A2 Hosting vs HostGator (March 2024) – “The Winner Is …”

A2 Hosting Review Rating
HostGator Hosting Rating

How does A2 Hosting compare with HostGator? As it turns out, A2 Hosting more than holds its own against the competition here. And in fact, in most cases, A2 Hosting is probably the better choice. While HostGator has been one of the more well-established hosting companies around, A2 Hosting has its own impressive history. More importantly, A2 Hosting’s features, performance, and support have proven to many people (including myself) that they’re a superior choice for hosting websites.

A2 Hosting and HostGator both offer three different levels of shared hosting plans. Across the board, we would say that A2 Hosting provides better value—with better features at lower prices for each level of web hosting. In particular, if fast hosting or WordPress is your primary concern, then you’ll appreciate A2 Hosting’s optimized hosting services, content delivery network, and optional Turbo Servers for even greater speed.

A2 Hosting vs HostGator: Ratings

A2 Hosting HostGator
Features: 100% Features: 77%
Speed and Performance: 98% Speed and Performance: 83%
Customer Support: 98% Customer Support: 79%
Value: 99% Value: 78%
TOTAL: 98.8% TOTAL: 79.3%

Get 75% Discount on A2 Hosting

Get 45% Discount on HostGator

A2 Hosting vs HostGator: Website Builders

A2 Hosting and HostGator both offer separate website builder plans that include their own website builders for easier website creation. Both website builders provide ready-made templates you can choose from along with drag and drop editing for easy customization of your site. And, you can create different types of websites with each builder including eCommerce. That being said, neither of their respective site builders should be considered a primary reason for purchasing their hosting. In this category, I would call it a draw.

A2 Hosting vs HostGator: WordPress

WordPress hosting is definitely a priority to both A2 Hosting and HostGator. Each of these web hosts offer WordPress hosting not only with their shared hosting plans, but also as part of their managed WordPress hosting packages. However, in this category A2 Hosting is definitely the winner.

WordPress Feature Comparison
Included with Hosting Plan

A2 Hosting HostGator
Preinstallation Feature Included  
Auto Updates Feature Included  
Auto Data Backups Feature Included Feature Included
On Demand Backup and Restore Feature Included  
Website Staging Feature Included  
Optimized Caching Feature Included Feature Included
WordPress Security Feature Included Feature Included
Managed WordPress Available? Feature Included Feature Included

A2 Hosting includes excellent premium WordPress features with their hosting that are usually found in more expensive managed WordPress plans. To start off with, A2 Hosting’s environment is optimized for both WordPress speed and security. Plus, you get automatic updates and data backup. Free Cloudflare CDN is also included to speed up your page loading times. And, if you opt for the Turbo Server plan, your WordPress sites can run even faster with LiteSpeed cache and the A2 optimized site accelerator. A2 Hosting now even includes website staging for your WordPress sites—a great feature that lets you test out changes before pushing them out to your live site.

For WordPress hosting, I recommend A2 Hosting.

A2 Hosting vs HostGator: Security

a2-hosting hostgator
Free SSL Feature Included Feature Included
DDoS Protection Feature Included Feature Included
Brute Force Defense Feature Included  
Virus Scanning Feature Included  
Hack Protection Feature Included  
24/7 Security Monitoring Feature Included  
Web Hosting Firewall Feature Included  
Patchman Security Tool Feature Included  
Two-Factor Authentication Feature Included  
Hosting Account Isolation Feature Included  
SPAM Protection Feature Included Feature Included

A2 Hosting vs HostGator: Support

a2-hosting hostgator
Ticket Support Feature Included Feature Included
Email Support Feature Included Feature Included
Phone Support Feature Included Feature Included
Live Chat Feature Included Feature Included
Free Website Migration Feature Included  
Priority Support Available Feature Included  

A2 Hosting vs HostGator: Development

a2-hosting hostgator
PHP Support 8.2 8.1
Unlimited Databases Feature Included Feature Included
PostgreSQL Databases Feature Included  
Node.js Feature Included  
SSH Access Feature Included Feature Included
Git Feature Included  
Python Feature Included Feature Included
FTP/SFTP Feature Included Feature Included
WP-CLI Feature Included Feature Included

A2 Hosting vs HostGator: eCommerce

In terms of eCommerce applications, A2 Hosting and HostGator are basically the same. What separates the two here are the features included with your hosting plan—such as the ones I’ve mentioned above. Because you get superior hosting features regarding speed and security, A2 hosting is our preferred choice over HostGator.

A2 Hosting includes free SSL with all of their hosting plans. You also get perpetual HackScan security, their enhanced Patchman security tool, and solid state drives (SSDs). Also, WooCommerce users can also get LiteSpeed Cache with the A2 Hosting Turbo plan.

Based on my personal experience, because A2 Hosting provides superior website speed and customer support—two factors that are highly critical for eCommerce website hosting—they are the winner in this category.

