hostgator reviews

In the world of web hosting, there is really a single name and company that comes up with far more frequency than almost any other – HostGator.

Rock Solid Background

This is one of the best-known hosting companies in existence. Their history dates back to 2002. You can choose between shared hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, and reseller hosting. Is HostGator the right choice for you, though? Read on to find out more.

Cool Features

One of the real giants of the web hosting and web service industry, HostGator has for years been offering people the absolute top of the line hosting and domain service for web professionals, business people, and individuals.

• Quick App Installer – You can choose form more than 75 applications. Installation is done with just a few clicks.
• Powered by cPanel – The industry’s best-known control panel, cPanel brings all the goodies necessary to build and maintain a great website.
• High Standard Support – Non-stop server monitoring and live chat, phone, and email support.
• Programming and Databases – PHP, MySQL, SSH access and more for the advanced users.

The Masters of Efficiency

They go the clean and minimal route with almost all of their design choices on HostGator.com, but this shouldn’t throw you off – they are masters of efficiency and have one of the best run web hosting providers you could find anywhere in the world.
I know I’m talking pretty glowingly about HostGator.com – but there is a very real and significant reason.

Quick Facts

• Get started for as little as $4.86 per month. This is actually slightly more expensive than a number of other web hosts out there, but it is still well within industry norms.
• HostGator provides a control panel which is designed for ease-of-use, and which is ideal even for beginners.
• You get 4,500 free website templates to choose from, making it easy to design your site.
• HostGator provides a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
• Scripts are easy to install with a single click.
• You get $200 in free advertising credits just for signing up.
• This is a company which offers you support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Dorm Room to World Domination

Created in a dorm room at the University of Florida in 2003, HostGator has gone on to establish itself as one of the industry giants.

Forbes Fastest Growing Company

Boasting over 8 million domain registrations and well over 400,000 customers, once you give HostGator a try you’ll soon understand why they’ve been able to land themselves on the Forbes list of the fastest growing organizations – tapping in at 21^st place.  Not too shabby for a relatively new web hosting company.

Plans and Pricing

Let’s take a look at the different types of hosting which HostGator offers, as well as each of the plans that you can choose from. The most basic type of hosting offered by HostGator is shared hosting. This inexpensive option allows you to cut back on costs by sharing server space with other customers.

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated hosting, on the other hand, is the most expensive type of hosting. With this type of hosting, you have a physical server all for yourself. This hosting is ideal for large commercial businesses, whereas shared hosting is suited to customers operating small personal websites and businesses online.

VPS

A middle ground option offered by HostGator is VPS web hosting. VPS stands for “Virtual Private Server.” With a virtual private server, you are sharing the same physical hardware with other customers, but your server is running as a virtual private machine. This gives you the functionality that you would have with dedicated hosting at a fraction of the price.

Reseller Hosting

Additionally, HostGator offers reseller hosting, which is perfect if you run a web development agency to build sites for other customers. They also offer WordPress hosting for bloggers.
Now let’s take a look at the different plan tiers available for each type of hosting.

Shared Hosting

• Hatchling Plan: Starting at $4.86 per month, going up to $10.95 per month after the promotional period ends.
• Baby Plan: Starting at $6.96 per month, renewing at $11.95 per month.
• Business Plan: Starting at $10.46 per month, renewing at $16.95 per month.

At the lowest tier, you get only a single domain, but you do get unmetered bandwidth and a shared SSL certificate. If you opt for one of the top two tiers, you get unlimited domains. At the highest level, you add in a free private SSL certificate and IP address, as well as a free toll-free phone number.
Each plan comes with all 4,500 free website templates, free website building tools including Weebly Site Builder, free website transfer if you need it, and transfer for scripts and MySQL. On top of that, you are given 52 free scripts you can apply effortlessly with a click of a mouse. The shared hosting plans also include $200 in complementary advertising credits.

VPS Hosting

There are five different tiers of VPS hosting services available on HostGator. The lowest cost plan is the Snappy 500, which includes 0.5 CPU cores, 512 MB of RAM, 25 GB of disk space, 500 GB of bandwidth, and 2 IP addresses. This plan starts at just $11.97 per month and renews at $19.95 per month.

This is less expensive than many competing plans offered by other web hosts and represents a great deal. The highest level is the Snappy 8000, which includes 4 CPU cores, 8 GB of RAM, 240 GB of disk space, 3 TB of bandwidth, and 2 IP addresses. This plan costs $99.97 per month to start and renews at $159.95 per month.
What is great about HostGator’s VPS plans is the fact that you have five different tiers to choose from, whereas most other companies confine you to three choices. This means that VPS hosting is flexible for any budget, and there is a package of there which should be perfect for your needs. As with the shared hosting plans, these VPS plans renew at higher rates.

