Our Verdict: Outstanding Choice for Overall Value
HostGator strives to form web hosting easy and affordable. If you are looking for an idea that permits you to urge a site up and running quickly, look no further.
Those creating new websites can utilize HostGator's website builder, while those with existing websites will get free migration assistance.
Below, we'll review everything else you would like to understand about this host. And once you use any of our exclusive HostGator discount links that are featured on this page, you'll rise up to 75% off your monthly hosting fee.
HostGator Quick Overview
HostGator may be a leading hosting provider with headquarters in Houston and Austin, Texas.
The company was founded back in 2002, and that they now host websites for over 400,000 customers. This long-term success is indicative of their hosting service's quality and reliability.
Performance
Let's check out the last six months of HostGator's uptime and reaction time, as measured by Pingdom.com. Although this data represents just one test site, it still provides you with an honest idea of what it wishes to use HostGator.
Downtime: 9 minutes
Outages: 2
Uptime: 99.996%.
HostGator server response data from Pingdom.com
HostGator guarantees 99.9% uptime. you'll monitor your site's uptime from the HostGator user dashboard — if they fail to satisfy this guarantee, they'll credit your account with one month of free hosting.
Migration Policy
Within 30 days of opening a shared hosting account, HostGator will transfer one website to your new domain for free of charge. they're going to also transfer one full cPanel, which incorporates all domains, email accounts, and settings.
VPS plans are eligible for unlimited transfers.
Available Datacenters
HostGator has data centers in Houston, Texas, and Provo, Utah. they are doing not allow you to settle on which data center houses your servers.
Money-Back Guarantee
HostGator offers a 45-day money-back guarantee, while most other hosting providers only offer a 30-day guarantee.
Although no hosting company wants to lose business, HostGator is extremely transparent about the method of getting your refund.
Here's the way to claim your refund:
Use their online cancellation form (noted in your Terms of Service) to request cancellation.
After about 48 hours, you will get a confirmation email that you simply must reply to.
Your refund is going to be processed within the subsequent 15 days
Pros and Cons of HostGator
Here are the key advantages and drawbacks to using HostGator:
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 domain is difficult to navigate
Not PCI-compliant by default
HostGator Shared Hosting Plans
Let's review HostGator's least and costliest options for shared hosting, their Hatchling, and Business plans.
Hatchling
The Hatchling plan is ideal for people that are fresh to web hosting. It's cheaper than the starter plans of both GoDaddy and Squarespace.
With this plan, you'll host one domain and unlimited subdomains.
Hatching also provides a spread of one-click installs that allow you to quickly found out WordPress and other popular applications. and you will get credits for $150 on Google Ads and $100 on Bing Ads, so you'll start marketing your fresh website directly.
Even with the Hatchling plan, you'll be allotted unmetered disc space and bandwidth. But this does not mean that you simply can host a heavy-traffic e-commerce site on HostGator for just $2.75 per month.
Indeed, unmetered resources are often deceiving. HostGator doesn't place hard limits on your bandwidth and disc space, but they're going to still limit accounts that use an excessive amount of resources. therein case, you'd got to upgrade to a VPS or dedicated server plan.
Business
HostGator's Business plan offers even more excellent features. With the included private SSL certificate and dedicated IP address, you'll be able to start accepting payments on an e-commerce store immediately.
This is a rare feature for hosting companies, as many other hosts will only include shared SSL certificates with their plans. These can still trigger security warnings for your store customers.
Additional Hosting Plans
If your hosting needs are too demanding for a shared server, HostGator also offers more powerful options to settle on from:
Cloud Hosting
One of the simplest reasons to think about HostGator is its cheap cloud hosting options.
For each of their basic web hosting plans, you'll pay a little amount more for cloud hosting. this may offer you twice the speed and 4 times the resources of the shared plan.
Cloud hosting can do this level of performance due to:
Low-density servers
Premium hardware
Multiple caching layers
Data-mirroring that distributes three copies of your data across multiple devices
These plans also are great for handling traffic spikes. you'll proportion your resources from your dashboard with one click, without experiencing downtime or requiring reboots.
