If you decided to ditch website builders and go with self-hosted sites, you probably started looking for web hosting services (if not, you should). If you did that, you’ve definitely come across one of the web hosting veterans – HostGator. It is a great choice for web hosting but some people do search for HostGator alternatives. Wanna know why?
Then you’re in the right place! If you’re not sure whether HostGator is a good fit for you, I suggest you read further. Below you will find an overview of the HostGator web hosting service, the reasons why people search for HostGator alternatives, and the list of the best HostGator competitors on the market.
I’ll cover both the benefits and the drawbacks of the best HostGator alternatives, as well as their pricing options. By the end of this article, you’ll surely know which option is best for you. So without further ado, let’s begin with the HostGator overview.
Table of Contents
- 1. HostGator – Trustworthy Web Hosting Veteran
- 2. Why Do People Search for HostGator Alternatives?
- 3. The Top 5 HostGator Competitors
- 3.1. Bluehost – Top-Rated Web Hosting Provider
- 3.2. GoDaddy – Web Hosting Since 1997
- 3.3. Hostinger – Quality Web Hosting on a Budget
- 3.4. Hostwinds – Feature-Packed Web Hosting for a Great Price
- 3.5. WP Engine – The Top-Tier WordPress Hosting
- 4. Conclusions
HostGator – Trustworthy Web Hosting Veteran
Before actually starting the list of the best HostGator competitors, let’s stop and focus a bit on HostGator itself. As I mentioned before, it is one of the oldest website hosting providers. This means that over many years HostGator surely gained a reputation for being a trustworthy option.
However, only you can decide whether it’s the best option for you or will you turn to HostGator alternatives (I can help though). So what are the benefits of HostGator? It has great uptime, it’s user-friendly, has great customer support, and offers WordPress support.
*Phew*, that’s a lot. Let’s get into a bit more detail.
The world of website hosting is pretty complicated for a beginner. You do have to make a lot of important decisions. However, HostGator offers a significant knowledge base with lots of important information, and most user reviews state that it is very easy to get started with.
Though if you do get lost, HostGator offers great customer service. It has both - 24/7 customer support and a live chat. It’s great because you’ll never have to wait hours for answers, you’ll get them right away.
Talking about uptime, it’s definitely one of the most important points that you should consider before choosing a hosting provider. If you don’t know what uptime is, it’s the amount of time that visitors can access your website. It’s the opposite of downtime which showcases the period of time your site is down.
The uptime of HostGator web hosting for the past year literally hits the spot! According to this uptime monitor, the estimated uptime of HostGator in the last year (1 Jan 2021 to 31 Dec 2021) was actually 100%. Yes, you’re seeing it right. It is stated there that HostGator had only 6 minutes of downtime in the past year. That’s awesome!
Site speed is also especially important while choosing a hosting provider. It refers to how fast your site fully loads once it has been entered. Of course, even though the hosting provider is one of the core factors determining site speed, note that it does depend on many other factors (that are mostly in your hands).
One way or another, according to various user reviews, HostGator has pretty good site speed. Though, it’s not the best in comparison to some other HostGator competitors.
Now, talking about WordPress support, HostGator does offer it. Why is it important? Well, let’s go a few steps back. If you decided to ditch website builders, it means you should choose a content management system (CMS). What is that? Basically, it’s like a website builder but gives you more complex customization and management options.
What is the most popular CMS? It’s WordPress. However, unlike most website builders, the majority of traditional CMS doesn’t offer hosting services, and this is where sites like HostGator come in. Since WordPress is probably the most popular CMS, it is important for web hosting providers to be compatible with it.
Though if you change your mind and decide to go back to website builders, note that HostGator has its own website builder called Gator. That’s pretty cool!
Apart from all the benefits, HostGator does have some drawbacks, too - they are the reason why people search for HostGator alternatives. So, let's move on and see what kind of drawbacks it has.
Why Do People Search for HostGator Alternatives?
The reasons why people might turn to HostGator competitors are not completely deal-breaking but they are notable. There are two main reasons: HostGator is a bit pricey and many features are locked behind paywalls.
