In this Hostinger vs HostGator comparison, I’m going to give you a detailed breakdown of the pricing, ease of use, performance, security, and customer support for both hosting providers.
Hostinger and HostGator offer super affordable hosting solutions, making them extremely attractive to users on a tight budget. Not just that, but both providers demonstrate reliable and speedy performance results.
Hostinger vs HostGator: general info
Both Hostinger and HostGator are well-known and affordable hosting providers that come with resource-packed plans and good performance results. Hostinger is a star when it comes to the lowest prices on the market, while HostGator is known for its “unlimited” hosting” offerings.
| Hostinger | HostGator | |
| ⭐ Rating: | 4.8★★★★★ | 4★★★★☆ |
| 💵 Price: | From $2.69/month | From $3.75/month |
| 📑 Uptime guarantee: | 99.9% | 99.9% |
| 🔥 Coupons: | Hostinger coupon 78% OFF | HostGator coupon 62% OFF |
| Storage space (from): | 100 GB SSD | 10 GB SSD |
| ✂️ Free domain (first year): | Yes | Yes (first year) |
| 🔒 Free SSL certificate: | Yes | Yes |
| ➡️ Site migration: | Free Automatic WordPress Website Migration | 1 free WordPress/cPanel migration and inter-server migration |
| 💾 Automated backups: | Free (weekly) | Yes (paid) |
| 📧 Email accounts: | Free (up to 100 accounts) | Yes (unlimited accounts) |
| 👨💻 24/7 live support: | Yes | Yes |
| 💰 Money-back guarantee: | 30-day | 30-day |
Hostinger vs HostGator: pricing comparison
Between the two hosting providers, Hostinger offers more affordable plans starting at just $2.69/month. In comparison, the cheapest shared hosting plan from HostGator will cost you $3.75/month.
As for other types of hosting, here are some of the scalable options both providers offer:
| Hosting type | Hostinger | HostGator |
| Shared hosting | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| WordPress hosting | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Cloud hosting | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| VPS hosting | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| cPanel hosting | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Minecraft hosting | ✔️ | ❌ |
| CyberPanel hosting | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Dedicated hosting | ❌ | ✔️ |
| Visit Hostinger | Visit HostGator |
As you can see, both hosting providers offer many hosting services. However, the most popular option remains shared hosting, so that’s exactly what I’ll be focusing on.
Both hosting providers share a few common features. You will get a custom domain name, an SSL certificate, and at least 100 email account, with all Hostinger’s and HostGator’s shared hosting plans.
Here’s what each provider’s cheapest plan looks like:
- Hostinger’s Premium Shared ($2.69/month) – Host up to 100 websites and get 100GB SSD disk space, unlimited bandwidth, and access to weekly backups.
- HostGator’s Hatchling ($3.75/month) – allows hosting 1 site and includes unlimited storage, email accounts, and unmetered bandwidth.
Just looking at the feature list, it might seem that HostGator is better with unlimited storage. However, there is no such thing as “unlimited”. The host has set a disk and bandwidth utilization limit adjusted for personal and various small agencies’ website hosting.
Hostinger vs HostGator: ease of use
Both Hostinger and HostGator are targeted at beginners and, as such, offer simple user interfaces. Although similar in terms of simplicity, Hostinger and HostGator use different management systems. Hostinger presents you with a single native hPanel, while HostGator uses a classical native dashboard and cPanel mix.
You’ll also get your hands on Hostinger’s custom control panel – hPanel. It offers a clean, organized, and user-friendly interface that allows you to access and manage various tools like domain names, SSL configuration, email accounts, databases, a CMS installer, and many more. If you’re curious to know more about the provider’s management, jump to Hostinger review.
On the flip side, you have HostGator, which includes a native user interface and cPanel.
HostGator’s native interface handles basic tasks like billing, connecting to support, accessing the HostGator marketplace, and serves as a link to the cPanel.
Talking about cPanel, there you access more advanced tools, like email accounts and files on your server, manage databases, and security features. Simply put, all your website management settings and main tools are found in the cPanel.
It’s also here that you’ll find the Softaculous Installer app to help you install WordPress or any other CMS you like. To further explore the provider’s management functionalities, check HostGator review.
