HostGator is a web hosting company with a strong reputation that has driven them to the top of the industry. In reality, they've become the go-to-host for the majority of people looking to establish an online presence.
One of their most appealing features is that they provide secure yet affordable hosting, which is exactly what most people want.
Do they, however, continue to provide the high-quality services that have made them so well-known?
What is their customers' overall hosting experience like?
Is HostGator the best option for your needs?
So, in this in-depth HostGator Web hosting analysis, you'll learn everything there is to know about them. We'll assist you in cutting through the hype and making an educated decision.
Continue reading if you're ever undecided about going with them.
About HostGator Hosting
Brent Oxley, a young Florida Atlantic University student, founded HostGator in 2002. Houston and Austin, Texas are the locations of their headquarters. With over 18 years of experience in hosting, they currently host over 10 million domains and employ over 850 people in offices all over the world.
The company was sold to Endurance International Group (EIG) for $225 million in 2012. Was it for the better or for the worse for HostGator's future?
You'll learn more about it further down.
What’s Included In This HostGator Review?
I've provided information on their benefits and drawbacks, as well as services such as domain registration, all of their plans, customer care, refund policies, and more in this post.
Table of Contents
Shared Hosting
WordPress Hosting
Windows Hosting
VPS Hosting
Cloud Hosting
Dedicated Server Hosting
Reseller hosting
Email Features
E-Commerce
PPC Services
Infrastructure
Ease of Use
Performance and Reliability
Security
Customer Support
Pricing
Refund Policy
HostGator Review Conclusion
FAQ
Let's take a look at what HostGator has to offer in terms of benefits and drawbacks.
Pros
Website and data migrations are free of charge.
Hosting is available on both Windows and Linux platforms.
All plans include free SSL.
Cost-effective pricing
Excellent uptime results
Both traditional and cloud hosting are available.
Money-back guarantee for 45 days
There are no costs for signing up and creating an account.
Email control is excellent.
There are no extra charges for cloud hosting.
Hosting for applications is open.
Cloud Hosting that is both fast and dependable
PPC marketing is one of the many extra services available.
Hosting that is user-friendly
Services for free SEO consultation
cPanel and Plesk for Windows are both free (except for semi-managed plans).
Cons
After the initial sign-up, prices increase.
There are currently two data centers, both of which are located in the United States.
There is no option to choose your preferred data center.
For most plans, free backup is limited to 7 days and does not include auto-restoration.
Upselling on a regular basis
Customer service is average.
Inconsistent speeds and a lack of dedicated speed-up features
Services Offered By HostGator
HostGator provides a wide range of web hosting services, including shared, VPS, Cloud, Windows, dedicated, and reseller hosting. You're covered for anything from small personal websites to corporate hosting for massive projects, and you can quickly upgrade.
Shared Hosting
Hatchling, Baby, and Business are the three shared hosting plans available at the entry-level of web hosting.
Unlimited bandwidth, addresses, MySQL databases, pages, and storage are all standard features for all of them. You also get free features including an integrated global CDN, a domain name, and an SSL certificate.
But there's more: you'll receive email marketing software, as well as $100 in Google AdWords and $100 in Bing Ads credit, to help you advertise online once you launch.
Hatchling, the cheapest shared plan, only supports a single domain and anonymous FTP. You must buy either the Baby or Business plan to get limitless domains and parked domains.
Are you perplexed?
The Business plan is the best option because it includes extras including the ability to upgrade from the given SSL to a Positive SSL for free (and receive the Trust Logo® Site Seal), a dedicated IP address, and free SEO software.
The Baby and Business plans are the only ones that promote eCommerce. Both plans provide weekly auto-backups to ensure that your important website is not lost.
WordPress Hosting
HostGator provides controlled WordPress hosting that includes WordPress-specific optimizations and support, making hosting simple for even the most inexperienced webmaster.
They were successful. WordPress operates in a cloud environment, ensuring the highest levels of performance, reliability, and uptime. Emails are unrestricted to sweeten the deal.
The following are the key benefits of having a controlled WordPress plan over installing WordPress on a shared plan:
- Getting WordPress notifications automatically
- You'll have access to Mojo Marketplace applications and WordPress plugins that you can quickly add.
- You can use Google Analytics to test your website.