WordPress Hosting

If you use WordPress as your content management system and are looking for a web host which caters directly to your needs, there are a few great options out there, and HostGator is one of them. Not all companies offer WordPress hosting specifically; a lot of them simply offer shared hosting and compatibility with WordPress. The difference here is that these services are optimized for WordPress.
There are three different levels of WordPress hosting available on HostGator:

• Starter: $5.97 per month during the promotional period.
• Standard: $9.57 per month during the promotional period.
• Business: $16.77 per month during the promotional period.

As with the other types of hosting offered by HostGator, these rates increase when it comes time to renew your plan. All plans include unlimited e-mail and storage and automated daily backups. Backups are an excellent feature, as many web hosts will charge you extra for this. The upper tiers allow you to migrate over more sites and also provides you with better performance for higher amounts of monthly site traffic. These plans include free advertising credits as well.

Dedicated Hosting

The most expensive plans on HostGator are dedicated hosting plans which allow you to have a server all to yourself. You can choose from a Linux or Windows environment; either way you’ll pay the same starting rate. This is awesome since a lot of hosts will charge extra if you want to use a Windows environment. There are four tiers available starting with Basic for $105 per month, and ranging up to Pro at $225 per month. These are the plans that you want to choose if you’re running a large commercial website and need the maximum resources available to you at all times.

Blogging Features

HostGator really is an excellent choice if you want to host a blog on WordPress. If you’re just going with the standard shared hosting, features are going to be okay. But if you go with the WordPress Starter Plan, you are going to get a ton of amazing features including a simplified control panel designed with your user experience in mind, apps and plug-ins for WordPress, speed boosting, enhanced security features (including malware protection), and premium WordPress features designed to simplify your life.

eCommerce Features

HostGator also has online shops in mind. The company recommends you to choose the Business plan to host an online store. This plan gives you a free dedicated IP address as well as a free dedicated SSL certificate. It is compatible with a number of different shopping carts and allows you to accept payments through various online gateways.

Security Features

When your site is hosted by HostGator, it is protected by a customized firewall. It protects your site against DDoS attacks. If you get WordPress hosting, you can take advantage of additional advanced security features which protect your WP installation from malware.

99.99% Uptime

Once you peel back the initial layer it’s easy to see why they’ve been able to enjoy so much success. HostGator prides itself on having some of the best technology in the world for its servers and equipment – and even though they are constantly upgrading and pushing the envelope hardware wise. The uptimes and levels of reliability that they are able to produce are just astounding.

Multiple Levels of Service

Not offering just a single level of hosting, HostGator.com allows you to choose the plan (and the price point) that is perfect for your unique situation.

Support with High Standards

They have incredible support teams that will literally walk you through the entire process, and I’ve even found them to be able to help when I was in way, way over my head.

Live support is one of the most important things for a web hosting company to have (especially when every second your site is down or having a problem could mean lost sales), and HostGator really pushes for the highest of standards with all of their techs and support members. That has been my experience.

There Are Some Issues

Sadly, not all customers are impressed. Actually, they seem to disappoint. I have looked over numerous customer reviews and have seen many reports that HostGator is very slow to reply to e-mail queries or pick up the phone. They report that customer service agents are often unhelpful and slow to resolve issues.
This is really disheartening, though thankfully not universal. It is not necessarily enough on its own to stop me from recommending HostGator. It is a good reason to be cautious, however, which is why I suggest that you take the time to test drive not only the hosting service itself but the customer service as well.
Even if you do not have any problems during the initial 45 days of service, take the time to call or e-mail the company with a question or two. Make sure that you are happy with the response before you commit to a package.

Quick Resolutions

Contrary to what many reviews report, I’ve had nothing but pleasant experiences with any of their frontline team members. Each and every time I have gotten a perfectly awesome resolution to problems that I caused in the first place.

Refund Policy

HostGator backs all of its plans with a 45-day money-back guarantee. This is actually quite good, as the industry standard is 30 days. So HostGator is giving you a little extra time to make up your mind and commit to a package.

Ease-of-Use

This is one area where HostGator really excels. All accounts come with free website building tools including Weebly SiteBuilder. As mentioned previously, there are numerous scripts available you can install and run with a single click.
Additionally, if you are opting for WordPress hosting, you get to use a customized control panel which has been streamlined specifically for blogging. So no matter what type of hosting you choose, and however much or little experience you have, you are in for a great experience.

