SiteGround Vs HostGator: Our Comparison

Website hosting companies provide much more than just disk space to host your data online. Their hosting plans include advanced security features, development features, and many other premium features for free. Have you ever thought that website hosting is about providing storage space then why do they offer several premium features along with their hosting plans?

The reason is very simple and straightforward, whenever you want to attract more customers you give them some competitive edge. Well, this is very beneficial for web hosting users as they get some incentives for minimal price due to increased competition in the hosting industry.

But at the same time, it makes you more confused in choosing one hosting provider from so many options available. In such cases, the best course of action is to compare your choice of website hosting providers. This way you can clearly figure out which hosting company provides better services.

It can be really annoying to go back and forth on different hosting websites to compare them. If you are reading this it means you want a comparison between SiteGround and HostGator. You are in the right place because here we’ll do an in-depth head-to-head comparison between SiteGround and HostGator. So, without any further ado let’s get started.

Comparison Factors for Hosting

Before we move on to the comparison, we want to explain what the factors are based on which you should be analyzing two hosting provider companies. There are several factors involved that make one hosting provider better than the others. All these factors must be considered no matter which hosting providers you are comparing.

One hosting provider can’t be perfect in every aspect, SiteGround might be better in some cases and in others, HostGator would turn out to be better. So, we’ve listed down the features that we’ll be using to do our comparison of SiteGround Vs HostGator.

• Pros & Cons of Using SiteGround vs HostGator
• Features offered by SiteGround and HostGator
• Free additional features are provided along with hosting
• Speed comparison between SiteGround and HostGator
• Which hosting provider offers better development features?
• What security features are provided by each hosting provider?
• Price comparison between SiteGround and HostGator
• Which web hosting company has better customer support?
• Uptime and server response time of SiteGround vs HostGator
• Which hosting company is more eco-friendly?

Pros and Cons of Using SiteGround

We’ve listed down some pros and cons of SiteGround:

Pros of Using SiteGround

• Their customer support is exceptional with a very knowledgeable team and fast response time for all your queries. Their customer support team has a 98% satisfaction rate.
• SiteGround offer free Cloudflare CDN (Content Deliver Network) with their website hosting plan.
• They offer system administration 24/7 and have amazing security features to keep your website safe and secure.
• SiteGround has impeccable uptime of nearly 100% and uses an SG optimizer to drastically improve website speed and performance.
• The user interface of SiteGround is very simple and user-friendly for beginners as well.
• Their web servers are located in different regions of the world, and you can choose based on your preference.

Cons of Using SiteGround

• The price of SiteGround website hosting is comparatively high for those who have a very low budget.
• SiteGround offers website migration help with their customer support staff but you have to pay a fee of $30 for their website migration service. However, if you use their WordPress migration tool then it’s completely free.
• They don’t offer unlimited disc space for their web hosting plans and it’s limited to 10GB – 40GB.

Pros and Cons of Using HostGator

Some of the pros and cons of HostGator hosting are mentioned below:

Pros of Using HostGator

• HostGator offers a website builder that can help you in the development process.
• You will have a 45-day money-back guarantee if you don’t think it’s not the right fit for you.
• HostGator provides unlimited MySQL databases with an easy-to-use cPanel interface.
• They have several how-to articles and videos for you to set up your website if you are a beginner.
• Their website interface is also very simple and user-friendly.
• They are very transparent in terms of billing and don’t have any hidden charges or costs.
• HostGator offers unlimited disc space and has the support of many programming languages.

Cons of Using HostGator

• The customer support system of HostGator is comparatively slow in terms of response time.
• Their WordPress website hosting plan is not very competitive and doesn’t offer many features.
• Website hosting with HostGator can be comparatively slow and inconsistent sometimes.
• The renewal cost for their web hosting packages is a little higher.

SiteGround Vs HostGator Features Comparison

Whether you are buying web hosting for the first time or have prior experience with some hosting provider the very first thing we notice are the features offered in a hosting plan. It helps us understand if they are according to our requirements and needs or not. So, we will also start our comparison by hosting features offered.

