Everyone nowadays from giant entrepreneurs to part-time bloggers requires an online website. The times are over for searching business details in the Yellow Pages. Potential customers now instantly search online about every aspect of a business. Therefore, the website is a need of all types of business owners. The first step to launching your website is to find a suitable web hosting service. A hosting service is a need to store the files of your website on a reliable server.
HostGator vs GoDaddy are two giant hosting providers in the relevant market. Both HostGator vs GoDaddy are trustworthy services and host a more significant percentage of internet websites. Furthermore, both HostGator vs GoDaddy have quite similar plans, services, and features with slight differences. Let’s continue reading to understand which is better HostGator vs Squarespace and more suitable as per your requirements.
HostGator vs Go Daddy: Comparison at a Glance
| Website Builder | HostGator | GoDaddy |
| Standard Price | $2.75/month | $2.99/month |
| Hosting Types | Shared, VPS, WordPress, Dedicated, and cloud | Shared, VPS, WordPress, Dedicated, and Business |
| Free Domain | Yes | Yes |
| Money-back Guarantee | Thirty days | Thirty days |
| Website Migration | cPanel, WordPress, and WHM website migration | $99 approximately for website migration |
| Control Panel | cPanel Slightly customized integration and native dashboard | Classic cPanel integration and modern native dashboard |
| Monitored Uptime | Up to 99.99 percent | 99.98 percent |
| Average Speed | 525ms | 341ms |
| Security | Server monitoring, free SSL, DDoS protection, and automated backups | DDoS protection and 24/7 network security |
| Server Locations | United States | United States, Singapore, and the Netherlands |
| Customer Support | 24/7 vis phone and live chat | 24/7 via phone, live chat, and knowledge base |
| Payment Types | PayPal, Debit/Credit cards, Money Orders, Bank wires, Check | PayPal, Debit/Credit cards, in-store GoDaddy credit, GoDaddy gift cards, wire transfer |
| Extras | Email accounts and RoR hosting support | 365 office emails |
HostGator vs GoDaddy: Price Evaluation
In comparison between HostGator vs GoDaddy, HostGator is a cheaper option with a $2.75/month starting price for shared hosting. In contrast, GoDaddy’s shared hosting plan starts at $2.99/month. Sometimes this site provides additional discounts like the Black Friday GoDaddy sale. The shared hosting prices between HostGator vs GoDaddy, GoDaddy goes higher up to $19.99/month while HostGator stops at $5.25/month.
The hosting providers HostGator vs GoDaddy comes up with:
| Hosting Type | HostGator | GoDaddy |
| WordPress Hosting | Yes | Yes |
| WooCommerce Hosting | No | Yes |
| Shared Hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Cloud Hosting | Yes | No |
| Dedicated Hosting | Yes | Yes |
| VPS Hosting | Yes | Yes |
Shared hosting is the most popular option among all these hosting solutions. HostGator vs GoDaddy both offer a few similar services such as free domain names for the first year. However, only HostGator contains an SSL certificate with every plan, making it a winner here among HostGator vs GoDaddy. The entry-level plans of these providers start with one website limit.
Hatching $2.75 – HostGator
It allows one website hosting with unlimited bandwidth and storage. Also, the package includes a free SSL certificate, domain, and unlimited email accounts. For more details, you can check out HostGator Review.
Economy $2.99 – GoDaddy
This plan permits hosting for a single website. It delivers unlimited bandwidth and 100GB SSD storage for website data. One Microsoft 365 email free account and domain are also available with the package.
From HostGator vs Squarespace, HostGator gets an edge here by surpassing GoDaddy in the pricing aspect specifically during Friday sales. Furthermore, HostGator offers three shared hosting plans for starters costing from $2.75 – $5.25 per month. These package prices are only applicable with a thirty-six-month billing contract. HostGator suggests (with an orange block) that the Baby plan is convenient and budget-friendly for all. Through this plan, you can connect multiple websites while paying $0.75 only as compared to Hatchling. The renewal of the Baby plan is also cheaper than the Business with $5.00/month only. Besides, the Business plan of HostGator permits free daily backups and SEO tools, while the rest plans require a fee for these benefits.
