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HostGator vs. GoDaddy

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HostGator and GoDaddy both offer popular hosting options for your business website. Each one offers a reliable platform to help you run your business online securely. While they both make it possible for your site to run, they also offer different advantages. Here, we’ll talk about what HostGator and GoDaddy can offer your business individually and what makes them stand out.

HostGator offers an affordable, scalable solution that leaves room for your business to grow. With excellent uptime, unmetered bandwidth, and two million websites hosted, it’s a trustworthy hosting platform for businesses just starting out or transferring from a host they’ve outgrown. Plus, with its cloud-based service, it’s even faster than other shared hosting plans. Start using HostGator and get a free domain for a year.

GoDaddy is one of the oldest hosting platforms, and it’s evolved since it started in 1997. It’s one of the simplest platforms for new users who are setting up their website for the first time, and it has several unlimited features to make it easier to run your site. Plus, with one-click setup options, GoDaddy is quick to set up. Get GoDaddy and receive a free domain, email, and SSL.

Company logos for HostGator and GoDaddy

HostGator and GoDaddy Compared to the Best Web Hosting Services

With so many hosting platforms out there, we did most of the work for you and narrowed down the top contenders based on testing and over 100 pages of research. Here are our Golden Eggs, the best web hosting services among the many we tried.

Bluehost is our favorite web hosting service for most people for its easy setup, excellent 24/7 support, and user-friendly features. You are in good hands with Bluehost. Use one of the best WordPress recommended hosts today.

Web.com is ideal if you are looking for a professional-looking, simple business website for your brand. Web.com makes building a website a cinch with its easy-to-use DIY website builder. If you’re in the market for a new business website, look no further than Web.com.

Hostinger is perfect if you need a lot of storage for your larger site. Its beginner Premium plan starts with a whopping 100 GB SSD Storage. Its highest plan gives you 200 GB NVMe Storage. Start your website with Hostinger and get a free domain and SSL for a limited time.

HostGator Compared to GoDaddy

Both HostGator and GoDaddy offer high-quality options for web hosting. While they both offer many similar services, each one has features and capabilities that set them apart, not only from each other but from the broad selection of hosting platforms available. Let’s get more in-depth with a detailed overview of what they can do for your business website.

HostGator Highlights

HostGator ranked among our top picks for web hosting platforms, so you know it’s a quality option in a general sense. When we take a closer look, the platform offers shared hosting through a cloud-based solution, which means higher speeds for your website. It also offers dedicated hosting for a high-power solution and VPS hosting for a more flexible and tailored experience.

HostGator makes it easy to build your website, whether you’re starting from the ground up or migrating from WordPress. Its one-click WordPress hosting instantly installs WordPress on your account with scalable resources. Plus, HostGator has its own website builder, which means you don’t have to go searching for yet another service before you start actually creating your site.

With HostGator, you can quickly find a domain name and register it with the host. It even lets you transfer your existing domain to reduce the hassle of changing platforms. Among all of HostGator’s plans, you get a free domain and SSL with each one, so you don’t have to worry about hidden expenses.

GoDaddy Highlights

GoDaddy’s age comes with experience, and its plans reflect its users’ needs, whether you’re looking for a beginner hosting platform or one that can support high traffic. GoDaddy offers the standard shared hosting options with a 99.9% uptime guarantee.

Like HostGator, GoDaddy offers dedicated, VPS, and WordPress hosting to meet its users’ tailored requirements for their sites. Its managed WordPress hosting also comes with managed WooCommerce as an ecommerce-specific plan to make it easier for you to sell online and keep up with consumer needs without your site crashing.

GoDaddy accepts most major payment options, making it ideal for ecommerce. Its website builder makes it easy to set up your business website or online store, and it can even help with your marketing with features like its Digital Marketing Suite. If you have trouble setting up your site on your own, GoDaddy gives you the option to work with one of their experts to get your business online even faster.