If you looked through HostGator plans, you would see that it does include such essential features as WordPress installation, unlimited bandwidth, free site transfer, free SSL certificates, and domain name registration.
However, a lot of users complain about the fact that HostGator has a lot of other important features locked behind additional paywalls. These features include SEO tools, backups, a business email address, SiteLock, and so on.
Of course, it’s not a huge issue but other similar sites like HostGator provide these features for free. That also leads to the pricing part. It’s not that HostGator is the most expensive option. No, its plans have pretty great prices. However, the plans do become more expensive after the first year of using HostGator (though this is something that most web hosting companies do).
Now that we have all the pros and cons, let’s dive into the list of the best HostGator alternatives.
The Top 5 HostGator Competitors
The web hosting service providers mentioned below can definitely be considered as some of the most worthy HostGator competitors out there. After seeing the pros and cons of HostGator alternatives, you’ll most definitely find the best option for you!
Bluehost – Top-Rated Web Hosting Provider
Reasons why Bluehost is one of the best HostGator alternatives:
- Unlimited bandwidth
- WordPress support
- Free domain name & SSL certificate
- Feature-heavy plans
If you type in “hosting better than HostGator” in Google search, Bluehost is actually the main option that pops up. Bluehost is one of the more comprehensive website hosting providers available. It offers affordable plans with a huge variety of features, it has good uptime and provides you with some other useful features.
Given that uptime is one of the most important points to consider when choosing a hosting provider, let’s begin with that. Bluehost has pretty good uptime, however, it does fluctuate up and down.
If we take a look at the latest month (Feb 2023), it was 99,98%, which is really good. Though if we take a timeframe of the past half a year, we can see that it varied from very good to average. Thus, you should consider the fact that Bluehost doesn’t have the “uptime guarantee”.
Though what it can guarantee for you is unlimited bandwidth. It’s something that not every top-tier website hosting provider offers with its lower-pricing plans. For those of you who don’t know what bandwidth is, it’s a term that describes the quantity of data that can be exchanged at any given time between your website and the visitor.
To make it even more simple to understand, when your website has high bandwidth, it will perform without any disruptions, even when there’s a huge flow of visitors on it. That’s actually one of the determining factors for the scalability of your website. With Bluehost, you won’t have any problems with that.
Remember I said earlier that WordPress support is an important aspect while choosing a web hosting service? Well, Bluehost does support WordPress, and it’s actually the preferred tool of this hosting provider (BTW, WordPress has mutual feelings towards Bluehost). With Bluehost, it’s very easy to use WP because it just takes one click of a button to install it.
Table: Bluehost features vs. HostGator features
Talking about other features that Bluehost has to offer, it’s important to mention that with Bluehost plans you’ll receive various features and benefits. These features range from domain name and SSL certificates with lower-price plans to dedicated IP addresses and automated backups with higher-priced plans.
However, like everything else, Bluehost also has some drawbacks. One of the most common complaints in user Bluehost reviews is that websites hosted with Bluehost have mediocre speed. Even though site speed depends on many other factors, hosting is one of the main ones.
This probably happens because, at the moment, Bluehost only has servers in the US. That means that people, who live in the US, have no problem with site speed. However, those, who live elsewhere, might experience slower site loading speeds.
Another drawback Bluehost has is that not all plans include automatic backups. Now, there’s probably no need to explain the term backup but you might wonder why it’s important. Well, because it’s the main deciding factor whether your work remains intact and your site stays online and healthy.
Bluehost does offer site backups, however, the less-expensive plans don’t have this feature included, which is definitely an issue. Now that I started talking about Bluehost plans, let’s move on to its pricing.
What is the Price of Bluehost Web Hosting?
Bluehost offers Shared and Dedicated Hosting options. The difference between these two is that with shared hosting, your website is on the same server as other websites, while with dedicated hosting, your website has its own service. I will present you with Shared Hosting plans (more common for a regular user), if you're interested in Dedicated Hosting, visit their website.
Plan options for Shared Hosting:
Note! Always check the official website because the prices may change over time.