- With 2.5X faster load times, WordPress has been optimized.
- The WordPress Cloud Interface for management is simple and straightforward, with excellent usability and quick access to your different email accounts.
- For previous versions, auto-backup with one-click restore is available.
- Traditional hosting takes longer to process the WordPress dynamic website content requests.
The 2.5X speed boost is achieved, according to HostGator, by the use of supercharged cloud architecture, low-capacity servers, caching technology, and a global cloud flare CDN.
But what about safety and security? You get malware removal that is done automatically.
You have access to templates and plugins in 20 different categories to help you get your website online faster. The following are the resources allotted to each plan:
- Starter – 1 site hosting, 1 website migration for free, auto 1GB backup room, and 100k monthly visits.
- Standard – hosting for two sites with free migration for up to two sites, 2GB for backups, and 200k in monthly average site traffic.
- Business – 3 websites with up to 3 free migrations, 1 dedicated IP, 3GB for auto-backups, and 500k monthly visits are supported.
Both Standard and Business plans come with a free Global CDN.
Windows Hosting
There are two plans available, each with its own set of unique resources.
- Personal – 1 domain, SSL included for free
- Enterprise – includes 5 domains, a dedicated IP address, and both free and private SSL.
All plans provide unrestricted subdomains, FTP accounts, email addresses, MySQL, Access Databases, and Microsoft SQL, as well as free website transfers.
The following technologies are supported by Windows in both plans:
- After purchasing, you can check out the Plesk panel for free.
- The server IIS (Internet Information Services)
- SQL Server 2008 R2 is a version of Microsoft SQL Server that was released in 2008.
You will have access to a website builder, as well as pre-built customizable templates, plugins, and Windows-based scripts.
VPS Hosting
The VPS plans from HostGator are ideal for those who want more flexibility, tools, and customization options. They offer real-time resource management, one-click scaling for additional resources, and a user-friendly platform.
Total root access, RAID 10 disk setup for mirrored storage replication, and weekly offsite backups are included with all VPS.
HostGator's managed VPS plans provide unrestricted domains, subdomains, email addresses, databases, and FTP accounts. You'll also get private nameservers, automatic 7-day backups, and two dedicated IP addresses.
Installing the Apache web server is needed for semi-managed plans (manual install).
- Snappy 2000 has a two-core CPU, two gigabytes of memory, 120 gigabytes of storage, and 1.5 terabytes of bandwidth.
- CPU: snappy 40004 – 2 cores 2 TB bandwidth, 4 GB RAM, 165 GB disk space
- The Snappy 8000 has a quad-core (4) CPU, 8 GB of RAM, 240 GB of storage, and 3 TB of bandwidth.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting, like VPS, is an outstanding alternative to shared and dedicated hosting, as HostGator recognizes.
Their three plans are called Hatchling, Baby, and Business, much like their VPS Hatchling, Baby, and Business plans. With each, you can achieve seamless on-demand scaling with a single click. These are the best plans for you if you have a rapidly rising site with occasional traffic spikes.
Regardless of your package, you get Cloud hosting on numerous highly redundant remote servers with fast SSDs, free Let's Encrypt SSL, and limitless bandwidth, addresses, disk space, subdomains, MySQL databases, FTP accounts, and automatic backups.
Their dashboard has a contemporary appearance. It displays information about your website, such as:
download speed of a website
- usage patterns,
- Uptime of websites, and more.
- HostGator's cloud plans provide some of the fastest speeds available.
How can they pull it off?
Varnish caching is included in all plans, as well as an automatic FailOver feature that transfers your load to another server if the current one goes down, and data mirroring for increased availability and reliability.
- Hatchling – two cores, two gigabytes of RAM, and a single domain
- The baby has four cores and four gigabytes of RAM.
- Business – six cores, six gigabytes of RAM, and an infinite number of domains
Private SSL, unrestricted domains, parked domains, and add-on domains are included in both the Baby and Business plans. One dedicated IP, free anonymous FTP, and a free SEO tool are only available with the Business plan.
👉 Also, you can read:Hostgator WordPress Cloud Hosting Review (2021): Is it worth it?
Note
We went above and beyond to learn more about HostGator's Cloud hosting and discovered that the services they claim are shared rather than committed to your strategy. What exactly does this imply? The tools they promote are server requirements, not what and strategy includes.