HostGator vs. GoDaddy: Pros and Cons

We’ve done a deep dive into HostGator and GoDaddy to show you exactly what each web hosting platform brings to the table. Let’s look at their strengths and weaknesses to help you compare the two and decide which one may be a fit for your business.

Where HostGator Shines

Hosting Plan Variety: HostGator has several plans to choose from, and at first glance it might seem overwhelming with so many choices. Its shared, dedicated, and VPS hosting categories have at least three plans each, from a basic, entry-level plan for small businesses and startups to a more robust and advanced option for Enterprise businesses. With a wider variety of hosting plans, you can choose one more tailored to your business needs and change later, if necessary, rather than getting a generic service that won’t grow with you.

Screenshot from HostGator Website Builder webpage that explains the five steps to build a website with their website builder

Gator Website Builder: With HostGator’s website builder, you start by answering some questions about your business and what kind of site you want to make. Its design professionals have created everything you need, including content, images, layouts, and more. You can even get a new logo instantly with the LogoMaker, and your site is already optimized for mobile, which saves you time and ranks you higher in search engines.

Excellent Uptime: Uptime should be the number one thing you look for in a web hosting service, and HostGator guarantees 99.9% uptime. It’s not as high as other platforms, like SiteGround, but in total, this means no more than 10 minutes per week of site downtime. However, our research showed that, after 30 days of trying the platform, uptime was 99.99% for its shared hosting, making it a competitive option.

Affordable Pricing: HostGator’s pricing varies based on what type of hosting you choose, but for shared hosting—which is what most businesses opt for—its Hatchling plan is only $2.75 per month as its introductory offer. The Baby plan is less than a dollar more at $3.50 per month, and you can get the Business plan for $5.25 per month. With each plan, you get unmetered bandwidth, a registered domain, an SSL certificate, and one-click app integration to make it as easy as possible to set up and use your new website. It also has a 45-day money-back guarantee compared to GoDaddy’s 30 days.

Screenshot from HostGator Cloud Hosting webpage that describes benefits of their cloud hosting

Cloud-Based Service: With cloud-based servers, your network is hosted on several connected servers, so you can count access to the most updated technology. It’s easier to customize your server to your needs with more resource flexibility, so you can scale your hosting service with your business. While many cloud hosting services cost more than your typical shared hosting, HostGator makes it affordable with an introductory price of $4.95 per month.

Unlimited Websites and Storage: HostGator gives you unlimited websites with every plan above its Hatchling plan and unmetered bandwidth for all of them. Compared to GoDaddy, which caps you at 50 websites even on its most advanced plan, HostGator offers a lot more to work with. Each plan also comes with unlimited storage—again, a step up from GoDaddy, which offers a maximum of 100GB storage with its shared hosting plans.

Easy Setup: Before you start setting up, know that you’ll have to check your welcome email for setup prompts that make it easier to sign up for hosting. Once you’re there, the setup wizard guides you through the process, asks questions about your site and skill level, and then brings you to your WordPress dashboard. There are a couple of confusing features, like how easy it is to forget your temporary domain, but as long as you remember the more detailed steps, HostGator’s setup is fairly quick.

Where HostGator Needs Improvement

Inconsistent Customer Support Response: HostGator does have 24/7 customer service, but the experience is not always consistent. You might end up getting connected with a knowledgeable representative immediately, but some users waited 30 minutes to connect. Other times, the representatives didn’t know how to help, which causes problems when you need to keep your business running.

Screenshot of HostGator support page that shows different methods for getting in touch with support

Slow Speeds: Since HostGator is a cloud-based platform, its speeds can become inconsistent based on your internet connection. Our tests showed that HostGator came in close to our average speeds, but other users have found it to be close to the three-second mark. Since customers choosing your business depends in part on your website speed, you may not want to take your chances with it.

Backup Retrieval Fees: HostGator automatically backs up your website, but if something happens and you lose it, you have to pay a $25 fee for every retrieval you request. With other hosting services, like Hostinger, you don’t have to pay specifically to restore your site.