If we were to compare Bluehost pricing with the pricing of HostGator or other similar web hosting companies, we could say that Bluehost is not the most low-priced option. However, in general, it does offer some great prices with its Shared Hosting plans. One way or another, Bluehost is one of the greater HostGator alternatives.
GoDaddy – Web Hosting Since 1997
Reasons why GoDaddy is a worthy Bluehost competitor:
- Great uptime
- Unlimited bandwidth
- WordPress support
- GoCentral website builder
GoDaddy is another web hosting provider that could be considered as a veteran in this field. It is definitely one of the top brands in the web hosting market. GoDaddy has great uptime stats, good site speed, unlimited bandwidth, and WP support.
Now, as you already know, uptime is especially important when choosing a web hosting provider. If you checked GoDaddy hosting plans, you would see that it offers a guarantee to provide 99,9% uptime. After reading through some of the user reviews, I could say it appears to be true.
Even though the uptime of GoDaddy does fluctuate a bit (which is what happens with most web hosting services), it is estimated to be around 99,93%, which is great. If we looked at the uptime of the past few months, it shows even better statistics.
Next to uptime, usually comes the question about the site speed. Now, I always tend to highlight that site speed does depend on many factors. However, hosting is one of the main ones. Talking about GoDaddy, some reviews state that it has great site speed while others say that it's average.
That’s completely normal, it does depend on various factors, so there will definitely be different opinions. Overall, GoDaddy offers good site speed, but maybe not the best.
Talking about WordPress integration, like any other high-end web hosting service, GoDaddy does support WP. However, if by any chance you want to go back to website builders, GoDaddy also offers its own website builder called GoCentral that you can utilize after purchasing any of the hosting plans.
Besides, just like Bluehost, GoDaddy offers unlimited bandwidth with all of its hosting plans. You already know why it’s great and important for your website.
Moving forward, GoDaddy also has some inconveniences. If you typed “hosting better than HostGator” into Google search because you wanted to find a web hosting service that doesn’t put additional paywalls on features – GoDaddy is not the one for you.
There are two categories of paywalls in GoDaddy – some features require upgrading your plan while others require you to make additional purchases. Some of the essential features that you will have to purchase additionally include the backup feature and SSL certificates. That’s a bummer because you do need to have these features for a successful and healthy website.
Table: GoDaddy features vs. HostGator features
In addition, there are some developer-orientated features that you even won’t be able to purchase additionally, you’ll have to upgrade to a pricier plan in general. So, with GoDaddy, you’ll most likely have to spend a decent amount of money.
What is the Price of GoDaddy Web Hosting?
Now the pricing of GoDaddy is not unaffordable, however, it is higher than the pricing of some other sites like HostGator.
Available plan options:
Note! Always check the official website because the prices may change over time.
Besides, the prices are great once you start out but after finishing your initial subscription they will go up a lot. The price of the Economy plan increases 3 times (though it is a common tactic of web hosting services). However, GoDaddy could still be considered as one of the greater HostGator alternatives.
Hostinger – Quality Web Hosting on a Budget
Reasons why Hostinger is one of the better HostGator competitors:
- Easy to use
- Great site speed
- Good uptime
- A lot of free features
- Zyro website builder
You will definitely find Hostinger in most of the top-tier hosting lists. It does have a lot of strengths - fast web hosting, great uptime statistics, easy user interface, and is one of the most affordable hosting providers there is.
Talking about easy UI, it might seem that it’s not the most important aspect because it’s not like you’ll spend most of your website creation time on a web hosting site. However, you will have to renew your domain name, access your admin area, set up hosting service, choose plans, and so forth.
Obviously, you’ll want such a process to be simple. With Hostinger it is definitely easy. Some other hosting providers tend to keep their interfaces old-schooled, outdated and confusing. That’s definitely not the case with Hostinger.
Talking about WordPress support, such as other aforementioned sites like HostGator, it does support it. Besides, it’s really easy to navigate.
In consideration of site speed and uptime - both of them are pretty great with Hostinger. It has great site speed because Hostinger houses servers in the USA, Asia, and Europe. In fact, most of the Hostinger reviews state that it has very good site speed, making it one of the fastest hosting providers on the market.
Just always note that hosting is not the only aspect affecting site speed.
