HostGator Review: The EIG’s Shining Star?

 

HostGator was founded in Florida in 2002. By 2012 their success had exploded. EIG (Endurance International Group) picked thereon and purchased them for $225 million.

EIG may be a massive corporation that owns brands like Bluehost, Constant Contact, iPage, and HostGator. Being 100% honest, I'm usually not too excited to check their products, all of them seem to follow a discouraging pattern:

Overpriced

Disappointing support

Missing features

Aggressive marketing

Hidden fees and expensive add-ons

However, I'm excited to review HostGator as their online reputation seems better than sister company iPage and their prices don’t seem regrettable. I couldn't wait to urge my hands-on HostGator.

Let’s inspect what HostGator has got to offer and when (and when not) to use it. For a fast overview, inspect HostGator’s video review below:

Table of Contents 

What Products Does HostGator Offer?

HostGator Pricing: What Do Their Shared Plans Include?

HostGator Pros & Cons

HostGator Shared Hosting Details

HostGator Performance Tests

HostGator Review: Do I like to recommend It?

HostGator Alternatives

Review Updates

What Products Does HostGator Offer?

Almost everything hosting-related, that’s why their catalog is often confusing sometimes.

• Domain names are often purchased at HostGator, although they aren’t a number one name registrar. For the primary year, a .com domain costs $12.95, but upon renewal, you’ll be charged $17.99 – there are indeed cheaper options like Namecheap.
• Their shared hosting plans are meant for little and medium projects that don’t get many thousands of tourists per month. this sort of service hosts different clients (websites) under an equivalent server, almost like living during a shared house. presumably, the one you ought to get, a minimum of to start out with. Their prices go from $8.95 to $16.95.
• WordPress hosting: For those trying to find a shared hosting that’s optimized for WordPress. These go from $12.95 for one site, all the high to $81.95 per month. Personally, I feel there are better alternatives for WordPress users (e.g. SiteGround).
• VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. you'll consider this as a shared hosting server that has been divided into smaller sub-servers employing a specific software configuration. These are great for smaller and medium sites that require a specific server configuration (e.g. got to use a special programming language). VPS plans at HostGator start at $80 per month.
• If your project gets tens of thousands of tourists per month or needs a strong server, you’d probably be happier with a fanatical server. You’ll have your own server and won’t share its resources with anyone else. At HostGator, you'll get your own dedicated server starting at around $180 per month.
• You can consider cloud hosting as a network of connected servers, meaning your website won’t only be hosted on one server but several. Resources (e.g. more memory or CPU) are often added or removed consistent with your needs. At HostGator cloud hosting starts (too cheap?) at $10.95 a month.
• On top of those, they also offer an internet site builder called Gator for users looking to make their own website easily – no technical knowledge required. Although it’s not a nasty product, it’s still under development and other site builders offer more at similar prices

        This HostGator review focuses on their shared hosting plans, so from now on I’ll be about those

HostGator Pricing: What Do Their Shared Plans Include?

The first thing to note about HostGator pricing is that they are available with big discounts for the primary term. A free name is additionally included within the first year (for years or longer plans) remember that the prices at renewal are much higher. I always mention both prices so you don’t get any nasty surprises.

* If your inodes count goes over 150,000, your account won’t be protected. They only keep 1 daily, 1 weekly, and 1 monthly backup.

If you choose longer deals (e.g. 36 months), the primary term prices drop even further. But expect a high increase when the renewal time comes around.

The Hatchling Plan is interesting for those that have just one website, as albeit its storage is unlimited you'll only have 1 name (website) per hosting plan.

With the Baby package, you'll host unlimited websites. and therefore the Business tier is suggested for those looking to possess a fanatical IP address.

Be aware that HostGator’s purchase process always tries to sign you up for the longer deals (e.g. 36 months), and pushes you to urge extra add-ons (e.g. SiteLock) that you simply might not need.

Sadly, their default backup features are almost non-existent, they only keep a 1 weekly, daily and monthly copy of your site. However, they provide an additional backup add-on at around $25 extra per annum – sneaky. If that wasn’t bad enough, they’ll also charge you $25 extra whenever you ask them to revive from one among their backups – I see these as an unacceptable hidden fee.

HostGator Pros & Cons

Let me quickly tell you what I feel are the foremost important advantages and drawbacks of HostGator shared hosting:

Pros:

• Cloud servers optimized for high-performance WordPress hosting
• Free website migration
• 45-day money-back guarantee
• Search engine advertising credits

Cons:

• Some users complain of long wait times for support
• The knowledge base is difficult to navigate
• Not PCI-compliant by default

When to Use HostGator Hosting?

