Not sure whether you should pick A2 Hosting or HostGator for your web hosting needs?

Well, after conducting a detailed comparison of their services, pricing, speed, features, and much more,  I’d call A2 Hosting the winner and would recommend their services to anyone who’s looking for affordable web hosting.

Keep reading to see the facts for yourself and find out which provider would be the best pick for you.

Overall Comparison: A2 Hosting vs HostGator

Here’s a brief comparison of both the providers’ hosting features, pricing, support, security and more:

Winner: A2 Hosting

After conducting a comparison of A2 Hosting and HostGator, I’d vote for A2 Hosting as the winner. They have lower price rates, provide great security features, and offer a plethora of feature-rich hosting plans to choose from.

Below is an in-depth comparison of both the providers.

About A2 Hosting and HostGator

Founded in Michigan in 2001, A2 Hosting provides services in 223 different countries around the globe with their datacenters in 4 locations. Apart from providing a wide range of hosting solutions, the company also offers domain registration, site builder and SSL certificates. A2 Hosting also made it to the Forbes’ list of “10 Best Web Hosting Services of 2022” owing to their affordability when it comes to long-term hosting plans.

A Houston-based web hosting company that was founded in 2002, HostGator provides shared, reseller, VPS, and dedicated server hosting to their global clientele. The provider also offers cloud hosting, WordPress hosting, domain name registration, website builder, SEO, PPC, web design services and SSL. Moreover, they’re also popular for their WordPress hosting plans that are incredibly affordable and easy to manage.

Round 1: Hosting Features – Key Hosting Features and Services

Key A2 Hosting Features

A2 Hosting offers 100 GB SSD storage with its most basic plan priced at $1.99 / month, and unlimited storage with nearly all of its other hosting plans. Although they don’t offer a free domain with the purchase of hosting, you’re sure to get a free website transfer if you’re migrating from another hosting provider.

Moreover, you’d obviously get a 99.9% uptime guarantee, free 1-click WordPress installs, as well as 1-click installation of WooCommerce, Drupal, CubeCart, B2evolution, phpBB, SMF and Joomla. Plus, they provide free daily backup, a free SSL and 24/7 customer support.

Key HostGator Features

In comparison to HostGator competitors, the web host is offering unmetered bandwidth with all of their hosting plans, alongside unmetered SSD disk space. You’ll get a free 1-click installation of WordPress, Magento, Joomla, Drupal and phpBB. Moreover, their hosting plans come with a free domain, SSL certificate and automatic backups.

Similar to A2 Hosting, HostGator also offers free website migration services, which allows their customers to enjoy a smooth and hassle-free migration without any fear of data loss.

And the  winner is … HostGator

Although both offer nearly the same hosting features, since HostGator is offering unlimited SSD storage even with its most basic hosting plan, I think they deserve to be called the winner here.

Round 2: Prices and Plans

A2 Hosting Pricing Plans

The hosting provider offers four shared web hosting plans for their clients that are highly economical. Startup – Their most basic plan is priced at $1.99 / month and offers 100 GB SSD storage which is just enough for hosting a single website.

Drive – This hosting plan is for $4.99 / month with unlimited storage and a capacity for running two websites.

Turbo Boost – Priced at $5.99 / month, this plan comes with the power of their Turbo servers and unlimited NVMe SSD storage.

Turbo Max – This is their most powerful shared hosting plan which is priced at $10.99 / month and offers the fastest hosting experience for multiple sites.

HostGator Pricing Plans

While A2 Hosting offers four plans, HostGator has only three in their shared hosting category, namely Hatchling Plan, Baby Plan, and Business Plan.

Hatchling Plan – Their most basic plan priced at $2.75 / month. This plan can help you run one website smoothly with its unlimited storage and bandwidth.

Baby Plan – Perfect for hosting a growing business website, this plan is for $ 3.50 / month and is highly recommended.

Business Plan – Priced at $5.25 / month, this plan is the complete solution that you’d need for your business website, including free SEO tools as well as 2.5x faster page loading speed.

And the winner is … A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting has more affordable plans.

Their hosting plans are not just more economical than those of HostGator and A2 Hosting alternatives, but they’re also highly feature-rich, especially their Turbo hosting plans that promise to provide a 20x faster experience.

Round 3: Website Performance (Uptime and Speed)

If you wish to determine the performance of your website, the speed and uptime percentage of the server on which it’s hosted matters a lot.

To put it in plain words, the uptime of a server is the percentage of time for which the machine keeps running continually so that the websites hosted on it stay up and accessible.

Apart from this the server speed determines the page load speed of a website.

A2 Hosting Uptime and Speed

I tested a website hosted on A2 Hosting’s servers and the page load speed was pretty good. On GT Metrix, the website showed a page load speed of 1.3 seconds, whereas the loading speed turned out to be 8.6 seconds when tested on PageSpeed Insights, which is better than most of A2 Hosting competitors.

