HostGator is one of the largest and most popular hosting companies in the world. They offer shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated servers, and managed WordPress hosting plans.
Read our detailed HostGator review to find out if HostGator is the right choice for you.
In this detailed HostGator review, we will put their promises through our testing process. The following are the areas we will look into:
- Reliability: Will your website be available 24/7/365 without any downtime?
- Performance: How fast will your website load on HostGator? We will run thorough performance tests to analyze this.
- Customer Support: Can you count on their customer support? Will you be able to quickly get help when needed?
- Features: Do their features help you easily create and manage your website?
- Pricing: Do they offer the best pricing in the industry? Are there any HostGator deals that can save you money?
If you don’t want to go through all the details, then the following is a quick summary of our HostGator review score with our conclusion below it.
| HostGator Review Summary | |
|---|---|
| Performance grade | A+ |
| Average load time | 1.03 s |
| Average response time | 143.4 ms |
| Free domain | Yes |
| Free SSL | Yes |
| 1-click WordPress | Yes |
| Support | Phone / Live Chat / Knowledge base |
| Start with HostGator | |
Bottom line: Want to skip the details? To summarize, we found HostGator to be a reliable and customer-friendly hosting service. Their 24/7 customer support is among the best.
That’s why we’ve added HostGator as one of the best WordPress hosting companies.
Let’s move on to the more detailed parts of our HostGator hosting review. This will help you determine whether HostGator is right for your website.
About HostGator
HostGator was founded in 2002 and grew quickly to become one of the biggest hosting companies in the world. Its monstrous growth is credited to its great shared hosting plans, reliable web hosting, and quality customer service.
Today, it is headquartered in Houston, Texas, and hosts over 2.5 million websites. Its 850+ employees offer around-the-clock support and serve businesses of all sizes.
It is a subsidiary of Newfold Digital (formerly Endurance International Group) and offers a wide range of web hosting solutions to a massive global customer base.
Pros and Cons of HostGator
Like every other product and service, each hosting company has its pros and cons. We discovered the following pros and cons of HostGator while using their hosting for our websites and testing it for our reviews.
Pros
- Reliable hosting: HostGator guarantees an uptime of 99.99%. If you experience downtime below that, you will receive one month’s credit on your account.
- Generous money-back guarantee: HostGator offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.
- Flexible billing periods: You can choose between monthly and yearly billing periods. Longer billing periods will get you the most discount.
- Free migration: HostGator offers a free migration service with all new accounts. Their expert team will transfer your website from your previous host at no extra cost during the first 30 days of signing up.
Cons
- Higher monthly pricing: Monthly pricing is relatively higher than annual plans. You can get lower HostGator pricing by choosing the annual plans, as they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.
- Aggressive upselling: You may see additional services like automated backups and advanced functionality. Make sure they are unchecked if you don’t need them right away. You can always add them later if needed.
HostGator Performance Tests
What would you do if you sign up for a host and find that your website is painfully slow and often disappears? You’d have to switch providers, which would cost you more money and headaches.
That’s why you want to choose a web hosting provider that is reliably fast and has stable performance records. But how would you get this information?
We decided to check HostGator’s performance by running our tests. Let’s find out how well it performed.
HostGator Speed Test Results
The most important performance indicator is speed. A faster website is good for users and also helps your SEO rankings.
In fact, studies suggest that a one-second delay in page load will result in 7% fewer conversions, 11% fewer page views, and a 16% decrease in user satisfaction.
For our detailed HostGator review, we created a test site to find out how fast HostGator really is.
Our test site was powered by WordPress using the default theme. We also imported dummy content for theme development, including images.
After that, we used the Pingdom website speed testing tool to run the tests. Here are the results:
As you can see, our test site loaded in 989 ms, which is great.
However, this is a new website with no traffic at all, so a speed test alone is not the best way to judge its performance. We wanted to see how it would perform under peak traffic.
HostGator Stress Test Results
To test performance under peak traffic, we used a tool called K6 by Grafana Labs. We sent virtual users to our HostGator test site and gradually increased the number of users up to 50 at once.
You can see the result in the chart below:
The green line in the chart shows page response time, and the gray line shows the number of users on the site. Our test site performed really well throughout the test, with an average response time of 126 milliseconds.
These results are particularly good for a shared hosting account.
