If you’re planning to launch a new website or want to migrate your existing website from one hosting provider to another, you can choose Namecheap or HostGator as they provide excellent services to fit different business needs.

To help you make the right decision, I reviewed each host based on their out-of-the-box features, customer support, pricing, performance, and more!

Overall Comparison Namecheap Vs HostGator

Winner: HostGator

Namecheap is the cheaper hosting service and is the best choice if you are on a budget. However, when we consider other features like customer support and ease of use – HostGator is the winner! Let’s see why:

About Namecheap and HostGator

Namecheap was founded in 2000 with a focus on providing affordable and secure hosting solutions to its customers. It’s an ICANN Accredited Domain Registrar serving a customer base of over 2 million users. Namecheap is a great choice if you need to build your online presence on a budget. You can register domains with them for cheap and enjoy basic hosting plans that are more affordable than other Namecheap competitors. And when you need more power, you can upgrade your plans quickly.

Founded in 2011, HostGator has maintained its standard for a decade now. It’s known for speedy load times, customer service, and ease-of-use. Over 10M domains are currently hosted on HostGator which makes it one of the best hosting platforms in the industry. HostGator gives you a 99.9% uptime guarantee and they have an excellent support team. If you are a large corporation, their dedicated plans are the best in the market right now. You can also get freebies like domain, SSL, and some basic security features on a yearly subscription.

Round 1: Hosting features – Key Hosting Features and Services

Key Namecheap  Features

Namecheap provides unmetered bandwidth for shared and reseller hosting plans and 20 GB disk space to unmetered SSD for shared hosting. It has features like auto-backups, email accounts, free SSL certificates, etc, which can be beyond the requirements of a small business owner. The automated daily backups available with Stellar Plus or Stellar Business plan are very useful, especially if you want to keep your site safe and secure.

Key HostGator  Features

For HostGator, you get unlimited bandwidth (conditions applicable), top-tier SSD storage, website backup and restore done daily, intuitive WordPress packages and migration, and 1TB storage space on its dedicated hosting plans – to make building & managing your website fast and easy. HostGator has great support staff, and is available 24/7, all year. They also provide SSL certificates, backups & restores, and more to make it easy for you to use your hosted website.

And the winner is… Namecheap

Namecheap provides a wide range of hosting options for all kinds of users. It provides unmetered bandwidth for all of its plans and you also get high-performance SSD storage.

Round 2: Prices & Plans

Namecheap  Pricing Plans

Namecheap has different pricing plans for different users:

• Shared hosting plans – these entry-level are best suited for small websites that don’t handle a lot of data.
• VPS hosting plans – Namecheap’s VPS plans provide more power for mid-sized businesses.
• WordPress hosting plans – these plans are custom-made for WordPress websites.
• Dedicated hosting plans – large-scale businesses and corporations that handle a lot of data, run their own IT teams, or want to resell their hosting packages.

HostGator Pricing Plans

Just like Namecheap, HostGator has different hosting plans at different price points for different businesses. Additionally, they also offer Cloud Hosting plans unlike Namecheap:

• HostGator’s cloud hosting plans – these plans are ideal for businesses that experience highly fluctuating traffic and need resources that can be scaled accordingly, conveniently.

And the Winner Is… NameCheap

NameCheap  is significantly cheaper and offers almost the same features as HostGator. Starting at $2.18 / month, NameCheap is one of the most affordable hosting platforms for small businesses.

Round 3: Website performance (Uptime & Speed)

Your host’s uptime is basically how reliable they are to keep your website online all the time. The speed of your host measures how quickly the servers can load your pages (get data back to the user) after a click. You want a hosting provider with high uptime numbers and high speeds.

Namecheap Uptime & Speed

Namecheap’s average server speed (TTFB) on GTMetrix was 259 ms and had an overall performance 98%:

NameCheap’s server speed on PageSpeed Insights was 1.1 s and had a decent 98% performance.

HostGator Uptime & Speed

To check HostGator’s performance stats, we ran tests on GT Metrix and Google Pagespeed Insights.

HostGator’s average server speed (TTFB) on GTMetrix was 492 ms and had an overall performance of 69%:

HostGator’s server speed on PageSpeed Insights was 1.2 s and a similar 69% overall performance.

