Looking for the best hosting service? A2 Hosting and HostGator are 2 of the best hosting providers out there. But which is truly the best web hosting service: A2 Hosting or HostGator?
Not every web hosting service is created equal. It’s important for you to understand how these 2 hosting providers differ from each other, regarding their pricing plans and features. With our unbiased comparison between HostGator and A2 Hosting, we’ll help you decide which one is the best choice for you.
HostGator vs. A2 Hosting – Overview
HostGator is an extremely popular web hosting provider. Founded in 2002, HostGator now hosts over 8 million websites around the globe. They’ve been acquired by Endurance International Group, a popular web hosting company, which also owns and operate several famous hosting brands, including Bluehost and iPage.
HostGator plans come with all the essential hosting features and they provide you with a 45-day money back guarantee to try out their service risk-free.
A2 Hosting is also a leading developer-friendly hosting company that provides all the features you need to get your site up and running. They also allow you to choose your preferred data center when signing up for their hosting services.
Unlike HostGator, A2 Hosting is independently owned and operated.
Best of all, A2 Hosting provides anytime pro-rated money back guarantee if you’re not fully satisfied
HostGator vs. A2 Hosting – Page Speed and Uptime
Speed and uptime are the most critical factors you’ll need to consider when choosing a web hosting service.
Speed is important because nobody likes a slow website, and Google continues to emphasize page speed in their algorithm.
Similarly, uptime is important because your users expect your site to be available around the clock. Usually, uptime is expressed as a percentage of the total available time; “99.95%”, for example.
To test the website speed and uptimes for the web hosting services in our A2 Hosting vs HostGator comparison, we signed up with both services and created a test site powered by WordPress. To mirror the live environment, we also installed a default WordPress theme, added dummy content, and uploaded some images.
We used the following tools to conduct speed and uptime experiments on our test sites:
- Pingdom
- Load Impact
- Bitcatcha
According to Pingdom, our HostGator site took 691ms to load when tested from Dallas.
However, our A2 Hosting site took 1.28 seconds to load, which also means the site was only faster than 84% of all tested sites.
It’s also important to analyze if hosting servers can survive a traffic surge. For our traffic surge test, we used a tool called Load Impact. We sent some virtual users to our sites and gradually built up to 100 visitors at a time to see how the servers performed.
According to Load Impact, our HostGator server responded quickly until there were about 80 visitors at a time. As traffic grew, the site started to slow down slightly and reverted to normal after a few moments.
On the other hand, our A2 Hosting test site performed consistently until there were around 40 visitors on the site. The website slowed down for a while and then reverted to its normal state.
After our Load Impact test, we conducted a test with Bitcatcha to monitor the server response times from 8 different geographical locations: New York, LA, London, Brazil, India, Singapore, Japan, and Australia. The speed for each location was measured 3 separate times, and then the results were averaged.
According to our Bitcatcha test, the overall performance of HostGator and A2 Hosting were both graded C.
HostGator vs. A2 Hosting – Ease of Use
For managing web hosting accounts, both HostGator and A2 Hosting provide cPanel access to users. Plus, their 1-click installers help you quickly install popular website scripts such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc.
If you opt for Windows hosting with A2 Hosting, then you’ll get access to Plesk for managing your web hosting account.
HostGator vs. A2 Hosting – Features
HostGator provides you with all the essential features you’ll need to kick off your website; including unmetered bandwidth, 1-click installers, website builder, free marketing credits, etc.
With HostGator’s starter plan, you can host 1 website and with a slightly expensive plan, you can host as many websites as you want.
By comparison, A2 Hosting stays further ahead of the curve in terms of features. Let’s take a look at a few areas in which A2 Hosting excels in comparison to HostGator:
Anytime money back guarantee: If you’re not satisfied with A2 Hosting, you can request a full refund within 30 days of signing up. They also provide a pro-rated refund for unused hosting services.
Several hosting options: Unlike HostGator, A2 Hosting provides a wide variety of hosting options. For example, with their VPS plans, they offer an unmanaged server, managed server, discount SSD server, core server, etc.
HostGator vs. A2 Hosting – Support and Documentation
Both HostGator and A2 Hosting provide 24/7 support via 3 modes: live chat, phone, and email. Both of their extensive knowledge bases explain everything you need to know about using their hosting platforms, step-by-step.
HostGator vs. A2 Hosting – Pricing
Let’s take a look at a head-to-head comparison between the prices for different hosting options from HostGator and A2 Hosting:
| Shared | WordPress | Reseller | VPS | Dedicated | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HostGator | $2.52 /mo. | $3.05 /mo. (Cloud) | $34.99 / mo. | $23.95 / mo. | $89.98 / mo. |
| A2 Hosting | $2.99 /mo. | $11.99 /mo. | $17.99 / mo. | $35.99 / mo. | $105.99 / mo. |
If you’re starting out and want to choose shared / cheap web hosting, then HostGator’s plans are affordable. A2 Hosting offers cheaper plans for all other hosting options.
You can also use our HostGator coupon code to get a BIG discount.
Recap: HostGator vs. A2 Hosting
After the comparison between HostGator and A2 Hosting, we believe that HostGator is a better hosting service. Not only is their hosting services are faster, but also they’re more reliable, considering their reputation in the industry.
We hope this article helped you find the right hosting service that meets your budget and needs. If you enjoyed this article, you might also want to check out our full HostGator review or in-depth A2 Hosting review.
