AWS is one of the largest cloud hosting services in the world. It offers 150+ cloud services and is used by some of the largest internet companies, such as Netflix, Airbnb, Apple, etc. Hostgator is one of the top budget hosting service providers. It offers dedicated, cloud, VPS, and shared hosting services with an uptime guarantee of over 99.9%. Is AWS better than Hostgator or vice versa? Which company has more affordable subscriptions? Let’s find it out!
Plans
Although anyone can use AWS, Amazon Web Services is more suited to people with knowledge of Linux, frameworks, SQL commands, and programming languages. Although this cloud hosting service provider lets you install the WP application with the help of GUI, you will have to find a pre-configured machine on the marketplace, choose and configure the instance, and select the storage. Every individual thing you choose on AWS is chargeable i.e. Amazon Web Services charges for inbound/outbound data transfer, storage, and instance. If you use the Amazon Route 53 DNS, your bill will include the DNS zone charge. You can reduce your AWS bill by reserving your instance for 1 to 3 years and choosing the partial/full upfront method.
AWS provides 1000s of plans and various types of servers. To make the selection of the plans easier, it has launched a pricing calculator utility that shows the estimated cost of services you’re planning to buy. The company’s servers are grouped into these categories – small, medium, tiny, and large. You’ll find servers with hundreds of CPU cores and 1000s of GBs of RAM and servers with less than 1GB of RAM and a single-core processor on AWS. The servers belonging to the small category cost significantly lower than servers belonging to the large category. Medium servers are priced moderately.
Hostgator has introduced 15 to 20 hosting packages in these categories – shared, VPS, cloud, dedicated, and reseller. Its shared and cloud hosting plans ship with cPanel. Unlike AWS, where each item is charged, this firm offers servers with a fixed amount of storage, RAM, and processor. The company also provides unlimited bandwidth and storage memory. There’s no concept of upfront costs in Hostgator, but the company offers a 60 to 70% discount on 3-year plans and 20 to 30% discount on annual packages, and a little discount on the monthly subscription.
Free tier and support
AWS has a free tier pack wherein the customers get 750 hours of instance usage at no cost (1-hour daily usage, 12 hours usage for six months, 24 hours usage for a month). You’ll also get 5GB storage memory which you can use for 12 months with your instance. HG has not launched a free plan or offers a free trial, but the company has a nice 45 days money-back policy.
Hostgator offers live chat support. Live chat support is something that most shared hosting companies provide to their customers these days. Like HG, AWS lets users chat with their technical experts. Users can also call the customer support team and get help.
Marketplace
Unlike HG, Amazon Web Services gives its users access to a marketplace. You can filter the marketplace results by vendor, delivery method, etc. In the marketplace, you will find machines that ship with the software you want to use. Marketplace saves time as you don’t have to waste time installing a web server, application server, or any other software.
Hostgator doesn’t have a marketplace yet, but it gives users access to a tool called Softaculous, with which they can install various popular open-source applications such as WordPress, Drupal, phpBB, etc, with a few clicks of a button.
Datacenters
Now, let’s talk about regions. HG has data centers only in the United States. Amazon Web Services has several data centers across the globe. While buying a hosting plan from a company, if you choose the data center near the users, the website speed for these users will be great.
Backups
If you’re using HG shared hosting service, you can create a backup of the DB or website files with the help of the cPanel tool. HG will automatically create a backup of your website every week if you’re using the company’s cloud or VPS hosting service. Users using AWS must create a backup of the DB or files manually by logging in to the server via SSH and running Linux commands or creating a snapshot of the system. Snapshots are chargeable.
Email accounts
Hostgator enables you to create unlimited email addresses with the help of GUI if you’re using their VPS/cloud/shared hosting service. You can create unlimited email addresses with Amazon Web Services manually by using Dovecot and Postfix.
Free domain
Hostgator Cloud and Shared hosting plans ship with a free top-level domain. You must enter the domain you want to register for during the checkout process. AWS doesn’t offer a free domain to its users.
Closing words: AWS is an excellent option for people who can manage their Linux/Windows servers with a command-line interface. People without experience working with a Linux server/web server/database server should use Hostgator.
