HostGator vs GoDaddy Comparison 2020: Which is Better?

HostGator has three shared hosting plans available for you, which is a standard setup. The pricing for these per month are as follows:

• Hatchling $2.75/mo
• Baby $3.95/mo
• Business $5.95/mo

Note that the above prices are if you choose a 3-year billing cycle; that is, these are monthly equivalents if you pay for 3 years upfront. Paying a month at a time will cost you the following for each package:

• Hatchling $10.95/mo
• Baby $11.95/mo
• Business $16.95/mo

No matter which plan you choose with HostGator, they come with a host of benefits for you to lap up. I particularly like that it includes a free SSL certificate, which provides that extra step in website security, encrypting all traffic between the server your site’s hosted on your visitors.

HostGator are also one of the few hosting companies that offer a free domain with its basic package — with some, you need to grab the intermediate or top level plan to qualify for this. There is a caveat here, though… you need to subscribe for at least 12 months at a time to qualify. If you have the capital, this is definitely worth looking at given the discount levels mentioned above.

Bandwidth when choosing your hosting can be a struggle, especially when you don’t know how big or popular your website is going to be. Even HostGator’s basic plan includes unmetered bandwidth — as well as unmetered storage. This doesn’t mean you can roam free with your bandwidth, though. The company’s T&Cs delve into this further and say that although you won’t be charged per amount of traffic, bandwidth or disk space you use, there is an expectation that these are in line with a small business or personal site. This is the case, no matter the price plan you choose, even the Business plan. HostGator does say that it rarely has to contact its customers about this problem, though.

If you’re looking to register multiple domains with HostGator then you’d need to go for at least the Baby plan, for the Hatchling only allows you to register one domain. This isn’t a surprise and is something most hosting services offer.

The main advantage of going for the Baby plan over the Hatchling is the mentioned increase in domain registrations. Both include one-click WordPress installations and free WordPress/cPanel transfers. The Business plan contains all of the benefits I’ve mentioned but also the following:

• Free upgrade to Positive SSL
• Free dedicated IP
• Free SEO Tools

The main benefit of going for the Positive SSL upgrade is a $10k warranty and a TrustLogo security seal. The value of the SEO tools is stated to be approximately $50 per year, which isn’t a huge amount considering how much it costs to pay for an SEO expert — I should know!

In the GoDaddy vs HostGator face-off, HostGator wins here.

GoDaddy trumps HostGator with its four shared hosting plans, but how do they compare in price?

• Economy $5.99/mo
• Deluxe $7.99/mo
• Ultimate $12.99/mo
• Maximum $19.99/mo

Oof! Those are some hefty prices and will need some amazing inclusions to beat HostGator in terms of value for money.

For the sake of transparency, though, the above prices are discounted and are quoted if you’re paying for 3 years at once, just like the HostGator prices are. Unfortunately, you don’t get the option to pay month by month with GoDaddy across all plans — the Economy plan is restricted to a 3-month minimum term. Pricing for the shortest available renewal terms are:

• Economy $10.99/mo
• Deluxe $12.99/mo
• Ultimate $19.99/mo
• Maximum $28.99/mo

Sure, GoDaddy is one of the forefathers of hosting, but for anything to happen to bring the huge gap in prices, it’s going to have to offer features way in excess of HostGator’s to claim the title for this comparison.

When it comes to offering an SSL certificate, you need to subscribe to the Ultimate package to get it for free. So that’s paying over $10 a month more for something that HostGator offers on its most basic plan for free! But wait, there’s more — it’s only free for the first year with GoDaddy. With HostGator, the basic SSL is free, forever!

There is some good news in that all plans with GoDaddy have unmetered bandwidth, and so matches HostGator’s prowess in this respect. However, the Economy package doesn’t match up in terms of storage since you’re restricted to 100GB. The more extensive price plans do contain unlimited storage, so there is some respite there.

One domain is on offer with the Economy plan over at GoDaddy and if you wanted to go for unlimited websites and unlimited subdomains, you need to at least sub to the Deluxe package. In comparison to HostGator, this is the same situation; however, you’re still paying more each month.

The hike in monthly pricing with the Ultimate package is probably due to the extra processing power and memory that you get. We’re talking 2 CPUs and 1GB of RAM, which is likely to improve page load speed and server response times. GoDaddy has to take a small victory here since HostGator doesn’t offer up this information on its site.

The Maximum package with GoDaddy has all the benefits of the previous packages, plus:

• 2x CPU and RAM on top of the Ultimate package
• 2x maximum site traffic
• Free SSL for the full term

Ah, okay, so you have to pay through the nose to get a free SSL to be on terms with HostGator, however, you do get considerably more processing power and RAM access. The mention of an increase in site traffic is somewhat erroneous since GoDaddy also states that bandwidth, which is linked to traffic, is unmetered anyway. There’s also lacking information on the site as to this benefit.