Dedicated Server Hosting
If you want to avoid noisy neighbors in VPS environments and have dedicated resources, HostGator provides dedicated hosting at a very reasonable price. They have Linux and Windows plans available.
RAID-1 setup in either SSD or HDD, 3 dedicated IPv4 IPs, unmetered bandwidth (fair usage), and unlimited databases are all included in all packages.
- 4 Cores of Value Intel Xeon CPU with 8 threads, 8 GB RAM, and 1 TB HDD storage
- Power – Intel Xeon CPU with 8 cores and 16 threads, 16 GB RAM, and 2 TB HDD or 512 GB SSD.
- Enterprise – Intel Xeon processor with 8 cores and 16 threads, 30 GB of memory, and 1 TB SSD storage.
Alternatively, you may request a custom configuration of services to suit your specific needs.
For strong management, Linux plans include a free cPanel and WHM panel.
Windows plans include a free Plesk Onlyx panel and WebMatrix, which facilitates site creation.
Support for Microsoft products is available.
- DNS Server for Windows
- ASP.NET is a web application programming interface.
- Silverlight, Microsoft FTP Service, MVC6, RDP access, Windows DNS Server, and Microsoft IIS 10.0 webserver are all Microsoft technologies.
- Windows Server 2016 is the current operating system; Windows Server 2019 is not yet available.
- MySQL Server, Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Express, and Microsoft Access are all database options.
- SmarterMail Server 16 with a maximum of 250 users or MailEnable 10.12 are two options for a mail server (you choose)
Reseller hosting
Reseller hosting allows you to easily scale up as your business grows, and you have full control over how you divide resources for your clients and create various plans. You are permitted to support additional features such as SSL and payment control.
Domains, subdomains, MySQL databases, email accounts, FTP accounts, and free private name servers based on the reseller's domain are included in all plans.
- Aluminum – 60GB of data and 600GB of bandwidth
- Copper has 90GB of storage and 900GB of bandwidth.
- Silver – 1400GB of bandwidth and 140GB of data
Features and tools in software You've got everything you need to make management simple and painless, including
- You can use the WHM panel for free and it supports several languages.
- Limits for the plans you sell, such as storage
- Controlling account features like DNS, passwords, account formation, and account termination.
- Adding your logo to business dashboards and user interfaces
- Keep an eye on the state of your server.
- You may also use WHMCS billing tools for client management and billing.
- The functions of automatic weekly off-site data backups.
- Server monitoring is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Who doesn't like getting anything for nothing? Also, resellers who sign up for a Free Reseller Club Account with HostGator get the following free bonuses.
- With the unlimited domains you receive, you can resell over 70 country code top-level domain extensions (ccTLDs).
- You can resell over 700 gTLDs from a single account.
Application Hosting
Application-specific hosting is available; you'll get a framework built on Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP to run your favorite applications. Magento, Joomla, Drupal, phpBB, and Wiki are among the applications and apps that are supported.
To perform customizations, you can use a variety of plugins and themes that are compatible with such applications.
Email Features
The best part about HostGator's email hosting service is that all plans come with an infinite number of email accounts (excluding dedicated servers). Yes, also the entry-level package, which costs just $2.75 a month, is included.
Furthermore, emails have attachments.
- @yourdomain.com professional branding
- The IMAP protocol is supported by SMTP and POP3 for accessing emails on mobile devices.
- At yoursite.com/webmail, you can browse and send emails online.
- Email Aliases – With a single email receipt account, you can create several Mailbox aliases.
- Allow for the development of mailing lists, automated responders, and mail forwarders.
- Email Catch allows you to accept emails sent to your hosting account's non-existent email addresses.
- If you and your team prefer to collaborate using Google apps, Managed WordPress plans to provide G Suite support.
Spam Assassin Defense provides email protection.
E-Commerce
E-commerce platform compatibility with HostGator is limited to Magento, Prestashop, and ZenCart, which you can host on all plans except the Hatchling shared plan. It's the only plan that isn't e-commerce ready due to the lack of a private SSL.
Apart from the above, there isn't much in the way of e-commerce support.
Domain Services
Are you looking to register a domain name?
Want to keep them safe and have a lot of control over how you manage them?
The good news is that HostGator's domain services do just that.
