Today, there are several companies offering web hosting services in the market. Website owners and developers often get into a hem and haw situation while selecting one for their website. Perhaps, you are also in a dilemma if you are reading this post.
Among several companies of web hosting, Hostgator and Digitalocean are two prominent one. No wonder, it’s a puzzling issue to choose between two. Hopefully, after this review, the choice wouldn’t be hard at all.
An introduction to both companies
Hostgator is a well-known, Houston-based web hosting provider founded by Brent Oxley. On the other hand, DigitalOcean is a New York-based web hosting provider founded by Ben and Moisey Uretsky. In comparison to Hostgator, DigitalOcean is a new company. In standings of popularity, DigitalOCean is way behind Hostgator. But, is the popularity just a marketing hoax? What are the ground realities of the services provided by these two companies? What company has the upper hand?
One cannot say anything about the services without using them. We don’t rely on reviews as these days they are no more than a marketing or referral content. Thus, to find out the best one, we performed 328 tests on leading hosting providers such as Digitalocean, Hostgator, Bluehost, and others. We have tested them on various grounds, and afterward, we declared the winning hosting solution.
Out criteria of comparing Hostgator and DigitalOcean
We took three factors for measuring performance.
- Page Load Speed Test
- Uptime Test
- Customer Support Response Time Test
How we compared both of them in step by step
Step 1: It begins with purchasing a similar hosting plan of Hostgator and DigitalOcean
Step 2: We made a demo website and hosted it on both web hosting. They both have same files, built on WordPress CMS, content and plugins. Only the domain name was different. The file size we used was 93kb of HTML, 48 KB of CSS, 312 KB of JavaScript, and 1544 KB of images.
Step 3: To measure their uptime, we set up a pingdom.com account. We consistently buzzed both of the websites at the interval of 1 minute.
Step 4: To measure customer support service, we raised support tickets and waited for their reply. We have calculated their response times for every they replied. Afterward, we calculated their average response time.
Hostgator v/s DigitalOcean - Page Load Speed Test:
[table id=1 /]
In our tests, we found that almost every parameter for the Page Load Speed Test of Hostgator was way better than of Digitalocean. Check them out.
The average page load time of Hostgator was 3.11 seconds while it was 3.44seconds of Digitalocean.
The best page load time of Hostgator was 1.88 seconds while it was 2.33 seconds of Digitalocean.
However, the Worst Page load time of Hostgator was 13.8 seconds, while it was 8.56 seconds of Digitalocean.
In this test, Hostgator has the obvious lead over Digitalocean. So, it was the winner of this round.
SITE HOSTED ON HOSTGATOR
SITE HOSTED ON DIGITALOCEAN
Winner – Hostgator
Now, we will move to another test.
Hostgator v/s Digitalocean - Uptime Test Results:
No web hosting always provides 100 percent uptime. It will be like living in a fool’s paradise if you expect them so. However, you can still get a decent uptime.
As we mentioned earlier, we used Pingdom services for measuring website uptime. We performed this test consecutive times for a specific time period.
[table id=3 /]- The average uptime of both Hostgator and Digitalocean in our test was 99.97 percent.
- The worst Uptime was 96.78 percent of Hostgator. While it was 95.55 percent for Digitalocean.
This test ended with a draw as both of the hosting provider performed equally.
Winner – draw
Hostgator v/s Digitalocean – Customer Support Ticket Response Time Test Results:
After raising various customer support tickets, we got responses from the hosting providers. We noted the response times and calculated the average.
[table id=4 /]
- The average response time of Hostgator was 4 hours while it was 13 hours of Digitalocean. It is a significant lead.
- The best response time we recorded for Hostgator was 1hour while it was 6 hours for Digitalocean. The worst response time for Hostgator was 21 hours and it was 46 hours for Digitalocean.
I would choose Hostgator over Digitalocean any day if I mainly prioritize the customer support factor.
Winner – hostgator
Hostgator v/s Digitalocean – User Interface Comparison:
It is also a factor that affects the selection of hosting providers, especially for the beginners. These both hosting providers have user-friendly cPanel that let users manage them easily. One can perform tasks like installing CMS, adding Domain names, accessing file managers and databases easily.
There was no real winner in this round as both of them were equally user-friendly.
Winner –draw
Hostgator v/s Digitalocean – Hosting Packages and Pricing Comparison:
The pricing of hosting plans is a decisive factor for many website owners, especially the novice ones. As a matter of fact, this factor influences everyone’s decision from large to small extents.
The normal pricing of the basic shared web hosting plan for Hostgator is around $6.95 per month. It often releases coupon codes through which one can enjoy around 50 percent. One can choose many types of billing cycles like 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years. While on Digitalocean, one can enjoy nine kinds of hosting plans. The basic shared hosting plan costs $5 every month. It doesn’t release coupon codes or discount offer to relieve users. Moreover, one has to pay 2$ for every increase in data.
Even if taking the refund policy into the account, then Digitalocean doesn’t come with any kind of refund clauses. On the other hand, Hostgator comes with 45 days full money back guarantee in case of dissatisfaction. Clearly, Hostgator is way better than Digitalocean in this segment.
Winner – hostgator
The Final Verdict
A hosting is not something you choose or switch regularly, thus, it is important to choose the best one. We found that Hostgator dominated in almost every aspect of comparison. Undoubtedly, Hostgator has an upper hand on Digitalocean. It is the reason Hostgator is one of the most preferred hosting solutions.