HostGator Uptime Test
Another remarkable thing to be noticed is that our test site didn’t go down during the test.
HostGator Server Response Time
The content of your website significantly affects the page load time. For example, if your website has many images, 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 responds.
To test this, we used a tool called Bitcatcha. It works 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:
Our HostGator review site performed really well. The server response time remained less than a second, merely 26 milliseconds in the United States.
Overall, this result indicates that your site will load quickly around the world.
HostGator Hosting Plans and Features
HostGator offers a variety of hosting plans. Their plans include shared hosting, VPS hosting, cloud hosting, reseller hosting, and dedicated hosting. They also offer hosting for other website builders and app platforms like Joomla and Magento.
However, their main offering is shared WordPress hosting, and this is where most users begin their journey.
Let’s take a look at these plans offered by HostGator.
Breakdown of HostGators’s Shared Hosting Plans
HostGator’s shared hosting plans come in three different levels. Under their terms of use, all plans include unlimited storage and bandwidth. The main difference is the number of websites you can host.
- Hatchling: The Hatchling plan allows you to host ten websites. It includes a one-click WordPress installer and comes with a standard set of features.
- Baby: The Baby plan can host twenty websites and offers 20GB of storage. It includes all the features of the Hatchling plan, and you can also use addons such as private SSL.
- E-commerce / Business: This plan is suitable for starter online stores and small business websites. It includes fifty websites, email accounts, domain privacy, and SEO tools.
Apart from shared web hosting services, they also offer a fully hosted Gator website builder. Other services provided include VPS hosting and dedicated hosting with Linux and Windows servers.
Their VPS plans offer great value for the money, and their shared cloud hosting plan is overpriced for what you get.
HostGator Hosting Plan Features
Another thing you would want to look at is the features that you’ll get with each hosting plan. Here is what’s included in each hosting plan offered by HostGator.
- Install WordPress with 1-Click Installer
- Free SSL Certificate
- Easy to use control panel cPanel dashboard to manage hosting services
- Free email accounts
- 24/7 customer support
- 99.9% uptime guarantee
You can host multiple websites and domain names under the same hosting account.
As for security features, you can activate the free Cloudflare CDN caching to protect your WordPress site against malware and attacks. The Cloudflare free website CDN also gives you an additional performance boost.
During checkout, you would also be offered to purchase CodeGuard and SiteLock addons. Most beginners don’t need them right away, so you can skip them and add them later if needed.
HostGator Support and Customer Service
HostGator offers one of the best customer services in the industry. Customers can contact the support team 24/7 via phone, live chat support, and ticket-based email support.
Inside your hosting dashboard, you will find their support portal. This portal helps you find quick answers from a knowledge base of hundreds of articles and video tutorials.
Most HostGator customers are satisfied with the quality of support they receive. We have a few of our smaller websites hosted on HostGator and have found their support satisfactory.
Conclusion: Is HostGator the Right Choice for You?
Now that you have read our detailed HostGator review, you are probably wondering if HostGator is suitable for you.
HostGator offers a variety of hosting plans that fit all budgets and requirements. They offer all the user-friendly tools you will need to build a website.
Over 2 million customers have already trusted HostGator. Whether you are a seasoned Internet pro or just starting out with your first website, you’ll find every necessary tool to bring your website to the next level.
Ready to get started with HostGator? Click here to select your HostGator plan today.
HostGator Coupon
WPBeginner users get an exclusive 81% OFF with our HostGator coupon code.
All you have to do is click on this link to make a purchase. The discount will be applied automatically.
FAQs About HostGator Hosting
We have been answering user questions about WordPress hosting for over a decade now. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about HostGator that we have heard from our users.
1. Is HostGator good for WordPress?
Yes, HostGator is good for WordPress and highly recommended for anyone who wants to start a WordPress website.
It offers a one-click WordPress installation, which even lets you pick essential plugins and templates during setup. Plus, you get 24/7 tech support, which is handy for most beginners.
2. Which is better, HostGator or Bluehost?
HostGator and Bluehost are both our recommended hosting companies. In terms of Bluehost vs HostGator, they’re pretty similar when it comes to CPU resources, unmetered bandwidth, disk space, MySQL databases, pricing, and more.
We find Bluehost’s user experience to be slightly better as they’ve invested heavily in their WordPress platform.