Although the features offered are almost the same for all types of hosting whether it’s WordPress, VPS, shared, or reseller hosting but here we will specifically be comparing WordPress features. The reason being that it is one of the most popular hosting options these days.

According to Kinsta in the CMS market, WordPress has around 60.8% of the market share. Also, in overall comparison, approximately 34% of the websites are powered by WordPress. So, let’s find out which hosting is better in terms of features SiteGround or HostGator.

As you can see in the table above that SiteGround has an edge over HostGator WordPress plans. SiteGround is offering many more features compared to HostGator.

Free Features Offered by SiteGround Vs HostGator

There is huge competition in the hosting industry due to a low barrier of entry which makes it very difficult for companies to compete. According to Web Tribunal, there are more than 330K hosting providers. In order to stay competitive, hosting providers offer several free features along with their hosting plan.

These additional free features can highly influence your choice of hosting provider. We won’t be able to do a head-to-head comparison of these features because every company offers them in a different category. Some offer free CDN, SSL, and Domain while others provide free migration, email, and website builder. Let’s find out what free features are offered by SiteGround and HostGator.

SiteGround Vs HostGator Hosting Speed Comparison

The website loading speed can highly impact your website performance and business operations, especially if you have an eCommerce business. We know that there are many other factors involved in website loading speed, but a good hosting provider is one of the major reasons. It is a big mistake if you don’t consider speed when choosing a hosting company.

Do you know that website loading speed is a major ranking factor on Google and influence bounce rate? According to Hubspot if you want to decrease the bounce rate and rank well on Google then your website loading speed must be fast. Let’s see which hosting provider has better speed.

Both hosting providers have very good speed compared to others. However, based on our analysis and comparison speed of SiteGround hosting is slightly better than HostGator. So, if your priority is speed then choose SiteGround.

Development Features in SiteGround Vs HostGator

Before you finalize your decision on which hosting you want for your website make sure that the hosting provider has support for your desired development language, version, and platform. For instance, if you want to host a customized website that uses MySQL database then your hosting provider must have its support.

Similar is the case with other development languages as well because not every hosting provider have support for all web development languages and version. Always prefer to check this before you buy any hosting plan. In this article, we will be doing a head-to-head comparison between SiteGround and HostGator to see which one has better support for development.

After seeing the comparison table above, it might seem like a tie between SiteGround and HostGator. Both hosting providers offer almost all the development features. However, HostGator has a slight edge over SiteGround.

Comparing Security Features SiteGround Vs HostGator

No matter which hosting you choose to host your website at least make sure that they offer basic security features to avoid any cyber-attacks. Hosting security features must be your priority if you want to keep your data and information on the website safe.

Even if your website hosting provider lacks one basic security feature then your website would be prone to cyber-attacks. All your hard work, time, and money spent would be lost. As you know it’s always better to be safe than sorry. So, let’s find out whether they offer basic security features or not and which hosting is better.

It’s a good thing that both SiteGround and HostGator provide all the basic security features. However, based on our comparison SiteGround is much better than HostGator in terms of security features.

Technology Used by SiteGround Vs HostGator

If the hosting provider is equipped with servers that have updated technology, then it would improve the performance of your website. Better and updated versions of technology used also increases efficiency. So, now we will shed some light on the technology used by SiteGround and HostGator.

SiteGround has high-power web servers with distributed SSD storage. They are also equipped with powerful caching technology with 24/7 server monitoring. SiteGround also has quick integration of the latest technologies for better performance.

HostGator is also equipped with top-notch technology to provide the best performance for its users. They are using Intel Xeon CPU E5-2630 and AMD Opteron 6376 processors. HostGator has RAID 1 SSD for storage. They are mainly using these processors but can be a different version for a different type of hosting.

SiteGround Vs HostGator Price Comparison

As we discussed at the beginning of this comparison that hosting industry is very competitive due to increased competition. This is very beneficial for the users. Along with providing additional features for free, hosting companies keep their hosting plans as economical as possible. Besides comparing the features offered with your requirements hosting plan must be budget-friendly.