Who Is HostGator Best For?

One great thing about HostGator is that it is pretty much good for everyone. HostGator offers such a wide range of plans and types of hosting that no matter your needs or your budget, you should find something to suit you. So whether you run a global commercial enterprise or tiny personal hobby site, HostGator has got you covered.

Pros of HostGator:

• There are many types of plans available, and more tiers than a lot of other companies offer, especially with VPS hosting. This means that there are flexible options for all budgets and needs.
• HostGator specializes in WordPress hosting and offers a ton of excellent features at a very reasonable price point.
• If you are a beginner looking for ease-of-use, you’ll find it here. HostGator offers a number of simplified tools for website design and scripting.
• Features for e-commerce are also excellent, and HostGator provides you with everything you need to run an online shop and accept a variety of payment methods.
• The 45-day money-back guarantee is above and beyond the 30-day standard for the industry. You will have more time to make up your mind before you commit, and should not feel rushed in making your decision.

Cons of HostGator:

• Some of HostGator’s plans are more expensive than plans offered by competitors. The lowest tier of shared hosting is a couple dollars more per month than you will find with some of the other hosts. Thankfully, some of HostGator’s other plans are actually less expensive, like the lowest tier for VPS.
• The biggest con to mention with HostGator is the poor reports of customer service. There are simply too many to write them off as flukes. The last thing you want to be dealing with when your website is down and losing money is a company that cannot be bothered to solve your problem right away. Again, I recommend that you test out the team yourself with a few questions before you commit past the initial 45-day period.

Knock Out Web Hosting Provider

All in all, HostGator seems like a web host with a lot to offer. Aside from the unsatisfactory reports about customer service, there really is not a whole lot to complain about.
So if you are interested in giving them a try, just be sure to check out customer service yourself to make sure that this is a company that you will fill comfortable dealing with.
Hostgator has a strong reputation, and they do appear to offer some great services and benefits, but they are not without some substantial drawbacks. There does not seem to be any one absolutely amazing standout feature either that would cause us to recommend Hostgator above a competitor like eHost.
If you are looking for reasonably priced shared or VPS hosting from a company with a lot of industry experience, Hostgator may be a good choice. But if you want to save money on top-shelf WordPress hosting, we recommend checking out eHost.

Hostgator was started in 2002 by Brent Oxley, a student at Florida Atlantic University.  He was inspired to get into hosting after being a long time affiliate but due to the dot com bubble burst of 2000 (where his sources of income dried up) he turned to hosting under the name freakwebhosting.com.  As it took off, he changed the name, and hence the brand was born.  It then took off, and in 2008 was ranked #21 on Inc 5000, and #239 in 2009, with a revenue of $34.2 million in 2008.  In 2012, with a revenue of then somewhere around $225 million the brand was sold to
In 2012, with a revenue of then somewhere around $225 million the brand was sold to Endurance International Group (EIG), who also own other high profile brands such as Bluehost, Justhost, Fatcow and Hostnine to name just a few.

Our Hostgator Shared Hosting Review

You can see the three different plans offered below:

As you can see, all the plans are unlimited, with just a few minor variations between the 3 plans.  The Hatchling only permits one domain to be hosted on the server, and the Business plan includes a dedicated IP, and private SSL certificate as well as a free Toll Number (for US customers).
Of course, nothing can truly be limited, and instead, you would be subject to “fair usage” as defined in the terms and conditions.  Concerning CPU and disk usage on their shared hosting plans you should note the following:
Unfortunately, the terms and conditions are not the clearest, but their Support Page on the subject clarifies the issue by stating that you are not allowed to use more than 25% of the CPU for longer than 90 seconds.  There are even reports of this affecting relatively minor sites, but of course, it is difficult to verify what exactly is going on.  This is shared hosting after all, and such limitations are not out of the ordinary.

