Hostgator Review (2024) by Hosting Experts

HostGator is one of the most popular web hosts in the industry and hosts over 8 million domains. With a 99.9% uptime guarantee, 1-click WordPress installation and 24/7 support, it’s a smart choice for every website owner. Anantvijaysoni is a proud HostGator customer since 2012, and our website is hosted on HostGator Business Plan.

They offer the best shared hosting, Reseller hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated servers, and managed WordPress hosting plans.

We have been using Hostgator since 2011, and Anantvijaysoni.in website is also hosted with them. Read our honest and detailed HostGator review to find out if HostGator is the right choice for you.

In this detailed HostGator review, we are using a testing process with the below areas we will look into:

• Performance: We will run our own performance tests to analyze this. Website Loading Time for great user experience, How fast will your website load on HostGator?
• Reliability: Downtime and uptime at Hostgator. Will your website be available 24/7/365 without any downtime?
• Features: Do their features help you easily create and manage your website at Hostgator?
• Pricing: Are there any HostGator deals that can save you money? Do they offer the best pricing in the industry?
• Customer Support: Will you be able to easily get help when needed? 24x7x365 days Customer Support?

Read More: World’s Most Trusted 10 Best Web Hosting Services

Hostgator Review (2024) by Our Hosting Experts

About Hostgator

HostGator was founded in October 2002 by Brent Oxley, who was then a student at Florida Atlantic University. By 2006, HostGator had passed the 200,000 marks in registered domains. In 2007, the company moved from the original office in Boca Raton, Florida to a new 20,000 square foot building in Houston, Texas.

In 2010 an office was added in Austin, Texas and in 2011, HostGator started operations in India with its office in Nashik, Maharashtra and a data centre.

As of 2013, HostGator hosts over 9 million domains and has over 400,000 customers. As of December 2018, HostGator hosts 1,310,464 websites on its 6,579 shared IPs. [Wikipedia]

Pros and Cons of HostGator

As every product and services have some advantages and disadvantages, Like other companies, Hostgator also have some pros and cons. Let's discuss the pros and cons of Hostgator:

Pros

• Reliable hosting: HostGator provides the top priority for availability and guarantees an uptime of 99.99%.
• 45-Day money-back guarantees: HostGator offers 45 days money-back guarantee. Normally, most of the web hosting companies offer 30 days money back guaranteed.
• Free Website Migration: HostGator offers free migration service to all new accounts. If you have any old website on any other hosting, their expert team will transfer your website from your previous host at no extra cost.
• Flexible billing periods: You can choose flexible billing periods between monthly and yearly. You will get more discount on long period plans.
• Website Builder: Hostgator offers own website builder, provides an incredibly convenient drag-and-drop building experience. You can choose from a wide selection of themes, and even pre-built sections.
• Free SSL Certificate: Hostgator provides free SSL certificate on all plans. SSL Certificates make trust in visitors and security for your website by encryption.

Cons

• No free domain: Most of the other hosting companies provide a free domain, HostGator does not offer a free domain registration upon new signing up.
• Aggressive upselling: You need to check the additional pre-selected services during the sign-up process. If you are not sure, then uncheck all other services. If needed you can add them later.

HostGator Performance

Website Performance depends on the hosting company services. What you do if you purchase a hosting and you find that your website is painfully slow and often disappears? You should have to change hosting and this will cost you more money and headache.

That’s the first reason, why you want to choose the best web hosting company that is reliable, stable performance and obviously fast for user experience and ranking. But how would you get this information?

We have already done this for you, Check HostGator’s performance report by our own tests by hosting experts. Let’s find out how well Hostgator performed.

HostGator Speed Test Results

Speed is the most important performance indicator for any website. A faster website is good for awesome user experience, and it also helps in your Google rankings.

As per expert suggestions that 1 second delay in page load will cost you 11% less page views, 7% less conversions, 16% decrease in user satisfaction and 13% less return users.

We have created a test site for our detailed HostGator review to find out how fast HostGator really is.

Our test site was powered by WordPress using the default theme. We also added the required plugins and imported dummy content for theme development, including images.

After that, we run the test for speed testing using Pingdom website speed tool. Here are the results:

As you can see, our test site loaded in just under a second for a server in New York City. That’s faster than 94% of all tested sites.