Bluehost has an advantage in overall performance, SSD storage, security, and value for money. HostGator tries to beat that with slightly cheaper hosting plans, a 30-day money-back guarantee, and faster support.
3. How does HostGator compare with SiteGround and GoDaddy?
HostGator is better than GoDaddy in terms of support, ease of use, and overall user experience.
The major difference between HostGator and SiteGround is pricing. SiteGround plans start at $3.99 and don’t include a free domain name. This makes HostGator a better option for users on a tight budget.
However, if you’re looking for faster performance, then SiteGround is a better option since its servers are hosted on Google Cloud and offer faster speed. See the SiteGround review for more details.
Before you ask for a comparison of HostGator with other hosts, it’s pretty much on par with Hostinger, Dreamhost, InMotion hosting, and most other shared hosting providers.
3. Where are HostGator servers located?
HostGator servers are primarily located in Provo, Utah, and Houston, Texas. However, they also use data centers in other locations.
4. Does HostGator have a cPanel dashboard?
Yes, HostGator has cPanel dashboard integrated into its own custom dashboard. You will find the link to cPanel under your website hosting package. Your hosting dashboard also includes an FTP-like file manager so you can easily upload files or edit them if needed.
5. Is HostGator good for eCommerce?
Yes, HostGator is good for running an online store using WooCommerce or other e-commerce platforms. However, as your business grows in terms of traffic, you may need to upgrade from a business plan to a virtual private server (VPS hosting plan).
6. Which HostGator plan do I need?
If you only want to start a single website or blog, then you can start with their Hatchling plan. However, we recommend starting with the baby plan as it offers multiple install support. You can always upgrade your hosting plan later if needed. Click here to select your HostGator hosting plan.
Alan Nahrstadt
I have been using Host Gator for about 5 years now and have never had a problem.
Using Host Gator is one thing I never have to think about. Owning a small business your time is pulled in many directions and time is money. I love having Host Gator because it just works as expected and rarely needs me to do a thing.
Gary Stenzel
I have had Hostgator as my only hosting for about 7 years now. I love it because it is easy to set up and use for a newbie. I have set up databases, chron jobs, and multiple email accounts using only the instruction on their website. I couldnt do that at GoDaddy, it was too confusing. I’m soo glad I switched!
If my website was ever down, it must have been very short, because I have never noticed it being down. Not even once.
Terri Erickson
I began using Hostgator a few years ago while I was taking coding classes and haven’t really had too many issues with it. The only think i would like to convey is that pricing could come down and be relative to the site. My site is not used for ecommerce or anything else really and the plan I have is more than I need. However when I attempted to down-grade the plan I was told I would have to “pay” to move the site??? That to me seemed rather harsh and it kind of put me off -I certainly will not and have not referred anyone to Hostgator because of it. On the up side, as far as I know I haven’t had the site go down which I think is a plus.
Janice
Hostgator has been easy to use and the customer service is responsive and helpful. I’ve never built a website before, but after using Hostgater once, I’ve now buikt dozens of sites.
Carolee Williams
Its easy and friendly to use! Their technical support is helpful and informative too.
Tony Knight
We’ve been a customer with Host Gator going on 4 years now. We’re very satisfied with the service they provide hosting our sites. Technical support as always been very responsive when we’ve had questions or issues with their service. And you can’t beat their pricing plans. We plan to continue working with Host Gator as part of our business model for our clients.
Eric Thomas
For the number of years I’ve been using HostGator, I’ve had only positive experiences. Granted, I tend to be pretty self-proficient for managing my site, but whenever an issue has popped up, they’ve been quick at giving me an answer.
Jared Valburg
Host Gator has provided a reliable, straightforward, and affordable service. I am happy with Host Gator as a web hosting service and plan to continue using them for the foreseeable future.
Kaitlyn Grey
Hostgator is easy to use, inexpensive and comprehensive. I’ve been using it for about 3 years now and am very happy.
Henry Green
I have been a HostGator customer for several months now, and the experience has been completely positive. Early on, I changed my name servers and then messed up my WordPress install. I went to the HostGator website and was quickly connected with a super friendly, super helpful support agent. Five or so minutes later, he had fixed my WordPress install and my site was working great! Definitely recommend HostGator.
Jaswinder
As a new or beginner blogger I started with hostgator eight months ago without taking any knowledge for my Ease Bedding and niche and one another. I started on two accounts with two domains due to penny program. But after three months I have noticed that I was getting two bills and I requested them to make it one billing account.
