Godaddy vs Hostgator

Godaddy vs Hostgator

Hostgator and Godaddy are two of the major names in the web hosting business.

They both provide reliable hosting at affordable prices but choosing one of them can be a tough task since both are somewhat equally good with minor differences.

Hostgator and Godaddy are some of the oldest web hosting providers who are still in the business.

Here are some of the key aspects and performance statistics of both the hosts which might help you to decide better, which one to choose among them.

Introduction

Hostgator mostly is a web hosting provider whereas Godaddy has its area of services spread over hosting as well as domain registration, ssl certificates and email hosting.

Both are old but revolutionary hosting providers with their own benefits and drawbacks.

Hostgator as well as Godaddy provides different types of hosting services ranging from shared hosting for small scale websites to dedicated hosting for bigger websites.

Hostgator has also introduces cloud hosting for its customers along with Godaddy. They both provide dedicated hosting for WordPress and other blogging platforms.

 

Godaddy

Hostgator

 

Godaddy $1 Hosting

hostgator web hosting services for small business

Year of Establishment

1997

2002

BBB Rating

A+

A+

Datacentre Locations

United States, Europe, Asia

United States

Number of Shared Hosting Plans

4

3

Price Range

$1.00-$7.99 per month

$3.95-$5.95 per month

Operating System

Windows/Linux

Windows/Linux

Disk Space

Unlimited (Except Starter & Economy Plan)

Unlimited

Bandwidth

Unlimited

Unlimited

Websites Allowed

Unlimited (Except Starter & Economy Plan)

Unlimited (Except Hatchling Plan)

Control Panel

cPanel/Plesk

cPanel/Plesk

Free Domain

1 Free Domain

Not Available

Customer Support

Phone, LiveChat, Email Support

Phone, LiveChat, Email Support

Uptime Guarantee

99.9%

99.9%

Money Back Guarantee

30 Days

45 Days

Free SSL Certificate

Available with Ultimate Plan

Available With Business Plan

Free Dedicated IP

Not Available

Available with Business Plan

On-Demand Resource Upgradation

1-click purchase of additional resources available

Not Available

Database backup/restore

Available

Available

PHP Version

PHP 5, PHP 7

PHP 5

Database

MYSQL/MSSQL

MYSQL/MSSQL

Premium DNS

Available

Not Available

SSH Access

Available

Available

Cron Jobs

Available

Available

1-Click Application Installer

Available

Available

Plans and Features Comparison

Plans and features for different hosts may vary according to their features and services they provide.

While buying any plan on any host we need to get a complete picture of what all we are getting for the money we are paying.

For this purpose comparison of plans is important among different hosts as we might get better value for money on some other host than we are looking forward to.

Here is a detailed comparison between Godaddy and Hostgator plans and services.

Both Godaddy and Hostgator provide shared hosting options for it’s small scale website owners customers for cheap prices. Starting with Godaddy, Godaddy provides 3 different plans for its customers with the base plan being the Economy plan which costs $3.49 /mo. This plan is the most basic plan provided by Godaddy. This plan provides 1 website hosting and unmetered bandwidth for the month along with 100 GB of storage. It also provides free business Email for the 1st year and if you buy the annual plan you also get a free domain to register. 

Godaddy Web Hosting Plans

Somewhat similar to this plan, Hostgator provides a similar plan called as the Hatchling plan. Now this plan costs around $3.95/mo but that is when you buy the 3 year subscription, otherwise going by the per month rate it costs $10.95 per month, which is way costlier than the per month plan of Godaddy. It is a single domain plan but this plan provides the users with unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage and unlimited Email accounts for the period.

Hostgator Web Hosting Plans

Godaddy’s second plan is the Deluxe plan which costs $4.99 /mo and is most suitable for small business websites. This plan provides unlimited websites with unlimited bandwidth and storage. It also provides free business emails for the first year of the subscription and a free domain if you buy the annual subscription. In the same price range Hostgator provides another plan called as the Baby Plan. This plan costs $11.95 /mo but if you buy the 3 year subscription at once you will get the same plan for $5.95 /mo which is considerably a better deal. This plan provides unlimited domains and unlimited storage and bandwidth like its predecessor plan.

The third plan which Godaddy provides is the Ultimate plan which costs $7.99 /mo and provides unlimited website hosting, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage and free business email for the first year. If you buy the annual subscription you also get a free domain. This plan also provides free SSL certificate. In comparison to this plan Hostgator has its Business plan costing around $5.95 /mo which provides Unlimited domains, free dedicated IP address and free SSL certificates. The storage and bandwidth are unlimited in this plan.

Godaddy vs Hostgator : Performance Test 

Website - coachella.com
IP: 
54.67.104.25
Host: GoDaddy

Godaddy Web Hosting Performance

Website - tips21.com
IP: 
108.167.140.13
Host: Hostgator

hostgator web hosting performance

The results clearly show that website hosted on Godaddy scored an C+. It just took few mili seconds for the server located in US to access the website which clearly shows how fast the host is.