That’s nice but how would your site perform under peak traffic hours?

To test this we used a tool called LoadImpact. It sends virtual users to a website and gradually increases the number of users on your site up to 25 at once.

You can see the result in the chart below:

The blue line in the above chart is page load or response time and the green line shows the number of users on the site. As you can see, our test site performed really well up to 25 users, and after 90 users its went to slow.

These results are extremely good for a shared hosting service. Remember its a shared hosting account, you share server resources with other sites hosted on that same server. If you start getting more visitors at the same time, you need to upgrade your hosting account.

Another remarkable thing to be noticed is that our test site didn’t go down during the test. As you can see in the screenshot below.

HostGator Server Response Time

Server response time is very important for a website. If your server response time is slow, then your whole site will be slow, no matter how optimized your other resources are. According to Google and other speed test tools such as GTmetrix, you should aim for a server response time of less than 200ms.

The content of your website significantly affects the server response time and page load time. For example, if your website has many images, scripts, and CSS styles, then it will increase the page load time.

This affects your server’s speed test results. We wanted to see how fast the HostGator server actually responds.

To test this, we used a tool called Bitcatcha and ServiceUptime. They work differently than other website speed testing tools. Instead of loading the content, it only tests the response time of the server.

Here is how HostGator performed in these tests:

As per the above screenshots, HostGator review test site performed really well. Overall, this result indicates that your site will load quickly around the world. The server response time remained less than a second. In the United States, it was merely 10 ms and it's awesome.

HostGator Hosting Plans and Features

HostGator offers a variety of hosting plans. You can choose as per your requirement, from shared hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated servers, and cloud hosting.

All these plans are feature rich and suitable for different hosting requirements and budgets.

Let’s take a look at the Hostgator's offered plans:

• Shared hosting: Shared hosting is the best and cheapest way to start a new website with low traffic. On shared hosting, your website shares resources with other websites hosted on that same server.
• WordPress hosting: If you want to create a website in WordPress, you can choose the WordPress optimized shared hosting plans. It protects your website from some common WordPress attacks and optimizes performance.
• Dedicated server: With dedicated hosting, you get a server ora group or servers solely for hosting your website. Dedicated servers are recommended for big sites like e-commerce, community, and social media websites.
• Cloud hosting: Cloud hosting is the latest form of hosting that utilizes multiple servers instead of a single server. The resources required for maintaining your website are spread across a cluster of servers that work together. This plan is suitable for frequent traffic spikes.
• VPS (Virtual Private Server): A virtual private server (VPS) is a virtual server that appears to the user as a dedicated server, but that is actually installed on a computer serving multiple websites. It is suitable for growing websites with frequent traffic spikes.

HostGator Shared Hosting Plans Breakdown

Shared hosting plans are great for beginners and new websites. You can easily set up your website on shared hosting with WordPress. so you can start working on the website to grow your business and getting more traffic. You can upgrade your hosting plans as your website grows.

HostGator offers three levels of shared hosting plans. All plans include unlimited storage, unmetered bandwidth, and some other features.

• Hatchling: The Hatchling plan allows you to host only one website. It includes a free SSL certificate and 1-click WordPress installer and comes with a standard set of features.
• Baby: The Baby plan allows you to host unlimited websites with Free SSL Certificate. It includes all the features of the Hatchling plan. Baby Plan the best plan for beginners.
• Business: Suitable for small business websites. This plan includes free SSL certificate, free SEO Tools and free dedicated IP which you will need to create an eCommerce website.

HostGator Customer Support Service

HostGator offers one of the best customer services in the hosting industry. It includes 24×7 phone and live chat support as well as email support based on the ticket.

Inside Hostgator's hosting dashboard, you will find the knowledge base of 680+ articles and 500+ video tutorials that help you to find quick answers. Also, provide a support portal.

Conclusion: Is HostGator the Right Choice for You?

After reading our detailed HostGator review, you are probably thinking if HostGator is right for you?

Over 2 million customers have already trusted HostGator. Whether you are an Internet professional, or just starting your first website, you’ll find all the necessary tools to bring your website to the next level.

HostGator offers a variety of hosting plans that fit all requirements and budgets. They offer all the tools you will need to build a website.

Ready to get started with HostGator? Click here to select your HostGator plan today.

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