To get started with registration, go to their website and use the domain search tool to see if the URL is available. Purchases are made via cPanel, and most plans include unrestricted domains, parked domains, and add-on domains.
Domains Features
- Domain locking protects your domain from being snatched and locked up by someone if it becomes open by mistake.
- Domain Renewal – auto-renewals are available after a domain purchase or transition to avoid unnecessary expirations. We've just done it!
- cPanel Domain Management – cPanel provides you with simple and fast domain management tools.
PPC Services
HostGator also offers Paid Click Services (PPC) to assist you in marketing yourself and your services.
Keyword Research – The HostGator marketing team will find the best target keywords for you to use, as well as keywords to avoid.
Campaign Management – They will oversee your online campaign and improve its optimization to maximize your marketing budget.
Web Design Services
Not everybody has the time to create a website using their free website builder or templates. The team at HostGator provides competent modern website design as well as premium models for a subscription. They also build three pages of SEO-optimized content for you to help you get off to a good start.
You get 10 pages for your money if you use their e-commerce website design services. Open Cart is used to incorporate shipping and payment solutions.
Infrastructure
HostGator's servers are housed in Tier 3 data centers in Provo, Utah (8,500 square feet) and Houston, Texas (300,000 sq. ft.).
Their hosting is very reliable because it is based on a fully redundant network with several layers of network and protection to ensure the highest reliability and stability.
RAID-1 configuration is available on dedicated servers, while RAID 10 mirrored storage is available on VPS. A guaranteed 20Mbit uplink connection is included in all VPS plans.
They hire professionals like AboveNet, Global Crossing, ATT, Comcast, and NTT to manage their networks and achieve low latency and high throughput connections.
SSD hosting is only available for cloud and dedicated servers. Their servers are equipped with the latest Intel and AMD processors.
Ease of Use
To make your transition to HostGator easier, you'll get a free site switch, with the number of sites depending on the plan you choose.
A drag and drop website builder is included to make website construction simple and painless. The builder is also e-commerce ready, but it has a lot of limitations and isn't well designed for speed.
A Premium Web Builder, on the other hand, comes with SEO tools, Google Analytics integration, e-commerce, PayPal, social media integration, and more.
- 52 scripts and over 100 mobile-responsive templates are included in the shared plans.
- VPS – tens of thousands of free models and scripts MOJO Marketplace – Installer Controlled
- WordPress – WordPress models.
- 38 scripts and 4500 free website templates are available for Windows hosting.
Installing apps is easy, with most requiring just a few clicks, and WordPress has a number of useful features. Installation in a single click
As previously mentioned, the majority of Linux plans include a free cPanel account, while Windows plans include a free Plesk account for management and the WebMatrix tool for fast site development and deployment.
Why put yourself through the strain of all the heavy lifting? Benefits for managed commitment include:
- Data migrations are completely free.
- system monitoring that is constructive
- Hostgator monitors and maintains the health, security, network, and full functionality of your server.
- Updates and fixes for software
There is no free control panel or pre-installed Apache webserver on semi-managed dedicated servers, but you do get command-line power management, which is ideal for tech-savvy clients that want to configure features.
Developer Features
There are several features for seasoned administrators, tech-savvy users, and pro-webmasters that offer you the power and flexibility to introduce customizations and code in various languages.
On shared plans, you get OpenSSH Protocol access (via Jailed Shell), as well as Cron job scheduling, while dedicated and VPS plans come with complete root access.
Support for a developer-friendly tool
- Free module installation and audio/video streaming are available.
- CGI, Quick CGI, PHP 5 and 7, Ruby on Rails, Perl, Python, SSL are some of the programming languages available.
- Curl, CPAN, GD Library, ImageMagick are some of the programming modules available.
- ASP, ASP.NET 2.0 to ASP.NET 4.5, MVC 3.0, and AJAX are examples of Windows modules.
Performance and Reliability
In terms of consistency and dependability, HostGator is unbeatable in the top three.
They offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee, with a full month's credit refunded if the uptime falls below the promised percentage.
In terms of site loading speeds, they aren't the fastest in the industry. It isn't one of their strong suits. The speeds are not bad, but they are slightly above average. Cloud hosting outperforms all of their other plans in terms of speed.
