the grid than it consumes You said the load times are higher than average, at 477. What is that in seconds? Sorry I am not very versed in the technical side of these things.
I can not wait to check this out further, especially with low prices like the ones listed. I mean, less than $3 for the lite service? Wow.
Hi there, it is indeed awesome to have an eco minded web hosting solution, that gives back more than what they consume. The 477 referred to is in ms, so milliseconds. I hope that helps. All the best, Liné
I’ve never actually heard about the GreenGeeks before so I found your article very interesting. I love that they are aware of the carbon footprint of all the websites around the world and have designed a company around the need to be green. The price looks very competitive and they seem to give you a good deal. My only thought is that there is no comment about the security of your website in your post. I see that you can chat with them and they give support. But it isn’t an education company or a community. Still a very good deal just for hosting.
Hi there, in case you missed the security measures in the post, here they are:
“In the event of anything bad happening and your site crashes, GreenGeeks provide free nightly backups. This is in addition to SSH access. They offer additional security measures of real-time security scanning, automatic brute force detection, SSL secure server, Spam Assassin protection and the ability to have password protected directories.”
I hope this helps, Liné
I have never heard of this company before, but what they’re doing is truly amazing. Not only are they providing affordable plans for business owners or people who want to start their own business, but they’re also helping the environment from more potential damage than what it already has. I would love to host a website there and give them a try!
Hi there, to be able to have an eco-minded web hosting provider, is indeed awesome. I am sure you will find GreenGeeks a very affordable and secure web hosting service.
Hello Line, I didn’t know that in the hosting industry exists such a green company with the mission to improve the environmental negative impacts from hosting pollution. It is the first time reading for the Green Geek hosting company and its hosting services. It looks interesting to contribute to such a good mission, to host our sites in a company that works with renewable energy.
The prices of their hosting plans seem attractive to take into consideration. I like the Pro plan and what they offer on that one.
I will consider this hosting service when I need to renew my hosting services in the coming months.
Thank you for sharing this
Alketa
Hi Alketa, GreenGeeks do offer very affordable web hosting plans. Being able to offset the carbon footprint of website hosting, is indeed an awesome way to help the planet. All the best, Liné
I appreciate this thorough review. I hadn’t heard about GreenGeeks web hosting before and how they use the power of the wind. I love that they care so much about the environment and that all three of their plans are super affordable. If I’m ever ready to switch from my current platform, I’ll definitely give this company my business.
I do love the fact that GreenGeeks offer green websites and the way in which they offset their carbon footprint, is awesome.
This is awesome to find there is actually a web hosting provider that off-set their carbon footprint and supporting clean energy. I love it.
Wow did not really know that this existed. I am really impressed . A way not to pollute the environment from sites is crazy . This site contains very interesting things and it’s very helpful way to keep our planet clean . GO and get started on this site because so did I . What are you waiting for?
Website hosting is a huge environmental polluter. So by using renewable energy, the environmental impact can be reduced. GreenGeeks is helping to reduce the carbon footprint of website hosting.
I didn’t know that the hosting industry has a large carbon footprint and I was wondering how a hosting platform can be eco-minded, so this article was eye-opening for me. I think that all hosting companies should follow GreenGeeks ‘ example and use solar or wind energy. I love the initiative of planting one tree for every account that is opened. That is a big incentive to join!
The hosting plans are also cheap, it’s very affordable, even the premium plan.The features all look great and it looks like a solid and responsible company. The cons are not big cons to me. All in all, it looks like a great company, something to consider.
Hosting with GreenGeeks is indeed very affordable, and the carbon footprint of your blog will be significantly reduced, if you use an eco friendly web host like GreenGeeks.
Wow! I have always thought of myself as environmentally friendly, I recycle, turn off and unplug all appliances not in use, watch water waste and only do laundry before 4pm. But I honestly neve gave much thought as to the power the internet requires until now.
What a great article. Well thought out and very informative.
It is frightening when you start looking at the energy required to run servers and host websites. The 300% renewable energy commitment of GreenGeeks, makes them one of the best eco-friendly website hosting providers.
Thanks to your article I can now consider how much environmental damage can be caused by having an online business.
Come to think of it, millions of servers running without clean energy is a huge burden on the environment.
However, for a project like this to be competitive you will have to add very good features to justify the annoying process of changing hosting.
Apart from the promise that you are helping the planet, is there an added value apart from the features you mention that would justify switching hosting providers?
Apart from the 300% renewable energy commitment from GreenGeeks, the best reasons to use GreenGeeks eco-friendly website hosting are: Free website migration, Unlimited SSD web space and data, Guaranteed 99.9% uptime, Competitive pricing, Canadian, American an European servers, Independently owned and Fast and efficient customer support.
I hope this helps.