Every important factor you should consider when choosing a web hosting service will be discussed in this article’s comparison of DreamHost and HostGator. I’ll compare the key attributes of both providers, beginning with pricing and moving on to usability, performance, security, and customer service.
For its simple WordPress hosting, DreamHost is a well-regarded hosting company. With its straightforward control panel and management, HostGator appeals to both beginners and experts.
Which one is better, given that they both have advantages and disadvantages like every other web host?
DreamHost vs HostGator: general info
There is a good reason why DreamHost and HostGator are two of the most well-known hosting providers. Super-fast speeds, an intuitive user interface, and a variety of options that go beyond basic web hosting are all boasted by DreamHost. HostGator is well known for its low barrier to entry and excellent performance levels.
So let’s quickly review the key characteristics of these providers. And if you’re pressed for time, just skip to the end.
| DreamHost | HostGator | |
|---|---|---|
| ⭐️ Rating | 4.4★★★★☆ | 4.2★★★★☆ |
| ? Price from | From $2.59/month | From $2.75/month |
| ? Free domain | Yes | Yes |
| ? Payment types | Credit/Debit Card, Electronic Check / ACH, PayPal, Check or Money Order | Credit/Debit Card, PayPal, Check, Money Orders, Bank Wires |
| ? Hosting types | Shared, WordPress, VPS, Cloud, Dedicated | Shared, WordPress, VPS, Cloud Dedicated |
| ? Control panel | Custom control panel | Native user interface +cPanel |
| ? Average speed | 231ms | 525ms |
| ▶️ Monitored uptime | >99.99% | >99.99% |
| ? Uptime guarantee | 100% | 99.9% |
| ? Server locations | The US | The US |
| ?️ Security | SSL certificates, Web Application Firewall, daily backup, domain privacy protection | SSL certificates, server-level Firewall |
| ?? Support | Live chat (5:30 AM – 9:30 PM PT), paid phone support, 24/7 ticketing system, knowledge base | 24/7 Live chat, 24/7 phone support, knowledge base |
| ➡️ Website migration | Free website migration plugin, paid options for website migration | One free WordPress/cPanel migration and inter-server migration |
| ➕ Extras | Domain privacy | |
| ? Money-back guarantee | 97 days | 30 days |
DreamHost vs HostGator: pricing comparison
Similar entry fees are provided by both hosting services. Entry-level shared hosting from DreamHost costs $2.59 per month. The basic monthly price for HostGator is $2.75.
Additionally, both businesses provide additional hosting alternatives if shared hosting isn’t really your thing:
| Hosting type | DreamHost | HostGator |
| Shared hosting | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| WordPress hosting | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| WooCommerce hosting | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Cloud hosting | ❌ | ✔️ |
| VPS hosting | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Reseller hosting | ❌ | ✔️ |
| Dedicated hosting | ✔️ | ✔️ |
However, we’ll be concentrating on the shared hosting plans in this comparison. What is the most basic service each company offers?
- Shared Starter from DreamHost ($2.59/month) includes 50GB of storage, daily backups, a free SSL certificate, unlimited bandwidth, and a single website with a free domain name.
- Hatchling from HostGator is a single website with unlimited storage and email, unmetered bandwidth, and a free SSL certificate.
There aren’t many distinctions between the plans that the companies offer. As you can see, DreamHost offers daily backups with only 50GB of storage, making it slightly less expensive than HostGator. You can purchase unlimited storage from HostGator along with a dedicated business email address for for 16 cents more. You must decide which features are most significant to you.
Just keep in mind that there are no servers that are truly limitless, thus unlimited here doesn’t mean you may upload things that are 100s of GB in size to your website. Additional disc drives are added to a server to expand storage when the disc space is almost full. Infinite storage should actually be referred to as unlimited storage that is available. You can store as many files as you like, but only a certain proportion of your website’s content can be accessed at once by visitors.
After learning these points, you may be wondering which cheap hosting plans actually offer the best value.
DreamHost provides 2 unique plans. Shared Unlimited for $3.95 per month and Shared Starter for $2.59.
Remember that the DreamHost discount is only valid if you pay for three years in advance. Another thing to keep in mind is that the free domain only lasts for a year; to renew it after that, you’ll have to pay $15.99. However, DreamHost has a lengthy 97-day money-back guarantee, giving you plenty of time to decide whether or not to continue using this provider. The cancellation procedure includes cancelling your account; if you keep it open, you won’t get paid. Keep this in mind.
Moving ahead, HostGator provides three different plans. The cheapest is offered for $2.75 a month, and the most expensive is $5.25 per month.
The 3-year membership is included in the lowest HostGator prices. Although you will pay $126 in total, the monthly cost will be lower. Additionally, the domain name is only free for one year, just like with DreamHost. You will need to pay $18.99 for the domain after renewal. In addition, HostGator provides new customers with a 30-day money-back guarantee. While this is less than DreamHost’s, it is still a sizable amount. The cost of the domain will be deducted from your refund if you decide to go through with the cancellation process.
