HostGator vs DreamHost: Customer Support Comparison

It is now time for Round 3 of HostGator vs. DreamHost! This time we’re going to compare both providers’ customer support.

HostGator Customer Support

HostGator provides technical support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can require assistance by contacting them by phone, using their online support ticket system or through live chat. They have a toll free phone number so you it doesn’t cost you a penny to call them.

Aside from technical support, HostGator also have an extensive knowledgebase which holds over 250 articles. Areas of knowledge includes:

• Windows Hosting
• Linux Hosting
• Domain Names
• DNS
• Site Builder & Site Studio
• Billing

To this day, I’ve spoke with the customer support 2 times, one time through live chat and once by phone. On live chat, the wait time was about 6 minutes and once I got to chat with Matthew from the support team, I’ve got an answer within seconds. As for phone support, the wait time was about 2 minutes but I don’t remember the name of the guy I talked to. Anyway they’ve both been very kind and professional.

HostGator also have some nice video tutorials. Some of the topics covered are:

• Setting up email accounts
• How to use cPanel (HostGator’s control panel)
• How to use FTP
• How to use Frontpage
• DNS Management
• Using WHM (Web Host Manager – This applies to reseller and dedicated hosting only).

And if you don’t find an answer to your problem in the knowledge base or video tutorials, you can always head over to the HostGator Peer Support Forums. There are over 16,000 members discussing over different topics like:

• Network Status
• Shared Hosting Support
• Reseller Support
• Linux & Windows Dedicated Servers
• cPanel and WHM

I also think that since HostGator is using cPanel / WHM, it’s pretty to find information about this popular control panel.

DreamHost Customer Support

Unlike HostGator, DreamHost does not provide phone support (or if they provide it, I’ve never been able to find the phone number). Instead they are directing you to their Wiki, support forum, chat room or status page.

DreamHost’s Wiki is fed by their support staff and customers as well. It covers some topics exclusive to DreamHost and some others related to web hosting in general.

Their support forum contains thousands of threads with topics like:

• Beginner’s Forum
• General Troubleshooting
• Web Design
• 3rd Party Software & Scripts
• Multimedia
• E-Commerce
• Programming

DreamHost’s status page gives you information on issues like outages, server move and downtimes.

And if you don’t find an answer in the self-service department (wiki, forum, chat room and status page), you can always create a support ticket and get an answer by email.

So far I’ve contacted them opening a support ticket and it took about 2 hours to get a reply.

DreamHost vs. HostGator Support: The Conclusion

I think that DreamHost really lacks phone and / or live chat support. When my website is down, I don’t wanna go through a gazillion articles while hitting the “Get Mail” button to see if they’ve replied to my support ticket.

And while both providers do have extensive online resources, DreamHost forum and Wiki are kind of messy and lacks organization and intuitivity.

So the Round 3 winner is: HostGator.com