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HostGator

HostGator Review

HostGator is one of the most popular hosting companies that host over 8 million websites from all around the world. HostGator particularly rocks the shared hosting space with their affordable starter plans and easy setup. They offer unmatched 45-day money back guarantee to try their web hosting service risk-free.

Table of Contents
Overall
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Full   4.8 / 5.0
Features
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Full   5.0 / 5.0
Performance
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Empty   4.0 / 5.0
Support
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Full   5.0 / 5.0
Ease of Use
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Full   5.0 / 5.0
Pricing
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Full   5.0 / 5.0
FAQs
HostGator FAQs
User Reviews
62 User Reviews
Overall Rating
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Full   4.8 / 5.0

HostGator Review: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

hostgator review

Hostgator was founded in 2002 by Brent Oxley, a student at Florida Atlantic University, which now hosts over 8 million websites turning into one of the most popular web hosting providers in the industry.

With every HostGator plan, you get a vast array of tools that help you quickly get your website up and running. Whether you want site builder tools or one-click application installer, SEO tools or backup solutions, you get everything at your fingertips. It also comes with a 45 day money back guarantee, so you can sign up for a hosting account risk free.

HostGator’s award winning support team is available every day throughout the year whenever you need it by telephone, live chat or email. The documentation is extensive that helps you walk you through every aspect of website hosting with ease.

Hostgator always strive for excellence by upgrading their infrastructure as well as user experience. Whether you want to build a hobby site or a company website with off-the-charts growth, you’ll find their backend user interface extremely easy to use. As your business grows, you can easily upgrade to their VPS and dedicated server options.

  • Free site builder. $100 each Google AdWords and Bing Ads credit
  • 1-click WordPress installs
  • Unmetered disk space and bandwidth
  • Regular price $6.95 / mo. but our users pay $2.64 / mo!
  • 24/7 phone, chat and email support
  • Get started with HostGator now!
Cheap Hosting Rating
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Full   5.0 / 5.0

HostGator Cheap Hosting Review

hostgator offer

HostGator offers cheap hosting, also known as shared hosting, which is the best choice for users who are just starting out and are expecting a low traffic volume for their site. With HostGator’s cheap hosting, many websites will share a single hosting server.

HostGator also offers cloud hosting for a website that requires faster page rendering even during frequent traffic surges. While cloud hosting utilizes multiple server resources for your website, shared hosting is limited to a single server.

With every HostGator’s cheap host plan, you get tons of different website scripts that let you easily kick start a website, including WordPress, Joomla and Drupal with one-click installers.

Unlike most other hosting providers, all the HostGator plans allow you to set up unlimited email addresses from your account with your domain name with unmetered storage. Plus, you can try their hosting service risk-free for 45 days.

  • Free site builder. $100 each Google AdWords and Bing Ads credit
  • 1-click WordPress installs
  • Unmetered disk space and bandwidth
  • Regular price $6.95 / mo. but our users pay $2.64 / mo!
  • 24/7 phone, chat and email support
  • Get started with HostGator now!
Dedicated Hosting Rating
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Empty   4.0 / 5.0

HostGator Dedicated Hosting Review

hostgator dedicated hosting review

HostGator’s dedicated hosting is the ideal solution for extremely high traffic blogs and websites. With a dedicated server, you have the full system resources directly at your disposal.

You also get data center level DDOS protection and an IP-based firewall, which ensures the security of your website and also gives you peace of mind. With dedicated hosting, you get a minimum of 4 cores per server, 1TB of RAID storage, and between four and 30 gigs of available RAM.

If you want to save big, you can subscribe to a plan with their legacy server for as low as $79 / mo. While both generations of dedicated servers are powerful and flexible, the new servers allow multiple Linux distributions.