As you can see, both of these service providers have reasonable costs and are listed on our list of the best inexpensive web hosting; take a look and see if you can’t find an even better choice there!
DreamHost is the best option if you’re looking for an affordable hosting service for either a personal or a business-focused website. All the requirements, including a free domain, an SSL, and several security features, are included at a reduced pricing point.
Hosting management: ease of use
Both DreamHost and HostGator provide excellent usability. DreamHost achieves this by providing each client with a totally unique control panel. The industry-standard cPanel, used by HostGator, has a fantastically intuitive interface.
One of the many service providers that utilizes a customized control panel as opposed to the default cPanel is DreamHost. However, DreamHost is able to provide what is perhaps the simplest WordPress install on the market thanks to the usage of their proprietary dashboard and management tools. While various providers promote one-click WordPress installations, it appears that only DreamHost genuinely delivers on this claim. Additionally, this service doesn’t push upsells hard.
Here is a picture of the DreamHost control panel to give you an idea of how it appears. It is sleek and has everything you need at your fingertips.
The HostGator control panel has become a little less sophisticated.
HostGator uses cPanel and a native interface to assist you in setting up your website. You can always access the more sophisticated features, including domain, database, and file management, through the cPanel. With a basic cPanel that HostGator offers, both beginners and experts won’t have any issues using it because of the arrangement of the icons, which is oh so familiar. Once you get going, you’ll see how simple the navigation is.
This panel looks to be more function-focused than the one provided by DreamHost. There are two drawbacks to this: the lack of personalization and the ongoing upselling. The customizing process does allow for some minor adjustments, but essentially, with cPanel, you get exactly what you see. While the WordPress installation procedure generally goes without incident, some users have mentioned experiencing some issues. In addition, it’s unquestionably more complicated than the advertised 1-click. Furthermore, HostGator constantly tries to upsell you, so don’t be shocked if your cPanel has hidden pages with upsell promotions.
When compared side by side, both service providers perform admirably. To access a particular tool, there are no very difficult tasks. The biggest distinction between the two is the customizability of DreamHost’s UI as opposed to HostGator’s more straightforward design. The latter features an icon-rich layout, while the former chooses a sidebar view with all the functionalities and tools accessible by simply scrolling. That both of these providers are in our list of the best web hosts comes as no surprise.
In the end, it comes down to personal taste. In terms of ease of use, both providers excel at keeping things straightforward, however DreamHost should be your first choice if you want to install WordPress quickly.
DreamHost vs HostGator performance
Both service providers demonstrated their expertise in delivering superior outcomes. DreamHost is renowned for its dependability, and in our tests, the uptime and quick page loading met expectations. Additionally, HostGator did a fantastic job of maintaining uptime above the guarantee while delivering reliable response times and blazingly quick website loading times.
Uptime and response time
For almost two months, we evaluated the performance of DreamHost. DreamHost’s performances are practically unbeatable with >99.99% uptime and only a minute of downtime. This outcome is remarkable given that the company makes a 100% uptime guarantee. And even if the uptime fell short of what was promised, you’d still get paid.
The speed of DreamHost’s servers was also excellent. This hosting company consistently produced results with an average response time of 231 ms, which is far faster than the industry standard of 600 ms.
HostGator has now been tested for approximately three months. And it did not let me down. HostGator only offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, yet over the testing period, there were only three outages totaling 5 minutes in length, resulting with a >99.99% uptime. Although HostGator only offered a modest uptime guarantee, it delivered; and even if it didn’t, you would receive compensation.
Additionally, the average response time was good. HostGator’s average of 525ms is thought to be better than the market average of 600ms even if it wasn’t quite as amazing as DreamHost’s.
Both providers achieved excellent results in the area of uptime and response time. However, DreamHost outperformed the competition and proved to be the speedier and more dependable service.
Website speed
Another important factor that distinguishes decent from exceptional suppliers is website speed.
The Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) should load in less than 2.5 seconds to begin with; this is a Google standard. For improved user experience, a full website should load in less than 3 seconds; if it takes longer, you may observe a higher bounce rate. Furthermore, you don’t want to make your website visitors wait while it loads. A quick LCP aids in search engine optimization, and a quick completely loaded time is crucial for a positive user experience.
DreamHost performed admirably throughout the website speed test, with an LCP of 1.4 seconds and a fully loaded time of only 1.6 seconds.
HostGator, on the other hand, excels with fast websites. The LCP was only 1.1s, well behind DreamHost’s excellent performance in the same test. The fully loaded time is a blisteringly quick 1.2s, which is lower than the 1.6s reported by DreamHost.
HostGator wins the top spot in the subcategory for website speed by a slim margin. In this case, both hosting services did a terrific job of going above and beyond the industry norms and giving the user a wonderful experience.