They said ok and for around forty dollars. I decide to close both accounts and move to another hosting company. They closed my accounts and refunded for couple of weeks. So I have no complaint about them, but not so much experience with them as well.
I can say for opening two different accounts, was my own mistake, not their. So I can say they are good, but I don’t have much experience to say a lot about them.
Jamie
HostGator has great servers but their technical support is GODAWFUL.I’m trying to setup an SSL and it has taken them 3 weeks to reply… and this isn’t the first time it’s taken them forever to reply. Other than that, they are great.
Jamie
Roger Ferreira
A huge chunk of the company reviews talk about the reliability of the hosting packages offered by the website. It is true that for some of the hosting plans, the lack of security features can be a bummer. However, when it comes to all the other features like supported scripts and multimedia, the email hosting and the control panel features, HostGator more than meets the standards – a fact which is not entirely surprising given that HostGator has been recognized worldwide as the leading provider of web hosting.
Al
Love them!
Ruben
Hi WP beginner could you please update this review?
Hostgators cloud hosting plans seem ridiculously cheap – and flexible.
Their presales support says yes to everything I ever wanted.
Being able to add an extra gb memory or cpu core for $1 per month is insane.
But all of the post 2015 user stories in the comments here mean that I won’t buy it.
There has got to be some more balanced story – what can I reasonably expect to get from HG, and what not?
Erik Barcza
Stay away from Hostgator!
Hostgator is no longer a viable host and here is why
1.) Performance is way below par
2.) MySQL databases constantly crash
3.) Wait Time for support is far too long – 30-40 minutes. It used be single digits
4.) CPanel is basically and advertising platform instead of a cPanel. Try it and you will see all the pop-ups and advertisements.
5.) Tech support, when you can actually get a hold of someone, is basically an excuse generator instead of true technical support. They are always trying to place the blame on the customer.
I used to recommend them, but please look elsewhere for hosting at this point
JC
Agreed about staying away from Hostgator. That’s how I found this article – looking for somewhere else to move my hosting. Below par speed, slow Customer Service, and occasional crashes. I’ve had enough.
Dean
Terrible support.
I upgraded my server.
They took my money immediately and never performed the upgrade.
Have been sending tickets and no response.
On chat they tell me, oH I see it is just being done.
When I check later, there is still no upgrade!
Support is dead and they have become a scam hosting company. Run while you can and don’t sign up at Hostgator
Don McDouall
I paid by PayPal… then could not login… then received a message they want me to send them a photo copy of my passport or my credit card?… get real!
What a mob… dont even think of dealing with this mob.
Sacha
HostGator seems to have very mixed reviews. Personally, I use them to host all the websites I manage and I find them to be very decent for the price. The customer support could be better, but the uptime and speed is great. In fact, I’ve never had any issues with my website not loading. I haven’t tried their email, as I use a free Gmail account for everything. The websites I host have a lot of content and get a decent number of views, so I think this is a pretty fair review. Thanks for reading!
Hamid Ali
Very poor customer support. Once they get their money, they never bother to respond to your queries afterwards.
Andrew K
Completely agree! I requested to have an SSL installed for one of my domains. They billed me the same day for it and then it took them 2 months to PROPERLY configure the SSL license. Now, I’m in the same boat. I have now waited 2 weeks for them to add a domain to the SSL license. I will definately be looking into getting a new host when my current hosting expires.
Ahmed
I’m now using A2hosting that offers free SSL with let’s encrypt their performance and optimization tools are super useful for WordPress sites.
Ken
5 rating ? Its dead hosting now. Never use it.
Objects
Not good any more
Hostgator used to be a good company. I have been using their services from last 10 years but from some time back their services are not upto the mark. Support does not reply to the ticket opened for 7 days. You check with Live Chat and they don’t have any clue. It has become a company saying “NO” for everything. Somebody deleted the code from their server and they are not even telling me the access IP address. Not a reliable company anymore. I have 4 accounts with them 2 VPS & 2 Shared. thinking to move to some other good host Amazon?