I’ve attached the screenshots of both the test results here:

GT Metrix test:

PageSpeed Insights:

HostGator Uptime and Speed

The PageSpeed Insights of a website hosted on HostGator showed 14.6 seconds page load speed. On the other hand, when I tested the same website on GT Metrix, the results were 9.9 seconds.

Here are the screenshots of both the tests:

GT Metrix test:

PageSpeed Insights:

And the winner is … A2 Hosting

With an average page load speed of 4.95 seconds, A2 Hosting is again taking the lead here against the 12.25 seconds page load speed of HostGator.

Is A2 Hosting better than HostGator? It appears so!

Round 4: Customer Support – Who Has the Best Support System?

A2 Hosting Customer Support

My experience with their customer support didn’t go as well as expected, majorly because their response time wasn’t up to the mark.

Firstly, I had to wait for someone from their team to join the live chat. Secondly, even after their support representative had joined, the responses were quite delayed.

Anyhow, I was provided with the information/help that I needed.

Here are some screenshots of my chat with A2 Hosting:

Apart from this, they also provide support through email/tickets if you can’t wait to get a response on live chat.

HostGator Customer Support

The live chat responses by HostGator weren’t as prompt as one expects live chat to be. There was even an instance where the customer support provider left the chat on their own and then joined back in after 6 minutes.

Also, I felt as if the support executive wasn’t really in the mood for answering my questions.

Here’s how the chat went:

However, I did find their video tutorials to be quite helpful, something that many HostGator alternatives don’t provide. Plus, they have knowledgebase blogs on a wide range of technical topics and you may find answers to many of your queries there.

And the winner is … HostGator

Although I did not have a satisfactory experience with any of the two providers in terms of customer support, I’d name HostGator as the winner in this category. That’s because they provide useful video tutorials that are great for non-technical individuals.

Round 5: Ease of Use – Which Platform is Easier to Use?

A2 Hosting Ease of Use

A2 Hosting is well-known for their user-friendly admin interface which makes it incredibly easy for clients to manage their services such as web hosting and domains.

Here’s what their admin panel interface looks like:

Apart from this, they provide the standard cPanel management system.

If you’re someone with little to no technical knowledge, managing your web hosting plans and website won’t be much difficult with the admin panel and control panel offered by A2 Hosting.

HostGator Ease of Use

Similar to its competitors, HostGator also provides industry standard cPanel to their clients for managing their web hosting plans. You can also easily manage your billing, domains and hosting account through their admin panel.

Here’s what HostGator’s admin panel interface looks like:

And the cPanel dashboard:

And the winner is … A2Hosting

A2 Hosting wins again!

Although both the providers offer the industry standard cPanel as the management system through which you can manage all aspects of your website, the admin panel of A2 Hosting is what I really loved since it allows you to view everything in detail.

Round 6: Security – Which Platform is More Secure?

A2 Hosting Security

The security features offered by A2 Hosting include free backup and restore as well as a free SSL certificate with all their hosting plans.

Moreover, they also provide DDoS protection, Firewall and malware scans.

Additionally, one thing that many of A2 Hosting’s competitors don’t provide is the free Cloudflare CDN offered by the host.

HostGator Security

Many of HostGator’s security features are similar to those provided by A2 Hosting.

The company also offers a free SSL certificate and free backup and restore service with all their hosting plans. In addition to this, they also provide DDos protection, malware scanning and sitelock security.

If you buy their Business Plan, you can also get a free upgrade to a Positive SSL certificate.

And the winner is … A2 Hosting

In terms of security , there isn’t much difference in the hosting features provided by each.  However, I’d recommend A2 Hosting since they offer free Cloudflare CDN with their hosting plans.

Round 7: Server Locations

One of the most significant features that affect your website’s loading speed is server location. That’s because if the server is located too far away, the website files and data would take longer to be transferred.

A2 Hosting Server Locations

A2 Hosting has four different server locations, including Michigan, Arizona, Amsterdam and Singapore.

The best part about these server locations is that A2 Hosting lets you choose the desired one when ordering a web hosting plan!

HostGator Server Locations

In comparison to the four server locations of A2 Hosting, HostGator has six in the USA and Asia, including Houston, Provo, Dallas, Austin, Hong Kong and Mumbai.

And the winner is … HostGator

Well, since HostGator has more server locations across two continents, it’s the winner for me in this last round of my A2 Hosting vs HostGator comparison.

A2 Hosting vs HostGator: Final Recommendations

When to Choose A2 Hosting?

In general, I believe A2 Hosting is way better than HostGator in a lot of ways. Plus, they have really affordable hosting plans that are perfect for small to medium businesses, as well as individuals and startups.

Here are some A2 Hosting features that I really liked:

• Really affordable pricing for feature-rich plans
• Easy-to-use control panel
• Provides free Cloudflare CDN
• 30-day money back guarantee
• Free SSL and backup with all of their hosting plans
• Faster server speed

Why Pick HostGator?

The pricing of HostGator’s hosting plans is a bit high in comparison to A2 Hosting, but you should choose HostGator if:

• You’re looking for more server locations
• Want a free domain with web hosting
• Want a web host who would also provide you with SEO and PPC services
• 30-day money back guarantee