Settling on a website host can be a difficult and confusing process for both newbies and experienced webmasters alike. With so many features and companies to from, just getting started can prove to be frustrating.
The good news is that we have compiled the data on two major hosting providers: Siteground vs HostGator. These companies are some of the largest and oldest players in the web hosting industry, so they make a great starting point for anyone who is interested in learning what company is better.
We’ll first look at both companies individually, as well as their strengths and weaknesses compared to each other. At the end of this article, you’ll be left much more well informed about the differences between the companies so you can make the choice that is right for you. So which host should you use? Siteground vs Hostgator?
HostGator
HostGator was formed in 2002 in the owner’s dorm room, who is Brent Oxley. A year later the company had acquired its first hundred customers. s and kept growing into one of the largest webhosting companies that we see today.
HostGator has millions of domains under its registrar, and boasts over 500 employees. The company offers a range of shared, VPS, cloud and dedicated hosting solutions to suit virtually any need or budget.
The company is known for its award-winning customer service, as well as their incredible discount packages such as the one-penny hosting coupon that can get you up and running for the month.
HostGator is arguably one of the easiest webhosts to go with if you are in the market for a no-hassle installation of your WordPress, Joomla or other platforms. CPanel comes standard with all of HostGator’s packages and installations can be made at the push of a button.
Because HostGator consistently leads the pack in terms of revenue and market share in the webhosting arena, customers sometimes enjoy special deals provided by their partners. For a long time, a $200 Adwords voucher was given to all new HostGator customers, as well as discounts on tools such as analytics software, anti-virus packages and more. It’s all these little bonuses that add up to make HostGator the preferred webhost for millions of webmasters around the world.
Just some of the features that are provided by Hostgator can be seen below:
- Unlimited Bandwidth
- Dual Xeon E5520 2.26GHz Quad Core Processors
- Wind Energy to offset server emissions
- Certified Renewable Energy Credits
- Regularly Updated cPanel
- 750kW UPS battery backup units, including N+1 diesel generators
- 1-CLICK installation scripts
HostGator also features a 99.9% uptime guarantee, as well as 24/7, 365 phone, email, and live chat support.
So there are plenty of reasons to go with HostGator due to their ease of use and stable reputation, combined with some of the most competitive pricing you’ll see in the industry.
Siteground
Siteground shares much of its entrepreneurial ancestry with HostGator, as it was formed just two years after the hosting giant in a college dormitory. At just over 400 employees worldwide, Siteground is no small fish in the world of web hosting either.
Siteground manages just over 500,000 domains and has a rapidly expanding user base.
The main points of difference between Hostgator and Siteground from a branding perspective are that Hostgator aims for newcomers to market, whilst Siteground appeals to the more established users. Most of Siteground’s web copy focuses on this point of difference, as well as:
- Faster hosting speeds.
- Improved customer service.
- Easy to transfer your existing domains and sites to Siteground.
Some general features of Siteground Hosting include:
- Unlimited data transfer for your website.
- Free site setup
- WP-CLI Pre-installed
- WordPress Special Cache
- One-click WordPress Staging
- Servers on Three Continents
- SuperCacher
- Free CDN with Each Account
- Power & Hardware Redundancy
- Daily backups
- SPAM Experts Spam Prevention
The unfortunate reality with webhosting is that there are a lot of angry and disappointed users out there, and Siteground does a great job at making their company seem like a safe place that will take care of you when others have dropped the ball.
Branding and perception aside, Siteground does offer some tangible benefits as well, including rapid hosting speeds. Users that have large sites on shared hosting environments may find that their site becomes unbearably slow with other providers, so they may opt to change to Siteground for a better experience.
What is better between Siteground Vs Host Gator for Webhosting?
Now that we’ve assessed Siteground and Host Gator individually, how do they stack up side to side?
We’ve already mentioned before that each company has strategically positioned themselves in their own unique ways to appeal to different to users, but what company provides the better service overall?
Check out our article comparing Siteground with Inmotion Hosting
cPanel Comparison
HostGator and Siteground use the same cPanel configurations for their control panels, as do the majority of other webhosting companies around the world. cPanel is a required feature for anyone who wants to quickly install scripts and other software on their webhosting account.
Besides the required scripting for popular platforms such as WordPress, Joomla and other platforms, you can also install a variety of software packages such as billing systems, hotlink protection, cron jobs, and much more.
Support comparison
The similarities continue to unfold when looking at the support offered by Hostgator and Siteground. Both feature 24/7 phone, email, and live chat support. All-day support may seem like a common feature to demand in a hosting company, however many companies do not offer good customer support, which should be taken as another reason to stick with the big brands.