Matt
My HostGator Review: Before I signed up the service with sales was amazing. They were very friendly and helpful. Several months after getting setup I needed help and support was not responsive. Billing was providing me information that was not consistent with the website pricing… When I inquired why this pricing was more and if the policy changes I stopped receiving service all together. Today was the last straw. I have followed up with support multiple time over the past week and I have not even received an update to my problem. This is no way to run a business, my own customers are upset with me and HostGator is costing me more money compared to what I saved thinking they truly provided great value. You have been warned… You get what you pay for! Stay Away from HostGator.
Anthony Pace
Service OK as long as I was a customer but they turn nasty and very unprofessional as soon as you need to close service.
I had two accounts and I had decided not to renew my subcriptions but they went ahead and renewed just the same some three weeks before the renewal date without asking me whether I actually wanted renew or otherwise.
No hope of getting a decent answer from them; just a lot of penny pinchers. They abuse of their position. Pity because I had good service as long as I used them,just left me with a very bad impression when I had to close the accounts.
Anthony Pace
Becki
Easy to sign-up and great customer service to start blogging website. Once I tried to cancel via the 45-day money back guarantee the issues started. Over two hours on hold and talking with representatives at hostgator in order to try to cancel my membership via their website. Informed I would be sent an email within two business days with the cancellation information. Received the email with a cancellation date a year out from when I signed-up with hostgator instead of the date I actually cancelled. Spent another two hours on hold and talking with representatives from hostgator. Spoke with a very rude representative who indicated hostgator policy is to use a cancellation date one year from when you sign-up unless you write them to indicate you want to cancel immediately. I thought the previous two hour phone call where I stated I wanted to cancel and receive a refund via the 45-day money back guarantee in addition to following their instructions to cancel online covered this. I contacted paypal and put them on the phone with the representative. The representative was still rude. I disconnected the phone call with hostgator and worked directly with paypal regarding the refund issue. The cancellation confirmation email from hostgator also indicated I should cancel my hostgator subscription information in paypal to ensure I would not get charged again. The email had faulty instructions so I worked with the paypal rep to cancel. I will never deal with hostgator again and will notify people not to deal with this company. They seem to use every sneaky means necessary to prevent you from receiving the 45-day money back refund!
Ray
These guys have an unethical practice when you setup a domain they stick their advertising page up and make money off your domain if its pointed to hostgator.
The other things is 404 pages sometimes appear with a hostgator page and joining hostgator.
Lorenzo de Souza
Please take my friendly advice. Run from HostGator as you would from the plague. I used to be their client for 6 years, almost from their very beginning. Always great service. Then, when they moved to TX, and started to grow bigger and bigger, service started to become worse and worse. Then my hosting customers began to leave me because they couldn’t send emails and their websites were unstable. I begged HG support to solve the problems or even to give me a reasonable explanation for the issues. They never did. It just seemed like they didn’t care at all. The last drop was when my VPS was down and support took more than 24h for a reply. When I demanded an explanation it was: “We are too busy. Too many clients and not enough support people”. I always paid my bills on time, even early, because I couldn’t afford to risk compromising the availability to my customers, so I asked myself “why are they still in business and taking my money in exchange for nothing”? Unfortunately I live in Brazil and it would be too difficult for me to sue them legally, otherwise I would because they made me lose many businesses. So avoid them, especially if you are ‘just a foreign guy’ like me. They treat you like scum.
Tyra Woods-Wade
I am writing this email to express my utmost gratitude and satisfaction with Hostgator, and the entire staff I dealt with today. This morning I inadvertently deleted my entire /home3/public file, and it caused all my sites to go down. I panicked immediately, thought I would have to rebuild all those sites, started hyperventilating, almost cried… was just a “hot mess”! LOL
SO…. I thought it was a long shot, but I called Hostagtor, and spoke to a man in the technical support area at 7:55AM Arizona time 03/08/2015(I forgot his name). This man calmed me, he took the time to figure out what needed to be done, and where to point me so that I could have a resolution. I also was educated on how I can do my own backup in Cpanel, because I had never done one! I opened a ticket online to get a file restore. This man went above and beyond my expectations, and gave me hope.
Within an hour I got an email from them.
It is Sunday, so I was more than pleasantly surprise to get such a quick response. Ricardo was able to fix everything perfect, communicated via email every step of the way, and had the knowledge to help me. My sites are all up and running perfect again THE SAME DAY they went down, on a Sunday!
