With lots of reviews about web hosts, when we talk about HostGator vs GoDaddy, it’s not clear which web host is better. So, we decided to try both services to find the winning company. So, here is our final result.
HostGator is the winner web host in this comparison. It has more features and options for bloggers, small business owners, and online stores. In addition, if we compare the prices, we’ll find that both companies offer more resources at an affordable cost.
On the other hand, GoDaddy is not a bad web host, however, they have expensive plans compared to what the company offers as resources and options.
GoDaddy compared to HostGator
Everyone’s search for a good, reliable, and cheap web host starts on the internet. When you search for a reliable web host, it is likely that you will be bombarded with a long list of web host providers.
So, when you look keenly at that list, you will see that there are more than a few references to HostGator and GoDaddy. The reason for this is that these two are among the most popular web hosting providers.
What makes them the best of the best is a combination of price, features, customer support, and hosting options. When it comes down to it, everyone looking for hosting wants the best hosting provider handling their sites’ needs.
Therefore, we are going to help you choose between these acclaimed web hosting providers. In addition, we’ll help you to get the best value for your money, a value that aligns tightly with your needs.
- Related: Cheap web hosting plans under $3
Who are these web hosts?
HostGator describes itself as a leading provider of web hosting, VPS (virtual private servers), and dedicated servers. They also pride themselves in providing hosting to over nine million customers, which is quite impressive. On their website, the web host claims that they have a team of seasoned professionals standing by 24/7/365 to assist you in any and all ways.
GoDaddy, on the other hand, seems like a bigger company than HostGator. Apart from being a behemoth at web hosting, they are also one of the largest domain name registrars in the world. So, they have integrated tightly with the international domain name registrar.
And therefore, allow for the registration of a wide range of domain extensions including new ones.
That said, we will look at both of these companies through the web hosting lens. Then, we’ll talk about any additional services they have to offer at the end.
Hosting plans, features, and prices
To compare these site hosting providers, we’ll need to have a clear idea of what they offer as features and services. In reality, GoDaddy is bigger in size as a company and they offer more services including email hosting, domain name registration. Also, they have a domain name marketplace where you can buy and sell domains.
Even more, there is professional email hosting, Microsoft office 365, and lots of others like social media management, SEO, online marketing, etc…
In addition, GoDaddy offers a second phone number, toll-free phone numbers, and website protection service with SSL and more.
For website hosting, both services offer the following web hosting solutions.
- Shared hosting
- VPS hosting
- Dedicated servers
- Cloud hosting
- WordPress hosting
- Reseller hosting
When it comes to shared hosting, GoDaddy’s plans start at $3.9 per month if you pay yearly. That plan is renewable at $7.99 per month with their most expensive option going for $7.99 per month renewable at $16.99 per month.
On the other hand, HostGator’s plans start at $3.95 per month if paid yearly and go up to $5.95. Keep in mind that these are first-time prices and may go up for renewal.
The good news is that you can try HostGator for one month and see all the features like cPanel etc…
The other interesting plan for most people is WordPress hosting. For this hosting option, GoDaddy charges between $6.99 and $13.99 while HostGator’s plans cost between $5.95 and $9.95.
Is HostGator better than GoDaddy?
As you can see from these figures, HostGator is the clear winner looking at price alone, it’s cheaper. However, that is not the whole story, though, because, for the same plan (categorized into low, medium, and high tiers among the two hosts for simplicity’s sake), GoDaddy offers additional features.
These features include Office 365, free domain names, and faster SSD disks for their higher-tier plans.
Looking at the features offered by both of these companies, they are pretty standard. These features include.
- cPanel
- Softaculous script installers
- Website backups
- 99.99% uptime guarantee
- Email hosting
- Domain forwards
- Online file manager
- FTP
- SSH access…
In addition to these features, the web hosts offer server DDoS protection and the ability to add additional resources to your hosting plans such as RAM, CPU, and disk space. You’ll need these resources when you exceed those allocated server resources at the time of signing up.
This is different from just upgrading to a higher tier. That’s because users might want something in between two tiers where the lower tier does not have enough resources, but the upper tier is a bit expensive.
Not every downtime is a problem
Keep in mind that minor server downtime is not always a serious hosting problem.
In reality, every server needs maintenance, updates, upgrades, and periodic configurations. No matter if you use a shared hosting, or a dedicated server, all the big hosting services inform their customer about any future scheduled maintenance.
So, it’s better to check the forum of your hosting provider for any information. However, when the downtime lasts long, it’s not a good solution for your website.
