HostGator vs Web.com: Comprehensive comparison guide for 2024

Final verdict

HostGator and Web.com offer distinct advantages, catering to different user needs and preferences.

• 
  HostGator (Overall Grade: 6.2/10)
  
  excels with its user-friendly website builder, extensive template selection, and robust hosting solutions. It’s particularly strong in design functionalities, ease of use, and hosting quality, making it a solid choice for users looking for a comprehensive package that includes both website building and hosting capabilities. However, it falls short in areas like AI capabilities and marketing features, where Web.com takes the lead.
• 
  Web.com (Overall Grade: 5.8/10)
  
  stands out for its AI-driven website builder, comprehensive marketing tools, and superior security features. It offers a more accessible set of marketing tools across its packages and a suite of AI capabilities that simplify the website creation process. While it may not match HostGator’s template variety or hosting performance, Web.com is a strong contender for users prioritizing marketing and security in their website projects.

Best for ecommerce

Verdict

: With identical scores for ecommerce, HostGator and Web.com offer distinct advantages depending on the specific needs of an online store.

• 
  HostGator
  
  : Boasts a variety of ecommerce features like unlimited products, multi-channel inventory management, and shipping labels. Its platform is designed to cater to businesses looking for a comprehensive set of tools to manage their online store efficiently.
• 
  Web.com
  
  : Focuses on ease of use and quick setup with features like product listing, marketing tools, and payment gateway integration. It’s suited for users who prioritize simplicity and straightforward ecommerce capabilities.

Best for informational & business websites

Verdict

: HostGator is better suited for informational and business websites, offering superior design flexibility, hosting options, and website speed optimization. Web.com, while strong in security, falls slightly behind in overall performance for this category.

• 
  HostGator
  
  : HostGator shines with its extensive template library and customization options, making it ideal for businesses looking to create a professional online presence. Its robust hosting solutions and effective website speed optimization tools further enhance its suitability for informational websites.
• 
  Web.com
  
  : Web.com offers a user-friendly platform with a focus on mobile responsiveness and SEO tools, making it a viable option for businesses aiming to improve their online visibility. However, it lacks the design flexibility and hosting performance that HostGator provides, making it a secondary choice for those prioritizing these aspects.

Detailed comparison

Winner: HostGator.

If you’re looking for a platform that offers a wide variety of templates and significant customization flexibility, HostGator is the preferred choice.

HostGator website builder provides a substantial variety of design templates, catering to different user needs and preferences. It offers over 200 different mobile-friendly themes. Additionally, there’s a separate collection of 4,500 templates available for free download to users hosting their sites on HostGator servers, which are not interchangeable with the site builder’s own templates. This vast collection ensures that users have a wide range of design options to choose from, whether they seek simplicity for a professional presence or more intricate designs for complex websites.

Compared to HostGator, Web.com offers over 100 website templates designed to cater to a broad spectrum of industries and personalization needs. These templates are structured to be straightforward in customization, allowing users to easily adapt their chosen designs to suit their unique brand identity through the platform’s editor. The variety encompasses categories ranging from business and services to creative arts, ensuring users can find a fitting base for their website regardless of their field or interest. However, while the platform facilitates template customization and offers numerous pre-made layouts, it may not provide the most advanced features for all customization desires.

Web.com Themes

🏆 Winner: HostGator

. With a score of 8.0, HostGator’s website builder, Gator, is praised for its user-friendly interface and simplicity, making it a great choice for beginners and small businesses. On the other hand, Web.com, scoring 6.4, offers a feature-rich editor and customizable templates, but it might not be the best fit for those seeking a quick and simple website setup.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Web.com

. Both platforms offer a range of learning resources, but Web.com stands out with its AI-powered tools and comprehensive knowledge base, designed to assist users in building and managing their websites.

When it comes to ecommerce, both HostGator and Web.com offer features that can help businesses sell products online. However, they differ in the extent and depth of their ecommerce capabilities.

