Cloudways vs HostGator
Cloudways and HostGator compared on measured uptime, response time, pricing and features from our own tests. Cloudways scores higher overall.
By Jennifer T. · Updated
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Verdict
CloudwaysWins overall
DigitalOcean's managed cloud layer: servers from $11 a month on five clouds, billed hourly, staging and caching included
Newfold's Texas-born cPanel host: four shared tiers on a 36-month term with a free domain, Cloudflare CDN and staging
Cloudways wins 5 of the six sub-scores and comes out ahead overall (7.8 vs 7.4).
How do the scores compare?
Cloudways leads on 5 sub-scores, HostGator on 1. Higher is better.
Which one is faster and more reliable?
Which one costs less?
On renewal, HostGator is cheaper ($10.99/mo vs $14.00/mo). Intro prices need the listed term.
| Cloudways | HostGator | |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest plan | DigitalOcean Premium Micro | Hatchling |
| Intro price | $14.00/mo | $3.75/mo (better) |
| Renewal price | $14.00/mo | $10.99/mo (better) |
| Required term | 1 months (better) | 36 months |
| Websites | unlimited | 10 |
| Storage | 25 GB | 10 GB |
| Money back | 0 days | 30 days (better) |
What does each include?
| Cloudways | HostGator | |
|---|---|---|
| Free domain | No | First year on every plan; $22.99 is deducted from a refund if you cancel within the year |
| Free SSL | Let's Encrypt certificates on every application | Let's Encrypt, auto-renewed |
| Backups | On-demand and scheduled server backups with one-click restore; offsite storage billed at $0.033 per GB per server | Weekly courtesy backups, restorable with one click; the terms call them a courtesy, so keep your own |
| Free migration | Free migration of existing sites | A free site migration tool is listed on the plan cards; the comparison table on the same page says paid migration is available |
| Free CDN | No | Cloudflare with Argo routing on every plan |
| Caching | Lightning Stack (NGINX), Object Cache Pro and Redis included on every plan | Static content caching and object caching on every plan; the feature list names an NGINX caching layer |
| Staging | Advanced staging and cloning on every plan | WordPress staging site on every plan |
| No | Unlimited POP3 and IMAP mailboxes with SpamAssassin; Pro Email is a paid product after a free trial | |
| Resource limits | A whole server per customer: 1 to 8 GB RAM and 1 to 4 vCPU on the listed sizes, larger sizes and other providers available | No |
| Data center choice | The provider's regions, chosen per server: DigitalOcean 9, Vultr 30, Linode 25, AWS 28, Google Cloud 28 | No |
| Uptime guarantee | No | The plan page says 99 percent; the terms we read contain no uptime clause or credit schedule |
| Security | Built-in firewall with IP blocking, WordPress vulnerability scanner, bot protection and dedicated firewalls per the pricing page | Malware scanning, AI-powered detection and removal from Baby up, web application firewall, DDoS protection, DDoS scrub center |
| Free trial | 3 days without a credit card | Not stated |
| Phone support | No | Baby, Business and Pro; Hatchling is chat only |
| Windows hosting | No | No |
| SSH and languages | Not stated | SSH, WP-CLI, cron, PHP 8.2, Ruby on Rails, Perl, Python, unlimited MySQL and SFTP users |