Today we put two popular names in front – SiteGround vs HostGator. You may be on the verge to buy one of them, but STOP, STOP, STOP. And don’t buy unless you know which one’s right for you – here.
Window shopping doesn’t work when buying hosting services. You need to know what you’re buying before buying a hosting service otherwise it’s gonna cause troubles to your business at later stages of life.
Hosting is like an online home for your business. So, it’s better to choose the best option for you between Hostgator and Siteground web hosting (and at your price!). If you are wondering which one is actually better and reliable, stick with us here, we’ll discuss both of the hosting service providers in detail. Hostgator vs SiteGround, bang on!
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SiteGround vs HostGator: Defining The Rivals
HostGator is one of the leading and largest hosting service providers that helps you to create and manage your website. With its great service, it has won millions of hearts and probably that’s why 9 million websites are hosted under HostGator – wow!
On the other hand, SiteGround is not as old as it’s rival but has still made a difference in the market from a different perspective. It is officially recommended by WordPress. They consider themselves as open-source software that is customized with WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. Right now SiteGround is rapidly conquering the market.
Features Comparison Table
If you are in a hurry and don’t have enough time to go through the whole content, you can just have a look at this comparison table which will make you clear and give an idea which one you should actually go with.
| Tests | SiteGround | HostGator |
| For Beginners | Yes | Yes |
| Site transfer | Free | Free |
| Free SSL certificate and CDN | Yes | Yes |
| Uptime | 99.99% | 99.98% |
| Security | Best in class | Third-party security |
| Loading Speed | 1-2 seconds | 2-3 seconds |
| Renewal Pricing | Up to 3 times | Affordable |
| Malware scans | SiteGround’s “HackAlert” is free of cost. | “SiteLock” Malware Scanner |
| Pricing | Little Expensive | Very Affordable |
| Customer Support | Excellent | Average |
| HTTP/2-enabled | Yes | Yes |
| Money-back guarantee | 30 Days | 45 Days |
| Control Panel | cPanel | cPanel |
| Disk Space | Limited | Unlimited |
| Overall Rating(out of 10) | 8 | 7 |
Clearly, if price is not a hindrance for you, SiteGround is undoubtedly the best option with excellent customer support, HackAlert protection and terrific loading speed. But what if you want a more economically viable option – choose HostGator. Believe me, it’s not as bad as it sounds and you’ll get the worth.
To know pricing in detail, scroll down.
HostGator vs SiteGround: Key Features Comparison in Brief
HostGator and SiteGround are packed up with a lot of important and special features and we are going to dive into their waters one by one.
Uptime Guarantee
The very first thing to be considered before getting any hosting service is their uptime. Uptime is the effective up and running time of any website.
HostGator gives a 99.99% uptime guarantee. It means there are only 0.01% chances of your website being down. In every plan from basic to advance it gives the same uptime guarantee which makes it more favorable and appealing.
SiteGround on the other side also guarantees 99.99% Uptime. It stays on what it claims and credit goes to its custom programming. No matter which plans you choose you get the upper given uptime with all the plans.
Furthermore, after researching more we found experts have found that at some points HostGator gives 99.98% uptime whereas SiteGround remains the same with 99.99% uptime.
Considering what experts say, SiteGround is a winner here with a small margin of 0.01%.
Loading Speed
What sucks most while visiting any website? Obviously, it’s slow loading speed. Your user gets irritated and may even leave your website within seconds. Google uses website speed as one of the crucial SEO parameters to rank websites. So, it’s necessary that your website have an above average loading speed.
SiteGround has its own in-built super cacher which helps in reducing unwanted load and makes pages load faster. It also supports HTTPS speeding to boost up webpage loading speed. And recently it has moved to Google Cloud Services that means now it will use the same services as Google’s other platforms are using, for your website. Isn’t it cool and amazing?
SiteGround uses the latest version of PHP (at present 7.4) which makes it more fruitful than HostGator. SiteGround’s average loading speed is 1.25 seconds as per experts.
HostGator on the other hand has a different approach. It also has in-built catchers The average speed as claimed by experts is 1.5 seconds which is a bit slower in comparison to its rival here, SiteGround. But in recent years, HostGator has improved a lot and now they both are closer and differ only with a small margin. Statistically speaking, SiteGround wins this battle of speed by a small margin of 0.25 seconds.
User Interface and Security Standards
SiteGround and HostGator both use cPanel but SiteGround allows full customization where you can perform coding and other essential tasks. They call it Site tools. The Control panel is the place where all the backend work of the website is performed and is handled. Both offer a free SSL certificate that guarantees the safety and security of your website. Both also offer a content delivery network (CDN). So, here it’s a tie and no one is superior to others. Both stand on the same platform. We are ignoring coding in the c-panel option as it’s rarely required unless you’re a developer yourself.