HostGator ecommerce features:

• Secure Online Payments
• Unlimited Products
• Product Search & Filtering
• Wishlists & Gift Cards
• Multi-Channel Inventory Management
• Shipping Labels

Web.com ecommerce features:

• Product listing
• Marketing Features
• Shipping options
• Payment Gateways integration

Ecommerce themes & templates

HostGator’s website builder caters to eCommerce needs by offering a broad selection of free templates, all designed with mobile responsiveness in mind. These templates are equipped with essential eCommerce features such as product catalogs and payment processing options. The platform is user-friendly, enabling users to effortlessly create professional-looking online stores tailored to their specific requirements, all without the need for any coding knowledge.

Web.com provides around 15 ecommerce templates designed to help businesses quickly launch and customize their online stores, emphasizing ease of use, cost-effectiveness, and professional design. These templates are compatible with Web.com’s website builder, facilitating straightforward customization and integration for digital storefronts.

Product page customization

HostGator Website Builder offers basic features for customizing product pages, enabling users to add products with details such as name, price, description, and images. It supports product variants and categorization to enhance customer navigation. Advanced settings include inventory management, discount options, and the ability to set products as shippable or downloadable.

Web.com’s website builder offers a suite of tools for e-commerce stores, including product category management for organizing inventory and improving navigation, and product listing features for adding detailed product information and images. Users can create and manage product variants to accommodate items with multiple options, enhancing the customer shopping experience. The platform also supports various fulfillment types, allowing store owners to specify shipping or pickup options.

Payment processing

HostGator Website Builder integrates with PayPal as a payment gateway for processing transactions. The platform charges a 3% transaction fee on Express Store and Express Site plans, no transaction fees are charged on higher Express Store plan.

The Web.com website builder facilitates eCommerce activities by supporting popular payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and all major debit and credit cards, ensuring a wide array of payment options for customers. Details on transaction commissions, particularly whether Web.com imposes additional fees on transactions processed through these gateways, were not clearly stated in the reviewed sources. Typically, the payment gateways themselves may charge transaction fees; however, the presence of any supplementary commissions from Web.com remains unspecified.

🏆

Winner: HostGator

. With a score of 7.3, HostGator’s website builder offers a user-friendly drag-and-drop editor, enabling users to easily create and customize their websites without needing any coding knowledge. It provides a wide range of templates that are fully customizable, allowing for the personalization of layouts, colors, and fonts to match the user’s brand identity.

Web.com’s website builder, scoring 6.6, offers a user-friendly platform with a variety of templates and a drag-and-drop interface for easy customization. However, it has some creative limitations due to its row-based layout. It supports basic e-commerce capabilities suitable for small businesses, alongside features like analytics, social media integration, and email services.

Mobile editor/app

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Winner: HostGator

. Neither HostGator nor Web.com offer a dedicated mobile editor app. However, HostGator allows for some small changes using a mobile browser, giving it a slight edge over Web.com in this category. This feature can be beneficial for users who need to make quick updates or changes to their website on the go. On the other hand, Web.com does not provide any information about mobile editing capabilities, making HostGator the better choice for mobile editing.

Overall Result

:

HostGator Wins

. HostGator scores 2.6, significantly higher than Web.com’s 0.2. HostGator does not offer a free or trial version, but it allows users to test all features within a 30-day refundable period. Web.com, on the other hand, does not provide any options for testing the features of the website builder before purchasing any of their plans.

Web.com has a higher price score, indicating better value for money compared to HostGator.

Winner: HostGator

. HostGator offers a variety of hosting types, including shared, managed WordPress, VPS, and dedicated hosting, with unlimited storage and bandwidth. It also provides an uptime guarantee of 99.9%. On the other hand, Web.com offers shared hosting with unlimited storage but does not provide uptime statistics or guarantees, and does not disclose the locations of its data centers.

🏆 Winner: HostGator

Both HostGator and Web.com have strategies in place for website speed optimization, but HostGator edges out Web.com with a slightly higher website speed optimization score.