Datacenter Locations

Data centers are located in Houston Texas at CyrusOne’s Houston West Facility, and Provo Utah at Ace Data Center (where Bluehost, Justhost, and Hostmonster are located).  Unfortunately, you are not able to choose a particular datacenter location when you sign up.
[display_map address1=”Houston, Texas | Houston, Texas Datacenter” address2=”Provo, Utah | Provo, Utah Datacenter” zoom=”2″]

A Look at Hostgator Support

It is difficult to know where to start when we consider how best to describe their level of support.  There are plenty of mixed messages around the web, with some pretty vocal negative viewpoints around.  Couple that with a high BBB rating of A+, and the occasional glowing review it makes it quite difficult to ascertain really how good or bad they are. Of course, when you have such a large company you will find more grumbles than say a smaller company, but let’s try to decipher what exactly is going on.
When looking at their level of support, you have to remember that before EIG took it over in 2012 that they were one of the best hosting brands out there.  Their support was second to none, and if anyone asked for a hosting recommendation they were among the top of the list.  Their whole ethos was based on excellent support, and indeed, the man behind their customer service department (Douglas Hannah) went on to run A Small Orange \ Hostnine on behalf of EIG (although he has now left there as well).  So… fast forward a few years, and they are well and truly integrated into the whole EIG management system and a different company to what it was in 2012.  Whenever people who are more knowledgeable about hosting talk about them, they now naturally compare it to their historical version and as such (bearing in mind many are anti-EIG) speak of the modern incarnation unfavorably.

Live Chat Support

We tested their support a few times via live chat, and the wait time was only 1 or 2 minutes.  The tech guy was very helpful, providing useful advice and the answers as far as we were aware were concise and accurate.  An example of one of our first chats is below:

Ok, so what about ticket support?

Well,… this is where some negatives start cropping in.  In a recent example, a user with email issues approached their live support because their ticket had not been answered in 4 days, with part of their response explaining that “our ticket times are a bit higher than expected.”
But, this seems to be just the tip of the iceberg. Another customer, as you can see from the attached screenshot opened a ticket complaining they are not able to access any of their sites.  Some eight days later the response came.  Eight days!

If it were us, unless the issue was complicated and had already been referred to a senior (due to being a complex issue), not getting a response in 24 hours would signal alarm bells.  Not getting the first response within 48 hours would see us moving to a new host, especially when these problems don’t seem to be a temporary thing with some references to the slow support times going back to the end of last year.

Features

We have already looked briefly at the different plans offered.  Now we will look at particular features that might be of interest and what might separate them from the competition.

• cPanel Control Panel – This is one of the most popular web hosting control panels that allows you to manage easily all aspects of your web hosting account.  One great thing we particular like is the import feature that it offers, so it makes it easy to transfer your sites from one host to another.  You can read more about cPanel here.
• Free Weebly Sitebuilder – While they advertise a free Weebly Sitebuilder, in reality, this only allows you up to 6 pages, with other restrictions.  For a fully functioning Weebly Sitebuilder install, you will have to pay $8.99 per month, with an additional $2.99 for E-commerce.  You can activate and upgrade Weebly from within the cPanel.  There is a detailed overview, and other resources to get you started here.
• 4,500 free website templates – We are not sure we should have included this as a positive, after just looking at the quality and type of templates they offer.  Many are of a relatively old style, and we would not suggest you use one of the Flash Templates (bad for SEO).  We would advise you don’t waste time on these and instead, buy a decent WordPress theme from somewhere like Themeforest.
• Ruby on Rails, Perl, Python – Very useful for those who need it.  Surprisingly not every host offers these now.
• Toll-Free Number on Business Plan – This is for US Callers only.  Canadian customers are charged a fee for the call.  You must also call the number once every 30 days. Otherwise the number is canceled.
• Sitelock – Ok, they have been a little sneaky here advertising this as $99 value.  In reality, what you get is a cut-down version of Sitelock, and only the scanning component is included.  The real plan offers Scanning, Removal, Web Application Firewall, DDos Protection and CDN.
• Codeguard – This is something we would recommend, and as a previous user of Codeguard (we now use Vaultpress for hourly backups at $15 pm) we found it quite good, and for just $19.95 per year this represents excellent value.  If you were to sign up direct, it would cost you $5 per month.  Essentially, this takes your backups away from the host and allows you to restore your website on demand from the daily backups it takes.
• Target Rank SEO with SEO Gears – This appears to be a company owned by Hostgator’s parent company EIG, which seems to service all the EIG brands.  Furthermore, there seems no way to purchase directly the products from the site.  The cost of Target Rank is $14.99 per year and includes an SEO E-book and SEO Tools.  It is unclear exactly what the SEO Tools are, but we suspect they give you just enough information to upsell then you on more expensive services.  SEO Gears offers Search Engine Visibility, Target Leads, Paid Website Traffic and Website + Facebook Page design.  As there is no way to purchase these services direct (from what we can see) we suspect this will be marketed to existing customers of Target Rank.
• Google Apps Wizard – You can integrate Google Apps (professional email, Google Apps, Calendar) with just 3 simple steps with their Wizard accessed via their cPanel.  We are a big fan of Google Apps, and this makes setting everything up super easy.