In consideration of the uptime, Hostinger has an estimated uptime of 99,9%. Though like with any other hosting provider, it does vary a bit, however, it is pretty good. According to this uptime monitor, in the past year (1 Jan 2021 to 31 Dec 2021) Hostinger uptime was estimated to be 99,97% with the downtime of 2 hours, 14 minutes. That’s pretty great!
Hostinger would definitely fall under the search results of “hosting better than HostGator” if the pricing was the deciding factor. It offers a lot of free things: a free domain name, free access to an integrated website builder, and a free SSL certificate.
That’s a lot of free stuff!
To begin with, Premium and Business plans provide users with free domain name registration for a year. That’s great but what is awesome, is that if you’re not sure about using WordPress, Hostinger has an integrated website builder. It’s not just any website builder – it’s Zyro, one of the top-rated website builders on our list.
Talking about SSL certificates, as of writing this article, Hostinger includes free SSL certificates in all of its hosting plans. However, always double-check that when choosing a plan.
Table: Hostinger features vs. HostGator features
Lastly, let’s quickly turn to the cons of Hostinger. There’s one main con – below-average customer support response time. Even though it does have 24/7 customer support and the live chat option, according to some user reviews, the customer support agents sometimes take time to get back to you.
There were even some instances when people waited up to an hour for an answer in live chat. If we considered emails, I bet it takes even longer. While that is not the case every time and they do have great support agents, sometimes waiting so much can really leave you frustrated.
What is the Price of Hostinger Web Hosting?
As I mentioned before, Hostinger does have undoubtedly great pricing. Hostinger plans could be considered as one of the most affordable options on the market in comparison to other sites like HostGator!
You can choose from the following plans:
Note! Always check the official website because the prices may change over time.
Yes, these are the prices. They are really affordable. All in all, Hostinger could definitely be considered as one of the best and most affordable HostGator alternatives.
Hostwinds – Feature-Packed Web Hosting for a Great Price
Reasons why Hostwinds is a great HostGator alternative:
- Exceptional customer support
- Simple UI
- Great uptime
- Weebly website builder
- A huge variety of features
If you’re looking for high-quality web hosting with exceptional customer support service, you should definitely consider Hostwinds. This company has received several awards for its performance and services. That’s because it is easy to use, has great uptime, helpful customer support, and other cool perks.
Talking about usability, the platform is managed by cPanel, while the account management is handled by WHMCS. For those of you, who don’t know, cPanel is a Linux-based graphical user interface (GUI) that simplifies your website and server management. While WHMCS is automated client management, billing, and support solution.
These features are really convenient and make your life easier.
Talking about uptime, Hostwinds claims to provide its users with 99,9999% uptime. While it’s not always the case, in general, Hostwinds has pretty great uptime. If we looked at the timeframe of the past half-year, the estimated uptime would be 99,91%, which is pretty good. However, we can see that in September and January it went down below 99,9%, which means that it does fluctuate a bit.
Talking about amazing customer support, Hostwinds has received a few awards for it. What is so cool about it? It offers multiple support options. For starters, you have a live chat where you can get an answer in a matter of minutes or even seconds. Then there is a knowledge base where you can find answers to various questions.
Moreover, you can contact them by email or open a support ticket. With tickets, there are three options to choose from: questions related to sales, technical support issues, and the problems related to billing.
You’ll definitely never be frustrated with Hostwinds.
In consideration of additional important perks such as a free SSL certificate, unlimited bandwidth and disk space, WordPress support, you name it, Hostwinds has it all!
Table: Hostwinds features vs. HostGator features
Another great perk that comes with Hostwinds is the Weebly website builder. If you decide that WordPress is too complicated for you and you want to go back to website builders, Hostwinds has got you covered. Weebly is included in the Hostwinds hosting plan packages.
Talking about the downsides of Hostwinds, the main one is that it has limited server locations which could result in lower site speeds for some regions. Currently, they have two main servers in the United States (Seattle and Dallas), and one in Amsterdam. Meaning that if you live outside of the US and Europe, you might experience lower site speed results.
What is the Price of Hostwinds Web Hosting?
