DreamHost vs HostGator: Shared Hosting Features & Pricing

April 15th, 2008 · 4 Comments

This is round 1 of our comparison between DreamHost and HostGator. If you don’t know much about these two web hosting companies, I suggest you read my introduction post here: HostGator vs DreamHost

Shared Hosting Features

Ok so both providers are obviously oversellers and mostly HostGator in this case. What does this mean? It means that they are offering more resources than you’ll be able to use. Sure you’ve got plenty of storage space and bandwidth but they’ll put a cap on how much CPU and memory your website uses as well as the number of file you can host (yes the number of files, not the total disk space used). Anyway I don’t really care if a web host is overselling as long as it doesn’t affect my website’s performance and that I don’t get my account shut down.

That said, let’s compare their shared hosting features:

DreamHost HostGator
Hatchling Plan
HostGator
Baby Plan
HostGator
Swamp Plan
Storage 500gb 350gb 600gb 1,000gb
Bandwidth 5000gb 3000gb 6000gb Unlimited
Domains Allowed Unlimited 1 Unlimited Unlimited
Email Accounts Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
DEVELOPMENT
PHP Yes Yes Yes Yes
Perl Yes Yes Yes Yes
CGI Yes Yes Yes Yes
Ruby On Rails Yes Yes Yes Yes
ASP No No No Chilisoft ASP
MySQL Databases Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
WEBSITE MANAGEMENT
SSH Yes Yes Yes Yes
Cron Jobs Yes Yes Yes Yes
Control Panel Custom cPanel cPanel cPanel
Script Installer Custom Fantastico Deluxe Fantastico Deluxe Fantastico Deluxe
Web Statistics Analog AwStats
&
Webalizer
AwStats
&
Webalizer
AwStats
&
Webalizer
SSL Optional Shared SSL Shared
& Private SSL
Shared
& Private SSL
Shopping Cart Yes Yes Yes Yes
PRICING
Monthly $10.95
+ $49.95 Setup
$8.95
+ $5.00 Setup
$9.95 $14.95
6 Months n/a n/a $59.70 $89.70
12 Months $119.40 $83.40 $119.40 $179.40
24 Months $214.80 $142.80 $214.80 $334.80
36 Months $286.20 $172.20 $286.20 $466.20
60 Months $417.00 n/a n/a n/a
120 Months $714.00 n/a n/a n/a

Both providers offer basically the same features except for HostGator’s Hatchling Plan which does not allow you to host more than a single website.

I have also found out that HostGator provides you with literally hundreds of professional website templates for free which can come in handy if your more or less experienced in web design.

Operating System

Whereas HostGator are using CentOS Linux servers (which is identical to Red Hat Enterprise Linux), DreamHost are running Debian Linux on their servers. No problem there, they are both very good operating system. CentOS might be a little more popular though.

Control Panel

While HostGator uses the ever popular cPanel, DreamHost provides their own custom control panel. In my opinion cPanel is way better than DreamHost’s. I always try to stick with cPanel since it makes it a lot easier to move your website from one host to another.

DreamHost’s web panel could need a redesign (although it’s just been redesigned!) cause it looks sort of messy and lacks intuitivity.


DreamHost Control Panel

HostGator Control Panel

Pricing

HostGator’s Baby Plan is probably the closest plan to DreamHost’s one-size-fits-all plan. And guess what? Their pricing structure is exactly the same except for the monthly billing cycle. Pure coincidence? Anyway I think that it makes no sense on DreamHost’s part to charge a $49.95 setup fee on their monthly billing plan since the account creation is probably all automated.

And if you don’t need to host more than one website, HostGator’s Hatchling Plan is probably the best investment for you.

Conclusion

As far as features goes, I would choose HostGator over DreamHost simply based on the fact that cPanel is way better than DreamHost’s web panel. Less experienced users will also find Fantastico Deluxe really useful and finding support for this script installer is really easy since it’s used by so many web hosts.

As for pricing, I don’t like the fact that DreamHost is charging a $49.95 setup fee which makes this billing cycle pretty useless.

4 responses so far ↓

1. Response by : Brent on Apr 15, 2008 at 1:19 pm

HostGator is definitely better than DreamHost as of lately. Just have a look at http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/ and you’ll see what I mean.

2. Response by : HostGator vs DreamHost: Dedicated Servers Features & Pricing on Apr 30, 2008 at 12:04 am

[...] No Comments It’s now time for round 2 of DreamHost vs HostGator. Last time we’ve compared shared hosting plans but now lets see what both providers offer when it comes to dedicated [...]

3. Response by : Prasinos on Nov 15, 2008 at 3:20 pm

You have an error on your comparison table.
Dreamhost does offer unlimited shell accounts with SSH access (I know it for sure, I am a Dreamhost customer).
Personally I am quite satisfied with Dreamhost, I have only two gripes:
- No Shared SSL (useful for personal sites)
- Difficulty of setting up Django apps

4. Response by : Stephane Brault on Nov 16, 2008 at 10:56 am

Hi Prasinos,

Thank you for your comment. I have corrected the comparison table.

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