Hostgator review

Last Updated on August 24, 2019 by Timothy Ephraim

Hostgator is a leading web hosting provider which is popular among webmasters and bloggers. If you are looking for a better web host for your website or your blog, Hostgator should be on your list for sure. What makes Hostgator so good? Read our Hostgator review to find more.

Introduction to HostGator review

HostGator was founded in 2002 as a web hosting provider. Since then they grew fast due to the quality of their service and support. Soon, Hostgator became a global web hosting company.

In 2012, Hostgator was acquired by Endurance International Group(EIG). Their latest product is Managed WordPress hosting.

HostGator Services

Hostgator provides all types of services such as Shared hosting, Cloud hosting, Managed WordPress hosting, Reseller hosting, VPS hosting and Dedicated hosting. Additionally, they also offer domain registration service.

Hostgator Shared hosting

Hostgator has a shared hosting service which is popular with bloggers and newbie webmasters. They have various plans which suit the need of all kind of users. If you are someone who is looking to make a new blog, you might have heard about HostGator shared hosting.

Their solid performance along with great support and awesome pricing made them a pretty popular web hosting provider.

What makes Hostgator shared hosting popular? Well, we have so many answers.

Unmetered everything: You heard it right, with their plan everything is unlimited or unmetered. Be its disk space or bandwidth, everything is unlimited with HostGator.

One-click script installation: Yes, they provide one-click installation of famous CMS. Be it WordPress or Joomla, you can install with just one click.

Beginner-friendly: Hostgator is the first choice for most newbie webmasters and bloggers. Usually, bloggers switching from Blogger or WordPress.com will usually go for Hostgator. Reason? Nothing but the quality of services they offer.

They have three plans, Hatching plan is the basic one and it allows you to host only one website and it costs 3$3.95 a month. The bigger plan is named the baby and it allows you to host unlimited domains. The biggest plan is known as a business plan and it comes with additional freebies such as free SSL and free dedicated IP.

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WordPress Hosting

Due to the fame and growth of WordPress, web hosts are investing more and more in WordPress hosting and Hostgator is also in the game. They recently launched a managed WordPress hosting plan starting from $5.95.

The starter plan allows you to host only one website so if you have more than one website, you should consider the standard plan or business plan. They are priced $7.95 and $9.95 respectively.

Hostgator managed WordPress hosting offers 2.5 times more performance and better security, performance and free website migration too.

Cloud Hosting

Hostgator also offers a cloud hosting for those who need better performing cloud hosting. It offers faster load times and better scalability and an intuitive dashboard.

It has other features like failovers, server-side caching and panel enabled.

Pricing of Hostgator cloud starts from $4.95

VPS Hosting

If your website outgrown shared hosting, Your next option is probably a VPS hosting, If you are an experienced webmaster or if you have experience in server administration, you can consider purchasing an unmanaged VPS server but for the newbies or someone without prior experience (Like me ), it is always good to go with a managed VPS.

Well, HostGator offers awesome managed VPS hosting plans. They will manage your VPS so that you can focus on making better content on your website.

Hostgator VPS allows full root access which will let you install any kind of script or software. They also offer powerful hardware along with weekly offsite backups.

Speed and performance

Hostgator is known for its performance. Their shared web hosting offers pretty decent page load time around 700ms in our tests. As you might know, there are several factors which affect page load time.

Please note that page loading time depends on your website size and contents too. Websites with lots of images will take much more time to load and it is always good to reduce images on your website for faster page loading time.

If you want better performance than they offer, You should consider upgrading to WordPress hosting (Obviously if you are using WordPress) or VPS server. As they can offer better performance when compared with shared hosting.

Support

Support is where Hostgator rocks. They provide 24*7 support via live chat, phone and ticket system. You will get your queries resolved faster and their support agents are polite and friendly.

we contacted them several times with few issues and they resolved our issues fast.

Uptime and reliability

Another thing which makes Hostgator famous is their soli uptime and reliability. They offer 99.9% uptime but during our test, we got 100% uptime. Their reliability is solid too, we never faced issues during our testing period.

Moneyback and free domain

Hostgator offers 4 days of money back so that you can purchase their services with confidence. If you are unsatisfied with their services, you can get a refund within 45 days of your purchase.

45 days are enough to check their quality and to make your own verdict about their service and performance.

Hostgator do not offer any free domain with their shared hosting plans which are disappointing.

Comparison with rivals

There are many web hosts which offer shared web hosting in a similar price range. (We have a list of great shared web hosting provider you can read it if you need to know more about them).

Blue host is one of their main competitor which offers almost similar pricing and features. Both Bluehost and Hostgator are owned by the same company and you can go with either of them.

Siteground is another famous web hosting provider which also offers shared web hosting. I would say that Siteground is far better than Hostgator and offers superior support and performance. Their price is slightly more than Hostgator but it is worth investing.  I would surely recommend Siteground over Hostgator.

Conclusion

We absolutely love Hostgator especially their Shared hosting. We absolutely love Hostgator for the following reasons

Cheaper price: their pricing is cheaper than the competition when compared.
Good Performance: They provide great performance.
Great Customer support: Their customer support is awesome and they are available 24*7 through Phone, live chat, tickets etc.
Solid uptime and reliability: Their uptime and reliability is solid and will never disappoint you.

What we don’t like about HostGator

We actually can’t find many negative things about them. But we think they could provide a free domain with their shared hosting plans especially when their competitors are doing it.

Do you recommend Hostgator?

Yes we will, Hostgator is a good option if you are starting your first website or moving from WordPress or Blogger.

Infolyte users can get a flat 60% off on any Hostgator services if you use the coupon code “INFOLYTE60”