Where GoDaddy Shines

Easy for New Users: GoDaddy has survived since the 90s in part because of how easy it is to sign up and create a website with it. It combines its domain registration service with its hosting, so you can get everything done at once, and it prompts you through the entire setup process to speed things up. Even if you don’t have much technical skill, GoDaddy’s setup guides you every step of the way, and you can work with a web design expert if you don’t have time to learn to do it yourself.

Screenshot from GoDaddy web hosting page that explains how you will get faster sites with their optimized server hardware

Good Performance: In terms of uptime, GoDaddy’s is only slightly lower than HostGator’s at 99.96%. While GoDaddy didn’t make our top list, its speed ranks comparably to SiteGround, one of our Golden Eggs, and loads nearly a full second faster than HostGator. When you only have three seconds to make an impression on visitors, each one counts.

Ideal for Ecommerce: GoDaddy is an excellent option for ecommerce sites. It accepts most widely used payment gateways, including PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and major credit and debit cards. It even has GoDaddy Payments, its own gateway, to make things more cohesive with your platform. Plus, if you want to set up an ecommerce site, the service has resources to help you do it.

One-Click Hosting Options: Like HostGator, GoDaddy has a one-click WordPress installation feature. It also has one-click hosting options with Drupal and Joomla, allowing you to transfer data fast and without extra cost.

Screenshot from GoDaddy Digital Marketing Suite webpage that shows statistics for how they can help improve your business

Marketing Tools: While HostGator focuses on setting up your site, GoDaddy goes the extra mile by helping you market your business. It has a Digital Marketing Suite that allows you to conveniently create and share content with social media ads, planning, and email. It even has SEO resources to help you rank on search engines and show your customers where to find you.

Pricing: GoDaddy is a little more expensive than HostGator, but when compared to other hosting services, it’s still affordable with an entry-level plan starting at $6.99 per month for a one-year term ($7.99 for a three-year commitment). Or you can opt for the Deluxe version for $9.99 per month, Ultimate at $12.99 per month, or Maximum at $17.99 per month. Ultimate and Maximum are worth it for larger businesses, since they have more storage, databases, and processing power to accommodate growth.

Godaddy shared hosting pricing plans

Where GoDaddy Needs Improvement

Inconsistent Support Quality: Lacking customer support is one thing that GoDaddy and HostGator have in common. While it does have 24/7 support, many users have found that the representatives’ knowledge varies—sometimes you’ll get the help you need while other times you’ll get stuck figuring things out on your own.

Screenshot of GoDaddy Guides support contact page showing different methods to get in touch with support

High Restoration Fees: GoDaddy does automatically back up your work, but its restoration fees can reach up to $300. Even HostGator’s restoration fee of $25 is much cheaper, and having such a high potential cost can create unnecessary anxiety when it comes to keeping your site online.

Lower Uptime: GoDaddy’s uptime varies from year to year, and we found that users experienced anywhere from 99.9% to 99.96%. While 99.96% isn’t terrible, having at least 99.99% is ideal, and GoDaddy doesn’t typically reach that level.

The Last Word on HostGator Compared to GoDaddy

HostGator and GoDaddy both provide capable solutions for hosting your website. With similarly affordable solutions and easy setup processes, both platforms work well for beginners and less tech-savvy business owners. They each have features and tools that make them excel compared to other hosting platforms, but the best one for you may depend just as much on their weaknesses.

HostGator offers a wide variety of hosting plans, unlimited storage and websites, and a cloud-based server that gives you more flexibility than your average shared hosting service. However, its slower speeds may not be quick enough for you. GoDaddy’s platform is faster, and with its easy setup and extra resources (including marketing tools), it’s a great choice for ecommerce businesses. That said, its lower uptime may not offer enough for all businesses.

HostGator and GoDaddy present two solid options for hosting your site, but they aren’t the only ones available. To explore more solutions, read our post on the best web hosting services to see if you find a more suitable option there.


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