HostGator is the oldest and most successful web hosting service on the market, launched back in 2002 as an ambitious one-man project. The company has recently launched a website designer that can also go head-on with Weebly and Wix. The company is also considered as one of their biggest domain recorders. HostGator is a perfect provider for beginners and veterans with many hosting options and low starting rates. However, is it for you the right choice? That's what in this study we'll attempt to find out.
HostGator may at first appear to be a near-perfect service but, as closer inspections are carried out, it becomes evident that HostGator has some reinforcements. For one, certain plans are overpriced and not always the best results. Moreover, customer service can be a bit hit or missed by some customers and the company fails to note at the outset the need to buy some of its most valuable resources separately. But HostGator certainly needs to examine it, so let's examine what the provider has to give in more detail.
Navigation and Ease of Use
HostGator blends a traditional hosting provider's functionality with a builder's usability, making it an excellent option for beginners. The business created its own Website Builder known as Gator in an effort to compete with sites such as Wix. While this work is still being carried out, the builder already has many features and more than 200 models to choose from. Templates are not as elegant as those provided by other prominent construction companies such as Squarespace, but they are certain to accomplish the job.
For complex websites, Gator can hardly be recommended but you can certainly use it to build easy websites, blogs, or even online shops. The builder features drag-and-drop functions and is very easy to adjust, but does not have as many choices as we would wish. However, we still regard Gator as a solid option for websites starting up, especially because the builder has some nice freebies.
If you’re not into the company’s site builder, you can always combine HostGator with a different platform like WordPress, Joomla, or Magento. Regardless of the content management software you use, managing your sites from HostGator’s dashboard is a breeze. The company uses a regular cPanel so if you’ve ever used one in the past, you’ll know exactly what to expect here. If you didn’t, what you really need to know about the cPanel is that it helps you to control email addresses, databases, sub-domains, track bandwidth consumption, and adjust your profile settings, among other items, using a single guy.
Instant Everything
Installs for websites, portals, fora, and more are an amazing number of 1-click offered. It enables you to set up guest books, redirects URLs, and touch counters conveniently with a single click on your website. You also have access to a web-based file manager which allows you to directly upload files from the control panel.
It is pretty simple to create and manage a new HostGator website, but how about migrating a website that you own? This is also simpler as the firm provides all of its hosting products to provide free site conversion services. The service operates only with WordPress sites and the transition must be commenced within 30 days of registration. The simple hosting plans allow only one website to be transferred while the costly ones enable two or three to be migrated.
Plans and Pricing
HostGator can be a very inexpensive provider, especially if you are taking part in one of its shares. This is just $2.75 per month, which is also rivaled by common low-value alternatives such as Bluehost. But like most hosting services, HostGator is not really up to date on the fact that those low rates are available only to users who subscribe to the Multiannual Package. If you intend to pay month by month, the rates should be much higher.
You can find the plans have an utter lorry of resources and features when you go to the hosting comparison page of HostGator. We will not talk about most of them because we don't want to write about them at home, but we want to talk about a few. All plans are initially supplied with unchanged bandwidth and storage, free SSL certificates, free domain, e-mails, and simple eCommerce features. All the packages also have 100$ of Adwords and Bing credits, subdomains, FTP access, instant setup, and customer service 24 hours a day.
There is no major difference between the $2.75/m Hatchling Plan and the $3.95/million Baby Plan. The other one that stands out is that the Baby Plan supports an infinite number of websites and only one is supported by Hatching. Since the price gap between the two packages is so slight you should also take the Baby Plan into consideration. You never know when an additional website could be built.
The third and last shared hosting package is named after the company and will save you $5.95 a month. Unbelievably, the package has as many features as you might imagine, but there are not as many extras. A dedicated IP and better SSL certificate are included in the business plan and you can even get an additional monthly charge in combination with the other plans. In addition, you can use anonymous FTP and private SSL, and it is all about it.
Website Builder
It is important to point to the fact that you have free access to the site builder through the purchase of one of the others HostGator plans. However, you can also purchase a standalone Gator plan which features a bit more like what you will get from Wix, Weebly, or Squarespace and very different tools and features. However, unlike other builders, Gator does not restrict the bandwidth and storage you receive or the number of pages your website might have, whatever plan you want.
Because Gator attempts as much as possible to simplify stuff, you can no longer have access to any of the more advanced features included in standard plans. You will also have one year's free domain name, SSL license, password protection, and a site history that is the same as Wix, etc. Unlike other web builders, even if you subscribe to the cheapest package, Gator doesn't force you to view branded ads.
