Dreamhost vs. HostGator (HostGator is Better)

June 18, 2009//,

I have been a Dreamhost customer for a few years now, and wasn’t completely satisfied with their service.  Here’s why:

  1. Dreamhost’s servers are slow (a.k.a. web pages take forever to load).  Actually, I have read that not ALL of their servers are slow, BUT definitely the server that I am on is slow.
  2. Dreamhost Support sometimes takes 16-24 hours to respond to support tickets.  Sometimes they respond faster, sometimes slower – there is no rhyme or reason to it.

So, I decided to try HostGator to see if they are any better.  They are.  Here is why:

  1. Their servers are FAST!  …at least the server I am on is fast.  How fast?  Well, a page that might take 10 seconds to load on Dreamhost takes about 5 seconds to load on HostGator.  I don’t know why this is, I only know this is.
  2. HostGator offers 24/7 support via chat!  This is awesome.  I have already used their 24/7 chat support 3 times with great results.

One limitation of HostGator is their administrative back end control panel (cPanel), which totally sucks compared to Dreamhost’s homegrown control panel.  cPanel is not intuitive.  Dreamhost’s control panel is intuitive.

Also, Hostgator doesn’t allow you to turn off the main ftp account (this is a scary security flaw).

So, those are my totally unscientific opinions.  If I had to choose one or the other, I would definitely go with HostGator based on the speed of their servers.  BUT if you can get on a fast Dreamhost server, I would probably go with them since they offer more flexibility in their control panel.

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3 Comments

  1. malbiniak on June 21, 2009 at 8:46 am

    you shoulda asked dreamhost to move you to a new server. been with them 3+ years, never going anywhere else…although i’m hearing pleasantries about webfaction.com.

    toodles,
    @malbiniak



  2. Toby on June 21, 2009 at 8:54 am

    Matt,
    You can do that?! I’m going to ask, and I’ll let you know the result.

    Thanks!!
    Toby



  3. me on October 29, 2009 at 11:20 pm

    Both of them are have almost same offer, but I agree that dreamhost use their own control panel, although it running little bit slow for control panel, but the server is still fast for me. My website can be open faster. Well this is only my personal opinion



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