This experience has made me a Hostgator customer for life. I also have some websites hosted on Godaddy, and was approached by Godaddy to bring all my sites over to have them be my sole company. I was contemplating it, but today’s experience has definitely made my mind up to stay with Hostgator.
If there is anything that can be done to make sure these 2 individuals are recognized for their stellar passion to serve the customer, as well as their knowledge base, I would love to have that happen. I am a business owner myself, and strive to get employees like Ricardo, and the first man I spoke to. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SAVING ME TODAY!
Client_Of_HG
I was with HG for like .. 10 years, may be less a bit, but very long time. It was solid. But have to look for a new home now. Forget about HG, its dead..
Julie
HostGator is terrible. I knew I’d made a mistake before I even got my Wordpress site set up. I had to call just to get them to release some whatever so that I could even set up Wordpress and migrate my blog over from blogger! I should have changed right away but I didn’t. I knew the day would come sooner or later when I’d absolutely have to and that day has arrived just 6 months later. I’ve had issues with my blog being slow, but I put up with it. Then it went from slow to impossible to load, returning 504 errors half the time and just spinning forever the other half. I jumped on chat support and within minutes I saw a “server reset” message show up on my blog, then the chat person came back and said “everything looks fine on our end”. Then it would load and continue loading for about a half hour before I’d be right back where I started. The second time I jumped on chat the tech blamed it on a lack of caching plugin (which I had). Within an hour after that chat I couldn’t reach my blog at all. Then I couldn’t even get the cpanel to load. I spent most of the time on hold looking for other hosting companies so I could make the switch. Of course, I’d pre-paid for HostGator but I’ll take the loss to find a hosting company that actually works and doesn’t find a reason to come up with excuses for everything. While on the phone with tech support the girl was mumbling I couldn’t understand half of what she said and I told her that. Her response was “oh it’s the connection, I can’t really understand you either”. The funny thing was starting with that statement I could understand everything she said. Excuses once again. The phone call ended with still no resolution as she had to get an admin to monitor the server and none were currently available.
Ben
My website has gotten hacked 3 times since allowing them to host my site (never had a problem before that). To talk to someone online, expect a 30 minute wait, which sometimes does not even connect you to someone after that time. Support is bad. I have sent in multiple tickets to try to get issues resolved. Very disappointed with hostgator.
SH
I have been using HostGator for a while now and they have just been hosting my website while I work on it and I have not had any trouble. They do what they are mean’t to do.
anteos
Im using hostgator almost 10 years now. it was great. great technical service too. they helped me redirects my website and all without question. now, it was disaster, technical support is never there waiting time is 30 mins then none will assist you they will close your window.
Im leaving hostgator by tonight.
mpatzekov
I was in love with hostgator. Now their support is slow as f***. More than 24h my websites are down. If you want a professional attitude go for hostgator. White hair is guaranteed. When i was paying for a dedicated everything was fine. But on shared – very, very poor support. More than 24h downtime is more than a breakdown for any type of business. 2 out of 100.
Shekhar S
In Spite of lot of Feedback on Y axis, Still HOSTGATOR remain the best Sharing Host. Getting someone to help it out is always there, OF course When u really want 24X7X12 then One must go for VPS hosting to insure this. Otherwise One can stick to Hostgator.
Roger Dods
Hostgator is a shining example of a company that forgot what made it great.
7 years ago they were a great company, with excellent support and short wait times. Now, you are better off going to almost anyone else.
We have had constant downtime and went 48 hours with a complete lack of access to email. Furthermore, online chat wait times are now a minimum of 30 minutes, with my average being closer to an hour. Several times I have just give up.
I currently have two open support tickets. One is on hour 90 with no response and the other is on hour 104 with no response.
This is a sinking ship. Get off while you can.
Jordan
all the positive reviews here about Host gator are bullshit. They are the absolute worst hosting company to choose when running any type of CMS or dynamic script. STAY AWAY, it might be cheap, but its cheap for a reason…. better to spend $2 than to throw $1 away.
Andrew
I read about all reviews here about host gator and frankly I am about to vomit. I am quiet surprise to read about host gator`s so called integrity.