  • 4 Cores to 8 Cores CPU
  • 8GB to 30GB RAM
  • Supports both Linux and Windows OS.
  • Price $119 / mo.
  • 24/7 phone, chat and email support
  • Get started with HostGator now!
VPS Rating
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Empty   4.0 / 5.0

HostGator VPS Hosting Review

hostgator vps hosting review

HostGator’s VPS server gives you more flexibility and performance around your website. With entry-level VPS nodes, you get more flexibility without a significant performance improvement from your cheap hosting. Whereas the higher end VPS gives you both flexibility and performance improvement.

HostGator strives for excellence and regularly improve their VPS server hardware infrastructure by working with industry leaders like Intel and AMD to constantly evaluate the platform for maintaining optimal performance.

With every VPS hosting plan, you also get a weekly off-site backup of your data, so in case something goes wrong, you can easily revert it back without hassle.

All plans include 2 IP addresses with a disk space ranging from 120 GB to 240 GB.

WordPress Hosting Rating
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Empty   4.0 / 5.0

HostGator WordPress Hosting Review

hostgator wordpress cloud hosting review

Having been a recommended WordPress partners for years by WordPress.org, HostGator now also offers managed WordPress hosting for those who want to build a highly efficient WordPress website. With WordPress hosting, you get additional protection out of the box to prevent WordPress-specific vulnerabilities and attacks.

Unlike traditional web hosting option, HostGator’s managed WordPress hosting comes with an easy to use cPanel interface by which you can quickly auto backup your WordPress sites, handle traffic spikes and access your email accounts.

You can experience 2 times faster website speed, a higher level of protection for your WordPress sites and automatic WordPress updates.

All managed hosting plans include 100% free migration, automatic malware removal and automated daily database backups along with unmetered storage space.

Reseller Hosting Rating
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Full   5.0 / 5.0

HostGator Reseller Hosting Review

hostgator reseller hosting

HostGator’s reseller hosting allows you to make some extra income by hosting your clients’ website. With a reseller hosting plan, you get all the powerful tools you need to succeed ranging from WHM to billing software.

Not only can you allocate resources to best fit your clients’ need, but you can also even offer additional services to your clients, like SSL certificates, domains, etc.

All HostGator’s reseller hosting plans come with unlimited domains, SQL databases, email accounts, and FTP accounts. For your privacy, you can set private nameservers based on your domain name.

The WHM control panel lets you monitor server status and set a brandable client panel with your company logo for white labeling your service.

  • 60 to 140GB disk and 600GB to 1400GB bandwidth
  • Free client management system and billing software
  • 400+ brandable video tutorials for your clients
  • Price $19.95 / mo.
  • 24/7 phone, chat and email support
  • Get started with HostGator now!
DomainNil
Disk SpaceUnmetered
Money Back Guarantee45 Days
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DomainNil
Disk SpaceUnmetered
Money Back Guarantee45 Days
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DomainNil
Disk SpaceUp to 2TB HDD or 1TB SSD
Money Back Guarantee45 Days
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DomainNil
Disk Space120GB to 240 GB
Money Back Guarantee45 Days
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DomainNil
Disk SpaceUnmetered
Money Back Guarantee45 Days
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Domain
Disk Space
Money Back Guarantee45 Days
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DomainNil
Disk Space60GB to 140GB
Money Back Guarantee45 Days
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Features

(5.0 / 5.0)

HostGator Pros:

HostGator comes with all the essential hosting features you’ll need to get your site up and running:

  • Uptime guarantee: HostGator promises an uptime guarantee of 99.99%. Moreover, you get one month credit on your account if you experience downtime that falls short of their uptime guarantee.
  • Generous money back guarantee: Unlike most web hosting companies out there, HostGator allows you try their service risk-free for 45 days and if you’re not fully satisfied with their service, you’ll get your money back.
  • Free migration: HostGator’s expert migration team helps you transfer your existing website and domain registrations from anywhere to your HostGator account. This way you can manage your entire online portfolio under a single hub. All new accounts are eligible for HostGator’s free transfers.
  • Award winning customer support: HostGator offers 24/7/365 server monitoring and customer support via telephone, live chat, and email ticket system. Their extensive support portal boasts over 500 video tutorials and about 700 step by step articles that help you explore different aspects of web hosting.
  • Unlimited email accounts: Unlike most other hosting providers, all web hosting plans allow you to set up unlimited email accounts with unmetered disk space.
  • Flexible billing periods: When signing up with HostGator, you can choose to pay for one month to 36 months, with discounts for longer periods.

