Finding a reliable and affordable shared web hosting can be a hard task, especially if you have no idea or experience. For that, I’m going to show you the iPage and FatCow comparison to find the different points and features.
Also, you’ll find the prices, the cons, and much more. In the end, you’ll be able to choose the right hosting based on your business needs and budget.
What’s iPage?
iPage is one of the biggest web hosting providers in the world. They started their business in 1998 and they host more than 2 million domains today. They focus on business web hosting and blogs.
This is a green web hosting that uses wind-powered energy for their data centers across the USA. So, if you want to save energy and protect the environment, then, it’s the best choice for your website hosting.
iPage offers different types of web hosting, that includes:
- shared hosting
- VPS hosting
- dedicated servers
- WordPress hosting
Unlike many other hosting services, iPage hosting offers a single shared hosting plan called “essential”.
The hosting plan comes with unlimited resources like disk space and bandwidth. But also, the company offers a free domain name and of course, an auto-installer software for hundreds of applications.
What’s FatCow
Fatcow is the iPage’s sister company, as they’re owned by the same big group (Endurance International Group). It has been founded in the same year as iPage in 1998. So, they’re in business for a long time.
FatCow is a US-based web hosting provider with green energy powered data centers. Here is a photo of one of their data centers:
Fatcow offers shared hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated servers. They offer similar shared hosting to iPage with unlimited resources and a free domain name. It’s another green hosting service in the USA.
Now, let’s compare Factow to iPage and find which one is the best. Here is the comparison overview in the following table. If you need more details, you can scroll down and read the full content.
| iPage | Fatcow | |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 1998 | 1998 |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Disk space | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Free Domain name | Yes | Yes |
| Yearly cost | $35.88 | $49 (regular) |
| Instant activation | Yes | Yes |
| Payment options | Credit card/ PayPal | Credit card/ PayPal |
| Average server speed | 4/5 | 3/5 |
| Customer satisfaction rating | 4.5/5 | 3/5 |
| Visit iPage | Visit FatCow |
Prices
iPage is one of the cheapest hosting services, they offer affordable hosting plans for only $23 for the first year, and then, the regular price will be $155.4 per year.
For FatCow, the regular price is $49 for the first year and then, $155.4 per year for plan renewals.
Server speed
Even if the two companies are owned by the same parent company, their server speed is not the same. In my own experience, the iPage server is faster than FatCow.
That’s because each company has different server configurations and the data centers use different settings and hardware configurations.
Customer support
The customer support is much more important than any other time before for web hosting. For that reason, I always recommend going with professional customer support and not any random company.
In this comparison, both companies offer good customer support. However, it looks like the iPage support department is better than FatCow. By the way, there are lots of Fatcow complaints about their customer support. So, going with iPage, in this case, is better.
- Read also: iPage security for your site.
What about the Uptime?
iPage offers 99% uptime guaranteed and Fatcow has no details or information about their uptime. But, in both cases, you’ll find downtimes from time to time.
The server will load slower than the expected and that’s because of the nature of the hosting service that’s shared between accounts.
Control panel
Both, iPage and FatCow offer low-quality control panel called Plesk. It’s not easy to manage your website files and setup your hosting account like other control panels.
Personally, I find their control panel confusing and outdated.
If you really care about the way you manage your site files and options, then, only the cPanel that’s offered by InMotion Hosting is the right choice. They offer amazing control panel with website compressor and optimizer tool, a better auto-installer software, and everything is clear and better.
Freebies
If you don’t care about freebies like me, then, skip this paragraph. The freebies offered by hosting companies are a way to welcome new customers.
The iPage and FatCow hosting providers offer hundreds of dollars for each new account as advertising credits with Google AdWords, Bing, and even Facebook.
Also, they offer a free domain name for the first year with every new account. Remember that you’ll pay for the domain name in the next years.
In my own opinion, the freebies are not really free, that’s because when you renew your hosting account, you’ll pay more money than other companies. The $155.4 renewal price per year is not cheap at all for a shared web hosting with slow servers.
Other features
iPage offers unlimited MySQL databases hosting, and the same thing is offered by FatCow. If that looks great for you, then, make sure to think about the way you use the server resources. To avoid problems, use the plugins that you really need in WordPress or the extensions in Joomla. You don’t have to risk your account because you have a plugin that uses lots of CPU and server resources.
iPage or Fatcow?
So, if you’re looking for cheap yearly hosting for just a fixed period of 12 months or so, then, iPage is the right choice.
On the other side, if you want to host your website for years, then, InMotion Hosting offers better services at a cheaper cost in the long term.
The renewal price of InMotion is cheaper and the plan comes with SSD servers that are faster and better than any other shared web hosting. Also, they have better customer support and amazing uptime.
