LiquidWeb vs HostGator 2021 Hosting Comparison

HostGator and Liquid Web are 2 of the most reputed web hosts in the industry, but which is the better Linux hosting provider? The answer can be found in the following comparison we worked out based on our in-depth review on their Linux hosting service from price, feature, reliability, performance and technical support.

We have been with the 2 companies for more than 6 months and browsed a pile of customer reviews. Therefore, this comparison is promised to be unbiased. Besides, according to our hosting experience and the verified feedbacks, we have made the following ratings on some important factors as below.

Plans & Price

As one of the most reliable web hosts, HostGator has released 3 shared Linux hosting plans named as Hatchling, Baby and Business. The regular price of the plans stars from $3.96/mo, $6.36/mo and $10.36/mo with 20% discount by default, but visitors who subscribe this service by activating the coupon BWH25Percent are able to get a 5% additional discount and cut the price down to $3.71/mo, $5.96/mo and $9.71/mo.

In addition to the compelling discount, this company provides a lot of extra benefits, such as 1 free domain name for 1 year, 45 days full money back guarantee, anytime prorated money back guarantee, 4,500 free website templates, 52 free scripts, free Weebly site builder, and $100 Google advertising credits.

To enable customers to choose the most proper one according to their current budget and needs, Liquid Web provides 4 different shared Linux hosting solutions that are named as Standard, Webmaster, Professional and Semi-dedicated and priced at $14.95/mo, $19.95/mo, $24.95/mo and $40/mo. Each of the plans comes with more than 1 free domain name for 1 year.

Feature

When it comes to hosting feature, HostGator and Liquid Web share a lot of similarities, such as unlimited email accounts and MySQL databases. Additionally, the Linux hosting plans from the 2 companies are all integrated with cPanel and 1-click script installer to ensure the account management and CMS installation are easy for every webmaster, even newbies.

What’s more, SSH is offered to guarantee the remote management is secure. However, there are also many differences between the plans. Learn the detailed feature information in the following comparison table. Plans in review are HostGator Business Plan and Liquid Web Standard Plan.

Reliability

Having been in the industry for more than 10 years, HostGator has never disappointed any of their customers in uptime. This company houses their hundreds of high performance servers in multiple SoftLayer data centers ranging from 22,000 to more than 78,000 square feet. All the data centers are featured with redundant power, HVAC and fire detection/suppression systems to ensure that all servers stay cool, secure and on-line all the time.

Besides, engineers and technicians are monitoring the data centers and servers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so that they are able to find and resolve any sudden issue once it arises, which ensures customers are able to run websites without any sudden interruption. According to our monitoring result, in the last months, the uptime of this company is 99.98% on average. Learn the real-time uptime of the past 30 days in the following chart.

Liquid Web utilizes 3 first-class data centers in Michigan, each of which possesses multiple emergency generators featuring over 24 hours of autonomous runtime before requiring refueling. Each generator is test run with minimal once a week to ensure they are ready in the event they are needed. In addition, they have level 3 technicians on-site 24 hours per day, minimizing the time that incidents responses.

Moreover, each of their data centers is safeguarded by one or more UPS, featuring full maintenance bypass cabinets and redundant battery cabinets allowing for service and upgrades without interruption of power to their servers. All the top facilities and infrastructures achieved a good reliability. Our monitoring result shows that Liquid Web uptime is 99.94% averagely.

Performance

In terms of uptime, both companies make their customers very satisfied. In these months, we have been running our websites hosted with them rapidly. All the servers HostGator uses are 100 factory-tested Dell servers. In addition, the sites hosted with this host are accessible via a fully meshed and redundant certified Cisco network and other 9 backbone and fiber providers, including AT&T/SBC, Level3, MCI, etc.

Liquid Web has selected premium Tier-1 bandwidth providers, ensuring minimal latency and fast connections to all points of the global Internet. In addition, the host features the direct connectivity with Cogent, Level 3, Global Crossing, Verizon & Comcast. Their aggregate connectivity reaches an astounding 8,500+ network just a single network away from their up-links.

According to our monitoring result, in these months, the server response time of HostGator is 338ms, while that of its competitor is 523ms. Read the following chart to learn HostGator server response time of the past 30 days.

Technical Support

Both HostGator and Liquid Web offer a high level of technical support carried out by hundreds of support staffs through toll-free phone call, email and live chat, all of who are professional, experienced, knowledgeable and on-site 24×7, so that they are capable of helping customers to deal with any hosting issue quickly and effectively.

What’s more, technicians and engineers have developed a large amount of helpful articles and detailed tutorials in the knowledgebase, from which customers are able to find the answers of frequently asked questions to resolve their problems.

Conclusion

According to the comparison above, both HostGator and Liquid Web provide easy-to-use and reliable Linux hosting service, and quality technical support. However, the service from the former company is much more affordable and a little faster than that from the later one. Therefore, HostGator is better in Linux hosting service.