DreamHost and HostGator are two of the most popular hosting providers in the market. They both offer different types of hosting including shared, VPS, dedicated servers, WordPress and more. Both hosting providers have been in the business for a long time and have made strong reputations for themselves. They currently have millions of sites using their hosting service.
If you are having a hard time choosing between these two hosting providers, this article is for you. We’ll be taking a look at both of them and see which one offers the better service.
Contents
DreamHost vs HostGator Comparison Chart
| Shared Host | DreamHost | HostGator |
| Â |  |  |
| Price | Check Price at DreamHost.com | Check Price at HostGator.com |
| Sites | Starter: 1 website Unlimited: Unlimited | Hatchling: 1 website Baby: Unlimited Business: Unlimited |
| Disk Space | Starter: 50GB SSD Unlimited: Unlimted | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Starter: Available for Purchase Unlimited: Unlimited | Unlimited | |
| Free Domain | Yes | Yes |
| SSL Certificate | Free | Free |
| Website Builder | Yes | Yes |
| Support | Tickets Live Chat Phone Callback (Paid) | Tickets Live Chat Phone |
| Money Back Guarantee | 97 days | 45 days |
Plans and Pricing
Pricing is very similar for both hosts.
DreamHost offers many types of hosting—shared, VPS, WordPress, dedicated and cloud hosting. For their shared hosting service, their Starter plan is priced at $2.59/month and the Unlimited plan is $4.95/month. These prices are for a three year plan. If you want a shorter term, prices will increase. DreamHost offers a 97-day money back guarantee for their shared hosting plans.
HostGator offers shared, WordPress, VPS, dedicated and reseller hosting. You can choose from three plans from their shared hosting service. The Baby plan is the cheapest at $2.75/month, the Baby plan is $3.95/month and the Business plan is priced at $5.95/month. Same with DreamHost, these prices are for three year terms and if you want shorter terms, prices will increase as well. They have a 45-day money back guarantee if you are not satisfied with their service.
Overall, both are pretty cheap when it comes to their shared hosting prices. HostGator offers more hosting plans to choose from.
Features
You get exclusive features with both hosts. You just need to choose which ones are better suited for your needs.
Aside from the standard features such as, free domain, SSL, unmetered bandwidth and the likes, both DreamHost and HostGator offer exclusive features that you won’t get with the other. Here are some of them.
HostGator
- Unlimited emails – You get unlimited emails even with their cheapest plan. For DreamHost, you need to go with their more expensive plan to get free emails.
- Better Site Builder – HostGator and DreamHost both offer site builders, but, HostGator’s site builder is a bit more advanced and has more features.
- Free Site Migration (1 site) – If you are thinking of transferring to HostGator, they offer free site migration for one website. This can be a lifesaver as site migration can be a real headache to deal with.
- cPanel – This can either be an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on your view of cPanel. If you like it, then great, HostGator uses cPanel as its management tool.
DreamHost
- Custom Control Panel – DreamHost’s custom control panel is very easy to use and you will get used to it in no time. It is arguably easier to use than the standard cPanel.
- Daily Automatic Backups – You’ll never know when you’ll have issues with your site and you need to restore it to a functioning state. DreamHost’s daily automatic backup can be very handy if you happen to need it.
- 97 Days Money Back – HostGator offers a 45-day money back guarantee, which is actually very good. However, DreamHost’s industry leading 97-day money back guarantee is simply better.
Performance
DreamHost has a bit of an advantage when it comes to performance.
Next up in our comparison is their performance when it comes to uptime and speed. DreamHost has an uptime guarantee of 100% while HostGator guarantees 99.9% uptime. Both hosts have been able to maintain an uptime of over 99.9%, which is very good. DreamHost’s guarantee of 100% uptime is simply not possible in the long run because server issues will happen.
For site speed, DreamHost has the advantage as their loading speed average is around 500ms while HostGator has an average of around 600-700ms. The difference is not that great and they both load sites in under a second. However, it can’t be denied that DreamHost has the advantage here.
Both hosts use SSD storage for their hosting plans and this is good, as SSDs are infinitely better than mechanical hard drives when it comes to speed, performance and reliability.
Overall, both hosts are pretty good when it comes to their performance and you won’t have any problems with either, as long as you choose the right hosting plan for your website.
Support
HostGator is ahead when it comes to providing customer support.
Customer support is very important when choosing your hosting provider. You want a host that can resolve your site issues in a very timely manner because a prolonged downtime can result in lost sales, leads and conversions. In this regard, both DreamHost and HostGator offer good support.
DreamHost offers 24/7 live chat support, email, tickets and an optional phone callback that you have to pay for. They also have articles and knowledgebases on their site. Their support is in-house. Having an in-house support team is a plus, however, they could improve on their response time. They also only offer 24/7 support for their live chat, not with the other options. Lastly, their paid phone callback can get expensive in the long run.
On the other hand, HostGator offers 24/7 support for their phone and chat support. They also provide support through emails and a ticketing system. One downside to this is that they outsource their support. While this may not be a deal breaker for a lot of people, some people prefer that they speak with support specialists that speak their native language. Response time is very good, they were able to answer our questions in a timely manner.
When it comes to support, we think that HostGator offers the better service. They offer 24/7 support and they respond quickly. Also, they offer phone support for free.
Verdict
Choosing between these two hosts will come down to what you value more—performance and ease of use for DreamHost or better customer support and more plans to choose from for HostGator
DreamHost has better performance and their custom control panel is arguably better than the standard cPanel. It may take you some time to get used to it, especially if you are used to cPanel. However, once you get the hang of it, the custom control panel is a lot easier to use and not as cluttered. Their performance advantage over HostGator is not that big, but an advantage is an advantage. Moreover, they offer an industry-leading 97-day money-back guarantee so you will have a long time to see if you like what they offer.
For HostGator, they have the advantage when it comes to round the clock support. This is especially helpful if you are an inexperienced webmaster as technical issues will eventually occur, no matter how careful you are. They also have more plans to choose from in their shared hosting service. They have plans for small, medium and big websites that have different needs.
FAQs
DreamHost is slightly better when it comes to performance. HostGator has the advantage when it comes to customer support and they offer one free site migration. Which one is better will depend on your specific needs.
They have excellent customer support and their performance is well above industry averages. Pricing for their hosting plans is very competitive as well.
DreamHost has an excellent custom control panel that makes it easy to navigate and manage your site/s and account. Performance-wise, their speed and uptime are very good. Furthermore, they offer an industry-best 97-day money back guarantee.
They don’t offer cPanel. Instead, they have a custom-built control panel that is very easy to use.