While comparing the pricing plans of SiteGround and HostGator you need to keep in mind the features offered against its price. This will help you understand if they offer value for money or not. So, let’s see a head-to-head comparison and find out which has cheap hosting plans. You can notice in the comparison table above that HostGator is a more economical option than SiteGround and gets the point for being a cheaper option. This doesn’t mean SiteGround is too expensive because they offer many more features than HostGator.

Server Performance in Terms of Uptime

Server performance is very crucial for every hosting provider. Web servers are the key element of any hosting company. Better server performance would reflect on the hosting services. However, we’ve already discussed about the servers used in the technology section. Now we will be talking about server performance in terms of uptime.

Both SiteGround and HostGator guarantee 99% uptime. This shows that they have reliable web hosting services. There is one more thing that must be considered to ensure reliability and that is data center location. It’s better to have data centers located far apart from each other. So, let’s see the data center locations of SiteGround and HostGator.

Data Center Location Comparison

SiteGround is much more reliable than HostGator because they have data centers located in seven different countries. Even if one of their data centers gets damaged you won’t face any downtime. With SiteGround you can even choose the data center where you want to host your website.

Which Hosting Has Better Customer Support?

When you switch to a new web hosting provider or buy a hosting plan for the first time you would face some issues while setting up your website. These issues might not be your lack of knowledge or experience but due to the different interface and dashboard of the hosting provider.

Everyone gets stuck at some point with web hosting problems and feels very annoying that you can’t find a way out. Well, this isn’t a problem if you have a knowledgeable and responsive customer support team. Most users don’t consider this important until and unless they face any issue. So, it’s better to check support features in advance.

As you can see in the comparison table above that both SiteGround and HostGator have all basic support features. Also, both have good response times and a knowledgeable team. However, HostGator is the winner because they also have email support that SiteGround doesn’t offer.

Types of Website Hosting Offered

Just like every company have more than one web hosting plan similarly they offer different types of hosting. All these types of hosting are meant for different types of websites and you can select them according to your requirements. This isn’t for comparison between two hosting providers. So, let’s see what types of hosting are offered by SiteGround and HostGator.

Types of Website Hosting Offered by SiteGround

• Cloud Hosting
• Reseller Hosting
• Shared Hosting
• Dedicated Hosting
• Managed Hosting
• WordPress Hosting
• WooCommerce Hosting

Types of Website Hosting Offered by HostGator

• Shared Hosting
• WordPress Hosting
• Dedicated Server
• VPS Hosting
• Reseller Hosting
• Cloud Hosting

Which Website Hosting Is Greener?

Both SiteGround and HostGator are green web hosting providers which means they don’t cause any harmful effects on the environment. Hostgator does 130% of carbon offsetting by purchasing (RECs) Renewable Energy Credits. However, SiteGround does 100% carbon offsetting.

Their work environment is also in accordance with the requirements of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). Besides that, SiteGround also implements green business practices by reducing the use of plastic, generating zero waste, using energy-efficient hardware, and avoiding using fuel-operated vehicles.

SiteGround Website Hosting Is Best For

SiteGround website hosting is the best option for you if want reliable hosting with a fast-loading speed and amazing security features. It is also the best option for eCommerce and WordPress websites. Even WooCommerce and WordPress themselves recommend their users to use SiteGround hosting.

HostGator Website Hosting Is Best For

When you have a very low budget and need a website hosting service with amazing customer support then HostGator should be your go-to option. HostGator is best for being cost-effective and offers wide support of development features.

Overall Comparison Between SiteGround Vs HostGator

We have covered all aspects of hosting in our comparison to give you a better understanding of which hosting provider is better and why. After reading this article you know that in comparison of some factors SiteGround was the winner while in others HostGator turned out to be better. Now we’ll do an overall comparison to see which is the winner between SiteGround vs HostGator.

Conclusion (Our Verdict)

We will conclude this with our verdict according to which both hosting providers are amazing but when we compare them with each other SiteGround seems to be a better choice than HostGator. We hope that this article was helpful to you and if you still have any queries please do let us know in the comment section down below. We’ll be glad to help you as much as possible.