If you want pace, you should consider how these speeds would hold up under a load of a fully functional website. Would it crumble or will it last?
Only PHP7.1 and built-in Apache-based content compression are available for speed optimization. You must perform manual tweaks or install speed plugins if you want your website to load faster.
Dedicated plan speed-up functions are paid services.
Security
Security features available for unique plans are also restricted, making it difficult to find them on their website.
Shared plans just get: on top of the overall protection introduced in their main servers
- Security from Hotlinks
- Email spam defense and blocking with Spam Assassin
Automatic Malware Removal is included with Controlled WordPress Hosting.
The security suite for VPS and dedicated plans are significantly improved. Free IP table Firewalls and centralized DDOS protection are included in your hosting package. Other advantages of dedicated hosting include the ability to build a custom IPsec security policy and file change tracking, which generates warnings when file changes are detected.
Windows-specific proposals For data protection, you'll get an Advanced Windows Firewall and access to Windows Backup Service.
Customer Support
Customer service representatives are available by phone (toll-free), email (limited), and live chat 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Their Twitter team, interestingly, also assists with some support questions.
There's a searchable knowledge base with helpful blogs, FAQs, and video tutorials if you prefer self-help. Another option is to join their online group and discuss and learn from others.
If you're a reseller, you'll get 400+ videos that you can rebrand and give to your customers.
We discovered a few flaws in their customer service.
- First and foremost, you must be logged in to receive technical assistance.
- When you answer a question on their website, it must be accepted by an administrator, which may take a long time or never happen.
- Since their customer service is outsourced, you will not get the highest quality assistance for technical issues.
- Since the live chat is outsourced, you will have to wait for an average of 5 minutes for an answer.
Pricing
HostGator's plans are very affordable; they deliver low-to-mid-range pricing. To get the cheaper rates, you must make a long-term commitment (1-3 years). Monthly billing plans, on the other hand, are available, albeit at a higher cost.
Unlike other services, they don't charge for cPanel (except on unmanaged plans), and they don't charge extra for Plesk, databases, or Windows OS on Windows hosting. You only pay for database upgrades, with rates per month.
- $25 for MSSQL 2017 Web Edition
- $325 for MSSQL 2017 Standard Edition
- $1025 for MSSQL 2017 Enterprise Edition
Prices for a dedicated server on a monthly basis.
- $119.00 Value Server
- $139.99 for a Power Server
- $149.00 Enterprise Server
Payments for cloud hosting on a monthly basis
- $4.95 Hatchling
- $6.57 for a baby
- $9.95 for the company.
The cost of a VPS hosting service is calculated on a monthly basis.
- Snappy 2000 is available for $9.95.
- Snappy 4000 is available for $9.95.
- Snappy 8000 is available for $9.95.
Monthly payments for WordPress management
- $5.95 for a starter
- $7.95 standard
- $9.95 for the company.
Monthly charges for Windows Hosting Plans
- $2.75 per person,
- $2.75 per company
Monthly costs of shared hosting
- $2.75 Hatchling
- $3.95 for a baby
- $5.95 for the company.
What are the biggest drawbacks to their pricing?
- At checkout, a slew of upsells is attached to your cart.
- Renewals raise the price of the introductory period.
Refund Policy
All other plans are protected by a 45-day money-back guarantee, with the exception of dedicated servers. Also, as previously mentioned, if they fail to fulfill the uptime guarantee, you will receive a one-month credit.
But there's a catch: their reimbursement policy notes that it could take up to 90 days to collect your refund, which isn't ideal.
Furthermore,
You would not be eligible for a refund if you paid by check, bank wire transfer, or money order. Often, any install fees or add-ons purchased are not covered by the refund.
HostGator Review Conclusion
As you can see, HostGator's key advantages include excellent uptime, a wide variety of plans, impressive Windows hosting, and affordable hosting. They appeal to a demographic that is interested in inconvenience rather than optimizations and tweaks.
When signing up for HostGator plans, keep the details above in mind.
Will you consider using HostGator to host your website? Which of HostGator's features drew you in?
Let us know what you think in the comments section below!
FAQ
Where Do You Get Hostgator Nameservers?
What Payment Method Are Supported By HostGator?
Which Is The Best Web Hosting Service For Beginners?
Best Plans Provided by HostGator?
Best Plan for e-Commerce?
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