Well let me tell you my experience with them anyway. I bought domains to be hosted by them and had monthly subscriptions going for those domains. They eventually requested for my id which is normal. I did. Then comes the weird part. I waited to have access to my control panel but none. I sent one email informing them of the log in problems….no reply. I logged into the ticket dept and informed them of my access being denied but no one replied. I thought to myself, this is weird..so I send another email and waiting for 24 hours, nothing I waited for 48 hours nothing.I send another email and waited for another few days…nothing. One week and counting down for the next subscription cycle to take place…nothing. So for all the quick reply folks, it`s not always the case. They have some bad ass ppl in the house as well. They can control that monthly subscription thing by playing dumb.I wasn`t even rude when I send my emails.
I am still waiting….this is genuine scam. I don`t care how people interpret this but in my books,this is scam at it`s best.
Jason Mathes
I used to love HostGator – great cheap hosting that worked. That was until they were bought out by EIG and then migrated my site. When they moved it from the old data center to the Provo UT location? Service plumeted. My uptime was affected. It appeared that they had jammed me onto too many other users as it was painfully slow even after optimizing it and running both MaxCDN and CloudFlare!
I was getting inconsistent times between 3-30 seconds! After the last outage they had? I moved off of them to a new host and now couldn’t be happier. If you have been moved to the Provo UT location? I’d start researching for a new host. Just make sure you search for “EIG Owned Hosting” and then stay away from all of them. They are now just ‘dummy’ companies – which are now stuffed in that same junk data center.
I’m surprised that people still offer links or promote their hosting.
Houston
I have been with Host Gator for several years. I have about 40 sites hosted with them. Moving all the sites to a new hosting provider is no small task but I am thinking about doing it. Just like many of the other reviews here I have since experienced a decline both in Service and be. I have repeatedly complained to them that the server that I am on seems to respond quickly while other times it seems to be pathetically slow. This seems to be happening more and more. I am not an IT professional but I am guessing that they are cramming more and more sites on their shared server machines or they are not monitoring their servers. Whatever the reason I am not as happy as I once was.
With regards to support. Old times have definitely ball supply over the last year or so. Please to be on Paul no more than a few minutes now it seems it’s at least 20 to 30 minutes every time I need to call them. That doesn’t bother me so much as the performance issue. Performance’s be it is critical for me as I’m sure it will be for you as well. As much as I hate to say it I cannot recommend Host Gator.
James
I love hostgator, been using them for about 3 years now and never missed a beat. Great support.
Daniel
My advertising company was been with Hostgator for years. Up until recently they were really a great company to work with. However then hold times became REALLY REALLY long, and then they started screwing up stuff. Today I discovered that they cancelled our server account for non-payment last month. However when I called our bank I discovered that the charge was actually approved. As a result of Hostgator’s screw up tons of our client’s websites went down, as did their Adword campaigns for over a week. Our clients are furious, as we have egg on our face, all because Hostgator actually got paid and then said that they didn’t. WHAT THE &*#$(# ?
Avoid Hostgator. Not a professional organization.
Ed
I’ve been with hostgator for a few years now. Up until they moved their data centers everything was fine. Ever since then it’s been a nightmare. Down time, server updates, and slower speeds. Do not waste your time or money. They used to be great. Things have changed with them.
Ennis
I started with one company not listed in these reviews and after a very short period switched to HG. Been with them for almost four years now. In the beginning I thought they were the absolute best. Support was 24/7 and they would help with any problem. I was so green I didn’t even know what WordPress was or FTP or server and I called and asked hundreds of questions about anything that came up. They always patiently helped me out.
I rarely had any down time to speak of. In over three years I can remember one very short period where my site was down. When I called about it, they explained what was happening and the problem was resolved in a very short period.
I sung their praises. My site is not about technical stuff but I wrote about HG, talking about their one of a kind support and pointing everyone in their direction. I advertised HG. It has been the banner ad on my header almost exclusively since day one, although I have never once gotten a sale for my efforts.
Now, however, things have changed. The support personnel are very very difficult to get on the phone. I believe HG has recently marketed for expansion but didn’t allow for additional support. My last support call required over 20 mins wait time and the chats aren’t any better. On one occasion, when I did get through and asked about backups – the alert said there was too much to backup – instead of an explanation on what was happening I got the emotional equivalent of “tough crap.” Backups are fine now but I still don’t know what the problem was.
And on top of that, my site goes down regularly now. I think it is still up 99.9% but why the difference? Why more down time now? What’s happening now that wasn’t happening before?
Will I move? I think that is inevitable but I’m not sure to where. Better, more reliable hosting, will cost more, but which host will do the best job, is the question.
