If you’re comparing SiteGround vs HostGator, you came to the right place. Seeing as I have been burned by hosting companies before, I understand the importance of making an informed decision when weighing my options.
Choosing the wrong website hosting company can literally sabotage your online business. You will not only lose money but also the hard work that goes into building a formidable website.
As such, it’s only wise to start with a great website hosting service from the start. You’ll avoid a lot of downtimes and the associated stress since your website lives in a safe place
In today’s SiteGround vs HostGator comparison post, we learn more about two of the most popular website hosting providers around. SiteGround vs HostGator, which is the better web host?
Let us begin by learning more about each website hosting company. A little bit of background info doesn’t hurt, right?
SiteGround vs HostGator: Overview
What is SiteGround?
SiteGround is a fantastic web hosting service created for easy website management. The company was founded by Ivo Tzenov back in 2004.
- All plans come with fully managed hosting.
- Is an official partner of WordPress.org.
- Free SSD drives come included on all shared hosting plans.
- Servers are powered by Google Cloud, PHP7, HTTP/2 and NGINX + caching
- All customers get a free SSL certificate (Let’s Encrypt) and Cloudflare CDN.
- There’s a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Today, the company is headquartered in Washington, DC, and has more than 500 employees working from four different offices that are spread globally.
SiteGround doesn’t hide the fact that they invest in their employees’ happiness. They hire the best talent and then train employees to be the top experts in the industry. Further, they create comfy and inspiring office spaces and motivate SiteGrounders to pursue a healthy work-life balance.
To support their growing list of services, and offer you fast hosting speeds, SiteGround operates several data centers around the world.
At the time of writing, SiteGround hosts more than 2 million domains, meaning it’s a popular option for beginners and experienced users alike.
Their service portfolio includes shared hosting, managed WordPress hosting, optimized WooCommerce hosting, cloud hosting, reseller hosting, and enterprise hosting. All plans are reasonably priced.
SiteGround is a pioneer in hosting technology. The company developed new-age software solutions for speed optimization, account isolation, monitoring, and reaction. Thanks to the new technologies, SiteGround offers robust and secure website hosting.
Other goodies include email hosting, domain registration, free SSL, free CDN, site migrations, detailed tutorials, dirt-cheap student plans, free faculty partnerships, and daily backups, among other things.
SiteGround comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can test drive their hosting services worry-free. On top of that, the company is well known for its stellar support.
What is HostGator?
HostGator is one of the top 10 largest website hosting companies in the world. Currently, they host more than 8 million domains ranging from personal blogs to Fortune 500 websites.
- 45-day money-back & 99.9% server-uptime guarantee.
- Unlimited storage & bandwidth.
- Free Website, Domain, MYSQL & Script Transfer.
- Customized firewall against DDoS attacks.
- Free SSL Certificate with Let’s Encrypt.
- 24/7/365 Support via Phone, Live Chat, and Ticket System.
- Up to 2.5x faster servers, Global CDN, Daily Backup & Restore, Automatic Malware Removal (HostGator’s Managed WordPress Hosting only).
- 1-Click WordPress Installation.
The web host was founded in 2002 by Brent Oxley, who created the company from his dorm room at Florida Atlantic University.
From a tiny outfit with only three servers, HostGator has grown into a large website hosting company with more than 1000 employees and over 7000 servers.
Today, HostGator is owned by Newfold Digital (formerly Endurance International Group or EIG), which owns hundreds of other IT-related brands, including Bluehost.
HostGator offers you a wide range of hosting options and an array of tools to help you get online quickly. They offer you shared hosting, WordPress hosting, virtual private server, and dedicated hosting.
On top of that, they offer you a drag-and-drop website builder that helps you to create a professional website quickly. To help you sell right away, they also offer you a suite of e-commerce features.
They have a good number of hosting plans, and each comes with a 45-day money-back and 99.99% uptime guarantees.
Other HostGator features include unmetered bandwidth, SEO tools, free email addresses, one-click app installer, site migrations, SSL certificate, $100 Google AdWords credit, $100 Bing Ads credit, a free domain name, and a whole lot more.
SiteGround vs HostGator: Why Choose One Over The Other?
SiteGround offers superior website hosting compared to HostGator’s. HostGator is the bigger company, but SiteGround has created in-house technology that delivers a faster and more reliable hosting service. SiteGround is particularly respected for its managed WordPress hosting.
HostGator shines in the shared hosting space and offers lower prices in comparison. Still, they have nothing on SiteGround in terms of customer support, security, and page load speeds. HostGator offers you free $200 credits to kickstart advertising on Google and Bing, but that means nothing even if you’re on a really tight budget.
In this head-to-head comparison of SiteGround vs HostGator, I look at important features such as performance, pricing, pros, and cons. I review each area to help you decide before you sign up with one of these shared web hosting services.
HostGator is still the most popular (as in searched for on Google) brand of the two, however, SiteGround’s brand popularity has risen dramatically over the last 5 years and is quickly catching up with HostGator.
