Hosting - Why I Prefer HostGator to GoDaddy

Like most people, I started doing business with GoDaddy a long time ago, when I first started registering Domain names. Actually, my first domain—sliker.com in 1997—was done through Network Solutions, who I think had a monopoly back then. But like most people, when GoDaddy came out with $9.99 domains it was irresistible. Since then I have had hundreds of domain registrations and renewals at GoDaddy, and two different hosting accounts for my various customer sites and my own Web properties.

While I still host my domains their, I left Godaddy hosting for HostGator In 2007, when I first got turned on to Drupal. GoDaddy has a very unorthodox hosting system and does not support standard tools such as CPanel and Web Host Manager (WHM) for managing LAMP hosting. (LAMP is an acronym for Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP, which is the open source platform that Drupal runs on. At the time I left, the only way to install and run Drupal was using Fantastico, which was very limiting. Since then, they’ve improved their Drupal support—I recent did a job for [county bounty] and created a Drupal Multi-site on GoDaddy’s hosting system. It worked out fine, but it was difficult due to the odd programs and interfaces we had to use.

The other reason I was glad to leave GoDaddy was due to the company’s marketing and the general attitude of the owner, Bob Parsons. When I want to login and check on my domains, I don’t want to feel like I’m checking in to a strip club. Now granted, there is no pornography or nudity on the site, but there is a lot of scantily clad women and a general attitude that makes me feel kind of … dirty. I would just prefer not to participate, or limit my participation to a bare minimum.

Meanwhile… HostGator has been great! They have great service. Their ticketing system and engineers are top notch. Their phone support is very good. And I love the online chat support—I can talk to a tech support agent via chat at any time of day or night. The HostGator experience has been all good, and I highly recommend them for your Drupal hosting.