Hostgator vs Wix : the showdown

While Wix is popular for it’s free and easy to use website builder, it gets quite expensive when you try to buy premium plans.

On the other hand, HostGator offers affordable hosting solutions but you might need some technical knowledge and the help of third-party website builders to create a professional looking website. But Wix incorporates both hosting and website building solutions under one platform.

Before we lose our minds on which one to choose, let’s compare them based on their capabilities in our detailed article on “Hostgator vs Wix”

Hostgator and Wix: Overview

Before getting into the nitty gritty, let’s get to know them first.

Hostgator was founded in 2002 by Brent Oxley. In 2012, it was acquired by Endurance International Group (EIG), This company is now known as Newfold Digital . Today, it serves more than 2 Million websites.

It is mostly reputable for its affordable hosting services, 24/7/36, and scalability.

Also their friendly and hilarious interactions with their customers is a added plus! Who would’ve thought a hosting company would make you laugh?

Wix was founded in 2006 by Avishai Abrahami, Nadav Abrahami, and Giora Kaplan. It operates in 190 countries around the world and has over 250M+ users worldwide.

It is mostly popular for it’s easy-to-use website builder. You can create professional looking website using simple drag-and-drop editor and hundreds of templates without any coding knowledge.

Pros and Cons: Hostgator vs Wix

Hostgator

Pros

• Affordable shared hosting options.
• Free SSL certificates.
• Highly scalable. You can grow your website with your business under a budget.
• Offers unmetered bandwidth.
• Offers free domain name with hosting.
• User-friendly C-panel interface.

Cons

• Poor speed.
• They have poor customer support. If you are not tech-savvy and get into trouble, you might have to wait a while before they reply.
• Uptime needs to be improved.
• Users complained that sometimes their price increases without any notification.

Wix

Pros

• Easy to use website builder. Even beginners with no coding knowledge can create a professional looking website with Wix.
• You can simply use Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) to build your site. Just answer simple questions and the AI builder will create a web design according to your preference.
• It offers a free plan that allows users to create and publish websites at no cost.
• Hundreds of free website templates.

Wix is also popular due to the fact that you can create websites for free on their platform.

Cons

• It gets expensive on premium plans.
• Fewer SEO features.
• Has a slow loading speed.
• Transferring a site away from Wix is difficult.

Which is better, Wix or hostgator?

For beginners who want to create professional-looking websites, Wix might look like a better option, but know that it gets pricey and lacks control. Unlike Hostgator, which offers more affordable hosting with scalability and flexibility, but it can be complex for beginners.

Now, let’s compare their features.

Ease of use

C panels

Hostgator’s C Panel has easy-to-use interface. And you’ll have extensive control over your website through the C Panel they provide. It has various features from Domain management, Database management (including phpMyAdmin), One click installers and many more.

Users are complaining that HostGator has removed a lot of access through C Panels, though.

Wix, on the other hand, does not provide a C panel. They have an easy drag-and-drop editor and prefer to manage the back end of your website for you.

This approach can make it easier for website owners with less technical knowledge, but it limits their control over their website, unlike Hostgator, where you get extensive control through C Panel.

Free Site Migration

Hostgator offers free site migrations to newly registered users within 30 days of signing up (on certain plans).

Their free site migration is done on an “as is” basis, which means your site will have no modification, and existing issues like broken links, outdated plugins, etc. will remain.

Unlike Hostgator, Wix does not offer a free site migration like traditional website service providers. As it’s more of a website builder rather than a hosting provider with C-panel, You can’t really migrate a Wix website.

Back up

Hostgator has manual backup as well as automatic backup. You can create manual backup using the cPanel File Manager or phpMyAdmin.

For Automatic backups though, it’s more like a courtesy from them, Which means the automatic backup is not guaranteed. They will automatically backup your website once a week on a random day. And you’ll only have one backup of your website on each week.

Wix on the other hand, does not let you have automatic external backup of your site. You can create the backup manually.

And it has a feature called “site history” where you can see previous versions of your websites after each saved changes.

Back up restoration

Hostgator will require you to give them a one-time fee of $49.00 if you request of backup restoration.

Wix offers free restoration of the previous versions of your website using the site history feature. But note that they don’t offer automatic external backup of your website.

Free Domain

Hostgator offers free domains with many of its shared hosting plans for the first year.

Wix offers a free Domain on its premium plan but not on the free plan.

Money-back guarantee

Hostgator offers 14 days money-back guarantee, while Hostgator offers 45 days money-back guarantee.

Performance

Uptime

HostGator typically offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee. This means they try to keep your website available and operational nearly all the time.

Wix also offers an average uptime guarantee of 99.8%. They have lesser uptime than HostGator.

Speed

Hostgator has an average response time of 525 ms, which is pretty good.

Note that they have data centers in two locations, one in Utah and one in the US. The LCP ( Largest Contentful Paint ) of websites located in the US is 431ms, which is pretty good, too.

Their average response time might slow down as we go further from the data centers.

Wix websites benefits from better speed optimization due to it’s cloud based infrastructure and a content delivery network (CDN).

Security

HostGator free shared hosting accounts have certain security features guaranteed, including free SSL certificates for secure data transmission, DDoS protection, and server monitoring, as well as access to cPanel tools to manage security settings including password protection and IP blocking.

That being said users are responsible for making their own backups. Regardless of the level of security, having it after your site is hacked is essentially useless.

People on HostGator shared hosting can enhance their security by installing an array of security plugins to add an extra layer of protection, such as for a WordPress site.