I am, however, disappointed with the accessibility of HG.
Nate Silva
Considering moving to HostGator … especially considering the price. But speed is definitely one of my larger concerns, and it’s why I want to leave my current host.
Can anyone comment on the average speed of sites hosted on the Hatchling/Baby Shared Plans? I’m sure dedicated is the way to go if money is of no consideration, but it’s still a factor.
Thanks for any and all help.
Editorial Staff
HostGator smaller plans are good for smaller sites.
As a side note: speed has other factors as well (such as site design, plugins you are using, etc).
Admin
Nate Silva
Understood. The reason I ask is because my current provider is very slow with even an “out-of-the-box” install of Wordpress … so at least that way, I know it’s not the site design, plugins, etc when it comes to my issues there.
Thanks for the help.
Jesse Brede
I have been using HostGator for the last year and have been extremely satisfied. Their support is solid and their prices are great. Three Thumbs up.
Jasmine Charter
I used to recommend Hostgator, but some of their more recent practices have changed my mind and I will NEVER recommend them again. Between getting affiliate commissions from them or buying hosting for clients, I seem to have nothing but problems with them and they give LOUSY customer service. It seems one person doesn’t know what the others are doing.
It’s happened too often for me and I will NOT be using them for any other sites and when it comes time to renew, I’ll be moving my sites to a different host.
Editorial Staff
Jasmine, I have been using HostGator since 2007. I have noticed their Live Chat support gotten worst. But I just use the phone support which gets the issue resolved within minutes.
Admin
Ed Selby
I’ve used HostGator for… well, for years. I have found their up-time to be as close to 100% as possible. The CPanel is a breeze for users of any level (if you even need it!).
My only complaint is when I was webmaster for over 250 websites on HG, my account and account access was shut down due to high activity on my sites. There was no prior notice of a problem, and the shut downs happened at times when I wasn’t even able to get the one notice that was sent (late at night on a Friday). But when I moved my accounts to a different tier of service, HG made it happen quickly and painlessly with no loss in uptime.
Editorial Staff
Hey Ed,
Yes, this goes back to the point of “unlimited resources”. There is no such thing. The smaller tier plans work great for smaller sites, but once you start getting too much traffic, they will ask you to upgrade.
Admin
Hamza Tariq
I have been the user of Hostgator’s since 2009, when I have launched my first blog in the universe to earn money from the blogging. I have really enjoyed the luxury of premium Hostgator hosting, even I have used shared hosting for more than 1.5 year, and face couple of deadly attacks on my blogs, such as major attack of Project Honey Bee from Beijing that almost kills the Hostgator server. But still these guys are really quick and awesome, they worked with me up to 72 hours to solve out the issue and completely saves my blog.
It is not the single time when these guys saved my projects, couple of times I played with their servers to enable many additional features without their permission, but these guys are just awesome and dear to me, they never warned me like other hosts that they will kick me out. They always worked with me, even I trustfully shared my WP – Admin login’s with them for couple of hours to solve out the problem. Just love their response time, and their servers are mind blowing. However, from last couple of months I am having serious problems with servers, but still my vote goes to HG. They are the best hosting in the town, at least for the WP.
Osama Shabrez
My journey with hostgator started like a year ago when one of my clients provided me her cpanel password which finally landed on HG hosting with its very own fresh and soothing HG Theme. From the site speed to their awesome live support, phone help and ticket system everything is just fabulous which made me shift my hosting to them just after finishing my job.
I started with a local hosting company with a limit of 10 entry processes concurrently and due to which soon shifted to JustHost, which seemed to be quite user friendly that time with unlimited addon domains support for as much low as $69 or $79, but I was never satisfied with their service once I started with them, the load time was the same like I was getting from my local provider and nothing seemed to change or improved, but HG really made my blog, my alexa dropped and so do the site load time, the user experience improved, bounce rate decreased and traffic started getting increased day by day and is still climbing the ladder.
I’m a freelance developer I have encountered hosting companies right from yahoo to the amazon cloud, but when we talk about low budget hosting hostgator is your only choice.
The only disadvantage I have came across until now is their affiliate network, but I am pretty sure we’ll find a way there too.
If you are looking for budget hosting with all the features of a pro-level hosting, hostgator should be your first preference and they really eat their competition – thats what the crocodile above is for!