And the Winner Is… NameCheap

NameCheap is the clear winner – once again. As we’ve tested both on two different speed tests, Namecheap has outperformed HostGator in both.

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

Namecheap Customer Support

When I contacted support on Namecheap, the agent joined the chat within 5 seconds. He responded promptly and guided me through every step and gave knowledgeable answers to questions I asked.

Namecheap has incredible ticket support and a vast knowledgebase, where you can find solutions to every problem. Video tutorials are great for people who are just starting out!

I had an incredible experience with the support team and I’d rate it 9.5 on 10. Only because they don’t have phone support.

HostGator Customer Support

HostGator’s live chat agents responded instantly, and just like Namecheap, you don’t need to have an account to talk with them. HostGator also offers email, ticket, and forum support.

Besides, the video guides and knowledgebase are enough to solve most of the problems you’d have.

And the Winner Is…HostGator

For someone like me who doesn’t want to go through the hassle of typing every word out and conveying the problem via message, phone support is definitely one of the best support must-haves. HostGator wins this because chat support and ticketing won’t cut it when you need solutions to urgent issues.

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

Namecheap  Ease of use

The website’s UI is very basic with all the functionality you need but personally, most other hosts provide better-looking dashboards and user interfaces.

Once your account has been created, the dashboard will redirect you to the cPanel where you can find all the control shenanigans.

HostGator Ease of use

HostGator has an incredibly beginner-friendly user interface, and even if you are new to hosting dashboards, you’ll be able to find your way around quickly. .

After creating your account on HostGator, you’ll be redirected to the well-designed modern cPanel which you will easily find on the dashboard.

And the Winner Is… HostGator

Both hosting providers are easy to figure out and get around but I prefer HostGator’s UI to Namecheap’s as it looks more organized and aesthetically appealing overall.

Round 6: Security – Which Platform is More Secure?

Namecheap Security

Namecheap offers several features and benefits for free including a SSL certificate (basic to advanced), DDoS protection, daily backups, malware scans, SiteLock Security and much more. Advanced features like WAF come at a price, but Namecheap offers most of the security features required by small to medium businesses out-of-the-box.

HostGator  Security

You get a free SSL and support for Cloudflare on all HostGator plans and for $6, you can also unlock SiteLock Security and also secure your website with automatic malware scans. HostGator also offers special security plans Prevent and Prevent Plus that include a Web Application Firewall, DDoS protection, Database scanning, and PCI compliance monitoring. Backups are also automatic for websites less than 10 GB in size.

And the Winner Is… Namecheap

If we only talk about the security features – it could be a tie, but Namecheap is a winner because it provides more for less, unlike HostGator, which charges a price for premium security features.

Round 7: Server locations

A wider server footprint from your hosts means your website has a wider online presence and will load quickly for your users. This translates into better rankings for your websites and more customers converting.

Namecheap  Server location

Namecheap provides shared hosting, email servers, VPS, and dedicated servers in the PhoenixNAP datacenter (Phoenix, Arizona, USA). UK servers are based in Timico’s data center (near Nottingham). Namecheap’s European data center is based in Amsterdam.

HostGator  Server location

HostGator’s servers are located in just the USA (Provo, Utah, and Atlanta.)

Even though the platform offers CloudFlare integrations across 23 more data centers spread around four continents to give your better speed stats.

And the Winner Is… Namecheap!

HostGator has data centers in the US alone, while with Namecheap, you can have a wider server footprint in the US, UK, and EU. Please note that selecting the UK and EU options will cost you $1/mo.

Namecheap vs HostGator: Final Recommendations

When to Choose Namecheap?

Namecheap is one of the most popular hosting providers and you should choose Namecheap when:

• You have a worldwide audience.
• You are on a budget
• You’re okay with not having a phone support option from the provider
• You need a domain out-of-the-box
• You don’t value aesthetics and UX as much as functionality
• You prefer SSD for storage and you want a great uptime guarantee

Go for HostGator if you:

HostGator offers a variety of incredible features and is a better option than Namecheap if:

• You have US-bases target audience
• You need a robust dedicated hosting plan
• You value user interface and aesthetics
• You need excellent, near-instant customer support
• You want expandible security features