Have you ever dreamt about hosting that grows together with your business? That’s what HostGator is all about. In this article, you’ll learn HostGator reviews, its pros and cons, as well as main features, performance, and best use cases. Let’s start right from its advantages and disadvantages to determine if it’s a good fit for your needs.
HostGator Hosting Pros & Cons
You need to weigh all the options before choosing the hosting, so let’s look at the following HostGator hosting review characteristics.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
|
The first year of the domain for free
Free transfer from your current site
Unmetered bandwidth
99,9% uptime guarantee
Install in one click
Free SSL certificate
Domain registration
E-commerce tools
Credit on Google Ads
45 days money-back guarantee
|
Servers are located only in the United States
No staging areas
No built-in server-side caching system
Slow support response time
High domain prices
Shared hosting doesn’t offer a lot of extras
|
HostGator Hosting in Brief
| Characteristic | Information |
|---|---|
| Uptime guarantee | 99,9% |
| Server response time | 143.4 ms |
| Support options | 24/7 live chat, phone, fax |
| Plans | Shared hosting, Website builder, WordPress, VPS, Dedicated hosting |
| CMSs | WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Lifetype, b2Evolution, Hotaru |
| Features | Free website builder, free 1-year domain registration, unmetered disk space, free email, free dedicated IP, FREE Positive SSL upgrade |
| Server locations | USA |
| Starting price | $2,75/month |
When to Use HostGator
HostGator is a perfect choice for bloggers and small personal websites, as it provides simple shared hosting services for those who only start. Also, HostGator is an excellent fit for non-profit sites, as it has very reasonable pricing and a lot of functionality you can get for free.
When Not to Use HostGator
If you want to use HostGator for more extensive and more scalable websites, be prepared to pay a lot of additional fees for the advanced features they offer. If your website includes complex functionality, shared web hosting is not the best way to go.
HostGator Performance
HostGator provides many resources for website owners, where they can check their website’s performance and resolve the speed problems if there are any.
The HostGator support will also help you find a location that decreases your website performance, find out where the lag is, and point your ISP. HostGator uses PHP language as their server-side language. Our HostGator review also includes speed tests and performance results, so keep reading.
HostGator Hosting Speed Test Result
The speed of HostGator is pretty good, even in the basic shared hosting plans. Just take a look at the following results from the speed test.
| Test | Average Loading Time |
|---|---|
| GTmetrix test | 539 ms |
| Pingdom test | 667 ms |
| Loader IO | 735 ms |
HostGator also provides a lot of materials on how you can improve your website speed. Remember to optimize your images, do a plugin purge, keep your website scripts up to date and upgrade your web hosting.
HostGator Hosting Uptime Guarantees
As we have already mentioned in our HostGator.com review, it guarantees an uptime of 99,99%. Do they provide any guarantees? Definitely.
HostGator provides their uses with a month’s credit if they see any deviations from the promised downtime. Note that the uptime guarantee is valid only for Shared and Reseller web hosting accounts. Besides, it’s the users’ responsibility to keep the working content. So, as long as the server delivers your content, it’s not considered downtime. The same goes for the planned server maintenance.
HostGator Server Response Time
When it comes to speed, HostGator provides a built-in server uptime monitoring tool, which is just great for tracking your website performance and removing all the bottlenecks. One useful tool for monitoring server response time is Bitcatcha, which we have used for this analysis. HostGator has a fast response time. Just look at the following data:
As you can see, HostGator performs well in the US and Canada, as their servers are there. The worldwide average speed is 190 ms, which’s why HostGator has earned an A+ score, which means their servers are rapid.
Hostgator Site Migration
HostGator offers free website transfers within 30 days of signup. However, the number of free migrations is limited. For shared hosting it is one transfer, for WordPress packages — up to three. If you do not qualify for a free transfer, we can still move your sites, requesting paid migration.
In most cases, the procedure is quite simple. You should submit the online form to initiate the process. HostGator migration team will move the content and databases for your website or cPanel over from another host. The provider warns that some websites cannot be migrated due to technical limitations.
