Dreamhost or Hostgator - which is better for PHP based websites

Need some opinion based on first hand experience if Hostgator or Dreamhost is better for PHP based websites ( normal PHP, wordpress, Joomla, Drupal etc). The main thing we are looking for is quality of support as well as less down times. We have some experience with hostgator but never used dreamhost.

 

both hostgator and dreamhost are good choice.
both gives 100% uptime and 24/7 support guarantee.
go with dreamhost because you may get good discount coupons for it, google it

or you can try coupon code "50DOLLAROFF4U" for $50 discount on dreamhost hosting.

 

HostGator is with EIG and they are struggling to provide good support and service to their customers. Your requirements can be fulfilled by many web hosting providers. How much disk space and bandwidth you need? What server location you would prefer?

 

I've been with Hostgator for four years, and have used at least ten websites using Wordpress. I haven't faced any major outages or other issues so far. The only downside is that it takes forever (sometimes an hour or more) to get in touch with them if you need live-chat or phone support. As for Dreamhost, their discounts are good, and there's negligible difference between them and Hostgator, but Hostgator still seems to come out on top as most people's choice for the long-term.

 

I had to leave hostgator around 3-4 years ago as their services were incredibly overloaded. What I have learned is avoid any host that offers unlimited as it doesnt exist.

The support at Hostgator was very good and fast but that was only for low level tech issues, and that was long time ago. Anything else for support that was above the standard canned message reply had to be raised by a ticket. 12-14 hours was normal with resolution in around 24-48hours for certain things. Since i left, I have heard numerous times that they have gotten worse, downgraded their hardware and downgraded their support staff.
as for dreamhost, i have never tried them.

 

I use host-gator for a few years got good support jump ship when they change ownership

 

Why limit yourself to just these 2 have you checked out other options?

 

Both of them are very good. Now you can buy a host with 0.01$ first month with hostgator.

 

Wouldn't recommend HostGator, they have gone down hill ever since EIG bought them. (EIG is famous for ruining good companies)

 

Neither of those have even a decent reputation nowadays and one would guess there is a good reason behind that...

The requirements you stated should be covered without any problems by ANY host that calls themselves Reputable. Even installations and basic help in form of tutorials/KB articles is something that you should expect. But then comes the other thing - quality support. This is something that you might struggle to find. My advice (especially if you have at least a little experience with hosting) is to try out the Support via the Live Chat channels and see how they respond. Short and uninformative answers, long waits, constant references to articles and robotic templated answers are a big no-no. And, as many hosts still don't seem to realize that, you can at least easily seed out the bad apples.

Lurking around, I have found that for hosting related issues and questions, WebHostingTalk.com is still the best go-to for help. They have an Offers section so you can find many mid-sized hosts that are WAY better than Hostgator and Dreamhost so you can easily build a shortlist of possible partners and then you can dive in to test their Support too before you make an ultimate decision

 

HostGator is good hosting. The uptime is good as well as they have 45 days money back guaranty.

You can also avail 25% discount in any of their hosting plan. Use the coupon code: " RSWSHG25POFF ".

 

I'm moving my dynamic sites off of Dreamhost, as I have had too many crashes, and tech support isn't as good as they used to be. Plus, in order to have a reasonably secure WordPress-based site, they want you to pay them extra each month. Dreamhost is good for straight HTML stuff but I don't want to invest much in any dynamic sites there. I don't know about Hostgator though, since I've never used them.

 

Last I heard of hostgator they sold out to some big company who isnt doing the best job. Dreamhost has been around a long time and all accounts have everything you need as far as shell, sql, etc; Hostgator is just cpanel.

 

Any web host you pick -- you need to have two things:

1. Some sort of brute force protection. Our favoriate is our server mod_security, but for shared accounts on other hosts try Wordpress' "Limit Login Attempts".
2. Caching -- We recommend WP Super Cache if you have simple Wordpress sites (make sure you configure it properly).
3. Caching of non-Wordpress CMS' - Joomla, Drupal, etc. You'll have to Google how to activate caching on those CMS' ... always use file system or file based caching as most shared hosts don't include opcode caches like xcache or APC.
4. Keep good backups... you'll need them one day.

 

Look for a minimum uptime of 99%. In fact, even 99% is actually too low - it really should be 99.5% or higher. The host should provide some sort of refund (eg prorated refund or discount) if it falls below that figure.

 

try staying away from EIG hosts they are all same with different names.
here is a list of affordable hosting I've just compiled.
https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/list-of-cheapest-web-hosting-that-does-not-suck.2739699/

 

Have you used all of those or how did you gather those impressions? And its not really a "list" as it just has 7-8 hosts, separated in a few categories. I can seriously argue with the quality of half of those, but its really a matter of personal preference.

P.S. Arvixe is an EIG host too