Customer Support Service
Technical support is one thing that is crucial than all other features because — well after sales service matters a lot. SiteGround and HostGator both offer great technical support with 24/7 live chat and ticket system. But at present, there is a lack of expertise with HostGator where their technical support staff takes a long time to resolve a problem. This comes after many people reported and gave bad reviews to HostGator support.
SiteGround on the other hand has knowledgeable and highly trained support staff who resolve any issue even faster than HostGator. So, here as per experts and users experience SiteGround is more reliable and supportive in terms of the technical support aspect.
HostGator vs SiteGround: Plans & Pricing
Let’s discuss the plans of HostGator and Siteground and understand what you’ll get in each plan deeply.
SiteGround Plans
It offers three plans from basic to advanced. You can choose up as per your requirement.
Startup Plan
It is the basic plan which costs $6.99 monthly. It includes unlimited sub and parked domains, free email account, 10 GB web storage, hosting for one site, friendly site tools, free CDN with each account, and anti-hack system with spam protection and daily backup, free SSH and SFTP access, and super cacher of level 1 only. You will also get options for customized server setup and HTTP/2 enabled servers. It’s a startup plan. If your business is just launching you can choose this and later upgrade as per your requirements.
GrowBig Plan
This plan comes up with a price tag of $9.99 monthly and the most recommended plan for users who are having a hard time deciding. Some features of this plan remain the same as the Startup plan like unlimited sub and parked domains, free email account, friendly site tools, free CDN with each account, and anti-hack system with spam protection and daily backup, free SSH and SFTP access. What you get more is 20 GB of storage, 25000 monthly visits, unlimited hosted websites, super cacher at all 3 levels, advanced on-demand backup, and staging.
GoGreek Plan
Here comes the last and premium plan offered by SiteGround hosting which costs $14.99 monthly. If you require more traffic and more data i.e. you have an e-commerce inventory or large data infrastructure, this plan is for you. It includes all the features of the Startup plan and GrowBig plan. What it offers more is 40 GB of storage with 10000 monthly visits. It also includes advanced priority support, white-label hosting & client management, and pre-installed Git.
Note: All plans mentioned above are for WordPress web hosting.
SiteGround Cloud Hosting Plans
In cloud hosting plans SiteGround offers Entry, Business, Business Plus, Super Power plans prices at $80/month, $120/month, $160/month, and $240/month respectively.
HostGator Plans
HostGator offers three plans for WordPress which are as follows
Starter Plan
It is a basic plan that comes with a price tag of $5.95 per month. It offers one site, 100k visitors per month, 1 GB backup, a free SSL certificate, and a free domain. This plan is recommended for beginners.
Standard Plan
The second band’s most recommended plan is the standard plan which starts with a price of $7.95 per month and offers features like two sites, 200k visitors per month, 2 GB backup, free SSL certificate, and free domain.
Business Plan
The third and premium plan costs $9.95 per month and what you get with this plan are three sites, 500k visitors per month, 3 GB backup, a free SSL certificate, and a free domain.
In shared hosting, HostGator offers three plans named Hatchling plan, Baby Plan, and Business Plan priced at $2.75/ month, $3.95/month, $5.95 month respectively. As you move from Hatchling to Business plan more features and benefits will be provided.
HostGator vs SiteGround: Pros & Cons
SiteGround
Pros
- Multiple server locations in the US, Europe, and Asia.
- 99% of Uptime Guarantee with great page loading speed.
- Comes with a 30-days money-back guarantee
- Google cloud infrastructure.
- Adequate customer support with less response time than other hosting providers
- Offers free web hosting migration
- Free SSL certificate, PHP 7.4, and SSD hosting.
Cons
- Data storage is limited in all plan
- Pricing is quite high as compared to other hosting platforms
- Limited numbers of monthly visits.
HostGator
Pros
- 99% of Uptime Guarantee with great page loading speed.
- Comes with a 45-days money-back guarantee
- One-click WordPress installation.
- 24/7 technical support
- Unlimited data storage
- Comes with affordable price
- Free SSL certificate, PHP 7.0
Cons
- Limited backup (1 per week)
- Lack of expertise in support
- Constant upsells
Conclusion: Which One To Go With?
You may be fighting a hard battle to choose between them, let us tell you straight away. SiteGround is the winner of this battle. If money isn’t an issue, go with SiteGround, and if it is, HostGator isn’t completely a bad choice at all. You may be surprised to know that HostGator beats many other popular web hosting service providers by significant margins.
A more practical approach can be testing both the services. SiteGround and HostGator web hosting have money-back guarantees for 30 and 45 days respectively.
But whatever you choose between them, we wish you growth and prosperity with your business. We hope you’d liked this post on SiteGround vs HostGator. If so, share it with your social circle – help one out 🙂