VPS Plans
A virtual private server (VPS) gives users full control over their hosting environment. It's meant for people that want root access to the server and wish to put in their own software or scripts.
But VPS servers are often challenging to take care of. Thankfully, HostGator offers fully-managed VPS plans which include access to their customized cPanel.
However, their semi-managed servers don't include the instrument panel. you'll need advanced technical knowledge to run your websites smoothly on these semi-managed plans.
While these VPS plans do provide you with access to dedicated resources, you should not assume that they're going to always cause better performance. HostGator's lower-level VPS plans won't necessarily outperform the company's shared hosting plans.
But they're going to offer you more flexibility together with your hosting. For better performance, I counsel you to choose their higher-level VPS plans.
Control Panel
HostGator uses the industry-standard cPanel interface. While cPanel is often confusing if you've never used it before, HostGator has customized its instrument panel to form it more user-friendly.
Upon logging into your HostGator account, you will be presented with many options. Tabs within the instrument panel point you to your account settings, billing information, hosting specifics, and more. Notice that you simply are going to be presented with HostGator advertisements within the sidebar.
The instrument panel also makes it extremely easy to urge support. A knowledge domain search within the sidebar gives you quick access to articles, and a support tab at the highest allows you to succeed in live chat support immediately.
You'll be ready to perform many other actions through the instrument panel, including:
- Create and manage an email account
- View website traffic by integrating Google Analytics
- Add domains and subdomains
- View your SSL certificate or purchase one
- Set up HostGator email marketing
From the instrument panel, you'll also add packages of bundled features to your account. HostGator offers a wizard-like tool that permits you to enter what you would like your site to try to then recommends a package to feature in your plan.
Website Builder
All of HostGator's plans now accompany their free website builder, called Gator (until recently, you had to pay an additional fee to feature on the Gator builder). you furthermore may have the choice of buying a Gator-only plan for a really low monthly fee.
The Gator builder includes a drag-and-drop editor tool and a full image library, allowing you to completely customize your site.
Website builders are often useful, but they often end in messy code on the rear end, which may make it difficult if you would like to transfer your site or abandon the builder.
It's often easier for developers to create a fresh site than customize the one you've got built on a drag-and-drop platform. Just keep this in mind before you employ the Gator builder.
Email Marketing
HostGator's email marketing tool is free during your first three months for up to 500 contacts. This feature allows you to:
- Add contact information from your Facebook page or existing website
- Segment email lists to focus on specific audience groups
- Create email messages with mobile-friendly templates
Never underestimate the facility of email marketing. it's one of the very best ROIs of any marketing technique. And when you're trying it for free of charge, there's nothing to lose.
👉 Also, you can read: How to Start a Blog with HostGator
Customer Support
I would have liked to ascertain a better-organized support page on HostGator. Their knowledge domain may be a little difficult to navigate, so people may find it hard to seek out the answers they're trying to find.
However, you'll contact customer support directly from your instrument panel. In fact, your support tickets are the primary thing you see once you log in.
With a team able to assist you 24/7, you will not need to worry about your website problems for long.
If you favor speaking to someone on the phone, you'll reach a support assistant via HostGator's toll-free customer number:
Backups and Restore Points
Although HostGator doesn't do automated backups quite weekly, you'll manually backup your site whenever you wish.
Additionally, HostGator saves a variety of "restore points" that permits you to roll back your site to a previous version of its contents.
Other Hosts to Consider
HostGator features a lot to supply. But if it doesn't seem quite right for you, there are many alternatives. Here are three of the best:
Bluehost
One advantage Bluehost holds over HostGator is that each one of their WordPress plans accompanies a free SSL certificate. they provide excellent performance and customer service also.
InMotion Hosting
If you do not just like the vagueness of "unmetered" resources, inspect InMotion Hosting. Their plans accompany solid disc space limits, and their WordPress services are quite affordable.
SiteGround
SiteGround is one of the simplest all-around hosting companies. they supply high-quality hosting in the least levels, from basic shared plans to dedicated servers.
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