Hosting Tutorial & Guide
HostGator VS A Small Orange – Which Is the Better Web Host
Both HostGator and A Small Orange are followed by millions of webmasters around the world, but which is the better web host? To make it clear, we have reviewed their shared hosting plans on price, feature, uptime, speed and technical support deeply and browsed a large amount of real customer reviews. Based on our real hosting experience and the verified feedbacks, we have worked out an impartial comparison between the 2 companies. In addition, we have developed the following table to show the ratings of some important aspects of their services, such as price, feature, loading speed, uptime, support, etc. Learn details in below.
| Rating |  |  |
|---|---|---|
| Plan in Comparison | Hatchling Plan | Tiny Plan |
| Price | ||
| Feature | ||
| Loading Speed | ||
| Uptime | ||
| Support | ||
| Read More | HostGator Review | A Small Orange Review |
About HostGator
HostGator steps into this industry since the year of 2002. With years of growth and efforts, this web host now has won a large number of industry awards for their offered service. They simply raise the bar when considering the web hosting for technical support, reliability and hosting speed. Even, this web host has received the recommendation that acknowledges their reliability and dependability on some niches such as WordPress, bloggers, Joomla and many more.At present, there are around 500 HostGator staffs who have already addressed more than 5 million live chats, along with thousands of calls and emails on a daily basis. Since June, 2012, HostGator even has become one of the famous brands of EIG.
About A Small Orange
A Small Orange was found in the year of 2003 in Atlantic, with the aim of delivering the most reliable hosting service along with the best possible support service. At present, this web host has grown to be a famous hosting provider that offers the services to tens of thousands of webmasters all over the world.As researched, we can conclude that A Small Orange is not the common web hosting provider you can find online. They never offer the so-called “unlimited packages” that actually may require you to take the costly upgrade for meeting your needs and expectations. Instead, they only require you to pay for the server resources, features and the support service that you need.
Plans & Price
HostGator has released 3 shared hosting packages to enable customers to choose the most suitable one according to their current preference. These plans are named as Hatchling, Baby and Business, and priced at $4.76/mo, $7.16/mo and $11.16/mo with a 20% discount by default, but customers who subscribe any of the plans by activating coupon HG45PERCENT are able to get a 25% additional discount and cut the price down to $3.82/mo, $5.47/mo and $8.22/mo.
What's more, this company guarantees 45 days full money back and anytime prorated money back to enable customers to ask for a full refund if they cancel their accounts in the first 45 days and a prorated refund after that period, which means customers are capable of putting their money in safe. Besides, this provider supports both credit cards and PayPal. Therefore, the purchase is safe and easy.HostGator Promotional Link Activation
A Small Orange provides 5 different shared hosting solutions for customers to set up personal or business websites. These plans are named as Tiny, Small, Medium, Large and Super, starting from $2.92/mo, $5/mo, $10/mo, $20/mo and $30/mo. In addition to the huge discount, each of the plans comes with anytime prorated money back guarantee, just as those from another company.
Feature
The shared hosting solutions from the 2 web hosts share a lot of similarities. The most significant one is that both of them adopt cPanel as control panel, which is recognized as the most famous and easy-to-use control panel. Thus, all customers are able to manage every aspect related to their websites and accounts with the least effort being made. Besides, a 1-click script installer is integrated with the control panels, which makes customers install any of 100+ widely-used applications with a few clicks, within 1 minute.However, there are also many differences in storage, monthly data transfer, email accounts, hosted domains, and so on. To help our readers know the detailed feature information, we have made the following comparison table. HostGator Hatchling plan and A Small Orange Tiny plan are selected for their similar price.
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Plan In Review | Hatchling Plan | Tiny Plan |
| Data Transfer | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Control Panel | cPanel | cPanel |
| 1-Click Installer | ||
| SSH | ||
| Shared SSL | ||
| Python | ||
| PHP 5 | ||
| Perl | ||
| FTP Access | ||
| Free Backups | ||
| Anytime Refund | ||
| Regular Price | ||
| Discount | 45% | N/A |
| Discount Price | $3.82/mo | $2.92/mo |
| How to Claim | Link Activation | - |
Uptime & Speed
HostGator has been housing hundreds of high performance Dell servers in multiple peerless SoftLayer data centers for a couple of years, which makes their customers have the ability to utilize one of the world's best facilities to power the hosted websites. In addition, each data center is equipped with redundant power, HVAC, fire detection/suppression systems and cooling systems. All the first-class facilities enable this company to deliver solid uptime – 99.98% on average. Read the following statistics chart to learn the real-time uptime of HostGator in the past 30 days.
A Small Orange guarantees 99.9% uptime for their customers to run websites smoothly and stably. To fulfill this commitment, they maintain state-of-the-art hosting facilities. They are utilizing multiple data centers with climate control, fire suppression, redundant power batteries and diesel generators. According to our monitoring result, the uptime of this web host in the past 30 days in 99.96% averagely.
HostGator system administrators are monitoring the servers and data centers 24x7, so that they are able to find and resolve any issues before they become serious. Furthermore, websites hosted on any of its platforms are accessible via a fully meshed redundant certified Cisco network and other 9 backbone and fiber providers. Our monitoring result shows that the server response time of it is 338ms. Learn detailed information about its server response time as follows.
The shared hosting environments of A Small Orange are featured with low concentrations in order to provide customers with faster loading speed. In addition, technicians are available in their data centers around the clock, and they are constantly implementing new procedures and technology to maintain the cutting edge. According to our monitoring result, the server response time of it is 548ms.
Technical Support
In terms of customer service, both HostGator and A Small Orange offer a high standard of technical support through toll-free phone call, email and live chat. All the support staffs are professional, experienced and on-site 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so that they are able to respond quickly and provide instant and effective help.Moreover, in the companies' knowledgebase, support representatives have worked out thousands of how-to's and useful guidance about hosting. In addition, in the forums, customers are able to discuss the quality hosting plans and ask for help from other clients. Moreover, in the knowledgebase of HostGator, there are hundreds of detailed video tutorials to teach customers how to resolve common issues.