While the website hosted on Hostgator scored a D+ which is surely not the best grade. On the US server it took 26 ms for the website to be accessed by the server.

The time is more than double the time required for Godaddy. Godaddy took maximum time on the Sao Paulo server that is 340 ms while Hostgator took around 855 ms to access the website from Bangalore location. This statistical analysis shows that Godaddy is the clear winner in performance.

Godaddy vs Hostgator : Website Speed Test 

Website speed test basically shows the time required for the website to completely load up on a device.

It is of great importance since the faster the website loads up on a device the better chances it has in retaining traffic. Slow websites not only annoys its users but also decrease the rankings of the website.

So it is very much important to keep the website fast and lightweight for best performance.

Here is a detailed speedtest of both websites hosted on Godaddy and Hostgator.

Godaddy Speed Test

Godaddy Speed Test
godaddy pingdom test performance insight

Hostgator Speed Test

hostgator website speed test
Hostgator website pingdom performance insight

These website speed test results show that Godaddy wins with a performance grade of ‘B’ and 86 points whereas Hostgator managed to score only a ‘C’ grade with 74 marks. 

Both the hosts were tested with the most suitable servers, Godaddy was tested with a server located in San Jose and Hostgator was tested with server located in Stockholm. Godaddy seems to win clearly in all the statistics.

Time to First Byte (TTFB) Test 

TTFB test or time to first byte test is the gives the minimum time required to receive the first byte of data from a server. Whenever a user makes a web request to the server, the server fetches the data from the host, the time it requires to fetch the first byte of data is used as a testing method for determining the speed of servers. 

The minimum the speed is the better the performance of the server will be. Here are the TTFB test results for both Godaddy and Hostgator -

Godaddy TTFB Test

We have run the Time-to-first-byte test on our own website which is hosted on a Godaddy shared hosting server, below are the results of the test

Godaddy TTFB Test Results

Hostgator TTFB Test

For Hostgator, we run our TTFB test on the site i.e Tips21.Com, which is hosted on a Hostgator shared hosting server, below are the results of our test 

Hostgator TTFB Test Results

The above results clearly shows that the Godaddy server responded very fast to requests very every part of the World. From Singapore location the first Byte was received in Just 0.361 seconds and from USA, Dallas location it took only 0.427 second to receive the first byte. The overall performance grade that receive for Godaddy (based on the average response time) was 'C'.

In case of Hostgator, The first byte we receive for the request made from USA, Dallas location was 0.8351, which is almost double the time that Godaddy server took to respond. From other locations, the time was high compared to the Godaddy. The overall performance grade that receive for Hostgator (based on the average response time) was 'F'.

In the TTFB test, Godaddy is a clear winner.

Godaddy vs Hostgator : Uptime

Uptime is defined as the period of time for which a website is online and functioning. While selecting a web hosting for your website it should be kept in mind to never choose a host with low uptime, low uptime affects the growth of the website as what’s the use of any website if you can't access it just because it is offline. 

For any good hosting, uptime should not be below 99% at any costs. While choosing hosting , a host with good uptime should be considered as the top priority. Here is the uptime comparison between Godaddy and Bluehost -

Godaddy Uptime History

Godaddy Average Uptime
Godaddy uptime history
Godaddy Shared Web Hosting Recent Uptime Report

Hostgator Uptime History

Hostgator Average Uptime
HostGator Uptime History
Hostgator Recent Uptime Report

The above results clearly shows that Hostgator performed slightly better in Uptime test. During our test, Hostgator has given 100% uptime, whereas Godaddy went down  once for 4 minutes.

In Uptime test, Hostgator win the battle but the fight was real close. 

Customer Support

Customer support is not the most important aspect while choosing a host but having good customer support doesn’t hurt in any way. Quick responses from customer support and multiple ways of receiving support can come in handy when facing issues with your hosting account or website.

Hostgator provides the regular method of customer support that are via telephone, email or online chat.

Talking about the payment modes, Godaddy accepts payments even in local currency without having the need to pay in dollars. This is a feature that not many other hosts provide.

Godaddy is having somewhat an upper hand in case of customer support with its huge variety of modes of support. Godaddy provides customer support via telephone, email, raising a ticket, online chat and it even provides the option to have a conversation with the customer support representative in your own local regional language which no other host provides.

Godaddy Or Hostgator - Who is the Winner?

Keeping in mind all the aspects such as plan rates, features, performance, uptime and reliability one cannot deny the fact that Godaddy is the clear winner with a huge satisfied consumer base and good quality hosting.

Godaddy's servers are fast and price are competitive. They have their local presence in many countries and this allows them to offer customer support in many other languages.

Also, with Godaddy, you can choose your data center location from the 3 locations available i.e United States, Asia, and United Kingdom.