SiteGround vs Hostgator Differences

Choosing the right web hosting service and plan is crucial for your online success. While most businesses may not give a lot of importance to this, choosing the wrong web hosting can have complex consequences. Loss of revenue, negative SEO ranking, security breaches and attacks, are some of the consequences of choosing the wrong web hosting. Therefore, here at TemplateToaster website maker blog, I am going to compare two popular web hosting providers: SiteGround vs Hostgator. Read this article to understand which one to choose and why.

SiteGround vs Hostgator: What are they?

What is SiteGround?

SiteGround is a popular web hosting provider with an open-source software support approach. It supports programs like WordPress, Joomla, and Magento with its exceptional web hosting services. As of now, it has a client base of over 250,000 globally.

What is Hostgator?

Hostgator is one of the most popular web hosting companies in the world that also offers a website builder and other marketing tools for your online success. Hostgator is boasting more than 9 million domains and has a client base of over 400,000 across the world. It offers a lot of premium services, which won’t let you go to any other web hosting provider.

SiteGround vs Hostgator: Which one to use and when?

When to use SiteGround?

Get Siteground when you have budget restrictions because they offer a flat pricing structure without any hidden costs. Another reason to pick SiteGround is its reliable uptime and exceptional page loading speed. SiteGround is known to offer better speed and uptime. Furthermore, it offers greater migration capabilities. Therefore, if you are expecting an increase in your website traffic,then go for SiteGround. It offers easy and inexpensive scalability and migration options.

When to use Hostgator?

When you are ready to commit for a long time (typically for 3 years), then you should get Hostgator at just $2.75 a month. Another reason to opt for Hostgator is its extraordinary customer support. Its impeccable customer support is its strongest point. Moreover, you get additional services and tools like a website builder, a wide range of marketing tools and so on.

SiteGround vs Hostgator: How to install WordPress on them?

Both hostgator and SiteGround offer an easy to install interface. Even a first time user can install them by fiddling a bit. However, you don’t have to waste time. Here is a step-by-step guide for installing WordPress on siteGround and hostgator, respectively.

Installation steps of  WordPress on SiteGround

1. Login to your SiteGround Dashboard, click on My Account and go to cPanel.
2. Click on WordPress under Auto-Installers inside your Dashboard
3. Then configure your site by providing information like choose protocol, domain, directory, database name, site name, site description, etc.
4. Then click on Install and Softaculous will install WordPress blog for you within 1-2 minutes.
5. Open the WordPress Admin page and enter your username and password to login and run your WordPress site.

Installation steps of WordPress on Hostgator

1. Go to HostGator.com and click on the Get Started Now! button.
2. Pick the plan of your choice and click on Sign Up Now! button.
3. Then enter your billing information and make the payment through Credit Card or PayPal.
4. Now, log into your cPanel and scroll down and click on QuickInstall under the Software/Services section.
5. Then, click on WordPress under Popular Installs on the left side to install a WordPress site.
6. Now you will see a form on your screen, fill the required information like domain, admin email, blog title, admin user, first name, and last name, and then click on the Install WordPress button.

Once the WordPress is installed successfully, you will get a notification informing you the same.

SiteGround vs Hostgator: What are some useful features?

What are SiteGround features?

Uptime and accessibility:

SiteGround offers an uptime guarantee of up to 99.99% and successfully keeping their promise for more than 24 months now.

SiteGround optimizer plugin:

It also offers a plugin named Supercacher. This in-house plugin can add several layers of caching to enable your blog to load significantly faster. This plugin is available for $7.95 a month and can do wonders for your site. It is highly effective which makes it an invaluable acquisition.

PHP 7.3 support:

WordPress based websites employ PHP and MySQL to run their blogs. The latest version of PHP is 7.3. Most web hosting companies are offering 5.6, however, SiteGround offers a free plugin for optimization of hosting services. It can quickly upgrade from PHP 5.6 to 7.3. To understand the degree of advantage leveraged by PHP 7.3, pay attention to the performance of your site and you will notice that the performance of your site nearly doubles in comparison.

Support and customer service:

Lack of adequate customer support can result in potential business loss. The customer support offered by SiteGround is plausibly its strongest point. They offer customer service via live chat, phone calls and email. Their average response time is 5-10 minutes.

Free web hosting migration:

Most web hosting providers can charge between $49 and $149 for migration. However, with SiteGround, you don’t have to worry about migration charges. If you want to migrate from your existing hosting to SiteGround, you can take advantage of their free website migration.