But brand popularity is, of course, not everything when wanting to find a good web host.
SiteGround is the unanimous winner between these two web hosting companies, thanks to their superior features, security, and speed. Find out more about HostGator vs SiteGround in the below comparison table:
SiteGround vs HostGator comparison
| Ninja Column 16 | Ninja Column 29 | |
|---|---|---|
HostGator | SiteGround | |
| About: | HostGator belongs to the EIG group of hosting services providing inexpensive hosting plans and the free use of Weebly website builder which allows for easy site building. | SiteGround is known to have reasonably priced plans for its customers along with accompanying technical features and amazing customer support. |
| Founded in: | 2002 | 2004 |
| BBB Rating: | A+ | A |
| Address: | 5005 Mitchelldale Suite #100 Houston, Texas | SiteGround Office, 8 Racho Petkov Kazandzhiata, Sofia 1776, Bulgaria |
| Phone Number: | (866) 964-2867 | (866) 605-2484 |
| Email Address: | Not Listed | [email protected] |
| Types of Support: | Phone, Live Support, Chat, Ticket | Phone, Live Support, Chat, Ticket |
| Data Center / Server Location: | Provo, Utah & Houston, Texas | Chicago Illinois, Amsterdam Netherlands, Singapore and London UK |
| Monthly Price: | From $2.75 per month | From $6.99 per month |
| Unlimited Data Transfer: | Yes | Yes |
| Unlimited Data Storage: | Yes | No (10GB - 30GB) |
| Unlimited Emails: | Yes | Yes |
| Host Multiple Domains: | Yes | Yes (Except on StartUp plan) |
| Hosting Controlpanel / Interface: | cPanel | cPanel |
| Server Uptime Guarantee: | 99.90% | 99.90% |
| Money-Back Guarantee: | 45 Days | 30 Days |
| Dedicated Hosting Available: | Yes | Yes |
| Bonuses & Extras: | $100 Google Adwords Credit. Basekit Site Builder. 4500 Website Templates to use. Plus loads more. | CloudFlare content delivery network (CDN). Free backup and restore tools (except with StartUp plan). Free private SSL certificate for one year (except with StartUp). |
| The Good: | Affordable Plans: HostGator has exactly what you need if you have a tight budget. Unlimited Disk Space and Bandwidth: HostGator doesn't put caps on your storage or monthly traffic, so your website will have room to grow. Windows Hosting Options: HostGator carries both Personal and Enterprise-class hosting plans that use the Windows OS and will support your ASP.NET website. Robust Uptime and Money-Back Guarantees: HostGator assures you of at least 99.9% uptime and a full 45 days to claim a refund if needed. HostGator pricing starts at $2.75 per month. | Free Premium Features: SiteGround includes advanced features like automatic daily backups, CloudFlare CDN, and Let's Encrypt SSL certificates with every plan. Optimized Plans: SiteGround offers hosting packages designed specifically for top performance on content management systems like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla, or e-commerce platforms like Magento, PrestaShop, and WooCommerce. Fantastic Customer Support: SiteGround guarantees near-instantaneous reply times across all of its customer support channels. Robust Uptime Guarantee: SiteGround promises you 99.99% uptime. SiteGround pricing starts at $6.99 per month. |
| The Bad: | Customer Support Problems: It took forever for HostGator to respond over live chat, and even then, we got only mediocre solutions. Bad Traffic Spike Responses: HostGator is infamous for sending complaint emails or moving users to another server rack whenever users get a spike in traffic. | Limited Resources: Some of SiteGround lower-priced plans are saddled with limitations like domain or storage space caps. Sluggish Website Migrations: If you've got an existing website, numerous user complaints indicate that you should prepare for a long transfer process with SiteGround. No Windows Hosting: SiteGround's boosted speed relies in part on cutting-edge Linux container technology, so don't expect Windows-based hosting here. For more options, consider these SiteGround alternatives. |
| Summary: | HostGator (review) provides domain name registration, web hosting, web design and website builder tools at reasonable prices. Customer satisfaction is assured with round the clock support and a 45 day guarantee money-back guarantee. Other features which are impressive are 99.9% uptime and green power (eco conscious). This is a great web hosting service for bloggers, Joomla, WordPress and all niches that are related. | SiteGround (review) is the perfect base framework for users to host their blogs or websites. Features are astounding such as SSD drives for all plans and improved speedy performance with NGINX, HTTP/2, PHP7 and free CDN. More features include free SSL certificate an user app updates. The proprietary and unique firewall security rules enable users to avoid system vulnerabilities. There is also free website transfer and serves which have been placed on three continents. There also exists premium features for WordPress along with highly responsive live chat. |
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As you’ve learned in today’s SiteGround vs HostGator review, which is the better website hosting company?
In summary, is SiteGround better than HostGator? Yes, they definitely are a better web hosting service to use.