GoDaddy alternatively has three shared hosting plans starting at $2.99 and reaching up to $14.99 per month. Similarly, a three-year subscription is required to enable all these plans. The renewal price of every plan is comparatively higher even the Economy package renews at $8.99 per month. Therefore, all packages on the website are quite pricey for their offered features. You can also search through the GoDaddy Review for detailed analysis.
Both HostGator vs GoDaddy offer a thirty-day money-back standard guarantee. A considerable point here is that both website builders charge a non-refundable fee, so both HostGator vs GoDaddy have a positive point here. Furthermore, the refund policy of HostGator is only applicable to shared hosting plans.
HostGator vs GoDaddy: Hosting Management
Ease of Use
There is not much difference between HostGator vs GoDaddy when it comes to ease of use. Both providers hold custom dashboards to make all settings effective. cPanel interfaces are also facilitated to deliver advanced customization results. Moreover, both services contain intuitive and modern in-house website builders.
Account Management Dashboard
GoDaddy vs HostGator both have default beginner-friendly user interfaces. They provide access to only a few management tools through the main dashboards. The user interface of HostGator includes links for useful tool selection. The user can find WordPress installation, email accounts, and SSL management there. You can also access other prominent tools through the menu bar present on the left side of the screen. Besides, a cPanel link is given by the service for advanced management.
GoDaddy interface is good enough to compete with contemporaries. It is a bit different as the main dashboard lists services and products that the user has signed up for. Further, setting up your whole website structure is quite easy too. The service makes sure you have installed WordPress and a working domain while setting up your account for the first time. After that GoDaddy works as a hub for account navigation.
Control Panel
HostGator vs Godday the two website providers utilize cPanel control panels. However, HostGator only uses a simple modified version of cPanel while GoDaddy uses its classic interface, making GoDaddy a winner here when you compare HostGator vs GoDaddy. HostGator has merged a tiny customization and the new interface is quite similar to the previous one. The only difference is its layouts in the sections of cPanel alongside the color scheme. GoDaddy’s cPanel has all the necessary tools including domain management, email, and file manager. Just like with HostGator users can monitor primary server information through the panel present on the left of the screen.
Website Migration
HostGator vs GoDaddy one and the other services offer website migration simply one makes it a little easier than the other. First-time users can migrate their website for free through HostGator while with GoDaddy you have to pay for the service. Further, through HostGator migration process is quite easy. In the main dashboard click on the “Request Migration” inside section of Quick Links and reach the migration link. GoDaddy is a little tricky as you are required to contact customer support first for specifics.
Website Builder Experience
You can get beginner-friendly website builders through both HostGator vs GoDaddy providers. With HostGator, you can get access to the limited version of this builder. With GoDaddy, you can create a single-page site with this marketing + website builder. HostGator is good enough for simple sites as it allows one to build a website of six pages with a flexible editing drag-and-drop interface. Further Gator allows more than a hundred modern design templates. The GoDaddy permits the creation of a single-page website and the editing tool is sleek and intuitive.
HostGator vs GoDaddy: Performance
In terms of performance, both providers have tough competition. They are reliable and deliver fast site load times. The primary difference is their response time, HostGator is at 252ms while GoDaddy is at 341ms.
Response Time and Uptime
HostGator’s uptime is near perfection at 99.99 percent. However, its response time with a 525ms average is a little worrying also sometimes it spikes above 750ms. On the other hand, the GoDaddy server shows an excellent average 341ms response time with a maximum spike of up to 447ms. The service also delivers a good uptime of 99.98 percent.
Website Speed
The third important thing to response time and uptime is the loading speed. Because site visitors usually expect websites to load in three seconds after that bounce rate of a site starts increasing. HostGator demonstrates effective speed with 1.1s largest contentful paint and 1.2s full loading time. GoDaddy has the same largest contentful time while the full loading time of service is 1.5s. TTFB (time to the first byte) of HostGator is 154ms and of GoDaddy it is 224ms.
Website Security
In terms of security, both providers stand on a very basic side. HostGator offering free SSL certificates with all packages has managed to outdo GoDaddy. GoDaddy offers free SSL certificates with Ultimate (for one year) and Maximum plans only.
Customer Support
Both website builders offer 24/7 phone and live chat support. HostGator also permits ticket support for complex issues which is not facilitated with GoDaddy packages. Moreover, HostGator’s 24/7 live chat is more efficient in comparison to GoDaddy.