Video review
Check out the Hostinger vs HostGator video comparison and determine your hosting winner:
Hostinger vs HostGator: final recommendations
And this brings us to the end of this HostGator vs Hostinger comparison. Both Hostinger and HostGator are pretty comparable in most departments. However, Hostinger delivers slightly better performance at much more affordable prices. This gives Hostinger a great practical advantage over HostGator.
| Feature | Hostinger | HostGator | Verdict |
| Price | ★★★★★ | ★★★★☆ | Hostinger is much more affordable, with prices starting as low as $2.69/month. HostGator’s cheapest plan costs $3.75/month. |
| Ease of use | ★★★★★ | ★★★★★ | Both Hostinger and HostGator are easy-to-use. However, Hostinger is more optimized for beginners with its custom hPanel. With HostGator, you get a native user interface backed by a traditional cPanel. |
| Performance | ★★★★★ | ★★★★★ | Hostinger demonstrated a perfect 99.9% uptime, 511ms average response, and 936ms Fully Loaded Time, whereas HostGator scored >99.9%, 525ms, and 1.2s, respectively. |
| Security | ★★★★☆ | ★★★☆☆ | Hostinger gives you all the basic security features like SSL, automatic backups, and 2FA in all of its plans. HostGator skips out on 2FA but offers paid security add-ons for those who need extra security. |
| Support | ★★★★★ | ★★★★☆ | Both providers offer 24/7 live chat support. additionally, Hostinger offers support via emails and HostGator – via phone. Overall, both hosts have quick and knowledgeable agents. |
With cheaper prices, a more intuitive control panel, friendly support, and slightly better performance metrics, Hostinger takes the overall win. It’s one of the best options for users who are tight on budget but want reliable hosting to establish their online presence.
Uptime and response time
For this test, I’ve examined both providers for an almost identical period of time – just around 2 months. Here are my findings.
In 2 months of examination, Hostinger did not have a single outage, resulting in a perfect 99.9% uptime.
This is excellent! However, expecting 100% uptime in the long run (>1 year) isn’t realistic. That said, Hostinger does give a standard 99.9% uptime guarantee.
Now looking at the responsiveness, I got an average response time of 511ms – the time taken for the browser to retrieve HTTP headers and the first byte of data. This is also within the industry average of 600ms.
Coming to HostGator, the host experienced 3 outages or 5 minutes of downtime in 2 months. This has brought HostGators uptime to an impressive >99.99%.
Just like Hostinger, HostGator comes with the standard 99.9% uptime guarantee. Knowing this, I’m even more impressed with the results I got.
Moving on to the server speeds, I got an average response time of 525ms. While this is just barely slower than Hostinger’s, HostGator still manages to slip below the market’s average of 600ms.
In short, both hosts put up a good fight and went hand in hand in terms of uptime and response time. However, I must admit that Hostinger showed slightly better results overall.
Customer support
Both Hostinger and HostGator have 24/7 live chat support and pretty detailed knowledge bases. Additionally, Hostinger offers support via email, while HostGator’s agent can be reached via phone.
Now, whenever I test any provider’s support, I always go for the live chat option as I find it the quickest and most convenient. Here are my findings of each provider:
Talking about Hostinger, I had to wait up to 20 minutes before connecting to a support expert. However, once I got through, my problem was quickly resolved in a couple of minutes. The support members were also extremely friendly and helpful, which is always a plus.
On the flip side, I got connected to a HostGator support rep within just a few seconds. It did take 9 minutes for the agent to solve my issue, but to be fair, it was not a common error. The agents were also very helpful and friendly, which always leaves a good aftertaste.
Now, in terms of knowledge bases, both providers offer very well-organized, informative, and easy to navigate options. Any issue you might be having, chances are high you’ll be able to find an article on it.
Overall, Hostinger and HostGator come forward with very knowledgeable support agents and extensive knowledge bases. Although, I must say that the lack of phone support with Hostinger and email for HostGator does take some points off.
FAQs :
Which is better than Hostinger?
Other important factors to consider when researching alternatives to Hostinger include price and response time. We have compiled a list of solutions that reviewers voted as the best overall alternatives and competitors to Hostinger, including A2 Hosting, Hostwinds, HostGator, and Cloudways.
Why GoDaddy is better than Hostinger?
Although GoDaddy lacks a few features that you’d find with Hostinger, it makes up for it with rather unique free integrations and offerings. Some feature highlights include: Unlimited websites for most plans. Unlimited storage for most plans.12 Jan 2024
Which is cheaper Hostinger or HostGator?
Hostinger vs HostGator: pricing comparison. Between the two hosting providers, Hostinger offers more affordable plans starting at just $2.69/month. In comparison, the cheapest shared hosting plan from HostGator will cost you $3.75/month. As you can see, both hosting providers offer many hosting services.
Which is better HostGator or Hostinger?
Hostinger vs HostGator: pricing comparison. Between the two hosting providers, Hostinger offers more affordable plans starting at just $2.69/month. In comparison, the cheapest shared hosting plan from HostGator will cost you $3.75/month. As you can see, both hosting providers offer many hosting services.
What are the cons of HostGator?
The biggest drawbacks about Hostgator’s cloud-based plans are that:
1. They don’t offer root access.
2. They’re cheap because they use cloud SSD shared hosting.
3. They don’t offer a virtualized VPS.
4. They cap the resources you can access.
5. They don’t offer a dedicated server environment.
Is SSL free with HostGator?
All HostGator hosting packages are eligible for Free SSLs on all domains hosted within the hosting account and pointed by A record.