Cloudways Wins
Winner
VS
Score Comparison
Criteria
Cloudways
HostGator
Overall Score
8.6
7.7
Performance
9.5
7.5
Features
8.5
8.0
Ease of Use
7.8
8.0
Pricing/Value
8.2
7.5
Support
8.5
7.0
Pricing & Features
Specification
Cloudways
HostGator
Starting Price
$14/mo
$2.75/mo
Pricing Model
Usage-based
Subscription
Making Your Decision
When to Choose Cloudways
Growing businesses and developers who need cloud performance without server management
Cloudways bridges the gap between shared hosting simplicity and cloud performance, offering managed infrastructure on top-tier cloud providers for users who've outgrown traditional hosting.
Strengths
- Managed cloud hosting with major providers (AWS, Google Cloud, DigitalOcean)
- Excellent performance with built-in caching and CDN
- Pay-as-you-go pricing with no long-term contracts
- Free staging environments and easy cloning
Limitations
- Higher starting price than shared hosting
- Email hosting not included (requires third-party)
- Steeper learning curve for beginners
When to Choose HostGator
Budget-conscious users who need generous storage and bandwidth
HostGator offers solid value with unmetered resources and a generous money-back guarantee, though support quality has declined and the checkout experience includes many upsells.
Strengths
- Unmetered bandwidth and storage on most plans
- 45-day money-back guarantee (longer than industry standard)
- Free website builder with hundreds of templates
- Wide range of hosting options from shared to dedicated
Limitations
- Customer support quality has declined over the years
- Backup restoration costs extra on basic plans
- Many add-ons pushed during checkout process
