HostGator vs InMotion: Features and Hosting Parameters Compared
Setting up a website is the first step to establishing any personal brand or professional business, and there is no shortage of hosting providers.
HostGator and InMotion stand out in the ocean of options since they’re both well-established companies with a good reputation.
The companies offer similar features at comparable prices, and the large spread of plans ensures that you can keep relying on the companies as your site drives more traffic.
Picking between the two can be confusing – so here’s a detailed comparison of the two hosting providers to determine which is the better option for your needs.
HostGator vs InMotion Hosting: Overview
Trusted by over 800,000 customers, HostGator is one of the most popular hosting providers in the market.
The company was founded in 2002 by Florida Atlantic University student Brent Oxley and is currently headquartered in Houston, Texas.
HostGator began offering its services with a simple three-server setup about two decades ago. The company currently employs over 12,000 servers to cater to its large customer base spanning 200 countries.
Related: HostGator Reviews: Features, Pricing, Pros & Cons Discussed
With over 8 million domains hosted, the company’s domains alone make up about 1% of the internet.
Established a year before HostGator in 2001, InMotion Hosting is an independently owned company that provides hosting based on Unix and Linux machines.
The company has been making strides to reduce its carbon footprint since 2010 and owns the first Green Data Center in Los Angeles. Furthermore, the company provides for planting 5000 trees across the world, and all of its centers have a “reuse and recycle” policy.
Related: InMotion Hosting Review: Pros & Cons
Both companies are PCI compliant, making them equally trustworthy.
HostGator vs InMotion Hosting: Uptime and Speed
The uptime and the speed of hosting are the two most important factors that make or break any hosting service. Comparing these parameters of the two hosting companies is one of the key ways to see which one’s objectively better.
Every reputable hosting company in the market promises a high uptime and speedy loading times, and HostGator and InMotion are no exceptions.
HostGator offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and InMotion offers a 99.99% uptime guarantee. This makes InMotion the better candidate if you’re looking for no compromises on your site’s uptime.
Server response times are an excellent indicator of a hosting service’s speed. Bitcatcha tested both HostGator and InMotion Hosting and rated the server response times based on the following scale:
- A+: Under 180 ms
- A: 181 ms – 210 ms
- B+: 211 ms – 220 ms
- B: 221 ms – 240 ms
- C+: 241 ms – 280 ms
- C: 281 ms – 360 ms
- D+: 361 ms – 520 ms
- D: 521 ms – 840 ms
- E+: 841 ms – 1,480 ms
- E: Above 1,480 ms
HostGator sites hosted in the US and Canada have response times under 36 ms, and Bitcatcha gave the response time an “A” rating.
In other words, you can expect sites hosted on HostGator to have a Time To First Byte of under 210 ms regardless of where in the world it’s accessed from.
InMotion Hosting has better server response times, with Bitcatcha giving the hosting provider an “A+” rating.
In other words, you can expect your site to have a TTFB of under 180 ms regardless of which part of the world it’s accessed from.
With the company’s servers located on the west coast of the US, the test site had a server response time of 2 ms in the region, which is impressive.
If you run a business in the area and need a hosting service that virtually guarantees fast load times, InMotion Hosting is the company to do business with.
What’s more impressive is that InMotion has had consistently faster response times than HostGator, according to Pingdom.
HostGator vs InMotion Hosting: Ease of Use
One of the nice things about HostGator and InMotion Hosting is that they offer easy cPanel access. cPanel makes it convenient for you to manage your server’s files, work with its databases, and manage emails.
Furthermore, both the companies offer a one-click installer, enabling you to install WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and dozens of other useful tools to your site with ease.
Both service providers are equally impressive in this category.
HostGator vs InMotion Hosting: Features
With HostGator, you will have all the features you need to get a site up and running. However, InMotion Hosting offers many features that HostGator doesn’t that make your hosting experience better.
Some of the best features that InMotion Hosting offers that HostGator lacks include:
- Choice of data center: All InMotion Hosting customers are given the option to choose which data center they want to host their site at.
- Better money-back guarantee: With InMotion Hosting offering a 90-day money-back guarantee, HostGator’s 45-day guarantee seems lackluster.
- SSD storage: Regardless of which plan you get, InMotion Hosting will give you access to SSD storage, which is much faster than the HDD storage that HostGator offers on some of their plans.
InMotion Hosting has the better feature-set of the two.
HostGator vs InMotion Hosting: Support and Documentation
If you host with HostGator, you will be able to get support over the phone, using live chat, and via email. If you think you’re facing a common issue, you can search through the company’s database of 700+ articles and 500+ video tutorials and get the help you need instantly.
InMotion Hosting offers customers 24/7 support over the phone and on Skype, live chat, and email. The support team is working around the year to ensure every customer gets the quality service they paid for. Additionally, the extensive knowledge base answers most customer questions in an easy-to-understand manner.
HostGator vs InMotion Hosting: Pricing
Here is a table comparing the prices of the plans offered by the two hosting providers side-by-side:
| Shared | WordPress | Reseller | VPS | Dedicated | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HostGator | $2.78 /mo. | $5.95 /mo. (Cloud) | 19.95 / mo. | $19.95 / mo. | $119.00 / mo. |
| InMotion Hosting | $3.99 /mo. | $4.99 /mo. | $13.99 / mo. | $19.99 / mo. | $105.69 / mo. |
If you’re on the lookout for a quality shared hosting provider, HostGator may be the better option for you. But with InMotion Hosting offering better pricing for WordPress, reseller, and dedicated hosting, it is the better option in general.
HostGator vs InMotion Hosting: Which is Better?
InMotion Hosting offers cheaper plans, better speed and uptime, and 24/7/365 customer support, objectively making it the superior option of the two.
That being said, if you’re looking for cheaper hosting and don’t care much for the additional features InMotion offers, HostGator is still a hosting service provider you can rely on.
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