Speed

Before we carry out the speed tests on our standard test theme that we use with all hosting providers, it will be interesting to see if they employ any technology or features that might help with your website performance.
Unfortunately, by the very nature of their business model (unlimited hosting) it precludes things like offering the much more expensive SSD storage.  Also, we see no other optimizations that might improve speed, with the exception of the one-click Cloudflare addon which when setup with our guide in mind should help significantly.
So let us take a look at the speed test results:
Coming soon.  We would have loved to have carried out the tests by now, but our account has issues, and we are waiting on a ticket response!  It might be a few days before the test site is back online!

Uptime

Value

For a host with fairly reasonable to high pricing the level of support being offered is far below what you might expect.  As such we do not think this offers particularly good value.  For similar pricing, you can get a host that responds within the hour, and without even a respectable level of support (hell, even a first response within 24 hours would be a good starting point!) there is no way we can speak positively about the value they represent.

Summary

We now also offer a search feature (see sidebar), and you will find the information stored about Hostgator in the table below.  Note it is meant to highlight main features we feel are important, rather than designed to be all encompassing:

Hostgator Review Final Thoughts

The first thought is “What went wrong?”.  This company used to be amazing, but since it was purchased by EIG, it has just been run into the ground.  Perhaps their decision to move all their ticket support to India has had something to do with it.  It is like they just do not care anymore.
We have just (March 2015) updated this review, but in the 3-4 days so far since we purchased their hosting we have not had a working site… AND the real annoying thing is that we have not even had a first response from the ticket we raised!  Of course, we will update this review with some speed tests as soon as we can get our site working, but we don’t think anything will change the tone of our Hostgator review bearing in mind the horrible experience since joining up.

But… why are all the other reviews raving about them?

Well, this is due to the amount of money they pay reviewers to write positive reviews.  We have checked around the web, and some legitimate review sites (with user reviews) have quite a few negative comments lately, and also forums like Webhostingtalk are not particularly positive either. Plus, some reviews are just old… and we are surprised how much worse they have got since we last tested them out a year ago.
Bearing everything contained in this review, we would certainly recommend you AVOID them for the time being.  Should they get their act together we will, of course, update this review, but that doesn’t look likely at least in the short term.

With hundreds of different web hosting providers in the industry, choosing the right one can be difficult.  The top three and most recommended web hosting companies are HostGator, BlueHost and DreamHost.
Many people find it difficult to see the clear winner among these three. People have asked me to review Hostgator Vs GoDaddy, BlueHost Vs HostGator, HostGator Vs DreamHost and this is HostGator Vs BlueHost comparison.

Performance & Reliability

BlueHost and HostGator are two best and most recommended web hosting because of their performances. Both HostGator and BlueHost provide 99.9% uptime guarantee.
HostGator sites are hosted in Dual Xeon servers at Dallas. top-of-the-line Dual Xeon in their data centers at Dallas. The data centers are well equipped and connects to 10 backbone providers.
BlueHost use CPU Segregation technology which can intelligently control CPU and protect your site from bad users. Also, HostGator invest millions of dollars every year in new technologies for better performance.
To be honest, I must say that HostGator’s performance is rock solid and the way HostGator handles thousands of daily visitors to this blog is surprising.

HostGator Vs BlueHost – Uptime

Website downtime can be a very bad experience for visitors. BlueHost and HostGator both guarantee 99.9% uptime. Now it’s time to see if they are right.
I monitored two websites hosted on HostGator and BlueHost, using a tool called Pingdom. The results are displayed below in the image. HostGator had just 1 outage of 1 minute in the last 7 days, whereas BlueHost had 11 outages of total 51 minutes.

