HostGator vs Rochen Comparison Guide

Comparison Details

HostGator and Rochen are pretty different. HostGator appeals to a broader customer base with affordable plans and well-rounded hosting. Rochen appeals to a narrower customer base with premium services and business class hosting.

Company Info

There is a pretty wide margin between these two companies in terms of size and customer base. HostGator is a lot larger and appeals to more people. Rochen is smaller and appeals to a narrower crowd.

HostGator

HostGator is a large company which appeals to budget-following website developers. They offer great entry level shared server plans with the option to scale up to dedicated hosting.

They were founded in 2002, they have over 850 employees, and they are located in Houston and Austin, Texas. They have over 400,000 customers and over 9,000,000 domains. They have datacenters in Provo, Utah; Austin, and Houston Texas.

Rochen

Rochen is a small company which appeals to business owners and serious website developers. They offer premium level entry plans and sophisticated dedicated server setups.

They were founded in 2000, They have an undisclosed number of employees and they are located in Dundee, UK. I don’t have data on how many websites they host or the number of customers they have. Their data center is located in Dallas, Texas.

2. Plans and Pricing

You will get more for your money at HostGator while Rochen is going to cost more. HostGators plans start a much lower price and scale up to more customized options. Rochen starts off at a premium cost and scales up to high end dedicated servers.

HostGator

Shared Hosting

• Hatchling plan – $3.96/Mo. unlimited diskspace, bandwidth, emails, databases, and 1 domain
• Baby plan – $6.36/Mo. unlimited diskspace, bandwidth, emails, databases, and domains.
• Business Plan – $10.96/Mo. unlimited diskspace, bandwidth, emails, databases, and domains. Free SSL & IP and Toll Free Number.

VPS Hosting

• Entry plan – VPS Level 1 – $19.95/Mo. 10GB space, 250GB bandwidth, unlimited domains, email and databases.
• Top plan – VPS Level 9 – $219.95/Mo. 231GB space, 3150 bandwidth, unlimited domains, email and databases.

Dedicated Hosting

• Entry plan – Basic Dedicated Server – $174/Mo. 500GB RAID-1 space, 10TB bandwidth, unlimited domains, email, and databases, 5 free dedicated IP’s.
• Top plan – Pro Dedicated Server – $374/Mo. 1TB RAID-1 space, 10TB bandwidth, unlimited domains, email and databases, 5 free dedicated IP’s.

Discounts for paying upfront

• For shared hosting plans you can get a $1 removed from your monthly payment by signing up for two years or $2 removed by signing up for three years.
• For VPS plans, the first month is reduced which gives you a varying discount.
• For dedicated, the first month is reduced which gives you 20% off the original price.

Rochen

Shared Hosting

• Plan 1 – $8.95/Mo. for 1GB RAID10 storage, 50GB bandwidth, 1 domain
• Plan 2 – $12.95/Mo. for 3GB RAID10 storage, 100GB bandwidth, 3 domain
• Plan 3 – $24.95/Mo. for 5GB RAID10 storage, 150GB bandwidth, 5 domain

VPS Hosting

• Plan 1 – $149.95/Mo. for 30GB RAID10 storage, 1GB RAM, 400GB bandwidth, cPanel.
• Scaling up options – Every extra 1GB storage is $10/Mo., 1GB bandwidth is $0.50/Mo., 128MB is $10/Mo.

Dedicated Hosting

• Entry level – $399.95/Mo. Plus $99.95 setup fee. 4GB RAM, Quad Core Processor, 500GB RAID1 storage (plus backup).
• Custom – call for price

3. Control Panel and User Experience

cPanel is the control panel for both HostGator and Rochen. HostGator has a better design and it is integrated better with the billing and account management areas. Rochen’s control panel looks pretty out of date and the account and billing areas are not that easy to use.

HostGator

You won’t find much alteration from the classic cPanel look at HostGator, most of it looks the same. A lot of the original cPanel icons are still used.

Finding your way around is pretty simple, but it can take a few minutes to get used to.

Rochen

The cPanel at Rochen isn’t much better. Both of these cPanel’s are pretty out of date looking. They use a lot of the classic icons as well.

Navigating through the control panel is about the same as HostGator, but it’s not as easy to find your way through the account and billing sections.

4. Installing and Managing WordPress

Both HostGator and Rochen provide you with helpful applications to handle to the process. HostGator uses QuickInstall and Rochen uses Fantastico.

HostGator

The easiest way to install WordPress at HostGator is by using the QuickInstall one-click installer. QuickInstall is HostGator’s proprietary software that makes it easy to install and keep up with your WordPress installations.

I prefer to install WordPress using the manual method. You can do that using HostGator as well with tools like FTP and MySQL Databases. This gives you more control over the files and databases.

Managing WordPress can be done using the same tools, FTP and MySQL Databases plus a few others like phpMyAdmin, file manager and backups.

Rochen

At Rochen the easiest way to install WordPress is through Fantastico. It only takes a couple of clicks and you are set up and ready to go. The one downside to using Fantastico is it is sometimes out of date and you may end up with an older version of WordPress.

I like installing manually, like I mentioned earlier. You can ensure the WordPress version you install is up to date and you also get more control over the databases.

Managing WordPress at Rochen can be done using the same tools as HostGator because they both use cPanel.

5. Performance

I currently only have data the represents HostGator. I’m not currently tracking any Rochen sites.

HostGator

I have data from over four years of monitoring our HostGator site. The average uptime is 99.26% which is incredible over four years and an average response time of 963ms over four years which is pretty fast.

6. Technical Support

You will find better technical support at HostGator than at Rochen. At HostGator you get 24/7 phone, live chat and ticket support. Rochen only offers support via email.

HostGator

My favorite way to contact support is through live chat. That’s because it keeps your hands free to troubleshoot at the same time. It’s also instant so you don’t have to wait for the ticket response.

Phone support is excellent as well. You can call with any issue and they can solve most of them without upgrading the case to a higher level.

Ticket support is useful, friendly and responsive. You will get a reply in around 20-30 minutes.

Rochen

I have a hard time getting the help I need at Rochen. There is no live chat or phone support. You are forced to use a ticket system.

Ticket system responses can take anywhere between 1 hour to a couple of days. On our review site we have read stories about people who feel belittled by the technicians there. I haven’t had enough good experience to change my opinion. For now, stick with HostGator for better tech support.

Conclusion

HostGator is better by a long shot. Unless you want the assurance that your website is hosted by premium servers, then you can use HostGator. You will find they have better plans, better control panel and design, better WordPress management, and better tech support.