However, keep in mind that the number of visitors to your website and the location of your server both have a significant impact on how quickly the page loads. In our situation, both the hosting and testing of our websites take place in the US. Both DreamHost and HostGator only have servers in North America, thus they are not the best providers if your clients are from other continents. For the greatest results, servers need to be physically close to your audience.
Both service providers performed well overall. Both hosting services had comparable uptime, but DreamHost excels in terms of reaction time. HostGator had the advantage over DreamHost in terms of website speed, although both companies produced comparable results.
Website security
When it comes to security, DreamHost’s beginning package has more features than HostGator’s. DreamHost’s Shared Starter plan features firewalls, daily backups, SSL certificates, and domain privacy. HostGator’s Hatchling hosting package comes with server-level firewalls and SSL certificates.
Only one security element is missing from DreamHost, but you can get it individually. The supplier will include a malware protection technology in its package for just $29.99 per year. A malware protection tool costs an additional $3 per month, and while it’s unfortunate that it is a paid option, it can be a game-changer. Given all the features DreamHost offers, is it really a surprise that it ranks among the safest web hosts?
To make up for the lack of security in its free plan, HostGator additionally offers premium tools:
- Upgrade to positive SSL for $39.99/year.
- Sitelock Essentials, which costs $23.88/year, aids in the detection of malware on your website.
- Automatic backup will set you back $23.95 per year.
- In terms of security, there is little overlap between the two. When comparing DreamHost with HostGator, the former is clearly superior because it provides more for less. Although the cost of a malware protection solution is comparable between the two providers, DreamHost is able to give daily backups for no cost, while HostGator charges $23.95.
Customer support
Both DreamHost and HostGator provide self-help tools and a range of direct support channels, including live chat, phone assistance, and ticketing.
There is a significant difference between the two providers if you’re not a lover of knowledge bases (but keep in mind that the ones provided by these providers are excellent).
There are 3 direct help channels available for DreamHost’s customer service. a live chat operating from 5:30 AM to 9:30 PM PT, phone assistance, and ticketing available around-the-clock. At first glance, the DreamHost support might not seem impressive. A deal-breaker might be the absence of a round-the-clock live chat option. The ticketing system, however, functions flawlessly. Using this technique, problems are typically resolved within one hour. And just to calm your beating heart, be aware that you always have the choice to look up lessons and community forums on the website, which may also be of use to you.
HostGator, on the other hand, provides live chat and phone assistance, both of which are available 24/7. One of the best live chat services available is offered by HostGator. It’s impressive how quickly HostGator’s support staff can resolve your issues because they are skilled specialists. Our conversation with the agent was pleasant and informative, and she actually resolved our problems quickly.
In terms of customer service, HostGator triumphs. While DreamHost’s ticketing system performs better than some of its rivals, it is unfortunate that the live chat is time-limited. HostGator delivered outstanding outcomes with a quicker turn-around.
Alternatives to DreamHost and HostGator
Although DreamHost and HostGator are both excellent hosting companies, that doesn’t mean they’re faultless. I looked for various other options on the market as a result. You can choose between those that give lesser pricing and those that offer specialized solutions.
Hostinger
The solution is Hostinger if you’re seeking for a reduced cost. It’s a service provider with an affordable pricing that can nevertheless deliver high-quality performance, with the entry-level plan going for just $2.59/month. Hostinger has no issues with uptime or response times, but its biggest drawback is an occasionally sluggish control panel.
SiteGround
SiteGround is among the most well-liked services available, and for good reason. It may be more expensive than the majority of the competitors with an entry point price of $2.99/month, but it performs well in the key categories we evaluated.
DreamHost vs HostGator: final recommendations
In the DreamHost vs. HostGator comparison, both web hosting companies performed admirably in the majority of the areas. Both performances and pricing were fair, with DreamHost outperforming HostGator in the uptime and response time categories. The two main areas of distinction were security and customer care, with DreamHost clearly being the superior choice in both areas. HostGator was a close second.
| Feature | DreamHost | HostGator | Verdict |
| Price | ★★★★☆ | ★★★★☆ | In this category, there’s no clear winner. The difference is minimal, but DreamHost ($2.59/month) does have a few cents-worth of advantage over HostGator ($2.75/month). |
| Ease of use | ★★★★☆ | ★★★★★ | As far as ease of use, DreamHost offers a completely custom control panel, while HostGator offers cPanel – the industry standard. Both interfaces are user-friendly but HostGator doesn’t offer as much customization as DreamHost. |
| Performance | ★★★★★ | ★★★★★ | DreamHost offers better uptime and response time, while HostGator edges its competitor in website speed. |
| Security | ★★★★★ | ★★★☆☆ | Security-wise, DreamHost is the superior option. More features, lower price. To have a similar experience with HostGator you’ll need to pay for features. |
| Support | ★★★★☆ | ★★★★☆ | In the customer support comparison, HostGator is the best of the two at assisting customers, since it is able to offer live chat and phone support, both of them working 24/7. |