HostGator Cons:

Here are some limitations of HostGator hosting:

  • No free domain registration:HostGator doesn’t offer a free domain name registration for new hosting account.
  • No WooCommerce hosting option:Unlike Bluehost, HostGator doesn’t offer WooCommerce hosting option. However, you can use their WordPress Cloud hosting service for hosting a WooCommerce website.

Performance

(4.0 / 5.0)

HostGator Speed Tests and Uptime Guarantee

Website performance is one of the biggest factors you need to consider when choosing a web host.

Without a doubt, your visitors expect your site to load quickly – and they’ll abandon your site if it takes about three seconds to load, according to a study.

To test the performance of HostGator, we created a test site with WordPress using the default Twenty Seventeen theme and also uploaded some dummy content to mirror the live environment on our test site.

speedtest hostgator

According to Pingdom’s website speed test, our test site loads in less than a second for a server in Dallas, Texas. That’s faster than 94% of all tested sites.

Apart from Pingdom, we also used a testing tool called Load Impact to figure out how HostGator handles visitors during a traffic surge. Load Impact sent some virtual users (VUs) to our site and gradually built up to 100 visitors at a time.

For a detailed look, take a look at the charts below.

loadimpact hostgator

In the chart, you can find a blue line (VUs active) which shows the number of virtual users sent to our HostGator site and a green line (VU load time) which represents how much time it would take to load a web page for a user.

Evidently, our site was quick until there were about 80 visitors at a time. As traffic grew, the site started to slow down.

Considering the shared hosting environment, these results are pretty good. With shared hosting, you’ll be sharing your server resources with other sites. If you often get that much visitors at a time, you’ll likely need to upgrade your hosting to VPS for smoother performance.

That being said, the site never went down during our speed test. Take a look at the report on uptime and response time of our HostGator site.

uptime hostgator

HostGator Server Response Time

Content published on your website will have an impact on the performance of your site. For instance, a site containing too many images will likely take more time to load compared to a site with no image.

To get a more accurate result on server response time, we decided to ignore the content of our page entirely and test the response time.

For this purpose, we used a speed testing tool known as Bitcatcha, which works differently by completely ignoring the content and records the loading time from eight different global locations: New York, LA, London, Brazil, India, Singapore, Japan, and Australia. The speed for each location is measured three separate times, and then the results are averaged.

bitcatcha-hostgator

From the report, you can find that our HostGator site was rated C by Bitcatcha. In the United States, the web hosting server responded quickly, in just a few milliseconds.

For all locations around the world, HostGator still responded in less than a second. It came as no surprise since HostGator servers’ are located in the United States. It also means your site will load quickly for your website visitors around the world and even faster for US visitors.

Support

(5.0 / 5.0)

HostGator Customer Support

Over 2 million customers have already trusted HostGator; without a doubt, HostGator is one of the most reliable web hosting companies in the world.

HostGator’s award-winning customer support team is available every day throughout the year whenever you need assistance via telephone, live chat or email. Upon subscription to any of their hosting plan, you’ll get access to HostGator’s dedicated support portal from which you can manage all of your support tickets.

The documentation is extensive that helps you walk you through every aspect of website hosting with ease. Their extensive support portal comprises answers to your pertinent questions regarding web hosting. You can easily find a solution by using the search bar in the portal. Their robust help center includes 680+ help articles and 500+ video tutorials.

The best thing is that HostGator support is guaranteed by the CEO, Adam Farrar himself. If you find an issue with the regular support, you can ask your ticket to be assigned to Adam, so he can respond directly.

Ease of Use

(5.0 / 5.0)

All HostGator hosting account comes with an easy to use cPanel by which you can manage all your website, emails, billing and support portal.