HostGator provides a variety of tools and strategies for website speed optimization, including browser caching and content delivery networks (CDN). They also provide guidance on understanding and improving Core Web Vitals (CWV) for websites, with an emphasis on Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) improvements. However, both load times and PageSpeed scores can vary widely, depending on the optimization, website complexity, and the chosen hosting plan.

On the other hand, Web.com focuses on mobile-optimized design, code minification, caching, and image optimization for website speed optimization. However, they do not provide any information on their Core Web Vitals improvements. Like HostGator, their load times and PageSpeed scores also vary depending on optimization and website complexity.

🏆 Winner: HostGator.

With a score of 7.3, HostGator offers a wider range of plugins, known as apps, that cater to diverse needs such as advertising, website analytics, integrating social media, managing appointments, and conducting email marketing. Web.com, scoring 6.7, also provides a suite of plugins and integrations, but HostGator’s broader range of functionalities gives it the edge.

It’s worth noting that while both platforms offer free options, some plugins may require a monthly subscription or one-time purchase on HostGator, and more sophisticated features or premium plugins on Web.com might require an upgrade to higher-tier plans or involve additional fees.

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Overall Winner: Web.com

. Web.com offers a more comprehensive and accessible set of marketing tools across its packages, while HostGator’s marketing features are only available on higher plans.

🏆 Winner: It’s a tie

. Both HostGator and Web.com scored 7.3 in customer support. They both offer 24/7 support through various channels including email, live chat, and phone. However, neither of them provides specific support for enterprises. This means that both builders are equally equipped to handle customer inquiries and issues, ensuring users can get the help they need at any time.

🏆

Winner: Web.com

. Both HostGator and Web.com take security seriously, offering a range of features to protect user data and websites. However, Web.com edges out HostGator with a slightly higher security score and a more comprehensive suite of security features.

HostGator provides robust security measures, including SiteLock for malware scanning, custom firewall rules, and regular password audits. However, website owners are responsible for aspects such as password security and updating applications.

On the other hand, Web.com offers a more comprehensive security package, including website staging environments, email solutions, and a partnership with SiteLock Security for cloud-based security services. They also offer SSL certificates, website backup solutions, and cybersecurity measures for mobile devices and tablets.

🏆 Winner: Web.com

. Web.com, with a score of 7.3, offers a comprehensive suite of AI capabilities, including an AI website builder, AI ecommerce features, AI content generation, and additional AI features like the AI Domain Generator and AI Logo Builder. These features are designed to simplify the website creation process and make it accessible to users regardless of their technical skills.

HostGator, with a score of 2.6, has relatively basic AI capabilities and does not offer AI ecommerce features or AI content generation. Its AI capabilities are mainly focused on its new website builder, which incorporates AI technologies. However, these features are still in their early stages and are not as comprehensive as those offered by Web.com.

🏆 Winner: Web.com

. Both HostGator and Web.com offer multiple user accounts, but Web.com provides more detailed information about user roles and access levels.

• HostGator mentions the possibility to have multiple users for its hosting solutions, but there’s no mention whether these users have the permission to edit the websites built with their website builder.
• Web.com allows multiple user accounts, however the platform does not specify how many accounts are supported.

Web.com User Roles and Access Levels:

Additional Features

User Feedback

HostGator’s website builder receives mixed reviews from users, highlighting both its strengths and areas for improvement. Users appreciate the platform for its ease of use, making it accessible even for novices to build professional-looking websites, and for its range of web services that facilitate website creation and management, including domain registration and SSL certificates. However, concerns are raised regarding its customer support, which is often described as slow or unresponsive, potentially impacting users requiring timely assistance. Additionally, some users find the pricing structure to be high, particularly for small-scale developers or those needing only basic services.

Unfortunately, there is no user feedback available for Web.com’s website builder at this time. Therefore, a direct comparison of user experiences between the two platforms cannot be made.

FAQ