The following screenshot is an example of a post by HostGator to announce scheduled maintenance for a server. As a result, all the sites on that server will be down. So, in our experience, we suggest verifying if the problem is general, or only limited to one server for maintenance.
Server limitations
With HostGator, you get unmetered disk space and also unmetered bandwidth. So, there is nothing better than that for a beginner who just started or even for advanced webmasters who need extra resources. But please read this carefully:
We created a screenshot of the HostGator terms of service for the disk space usage and the bandwidth. The disk space is only allowed for website files and not for large media files for videos. So, keep it simple and never use your hosting account for other things than your site files. That way, you’ll avoid account termination and the problem.
On the other side, GoDaddy limits the disk space for their first shared plan. For the other advanced plans, there are no limitations on monthly bandwidth, but the same thing applies to any service.
- Read on: Monthly payment WordPress web hosts
You need to keep your account safe without exceeding the limits. Or you can upgrade to higher plan resources. This is what GoDaddy says about website bandwidth:
If you host a blog, a web store, or any kind of website and you don’t allow spam or usage of your images, both companies work. They’re professional and you don’t have to worry about the account limitations.
Their 99% of customers don’t even exceed the server resources usage. However, we recommend enabling spam protection and also disabling hotlinking. That way, you stop spammers from using your server bandwidth with images.
What to choose for a high-traffic website?
With the largest web hosting infrastructure, the two companies offer the best web hosting solutions for high-traffic websites and apps on dedicated servers only.
VPS hosting comparison
HostGator is good hosting, however, they’re the most expensive providers of VPS and the quality is better in reality. But keep in mind that there is no cPanel until you add it as an extra option and that will cost you a lot of money, but that’s a good managed hosting in the end.
On the other side, GoDaddy offers cPanel with every VPS hosting plan, and a 2 GB VPS plan costs $21.99 the fits billing cycle and then, $39.99 on renewal and that’s cheaper than what HostGator offers with the same RAM.
Now, here is the big bad surprise with HostGator, if you choose a VPS plan of 2 GB RAM, you’ll renew the service at $90 and that’s huge. It’s not even a dedicated server, it’s just a VPS of 2 GB RAM.
HostGator vs GoDaddy in customer support
Web hosting and managing your web hosting account can be a messy business. In addition, websites go down, get hacked and customers usually have questions concerning certain aspects of their hosting accounts.
When these needs arise, the best way to get your questions answered and fears allayed is to talk to a customer support representative.
At HostGator, the live chat is easy to initiate, but users have often complained that they have had to wait for up to 15 minutes just to talk to someone. These wait times can be attributed to HostGator’s large customer base.
That said, HostGator is seen to care more about the issues presented to them and go deeper into helping users than GoDaddy does. So those wait times might be worth it after all.
- Keep reading: VPS vs managed WordPress hosting
Additional features
When you have to decide between two hosting providers, pricing and features can only go so far. Some people need that extra push to make up their minds.
If you are one of these people, then looking at what you get in addition to good hosting and adequate support could help tilt the scales one way or the other.
GoDaddy beats HostGator hands down when it comes to additional features. First of all, you can buy a separate domain and email hosting on GoDaddy without purchasing a hosting account. That is not possible on HostGator.
When you buy hosting from GoDaddy, you do get:
- A free domain name
- DDoS protection
- Great website builder
- Free office 365 account
Also, the customer gets a custom Linux hosting that provides features such as CloudLinux for a balanced server and CageFS for a virtualized file system for blazing-fast website speeds.
Although both of these providers let you transfer your website from another hosting provider into their server and accounts. However, HostGator provides better services for this than GoDaddy.
HostGator vs GoDaddy for WordPress
Lastly, HostGator blows HostGator out of the water with their new managed hosting plans. It’s a relatively new service that lets you manage all your WordPress websites and make the load faster
HostGator is now better for WordPress hosting, they offer a good drag and drop site builder tool and pre-built sites. So, if you look for a way to get a WordPress website ready in minutes, then, choose it for your project.
Which is better, GoDaddy or HostGator?
Strictly comparing what they offer in the hosting sphere, both GoDaddy and HostGator companies are pretty much the same with small differences in pricing and resource allocation.
It is not until you look under the hood that you realize that HostGator has gone out of their way to provide an ecosystem that makes hosting a website especially using WordPress will be professional and fast.
As we said earlier, there is no ideal service for web hosting. So, both companies offer what you need to start a blog or website. Even, they offer payment options and lots of features. Just choose the one that your budget supports and you need.
This is our final comparison. If you need our advice, then, we recommend HostGator. We tried it and it worked well for all CMS and sites.