Wix aims for built-in security, providing SSL certificates for every website automatically, and handling all server security and updates, without user intervention, thanks to its Cloudflare integration.

This takes care of many of the security maintenance task.  Wix benefits from the security of a dedicated infrastructure, allowing for basically unlimited scalability, which in itself reduces the likelihood of a DDoS attack.

In summary we can see that HostGator leaves more to the user and administration, while Wix makes the whole process simpler by offering robust features right out of the box and performing many automatic updates, making it easier for the average user who is less likely to be familiar with web security.

Website Builder

HostGator is a traditional web hosting company that also provides a basic website builder that is honestly not as good as Wix but sufficient for users who may understand some of the technical aspects of a website.

Similarly, you can have as much or as little control over your site as you want by choosing different content management systems like WordPress and more control through its cPanel.

On the other hand, Wix is a pure play sitebuilder that goes for ease of use, letting you set up a beautiful site in minutes using dozens of templates, all while Wix takes care of hosting, domains, and security. While there may be less room to customize your site with Wix than HostGator.

What hosting services does HostGator provide?

HostGator offers variety of Hosting services including Shared hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, Reseller hosting, Cloud hosting, Dedicated servers, etc.

Customer service

While Hostgator does seem to have 24/7/365 customer support available, there are users that complain about their customer support services being late.

Some users have reported challenges with HostGator’s customer support agents fixing technical issues.

Many users appreciate the availability of support, but there are also complaints about long wait times and the depth of technical knowledge from some agents.

Wix is much more likely to be user-friendly and prompt as far as non-technical problems are concerned, according to some users, and the interface of Wix is also easy to get used to.

You can also find their help center quite comprehensive and useful in helping you address troubleshooting issues by yourself. But they do not offer 24/7 customer service all over the world.

Here’s a photo of the list of time period of their customer services.

Comparison Summary: Hostgator vs Wix

Pricing: Hostgator vs Wix

Here’s a comparison of HostGator and Wix across their low, medium, and top-tier plans:

Low Tier Plans

HostGator: Hatchling Plan ($3.75/month)

• 10 websites
• Bandwidth: Unmetered.
• Storage: You get 10 GB SSD Storage.
• Free SSL Certificate: Yes.
• One-click Installs: Yes.
• Email Accounts: Pro email account included.
• Support: 24/7 support.
• WordPress pre-installed.

Wix: Light Plan ($17/month)

• Domains: 1 website.
• Bandwidth: 2 GB.
• Storage: 2 GB.
• Free SSL Certificate: Yes.
• One-click Installs: Not applicable (Wix is a website builder).
• Email Accounts: Wix Mail (not included, paid separately).
• Support: Limited live chat support (during business hours).

Medium Tier Plans

HostGator: Baby Plan ($4.50/month)

• 20 websites
• Bandwidth: Unmetered.
• Storage: You get 20 GB SSD Storage
• Free SSL Certificate: Yes.
• One-click Installs: Yes.
• Email Accounts: Unlimited email accounts.
• Support: 24/7 support.
• Malware Scanning
• You get Pre–installed WordPress

Wix: Core Plan ($29/month)

• Domains: 1 website.
• Bandwidth: Unlimited.
• Storage: 50 GB.
• Free SSL Certificate: Yes.
• One-click Installs: Not applicable.
• Email Accounts: Wix Mail (not included, paid separately).
• Support: Limited live chat support.

Top Tier Plans

HostGator: Business Plan ($6.25/month)

• 50 websites.
• Bandwidth: Unmetered.
• Storage: You get 50 GB SSD Storage.
• Free SSL Certificate: Yes.
• One-click Installs: Yes.
• Email Accounts: Unlimited email accounts.
• Free Dedicated IP: Yes.
• SEO Tools: Yes.
• Support: 24/7 support.
• You also get Cloudflare CDN.

Wix: Business Elite Plan ($159/month)

• You get unlimited storage space
• Bandwidth: Unlimited.
• Storage: 20 GB.
• Free SSL Certificate: Yes.
• One-click Installs: Not applicable.
• Email Accounts: Wix Mail (not included, paid separately).
• Support: Priority support.

Pricing comparison table:

Summary

• HostGator has cheaper and more affordable options, for example their low tier pan is the hatchling plan which starts with $3.75, which is cheap compared to Wix. But their renewal price seems to get expensive. Hostgator is more suited for those looking for traditional web hosting, especially if you need multiple domains or email accounts. They offer unmetered bandwidth and storage across all plans.
• Wix is known for being expensive. It is ideal for users who prefer an all-in-one website builder with user-friendly design tools. However, it typically has higher pricing for similar features, and the email service is an additional cost.

Choose based on your specific needs—whether you prioritize hosting flexibility (HostGator) or ease of use in building a website (Wix).

Which is the winner in terms of pricing: Hostgator or Wix?

Hostgator is the clear winner when it comes to pricing. It’s cost-effective, especially for people needing shared-hosting services. Unlike Wix, Hostgator has a lower initial cost, But note that their renewal price gets pricey.

While Wix is popular for it’s free and easy to use website builder, it gets quite expensive when you try to buy premium plans.

Conclusion

In summary, HostGator is the better choice for affordability and flexibility, especially for shared hosting and multiple domains, despite some user complaints about support. Wix offers an easy, all-in-one website builder ideal for beginners but can get pricey and is less flexible. If cost and control are priorities, go with HostGator; for ease of use, choose Wix.