In other words, the $3.84 per month Starter Gator plan is cheaper than most other builders listed previously, in particular the Squarespace plan. It is a little hard to recommend the other plans because they do not really add anything remarkable to the table. The $5.99 per month Premium package adds prioritization, although you have guessed the eCommerce features would unlock the $9.22 per month eCommerce plan. The issue is that Gator's eCommerce features are very unimpressive so we suggest Shop or even just WordPress with the WooCommerce plugin if you want to open an online store.
WordPress Hosting
There are plenty of good choices if you are trying to build a WordPress website. With Bluehost, DreamHost, or SiteGround, the company behind the platform recommends you to host them. While all of them are excellent choices, the WordPress hosting plans from HostGator should also not be ignored. We talk about controlled hosting and they are said to perform up to 2.5 times better than shared plans. The packages are very inexpensive.
The price here begins at $5.95 per month, but only one website is available for the basic kit. If you upgrade to one more level at the most, but you can only set up a limit of 3 websites with a more costly plan, which is not great. You can also have help with additional websites. This said these plans require specific resources so that servers can usually be quicker and more reliable as long as they are not capable of supporting many websites.
For feature purposes, many of the same hosting features, including free website migration, unmetered storage, SSL certificate, malware removal, and many more, can be anticipated. The business also gives several other free-range products such as CodeGuard and SiteLock, which are two different resources for some of the other projects.
Compared to the other firms, the WordPress plans of the HostGator are very mediocre. No mention is made of 1-click downloads, free plugins or any other WordPress features you might expect. Nevertheless, the plans are generally fairly cheap and have committed resources to offer decent values.
VPS
Like the WordPress plans, most users can not easily advise HostGator's VPS packages. It's not because of the lack of interesting characteristics but because of the pricing this time around. The cheapest HostGator's VPS plan costs $29.95 a month and offers 2 GB of RAM, 2 CPU cores, 120 GB of disk space, and 1.5 GB of bandwidth. Dreamhost and Bluehost are, by contrast, making very similar VPS plans for just $20 and $19 a month. DigitalOcean, a VPS and cloud-based hosting provider, is now offering plans starting only at $5 per month.
Certainly, HostGator offers more storage than its rivals, but the company does not use SSD, which in this day and age is rather extraordinary. Upgrading to the $39.95/m or $49.95/m planning doesn't give you access to other functions or software. But curiously enough, none of the projects has unchanged bandwidth, which Dreamhost and other competitors also have in their cheapest plans.
Dedicated Servers
Whatever the provider you want, dedicated servers are still costly, but HostGator seems to charge a little more than the market average again. Prices begin here for a computer supplied with 8 GB of RAM, a quad-core CPU, and 1 TB of storage at $119 per month. If you upgrade to the $139/million or $149 monthly plans, you still benefit from SSD storage, so at least the company does its best to have decent value for money. In this case, HostGator includes unmetered bandwidth.
HostGator provides dedicated servers both managed and semi-managed. The difference between the two types is that HostGator supports customers who choose a managed plan more with site migrations, data backups, server optimization, server monitoring, and more. In addition, managed customers have access to cPanel or Plesk while semi-managed users have complete root access and an option between many operating systems, including CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, and Windows. With regard to the price difference, management projects cost $10 more regardless of which of the specific plans or billing cycles you choose.
Key Tools and Features
In HostGator's work, potential customers are persuaded that its projects have a wide variety of features, but in fact, you don't get more than standard stuff. However, while the company has nothing to write about, it does at least do a good job with the features and resources that we consider necessary. Most of the time, well. Let's look more closely at the main tools and features offered by HostGator.
Domain Registration
Most hosting companies sell their plans for free domains, and HostGator is no exception. You can register for any shared HostGator, WordPress, or Cloud hosting plan for 1 year to receive a free domain. The only precaution is to be registered for a free domain if you commit to yearly (or higher) contract. When the first year is over, if you want to keep using the domain, you must pay the regular annual charge.
Renewing or registering a new HostGator domain would make $12.95 a year more expensive. At first glance, though, it can seem like a steal. HostGator does not provide the anonymity of a domain, so for an extra $14.95 per year, you must buy it separately. This carries a sum of $27.90 which is not as cheap as other registrars. For example, for a new domain, iPage charges $21, while GoDaddy charges just about $18, including privacy.
Databases
HostGator supports MySQL databases so that all of their hosting projects can build and handle infinite numbers. You can also take advantage of automatic regular database backups and restore systems by using one of the WordPress packages. Technically, there is no limit on how many databases the device will back up, but the total size of the starter plan is 1 GB. If you upgrade your package to one of the most costly, the size cap increases respectively to 2 GB and 3 GB.