HostGator’s shared hosting is for those trying to find a provider that doesn’t measure the bandwidth and is generous with the storage.

It’s also an excellent fit if you're looking to use other programming languages for PHP. Using Perl, Python, and Ruby On Rails is allowed.

Personally, I feel HostGator offers the simplest EIG hosting service I’ve tried. However, I do think there are better alternatives you'll be using at similar prices (e.g. SiteGround or DreamHost).

When to not Use HostGator?

Despite having an easy-to-use interface, I’m afraid it’s not suitable for larger projects. Neither for hosting-dependant projects like online stores nor avid bloggers.

Their low uptime levels and slowish speed can punish your SEO efforts and support are often, at times, frustrating. except for me, the foremost worrying fact is that they don’t include a backup system – sorry, but one weekly backup doesn't cut it for many.

HostGator Shared Hosting Details

Let’s now explore HostGator’s specifications in detail:

* albeit HostGator doesn’t have specific limitations (e.g. for storage), all of your combined files from your apps, emails, and databases should be under 250,000 files (inodes).

HostGator Performance Tests

To understand if HostGator’s performance is sweet, I’ve done a few interesting tests: speed and uptime.

Let’s check the results out.

HostGator Speed Test

Everyone wants (or should want) their website to load as fast as possible, and a reliable hosting provider is crucial for this. A faster website will provide better user experiences and provides you additional SEO points.

👉 Also, you can read: HostGator Reviews of 2021

HostGator clothed to be OKish in my tests. I replicated an equivalent test webpage for several providers then measured their speed using 3 different tools and different worldwide locations.

Check out a summary of their results:

These tests were administered under equivalent circumstances (e.g. same page and content) and opened up over almost 2 months.

As you'll see, HostGator didn’t do pretty much, it averages a loading time of around 3 seconds when the test winner (SiteGround) loaded in 2.10 seconds.

Is HostGator’s Uptime Good?

Hosting providers have some service interruptions, for instance, once they got to restart the servers to finish an update.

If those service interruptions aren't often and short, no problem. But, if your hosting provider is consistently down and that they take forever to be copied, you'll be negatively affected – bad user experiences mean lower conversion rates, and downtime also disappoints search engines.

Your uptime should be 99.95% or higher. In other words, your hosting provider should be down but 0.05% of the time – around 4 hours per annum.

To monitor uptime I exploit StatusCake, a tool that checks each website every 5 minutes.

Although HostGator’s uptime isn’t the worst ever (trust me I’ve seen worse), I feel they ought to be a touch better. For this reason, I’d be reluctant to recommend HostGator for those projects that depend exclusively on their website (e.g. bloggers and online stores).

HostGator Review: Do I Recommend It?

Your website is going to be safe being hosted at HostGator, their speed is OKish, and therefore the uptime not crazy bad, a minimum of if you don’t have an excellent serious project. If you are doing have a more professional project, I’d encourage you to see out SiteGround and DreamHost.

Even if HostGator restricts the number of files that you simply can have, they're pretty generous with their storage, email, bandwidth, and database limitations. Probably an honest option for those valuing quantity over quality.

But, and this one is big, remember that their backup features are extremely poor, in my opinion, as bad because it gets. Personally, having a correct backup system has saved me hours of labor and a lot of money. Their $25 extra fee for every backup restore that you simply request makes me very angry.

Another downside is their support. At times, I had to attend over a half-hour to be connected with a support agent, and that I always have the sensation they only half-read my questions.

However, you'll try HostGator for 45 days free of charge and see for yourself. Who knows, perhaps may be a great option for you.

HostGator Alternatives

By now you’ve probably realized that HostGator isn’t my favorite provider. However, I feel their performance isn’t regrettable – especially their speed. But let me name several alternatives you'll use for several scenarios:

• A2 Hosting or DreamHost are reliable, cheap providers.
• The best support is obtainable by DreamHost, SiteGround, and InMotion.
• DreamHost and SiteGround performed the simplest in my tests.
• One of my favorites shared hosting providers for WordPress is SiteGround. they only have more features than the rest: staging, built-in caching system, and advanced speed optimization options.

But, if you continue to want to use HostGator, remember that you simply can try HostGator free of charge for 45 days.