The Livechat feature is by far the most convenient thing to have access to for solving hosting issues and asking questions on the fly.
Pricing differences
Pricing is likely to be seen as the defining point of difference in the battle between Siteground and Hostgator, as is usually the case with commodities.
Siteground takes the lead when it comes to offering cheap prices. For around $3.95 you are given fast hosting speeds as well as a free domain, which means more money in your back pocket while not skimping on quality.
HostGator offers a more customized approach to their packages, depending on your desired length and hosting requirements. For a shared hosting package, you are looking at between 6 and 10 dollars per month.
Performance comparison
One unique feature that sets SiteGround apart from Hostgator and other providers is that the company has server locations on three different continents. You can even designate what server you’d like your site to be hosted on. Siteground has servers in North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific regions.
HostGator has world-class data centers in Houston, Texas, as well as Provo, Utah.
As stated previously, both companies offer a 99.99% uptime guarantee, which is absolutely critical to ensure that your customers and the search engines have uninterrupted access to your website.
What provider is easier to use and manage?
Both companies offer identical software packages as they use the same versions of cPanel. The only difference then comes down to the user experience. If you look through the cPanel for Hostgator and compare it Siteground’s, you will find that Hostgator is slightly easier to navigate, but not by much.
To be honest, the companies are more or less the same when it comes to getting your website up and running, with Hostgator being only slightly better for newbies to get started with.
For popular applications such as WordPress, both companies offer a one click install feature that lets you easily create your blogs and have them up and running in only a few minutes. If you domain is not registered with your webhost, you will need to forward your domain to the company’s name server in order to use it.
The Bottom Line – What Company do I choose? Siteground vs Hostgator?
Now that we have looked at the different features of each hosting provider, you may notice that the big difference between the companies is price. Siteground is simply the all-round cheaper option for the majority of people, because most will not require something more sophisticated than shared hosting.
Siteground has better shared hosting plans – but beware.
Shared hosting can be compared to renting out a room in a hotel. Each room shares the same resources with each other, and co-habitates in the same neighborhood. This is fine for most people’s hosting requirements; however it can be a serious problem if your neighbors happen to be on the wrong side of the law.
If you end up in the same neighborhood as someone who consumes a lot of resources on the server, which can be compared to an unruly neighbor, then the experience that your visitors will have of your website will suffer as well. Your site will be slow and could have intermittent outages, which are obvious problems when it comes to establishing an online presence.
So even though Siteground’s shared hosting may be cheaper, it could also attract people who use it without consideration for the other people on the same server. Spam, adult content, high bandwidth use, stuff you generally wouldn’t want your brand or image associated with. This is where HostGator offers significantly better performance and plans.
If you want anything more than shared hosting, choose Hostgator
HostGator is the leader in anything above shared hosting. The next step up in terms of performance and isolation from HostGator’s other customers would be either a Cloud Hosting or Virtual Private Server. Cloud Hosting means that your site’s files and assets are stored virtually spread across many different computers in the cloud, as such there is no single point of failure. Cloud Hosting is then a great way to ensure the security and reliability of your site. A Virtual Private server on the other hand, offers even greater performance increases and allows one to customize their hosting experience as they see fit.
The next step up from the Cloud and Virtual Private Servers is to look at the Dedicated and Semi-Dedicated server options. Both of these solutions are for people who want to completely isolate their websites from others, as well as for those that have demanding bandwidth requirements.
The above servers start at $300 per month and can go as high as $2,000 for their top-end models. As you could expect from something with that price tag, you get complete control of the box that is stored in its own highly monitored and water-cooled environment. A dedicated server is like having your own personal super computer that is looked after by a team of professionals. You can even control it remotely anywhere in the world with inbuilt tools such as the client control panel and SSH.
Conclusion: Is Siteground or Hostgator the better choice?
The easy answer is that Siteground offers a better, cheaper shared hosting plans, while HostGator provides better value for money and for those who are willing to spend a little more to ensure the performance and stability of their websites.
There are ways that you can trial both however, so it’s not really an all or nothing decision if you are in the market for a good webhosting company. There are cheap coupons that you can find online that will allow you to get a first-hand experience of both companies and then decide for yourself of what company is best.
There are also no shortage of reviews that can be found online about the companies that can you can read to get a better understanding of each company, although you probably won’t find out much more than what has been covered in this guide.
In summary, both companies are known for delivering a consistent hosting experience across the board, which makes it difficult to say what company is objectively better, except in their given strengths and weaknesses.
What company is best for you will come down to your own expectations and requirements of a hosting provider, so you should look with your own eyes at both companies and see what provider resonates with you the best. There is little downside to either as they can be shopped and changed around as you see fit.
To learn more about website hosting, visit Wikipedia.