HostGator Vs BlueHost – Response Time

Pingdom also showed the highest response time of the sites hosted on these two hosts. Site hosted on HostGator never took more than 1288ms (1.2 seconds) to load, whereas site hosted on BlueHost took over 5429ms (5.4 seconds) to load.
Site Hosted On HostGator

Site Hosted On BlueHost

HostGator Vs BlueHost – Speed Test

Speed is an important factor to consider before choosing a web host. So we set up two websites on HostGator and BlueHost with exact same design, blog posts, image attachments and pages. Then we performed speed test using Pingdom tool. The raw results are displayed below. Site hosted on HostGator loads around 50% faster than BlueHost.
Site Hosted On HostGator

Site Hosted On BlueHost

Customer Support

When it comes to Web Hosting Companies, having a great team of support is mandatory. Whenever you face issues with your website or server, the support team must be able to solve it ASAP to prevent site downtime. There is an understanding team of support available at HostGator.
Support is available 24*7*365 and you can contact them using different methods. You can create a ticket or use the live chat feature or make a phone call. BlueHost also provides good customer service, as the main goal of the company is to provide good customer support. Like HostGator, BlueHost also provide Email Support, Live Chat and Phone Support.
I’ve personal experience with both BlueHost and HostGator customer support. Whenever I had some issues with my websites, I could contact them easily and they’ve been very helpful to me.

User Interface

Both HostGator and BlueHost provide cPanel. It’s important to have a user-friendly control panel, especially for people who are new to this and who do not know how to install web scripts like WordPress, Joomla etc.
Both hosting providers have top notch security to their cPanel to keep your files safe from viruses and hackers.
The billing area on both HostGator & BlueHost is good and easy to navigate. HostGator also provide their own customised cPanel which is very easy to get used to. This shows HostGator focuses on customer satisfaction.

Features & Pricing

Both HostGator & BlueHost provide a lot of features and I could write a whole article talking about each feature. So, I created a simple table comparing the features of two hosting providers.
BlueHost offers three plans called Starters Plan, Plus and Business Plan. On the other hand, HostGator also have three hosting plans called Hatchling, Baby and Business plan. These hosting providers change prices of their plans frequently, so it’s better if you check out the updated prices using the links below.

My Recommendation – HostGator or BlueHost?

Based on the comparison and tests performed above, HostGator beats BlueHost in performance.. You can expect a rock solid performance from HostGator.
Why you should choose HostGator?

1.  HostGator offers one month hosting plans at a price of $0.01 per month.
2.  HostGator offers 45-day money back guarantee. No risk of losing your money.
3. It has got a highly efficient customer support team, which is available 24/7. If you are having any troubles, they will be right behind you to fix it.
4. Easy to use and beginner friendly control panel. It’s so simple and functional.
5. Your website will load quicker than BlueHost.
6. 99.9% uptime guarantee. Your readers will never have any bad experiences.
7. They have a hard working security team that your site safe from Hackers, Viruses and Malwares.
8. HostGator clearly beats BlueHost in performance department which means your website will perform better on HostGator.
9. Various discount coupon codes to SAVE BIG!

Every business needs a website, and for that you need a Web hosting service. It doesn't matter if it's a fully functioning e-commerce setup or a simple page with little more than your contact information. The feature-packed HostGator $3.33 at HostGator - Shared boasts wallet-friendly prices, and it offers plenty of tools to Webmasters. HostGator has quality dedicated and virtual private server (VPS) server packages, but its shared plans are one of the reasons why the company stands out from the very crowded Web hosting pack. In fact, HostGator's shared packages are so robust that PCMag named the Web host our top pick in that subcategory. The service is also very easy to use, so we've crowned it our Editors' Choice for novice webmasters.