You’ll find tons of different website scripts that help you easily kick start a new website with the one-click installer.

HostGator also comes with a complete drag and drop builder known as HostGator website builder, which is shipped with 100+ mobile-friendly templates. It also offers seamless integration with PayPal, making it easier for your customers to purchase your product or services right from your site built with HostGator builder.

Pricing

(5.0 / 5.0)

No matter which HostGator’s hosting plans you’re choosing, you’ll get unmetered storage and bandwidth along with an unlimited number of email addresses you can set up for your domain.

Here are some of the shared hosting plans offered by HostGator:

PLANDISK SPACEBANDWIDTHPRICE
Shared Hatchling Unlimited Unlimited $2.64 / mo.
Hatchling Cloud 2 GB Unmetered $4.95 / mo.
WordPress Starter Unlimited Unmetered $5.95 / mo.
VPS Snappy 120 GB 1.5 TB $19.95 / mo.
Dedicated Value Server 1 TB HDD Unmetered $119 / mo.

FAQs

Having helped thousands of users choose a web hosting plan and start their website, we have answered just about every question you can think of. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about HostGator.

Which HostGator plan should I get?

Use shared hosting if you’re just starting out and are not expecting extremely high traffic volume. As you grow, you can upgrade your hosting to VPS (Virtual Private Server), which gives you more flexibility and high performance.

Dedicated server is for hosting a website with high traffic volume. It doesn’t share server resources with any other websites, except yours.

Where are HostGator servers located?

HostGator servers are located in Provo, Utah and Houston, Texas.

Can HostGator handle high traffic?

Yes. It depends on your hosting plan. If your site starts consuming too much resources, then HostGator will ask you to upgrade to a higher plan.

What’s unmetered bandwidth and disk space?

This means you’re NOT charged based on the amount of bandwidth or disk space you use. However, keep in mind that with a shared hosting account, according to HostGator’s Terms of Service, you can only utilize disk space and bandwidth in the normal operation of a small business website.

Hosting accounts that use 25% or more of system resources for longer than 90 seconds would be in violation of HostGator’s Terms of Service.

What happens if you exceed usage?

Once you exceed usage, you’ll receive an email notification asking you to reduce the usage. If you continue to exceed usage, you’ll probably need to upgrade to a higher server.

Does HostGator offer free website migration?

If you have an existing website that you want to transfer to HostGator, the good news is they offer FREE site transfers for new accounts within 30 days of subscription.

Can I upgrade my HostGator plan later?

We always recommend users to start with the smaller plans and upgrade as needed. HostGator makes it easy for you to upgrade without hassle.

Does HostGator offer a month-to-month payment option?

Yes, HostGator offers a month-to-month payment option for all of their hosting plans. Although it’s important to note that they offer significant discounts for longer-term deals.

Can I create subdomains in HostGator?

Yes, you can easily create subdomains in HostGator using the cPanel.

Do I need to purchase the addons that HostGator offers me?

No, you do not need to purchase any addons while purchasing a hosting plan. Should you decide that you need them later, you can always add them to your account.

How can I start an online store with HostGator?

HostGator supports a lot of different online store tools, including Magento. With a single click, you can install Magento on your hosting server.

If you want to create an online store with a WordPress powered solution like WooCommerce, you’ll first need to install WordPress on your host and then WooCommerce on top of it.

HostGator vs Other Hosts

Wondering how HostGator stacks up against other web hosting companies? See our side-by-side comparison to see for yourself.

Final Recap

HostGator allows you to select from a wide variety of hosting plans that best suit your needs. You can find dozens of one-click installers to quickly kick start your website. Each plan also comes with a built-in free website builder with 100+ free mobile-friendly templates to choose from.

Over 2 million websites have already trusted HostGator, which proves that HostGator is one of the most reliable web hosting providers. Whether you are a seasoned Internet pro, or just kick starting your online career with your first website, you’ll find all tools to run an awesome website without hassle.