HostGator Types, Features, and Pricing
HostGator provides three plans with unlimited storage, unmetered bandwidth, and unbeatable hosting. All the packages include a free domain for one year. Read our HostGator web hosting review further to learn about its pricing packages more.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting includes intelligent site builders, a free SSL certificate, and free WordPress site transfer. The Hatchling and Baby plans don’t have free dedicated IP and Free positive SSL upgrade. All the other features are similar.
Website Builder Hosting
With HostGator website builder, you can build your website in several minutes, jokes aside. HostGator provides several tutorials on how you can do this. Their builder also offers advanced features such as eCommerce, email marketing, appointment booking, image library, and easy analytics.
Here is how the process works: you give the basic info about your website, insert your brand logo, add images, customize your design – and that’s all, your website is up and running.
WordPress Hosting
You get the following perks when choosing HostGator for your WordPress website: advanced security, simplified control panel, free site migrations, free domain. Also, HostGator provides three solutions that ensure your website security.
They scan it daily to remove any viruses and malware, provide daily automatic backups that keep your website clean and databases secure. Moreover, you get an SSL certificate that adds more authority to your website.
Dedicated Hosting
A Dedicated HostGator server gives you full control over the configuration, as the servers are in a US-based, Tier 3 data center. Choose a dedicated server if your website grows quickly, and you are running out of space. The dedicated server is only yours; no one will invade your space. Other features provided by the dedicated hosting package are the following: DDos protection, IP-based firewall, flexible controls, HDD or SDD hard drives depending on the needs of your site.
VPS Hosting
VPS hosting allows you to customize all your hosting environment without spending additional costs. Here is what you get:
- Unlimited MySQL Databases
- Subversion Repository (SVN)
- Server Side Includes (SSI)
- Support for PHP 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3
- HostGator Portal Control Panel
- Full Unix Shell
- Access to Raw Log Files
- Crontab Access
- Full CGI Access
- Canned CGI Scripts
- Reseller & Sub Accounts
- Secure Shell (SSH) Access
- IPv6 Support
- Rails, Python, Perl Support
- Unlimited SFTP Users
Besides, you get a network guarantee, so your site is always running without any delays. You can also use various site development tools, such as templates, script installers, and more.
Reseller Hosting
HostGator reselling hosting is a great chance to start your business and make money by hosting clients. Moreover, you don’t need to spend additional costs on server maintenance, software, and site uptime. It’s you who control your hosting business, so feel free to choose any other additional services you want to offer your clients (such as domains and SSL certificates) and upgrade at any moment.
Security
According to HostGator review, it protects your website from DDoS attacks and provides a custom firewall and security mode rule to avoid any types of website attacks. They also use a datacenter enabling network level flood protection in case of heavy rain.
Moreover, HostGator alerts about weak account passwords and notifies users with requests to update their passwords. HostGator provides a lot of tips on keeping your account secure on their website, so it’s also your responsibility to keep your website safe and sound.
HostGator Hosting Quick Facts
- Website migration: Included for free
- Free features: SSL, CDN, one year of a free domain name, DNS, website builder
- Control Panel: CPanel
- Email accounts: Depending on the package
- Bandwidth: Unlimited
- Webspace: Depending on the package
- CDN: Cloudflare
- Hidden fees and clauses: No hidden fees, only additional features you can pay for
HostGator Review: Do We Recommend It?
Yes, we do. HostGator is well known for its reasonable prices, many additional advanced features, and the ability to grow together with your business. It provides a lot of packages. You can choose the best one depending on your needs. Also, it offers 45 days money-back guarantee refund.
HostGator also provides a convenient website builder with many free tools to create and customize your website. Their advanced security measure will also help you keep your website data safe.
HostGator Hosting Alternatives
Bluehost — one of the largest hosting providers with fast and reliable performance.
Hostwinds — customer-centric web hosting solutions with fast servers and low prices.
DreamHost — WordPress and web hosting services for businesses of any size.
GreenGeeks — the industry’s leading eco-friendly green web hosting provider that turns the power we consume into the grid in the form of renewable energy.