Grab Siteground

Free SSL certificate:

Paying attention to performance aspects only is not enough. You also need to secure your site. SiteGround offers a free shared SSL certificate via Let’s encrypt which is by default enabled for all new users, for the security of your site. In fact, SSL certificate is a must have for any WordPress web-hosting.

Control Panel:

SiteGround has one click installer that help you to easily install plugins, themes, etc. It has easy to use UI so you can manage your email accounts, handle billing, check your website’s resource usage.

What are Hostgator features?

Uptime and performance:

Hostgator successfully maintains an average of 99.9% uptime and offers a remarkable performance. It is known for reliable uptime and satisfactory load times with speeds ranging between 22 and 940ms depending upon the location of the browser.

Hosting freebies:

With each Hostgator hosting plan, you get several freebies. For instance you get a free website builder and website building tools, with over 4,000 templates, unlimited disk space and bandwidth, free domains, and unlimited MySQL databases.

Marketing tools:

There are some premium tools offered by hostgator that can further help your site like email tools, SEO and marketing tools, Google Analytics, security tools, and so much more. You can install those tools according to requirements of your site and implement it.

Real-time monitoring:

With powerful biometric locks and mantrap security entrances, this web host also performs 24×7 monitoring of servers and keeps intruders out. It takes strong measure to protect your site against outside attack. The company performs weekly malware scans to ensure that there are no malicious programs attacking your site.

New Data Centers and CDN:

Hostgator have 2 data centers located in Houston and utah. Apart from that it incorporates Cloudflare CDN services which has more than 200 data centers globally. What’s more interesting? You get a powerful spam protection program with Hostgator, which keeps unwanted junk email from your inbox.

Remarkable customer support:

When it comes to customer support, Hostgator is the ultimate winner. The company even has an award to support their claim. They offer email support for general questions and issues, they have phone and live chat for immediate help. They have an extensive staff with a strong knowledgeable base on standby 24/7/365 ready to assist. Apart from that they have an extensive collection of articles and tutorials for common issues experienced by their customers for detailed assistance.

Control Panel

What are some pros and cons in SiteGround vs Hostgator?

Pros of SiteGround

• Unlimited Bandwidth
• Supports PHP 7 and above versions too
• Standard security countermeasures
• One-click WordPress installation
• Knowledgeable WordPress experts for tech support
• Free shared SSL certificate via Let’s Encrypt
• cPanel accessibility
• Premium features like SSD hosting, Supercacher, etc

Cons of SiteGround

• Limited Data storage

Pros of Hostgator

• Offers $150 worth of advertising credits
• 1-click installs for great experience
• Free website builder and marketing tools
• 45-day money back guarantee
• Free domain for first term
• Guaranteed uptime of 99.99%
• Next-level features for email marketing software, security, and backups
• Remarkable Help and support

Cons of Hostgator

• Slightly expensive plans
• Clunky user experience due to dated control panel design

What is SiteGround vs Hostgator Pricing?

SiteGround Pricing

SiteGround offers three different hosting plans in the shared hosting web hosting plan section. You can pick from these three depending upon the resources and capabilities your website requires. The most basic shared hosting plan is available at just $3.95 a month, which offers enough features for an entry-level with low or no-traffic website. Apart from shared hosting plans, other hosting plans like cloud-based, dedicated servers, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, etc are also offered by Siteground. Here is a detailed pricing structure of SiteGround’s hosting plans-

Hostgator pricing

Hostgator allows you to get plans with time frames that vary from one month to three years. You can get its cheapest plan for $2.75 a month, however,you need to commit for 3 years to get the plan at this price. Whereas if you buy the same plan for one month you will get it for $10.95 a month. Similar to Siteground, hostgator also offer different hosting plans like shared hosting,  cloud-based hosting, dedicated servers, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, etc. let’s take a look at detailed pricing structure of Hostgator:

Here is a side by side comparison of different factors of SiteGround and Hostgator.

SiteGround vs Hostgator Comparison Table (2020)

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SiteGround vs Hostgator: Which is your Pick?

Undoubtedly, both siteGround and Hostgator are exceptional web-hosting providers. It is a tough competition between SiteGround and Hostgator with that pool of services. However, for the sake of comparison, we would recommend SiteGround to our readers because of our own experience. We have experienced a great uptime and performance with SiteGround. Moreover, the explicit security measures offered work wonders for our site and we’ve never been that satisfied with any other web hosting service before. On the other hand, if you’re tight on budget, you can go for Hostgator which is available for $2.75 a month. However, you need to commit for 3 years to get it at that price, which is honestly a long time.