Shared Web Hosting Packages
HostGator offers month-to-month shared hosting plans, but pushes hard for you to sign up for longer terms, starting at six months. I don't like that during the signup process HostGator defaults to a three-year term. It's one thing to encourage users to skip month-to-month service, but pushing them into three years from the start is a bit much.
That said, HostGator offers Linux- or Windows-based based shared hosting packages that give small- and medium-sized businesses room to grow. The Hatchling plan (starting at $10.95 per month) offers unlimited disk space, bandwidth, databases, and email addresses, plus support for one domain and third-party applications such as content management systems and e-commerce platforms. The Baby plan (starting at $11.95 per month) builds on the Hatchling offering by adding unlimited domains. The top-tier Business plan (starting at $16.95 per month) includes highly specialized options, such as a free toll-free phone number and a private SSL (secure socket layer) certificate.
Arvixe $3.20 at Arvixe - Shared matches HostGator closely in the shared hosting game, but HostGator offers slightly more bang for the buck with the inclusion of a private SSL certificate and free toll-free number.
Virtual Private Server Packages
HostGator offers Linux-based VPS hosting starting at $19.95 per month. If you need more power, expect high traffic volumes, or have specific compliance requirements that prevent you from using shared servers (but you don't want to pay dedicated server prices), these are good options to consider.
The most basic VPS plan, Snappy 500, starts with 512MB RAM, 25GB disk space, and 500GB of monthly data transfers. The most advanced, Snappy 8000, offers 8GB of RAM, 240GB of disk space, and 3TB of monthly data transfers for $159 per month. The plans are much more flexible than what's offered by Network Solutions $2.99 at Network Solutions, but not quite as well rounded as Hostwinds $4.50 at Hostwinds - Shared, our top choice for VPS hosting.
Hostwinds has wallet-friendly, well-rounded VPS offerings that start at $7.50 per month for 1GB of RAM, 25GB of disk space, unlimited monthly data transfers, unlimited email, and half a CPU core, and scale to $172 per month for 28.5GB of RAM, 600GB of disk space, unlimited monthly data transfers, unlimited email, and eight CPU cores. Hostwinds's VPS plans also have a Windows operating system option, which is something that HostGator doesn't offer.
Dedicated Server PackagesHostGator's dedicated server packages start at $174 per month, and they offer a fine set of features. HostGator users can customize their servers with up to 1TB of storage, 16GB of RAM, and an impressive 25TB of monthly data transfers, which bests the bandwidth offerings from Arvixe (10TB), GoDaddy $3.99 at GoDaddy - Shared (20TB), and many other Web hosts. Dreamhost $4.95 at DreamHost - Shared, on the other hand, is a rare Web host that offers dedicated servers with unlimited data transfers per month.
HostGator's dedicated servers come in both Linux and Windows flavors, which isn't as commonplace as you might think; Linux tends to dominate the field. In fact, HostGator is one of the few Web hosts we've tested that scored well and offers both operating systems. Even Dreamhost, one of our favorite hosting services, lacks Windows-based dedicated servers.
That said, Arvixe is the category's Editors' Choice. The company's excellent dedicated servers start at $108 per month for a cloud-based server, or $128 per month for a traditional server. Arvixe's options are more wallet-friendly than Media Temple's $20.00 at Media Temple - Shared dedicated servers, which start at a pricey $2,000 per month.
Setting Up a HostGator Hosted Site
It's a good thing HostGator sends a getting-started email with links to all the resources you'll need because the interface takes a little getting used to. HostGator has a Billing Login link at the top of its site that leads to the customer portal, where all the payment information, details about your plan, and options to purchase add-ons are listed. This page has tabs across the top for account and domain management. The Hosting tab is where you see the actual control panel with sit-building tools, applications, website statistics, and more. The introductory email also has a direct link for the control panel, but it looks different from what you'd get through the Hosting tab, making the experience a bit confusing at first.
HostGator has several options for building a website. You can use the included site builder, which happens to be Weebly, the Editors' Choice. Weebly's drag-and-drop functionality let me quickly build an attractive page complete with slideshows, contact forms, social media links, and more in no time. You can also install WordPress or other CMS platforms such as Drupal, b2evolutions, Joomla, Mambo, and Tiki, to name a few. A File Manager tool lets you manually upload files to the server to create the website that way. The tool is better than a basic FTP client because you can edit the files directly or use a built-in HTML editor.
WordPress Hosting
HostGator lets you install the WordPress content management system (CMS) onto any of its aforementioned servers, but the Web host also offers three tiers of managed WordPress Web hosting: Starter, Standard, and Business.
Starter (starting at $14.95 per month) offers 25,000 visits per month, the ability to host just one WordPress site, 50GB of storage, and unlimited email. Standard (starting at $20.95) ups things to two WordPress sites, 200,000 monthly visits, and 150GB of disk space. Business (starting at $31.95 per month) grants five WordPress sites, 500,000 monthly visits, and unlimited storage. All plans come with page caching and an optimized WordPress hosting environment.
That said, 1&1 $0.99 at 1&1 - Shared, our Editors' Choice for WordPress hosting, tops HostGator and the competition by offering unlimited storage, domains, visitors, and email with its high-end Unlimited plan ($14.99 per month). You also get automatic malware detection and removal.
WordPress is easy to set up on HostGator even if you don't go the managed WordPress route. The customer portal has an option called Quick Links that opens a dedicated interface for installing third-party applications. There's also a handy shortcut called Get Started With WordPress Today that leads to the Quick Links interface. I set the path to my blog's installation, entered the username for the WordPress administrator account, and clicked on the install button. As easy as that, my site was up and running. HostGator also automatically installed the WP-Super-Cache WordPress plug-in to help improve blog performance.
In testing, the process of setting up my WordPress site was easy, because the database was already there. There was also a link to the Mojo Marketplace under WordPress services with premium add-ons and services for my blog. HostGator lacks a blog import button, but WordPress makes the import process easy enough.
Flexible Email Management
What's the point of a Web presence if the visitor to your site can't contact you? Like Arvixe, HostGator provides an unlimited number of email accounts right from the start. Setting up an email account is simple. You create accounts one at a time, which is unfortunate; Network Solutions lets you make several at once. I did like the fact that HostGator let you set mailbox quotas. There's also a built-in password strength meter, which is important.
I was disappointed that HostGator lacks built-in antivirus or antispam features; Network Solutions and HostMonster $6.95 at HostMonster - Shared include those safety measures.
Various E-Commerce Tools on Hand
As mentioned, HostGator offers Mojo Marketplace, which has email marketing tools such as DaDa Mail (starting at $34.95 per year), software that lets you send email newsletters to a subscribers list. Quick Links also has e-commerce packages, including Magento, phpCOIN, SugarCRM, and ZenCart. I installed Magento, which provides a drag-and-drop interface to create an attractive online store. There are tons of design options, which can get a little overwhelming.
Excellent Uptime Results
Website uptime is one of the most important aspects of a hosting service. If your site is down, clients or customers will be unable to find you or access your products or services.
For uptime testing, I used a website monitoring tool to track our HostGator-hosted test site's uptime over thirty days. Every 15 minutes, the tool pings my website and sends me an email if it is unable to contact the site for at least one minute. The testing data reveals that HostGator is remarkably stable, so you don't have to worry about your site going down for extended periods of time.
Quality Customer Service
Like HostMonster, HostGator offers both 24/7 telephone support and an online Web chat—I tested both help methods.
I dialed up phone tech support on a weekday morning to ask how I could import my WordPress.com blog into my HostGator site. I received detailed instructions via email and was quite satisfied.
I tested HostGator's online Web chat, too. After typing my question into a form and starting the chat, I was shown my estimated wait time: one minute. Less than a minute later, a customer service rep appeared and provided easy-to-understand instructions on how to import the blog.
HostGator also has a very deep knowledge base and it contains answers to practically every possible question you could have, ranging from basic to very advanced. Overall, HostGator provides excellent customer support.
Money-Back Guarantee
HostGator does better than most of its competitors here, offering a 45-day guarantee, but Dreamhost, our top pick for advanced users, is even more generous, with an impressive 97-day guarantee.
Dedicated to Hosting
HostGator is an excellent Web host that makes setting up a site or WordPress blog a breeze. You don't get one-click installs or imports, but its Quick Link interface is mostly straightforward and much more robust than most of the options out there. HostGator's generous hosting offerings are enough to win the PCMag Editors' Choice designation in the shared Web hosting subcategory, and it's the overall top pick for Web hosting novices, too. If you're an experienced webmaster, however, consider our Editors' Choice for expert hosting, DreamHost.