If you’re looking for an affordable and reliable web host, HostGator is the best bet for you.

  • Free site builder. $100 each Google AdWords and Bing Ads credit
  • 1-click WordPress installs
  • Unmetered disk space and bandwidth
  • Regular price $6.95 / mo. but our users pay $2.64 / mo!
  • 24/7 phone, chat and email support
  • Get started with HostGator now!
DomainNil
Disk SpaceUnmetered
Money Back Guarantee45 Days
Claim Special Offer »

User Reviews

(63)
  1. Do not use the site and do not enter any of your personal information.
    Otherwise you will find out one year later, that their system kept your information and settled the payment method as an automatic and you will be charged for whatever package you were looking for. even though you thought you deleted your information there.
    Most importantly, they do not refund? Because they want so. Because they are desperate, hunting for every penny they can steal!

  2. This host stinks if you actually turn your site into something. Once I started getting traffic and making money, they were the worst for support and help.

    Took them 2 weeks to migrate me to a better sever after paying them over 1000 dollars to do so.

  3. You would be a fool to use hostgator, their customer support is terrible and your website if even meaningfully successful will hit some imaginary threshold on their part and they will freeze your site for a few days without any replies. They do pay a lot for referrals however.

  4. I have used Hostgator services, these were OK. I shifted to Hostinger and I believe it was right decision to take. If you want good quality and cheap hosting services, I suggest one should go for Hostinger. They guarantee 99.99% uptime and have dedicated 24/7 customer support.
    It has simple and user-friendly cpanel without any complexity.

  5. Really Slow… It is not a good option.

  6. will schumacher March 12, 2018 at 10:51 am

    I purchased Hostgator’s shared hosting service and was happy with the service throughout my first year. However, upon logging in to my account at renewal time, I noticed had they had signed me up for MANY optional services but had not emailed me a monthly invoice for any of them. They deducted the funds from my credit card, but never once sent an invoice. At the end of the day the fee for the service was 3x what they said it would be when i signed up. In addition, at the end of the first year the price goes up significantly (it works the same for most hosts), and they charge extra for everything. Want domain privacy, that will be $25. Want Sitelock ($35), Backup ($25). It goes on and on.

  7. I’m now using A2hosting that offers free SSL with let’s encrypt their performance and optimization tools are super useful for WordPress sites.

  8. I am hosting my website and two others on hostgator from last one year. In starting my wordpress email not going to customers. but soon they start.Also there support takes much time to help otherwise it is good overall

  9. Alan Nahrstadt March 4, 2017 at 8:03 am

    I have been using Host Gator for about 5 years now and have never had a problem.
    Using Host Gator is one thing I never have to think about. Owning a small business your time is pulled in many directions and time is money. I love having Host Gator because it just works as expected and rarely needs me to do a thing.

  10. I have had Hostgator as my only hosting for about 7 years now. I love it because it is easy to set up and use for a newbie. I have set up databases, chron jobs, and multiple email accounts using only the instruction on their website. I couldnt do that at GoDaddy, it was too confusing. I’m soo glad I switched!
    If my website was ever down, it must have been very short, because I have never noticed it being down. Not even once.

  11. Terri Erickson March 2, 2017 at 1:37 pm

    I began using Hostgator a few years ago while I was taking coding classes and haven’t really had too many issues with it. The only think i would like to convey is that pricing could come down and be relative to the site. My site is not used for ecommerce or anything else really and the plan I have is more than I need. However when I attempted to down-grade the plan I was told I would have to “pay” to move the site??? That to me seemed rather harsh and it kind of put me off -I certainly will not and have not referred anyone to Hostgator because of it. On the up side, as far as I know I haven’t had the site go down which I think is a plus.

  12. Hostgator has been easy to use and the customer service is responsive and helpful. I’ve never built a website before, but after using Hostgater once, I’ve now buikt dozens of sites.

  13. Carolee Williams March 2, 2017 at 8:45 am

    Its easy and friendly to use! Their technical support is helpful and informative too.

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