Backup and Restore
HostGator provides a free service to manually backup all of your accounts from cPanel at any time. Backups can be locally downloaded and saved on third-party websites or easily restored on HostGator servers. The organization also uses a CodeGuard automated framework to back up your files and databases every day. Sadly, not everyone's free of this method.
You can buy CodeGuard separately when checking out for a further $2 per month if you buy a shared hosting service. This does not sound too expensive, however, if you want to add CodeGuard to your package, you just need to fork around $24 early. Fortunately, if you register for a WordPress hosting package, you can get CodeGuard free of charge.
It should be noted that CodeGuard is available in three different versions – Basic, Professional, and Premium. The basic version is available free with WordPress plans or for $2/million with shared plans. If you wish to use the functionality of the higher levels, you must upgrade the tool or buy CodeGuard Professional or Premium directly from HostGator.
Domain Emails
Where email is concerned, HostGator's pretty generous. An infinite number of emails can be generated by all the users and web-based mail clients, including Squirrel, Horde, and Round Cube. You can have useful features, such as mail transmission, spammers, IMAP support, mailing lists, authors, and much more.
You can buy a Microsoft Office 365 license from HostGator for 5 $ per month if you wish to add a full professional mailbox to your account. Office 365 can be redeemed annually, unlike CodeGuard. You can purchase a license for HostGator for $6 per month and integrate it to GSuite as well.
eCommerce
For eCommerce, HostGator is not an especially good option but can accomplish the job. All plans come with free ZenCart and osCommerce carts, sales and shipping capabilities, processing payments, and inventor management. You will have the opportunity to use a coupon and a Shipping & Tax calculator if you purchase a builder package from the website. Since you won't get a lot of eCommerce features in any plan from HostGator, if a serious online store is to be built, we suggest you go for something like Shopify.
SEO
The importance of search engine optimization seems to know HostGator, as the company gives all customers a free SEO consultation analysis. Even a delegate would be assigned to you, such as keyword analysis, content generation, page optimization, and more. The company also sells $2.95 a month for customized SEO software. You will be charged this optional tool every year for a total of around $35 to apply to your account. These SEO resources are available for those who want the Business shared hosting plan.
Additional Supported Technologies
HostGator supports all of the technology you would like for web hosting, including many languages such as Python, Rails Ruby, and PHP 5. The company also allows users to use SSH and anonymous FTP in return for a monthly charge with the addition of dedicated IPs, while some plans include free IPs. CGI, Quick CGI, Cron, Image Magick, GD 2, and Perl are just a few other technologies worth noting.
👉 Also, you can read: HostGator Review
Location Coverage
HostGator is not good for the venue, mainly because HostGator focuses on US clients. At present, only two data centers are available in the business - one in Utah and one in Texas. Users cannot decide which data center their server houses so that they are probably allocated to one on a random basis. We suggest that you activate Cloudflare if you don't live in the US or are targeting non-US users when you subscribe to HostGator because it will route your content across two tens of additional data centers around the world, thus enhancing the performances of your platform.
Performance and Reliability
While you can easily look at hosting providers' prices and features before you sign up, it is a little more difficult to find details about their servers' results. The reason is that depending on a variety of factors such as hosting plans, the number of content on your website, how many plugins or add-ons you have installed, etc., the usage output will differ greatly from user to user. In this regard, we have conducted several tests on the fairly common WordPress website, hosted on a shared plan, to give you an overview of the efficiency and reliability of the average user from HostGator.
Page Loading Speed
A sluggish website doesn't like anybody and I'm not talking about users. Search engines such as Google also position slow sites below quick and reasonably fast sites. A webmaster who cares about SEO often has to choose a hosting provider with a strong speed record. Does this bill suit HostGator? I'm not really scared.
Our website loading velocities were on average around 910ms, which isn't perfect. Anything below a second is generally still regarded as fine, but many users expect sites to load a little more quickly in this day and age. It's important to note that we had average speeds of over 1,3 seconds the last time we looked at HostGator, so the situation was improved, at least in our case. However, HostGator speeds seem to be getting worse lately, based on some findings posted by other users.
While some of these findings could seem discouraging, it should be noted that we only checked the shared hosting of the business. HostGator states that, with the integrated cloud technology, sites housed on a WordPress planning load up to 2.5X quicker and, of course, much better performing is certainly possible when you have been using a dedicated VPS or server. However, the speeds are not especially high with respect to the shared plans.