A2 Hosting vs HostGator: Differences

Advantages of A2 Hosting over HostGator:

  • A2 Optimized Environment for Faster Website Speeds
  • Proactive Perpetual Security
  • Choice of 4 Data Centers
  • Turbo Server Option for up to 20x Faster Speeds
  • A2 Optimized Environment for WordPress
  • Server Rewind Backups
  • Quadruple Redundant Network
  • Preinstallation of Optimized WordPress
  • Anytime Money Back Guarantee

Advantages of HostGator over A2 Hosting:

  • 45 Day Money Back Guarantee
  • Includes HostGator Website Builder

A2 Hosting vs HostGator Details

The Winner

Category A2 HostingA2 Hosting HostGatorHostGator Comments
Data Centers Winner   A2 Hosting has data centers on 3 different continents.
Server Hardware Winner   A2 Turbo Servers can provide up to 20x faster loading. Both Turbo and Swift Servers include solid state drives (SSDs).
Network Winner   A2 Hosting provides a quadruple redundant network.
Account Sign Up/Provision Winner   WordPress Pre-Installed
Control Panel Winner   A2 Hosting Client Area links to cPanel.
Speed and Performance Winner   See Results Below
Security Winner   A2 proactive perpetual security includes firewall, brute force defense, virus scanning, and security monitoring. Free SSL.
Data Backup Winner   A2 Server Rewind Backups are performed daily and you can restore data from the past 30 days.
Developer Tools Winner   A2 Hosting is currently supporting PHP 8.0
WordPress Winner   A2 WordPress environment optimized for speed and security. WordPress can be pre-installed when you sign up.
Website Applications Winner   A2 Hosting provides 400+ applications via cPanel
Green Hosting Winner   A2 provides FutureServer Green Hosting 100% Carbon Neutral.
Advertising Credits Winner   Free Bing/Yahoo Credits
Customer Support Response Time Winner   Normally around 15 Sec.
Customer Support Issue Resolution Winner    
Money Back Guarantee Winner   A2 Hosting offers Anytime Money Back Guarantee
Price/Value Winner   $3.92 – $9.31 mo.

A2 Hosting vs HostGator: Website Speed

When it comes to website speed between A2 Hosting and HostGator, A2 Hosting is the winner. With their optimized environment for speed and security together with their Swift and Turbo Servers, A2 Hosting consistently posts faster website speed times in our testing. And as a customer of A2 Hosting and HostGator, my personal websites also run faster at A2 Hosting.

See below for some sample speed test results from GTmetrix:

A2 Hosting Speed Results

HostGator Speed Test Results

Both A2 Hosting and HostGator offer 99.9% uptime guarantees. However, I would give the edge in performance to A2 Hosting. The customer support response time at A2 Hosting has also been superior to that at HostGator. I also prefer the backup and restore policies and procedures at A2 Hosting. And lastly, A2 Hosting offers an anytime money back guarantee, while HostGator has a 45 day guarantee period.

A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting

Started Business: 2003
BBB Rating: A+
Data Center Location: Michigan, USA; Arizona, USA; Amsterdam, EUR; Singapore, Asia

Price: $2.99 mo. – $12.99 mo.
Unlimited Bandwidth: Yes
Unlimited Storage: Yes
Unlimited Email: Yes
Host Multiple Domains: Yes

Hosting Interface: cPanel
Server Uptime: 99.9%
Refund Period: Anytime
Dedicated Hosting Available: Yes

Free Extras:
Attracta SEO and Marketing Tools
Free HackScan and Security Tools
Free Solid State Drives (SSDs)
Website Magazine Subscription

Advantages of Choosing A2 Hosting:

  • A2 Optimized Environment for WordPress
  • Optional Turbo Server available for faster page loads.
  • Free Server Rewind Backups
  • Developer Access
  • Free Let’s Encrypt SSL
  • Website Staging for WordPress and Joomla
  • QUIC Protocol Support (Turbo Servers)
  • Free website transfer.
  • cPanel and Softaculous interfaces.
  • They offer phone, email, and chat support.
  • Fast and responsive live chat support.

Click here to see more details on A2 Hosting

HostGator
HostGator

Started Business: 2002
BBB Rating: B-
Data Center Location: Multiple SoftLayer Locations

Price: $5.56 mo. – $13.56 mo.
Unlimited Bandwidth: Yes
Unlimited Storage: Yes
Unlimited Email: Yes
Host Multiple Domains: Yes

Hosting Interface: cPanel
Server Uptime: 99.9%
Refund Period: 30 Days
Dedicated Hosting Available: Yes

Free Extras:
$100 Google Adwords Credit
Basekit Site Builder
4500 Website Templates

Advantages of Choosing HostGator:

  • All shared servers are 130% wind powered.

Click here to see more details on HostGator

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Recommendation

For most websites, in this comparison we would recommend A2 Hosting. See our A2 Hosting review ratings below:

A2 Shared Hosting Coupon

A2 Hosting Review Ratings

Features - 100%
Speed and Performance - 98%
Customer Support - 98%
Value - 99%

99%

Excellent !

A2 Hosting

User Rating: 5 ( 1 votes)

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