PROS OF USING ‘HOSTGATOR’ HOSTING

#1 100% Initial Uptime Results

#2 Top Two in Speed So Far

#3 Special Discounted Pricing – Exclusive to HostingFacts.com

#4 Overall User-Friendliness

#5 100% Free Migration + Daily Backups + Automatic Malware Removal + Global CDN + SSL Certificate = #Winning

#6Good, Quick Support

CONS OF USING ‘HOSTGATOR’ HOSTING

#1 Industry-Standard Pricing Tricks (If You Don’t Use Our Offer)

#2 Possible Con: No Social Support Channels

Overview on HostGator Managed WordPress Hosting Plans

• Starter Plan: This plan starts at $5.95 per month. It supports 1 site, 25k visits per month, 1GB backups, and 50GB storage.
• Standard Plan: This plan starts at $7.95 per month. It supports 2 site, 200k visits per month, 2GB backups, and 150GB storage.
• Business plan: This plan starts at $9.95 per month. It supports 3 site, 300k visits per month, 3GB backups, and unlimited GB of storage.

Quick Facts

• Ease of Signup: Signup process is a breeze!
• Payment Methods: You can pay by credit card or PayPal.
• Hidden Fees and Clauses: The ony major ‘gotcha’ is a restriction that you can’t tap over 25% of their system for over 90 seconds.
• Upsells: There are some upsells along the way.
• Account Activation: It might require up to 24-48 hours for accounts to be activated in some cases.
• Control Panel and Dashboard Experience: cPanel.
• Installation of Apps and CMSs (WordPress, Joomla, etc.): Extremely easy, one-click installation process of the most popular apps available.

Do We Recommend HostGator?