Server Response Times
Though we don't always have great loading speeds on different websites, we were surprised to learn that the server response times of HostGator are not all that bad. We performed some experiments with a method named Bitcatcha and have found that response times are usually between 30 and 40 ms in the United States. However, the response times were predicted to drop considerably when checked in other areas.
The platform we used to monitor server reaction times in different countries worldwide. Based on these tests, we discovered that when you are located in Europe or Australia and in Japan about 700 ms, you will have to wait about 400 ms for a server response. Of course, HostGator servers take longer to react to rivals like SiteGround in Europe and Australia, but in fact, it takes quite some time for you to arrive in Japan. Seven hundred ms might not seem to be a great result, but the servers of SiteGround, for instance, took 2 seconds to react from Japan.
Uptime
It is good to have a fast website. However, it is always much more important to have a website accessible at all times. In other terms, a decent uptime website. You ideally want your website up 24/7, 365/year, but it is impossible because all the providers sometimes experience a failure. This is why most suppliers can only have 99.9% or lower uptime.
HostGator clearly belongs to this group because the company reiterates boldly on its homepage that all hosting plans have a guaranteed 99.9% uptime. However, does this argument hold up? We can confirm from our experience that it actually holds up. At the end of our test period, the overall uptime of our site at 99.98% was really fine.
But what if HostGator is not in a position to fulfill his future promise? Well, the assurance of the company isn't just an empty offer, since the company is willing to pay users for a free hosting month if their uptime is below 99,9 percent over a long span. However, we must note that planned repairs and matters which are outside the control of the company do not count as downtime in accordance with the company policy.
Customer Support
HostGator is known, for at least most, for providing excellent customer service. Some agents provide support better than others, but you can say this about any organization. You can contact help here at least via a number of channels including telephone, ticket, and live chat. You can access them with a toll-free call, and the full CEO Adam Farrar guarantees each HostGator account, so you can request that your ticket be transferred to them if you are unable to address your issue by support agencies. We haven't had such a problem so we can't be sure if that argument really is valid.
You can always try to find a solution in the aid center if you have a problem that is not urgent, and want to try to solve it by yourself. Hundreds of articles and video tutorials on all subjects from cPanel working and email generation via DNS, domains, design software, databases, etc. are available. There is a search bar to help you find what you are searching for more quickly. All papers are categorized.
F.A.Q.
Does HostGator Offer Any Additional Types of Hosting?
Yes, there are many forms of hosting, including cloud hosting and reseller hosting, that we did not include in our analysis. Cloud hosting starts at $4.95 a month which is equivalent to hosting for WordPress, when reseller hosting begins at $19.95 a month, targeting people wanting to start a small, independent hosting business.
Does HostGator Offer Free SSL Certificates with All Plans?
All users who register for a shared SSL license, a club, or WordPress hosting plan. The website builders' plans also provide free certificates, but the VPSs and dedicated packages are not available. Those companies also sell positive SSL certificates as optional service, which costs $3.33 a month, while HostGator provides free certificates with most plans (billed annually).
Does HostGator Offer Free Domain Names with Any of Its Plans?
Yes, but only with hosting packages shared, cloud and WordPress. You must buy a new domain separately or move an existing domain if you are registered with some other form of hosting plan.
Is HostGator a Good Option for eCommerce?
No, not too much. No. The eCommerce features provided to the company are very impressive while you can set up an online store with HostGator. Shopify, WordPress and a plugin like WooCommerce are even easier to be combined with.
What is HostGator’s Refund Policy?
For all shared hosting plans, resellers and VPS, HostGator provides a 45-day cash back guarantee. For specialized servers, club hosting plans or domain registrations, the company doesn't offer any refunds.
Final Thoughts
Now that we reach the end of this analysis quickly, let us attempt to address the question put at the start. HostGator is for you the best choice? If you are searching for an inexpensive user-friendly hosting provider for shared accommodation, decent service times and supportive customers, the response is yes. If, however, you are searching for stellar load speeds, decent eCommerce features and many revolutionary features, you will find no one I am afraid of here. It depends, in short, on it.
We like what HostGator has to give, personally, but we still believe there is much space for improvement. The shared hosting packages are easy for beginners to recommend, while for the majority of interested people the WordPress plans suit well, while they certainly provide better options. However, the company has recently attempted to develop its products and even introduce new ones like the website creator, and we've mixed sentiments for HostGator. For now, a lame recommendation can only be given, but it may change very well in the near future if the business continues to improve.
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