Talking about the pricing, Hostwinds has good prices. Not the lowest prices in comparison to other sites like HostGator (e.g. Hostinger) but still pretty affordable ones.
It does offer a lot of various hosting services but we’ll focus on Shared Hosting which is the most common for a regular user. If you are interested in other plans, visit their website.
Plans for Shared Hosting:
Note! Always check the official website because the prices may change over time.
Besides, you get a lot of features with these plans, which means there aren't a lot of paywalls. Thus, Hostwinds is definitely one of the greater HostGator alternatives.
WP Engine – The Top-Tier WordPress Hosting
Reasons why WP Engine is a worthy HostGator competitor:
- Great uptime
- Extensive features
- Strong security measures
- Great customer support
If you’re looking for a web hosting service designed specifically for WordPress, WP Engine is the one! It aims to provide its users with the ultimate digital WordPress experience and all the necessary tools. It offers great uptime, extensive features, strong security measures, and great customer support.
For starters, the amount of cool and essential features it offers is huge. You get Automated Backups, WordPress Core Updates, free CDN and SSL certificates, Activity Log, Auto Migration, and the list goes on. You’ll really get exceptional functionality with WP Engine.
Talking about uptime, if we looked at the WP Engine uptime of the past half a year, it would be estimated to be 99,99%, which is super great! Of course, it might not always be this perfect but the statistics show that, at least now, it is really good.
Cool features and functionality are great but it means nothing if there is no protection. With WP Engine you don’t have to worry about that, it offers some powerful security options:
- Disk Write Protection - limits the processes that can write data to disk to prevent malicious injections.
- Disk Write Limitations - all attempts to write data to the disk are recorded.
- Disallowed Plugins - plugins that may expose a website to threats are disabled automatically.
- Proprietary Firewall - automatically directs good, bad, and malicious traffic.
- User Enumeration - automatically block bots that scrape posts for author ID information.
*Phew*, there’s a lot! WP Engine is an exceptionally safe web hosting provider.
It’s also worth noting that WP Engine is a well-structured platform that is great for professionals. However, it’s not that easy to use for beginners. Though it has great customer support if you need help. You have three options of WP Engine customer support: a live chat, billing help, and a support center. When you encounter any problems, WP Engine is there for you!
Table: WP Engine features vs. HostGator features
Now, the main drawback of WP Engine is that it has truly high prices. That being said, let’s talk more about that.
What is the Price of WP Engine Web Hosting?
If you thought that HostGator is pricey, WP Engine is unbelievably pricey. It’s definitely not for everyone. On top of that, it has a lot of different plans which is pretty confusing. To break it down, there are two options: Managed WordPress and eCommerce Solutions that are further divided into sub-plans.
Managed WordPress:
- Startup - $25/month paid annually
- Professional - $49/month paid annually
- Growth - $96/month paid annually
- Scale - $242/month paid annually
- Dedicated - custom (contact WP Engine for the price)
eCommerce Solutions:
- Startup - $30/month paid annually
- Professional - $63/month paid annually
- Growth - $117/month paid annually
- Scale - $292/month paid annually
- Dedicated - custom (contact WP Engine for the price)
Note! Always check the official website because the prices may change over time.
You can see, the prices are especially high. If you’re searching for easily affordable web hosting, WP Engine is definitely not for you. However, if that’s not the case, WP Engine is one of the greater HostGator alternatives for WordPress hosting!
Conclusions
You’ve reached the end of the HostGator alternatives list. I hope that by now you’ve already made up your mind about which web hosting service is the best for you. If not, let’s go over it one last time.
What makes people search for HostGator alternatives? Mostly the fact that it’s a bit pricey and a lot of essential features are locked behind paywalls.
What is the best HostGator alternative in terms of price? Hostinger. The prices it offers are one of the lowest on the market. Though Hostwinds is also pretty great because lots of features are included without additional paywalls.
What will you get if you type in “hosting better than HostGator” in Google search? Bluehost. Why? Because it is one of the greater HostGator competitors. You should definitely check it out too. After all, it is at the top of our best web hosting list.
Well, that’s all from me this time. Best of luck with your website creation process!