HostGator is a leading hosting provider with headquarters in Houston and Austin, Texas. They also have international offices to extend their reach globally.
HostGator was founded in 2002. Now, more than 15 years later, they host websites for more than 400,000 customers, which is a testament to the company’s reliability. HostGator is one of the most well-known brands in the hosting world. They are one of the 2 flagship brands (along with Bluehost) of Endurance International, the largest global web services company.
HostGator hosts over 8 million domains and is one of the most popular web hosting companies in the industry. Offering 1-click WordPress installation, 99.9% uptime guarantee and 24/7 support, it is a good choice for site owners targeting the North American market.
About Hostgator
Looking for affordable plans and easy setup? HostGator’s commitment to providing support for new users makes it one of the best options for small-scale (and low-budget) web hosting. Specializing in hosting for individuals and small businesses, the company eliminates unnecessary add-ons.
Many of HostGator’s competitors offer feature-packed plans, forcing them to charge higher prices. HostGator seems much more affordable in comparison. Despite this, they still provide a powerful hosting infrastructure.
The company offers a wide variety of hosting options. These range from shared and cloud-friendly hosting to VPS plans for more advanced users. However, their cheap prices will also mean that customers will face some limitations.
Key Features
Multiple hosting options
HostGator offers shared, dedicated and VPS hosting services, as well as domain registration and reselling options.
The core of HostGator’s services is shared server hosting; this is what has made them known in the industry. While focusing on the shared server segment of the market, HostGator has put in the effort to create an exceptional customer experience, knowing the needs of the shared server customer very well.
HostGator’s understanding of the shared hosting user makes the team ideal for guiding new customers through an upgrade to virtual and dedicated servers as their needs evolve.
Lots of free options
There are many free features that HostGator graciously adds to each hosting plan, including: unlimited disk and bandwidth, a free website builder and site construction tools, over 4,000 site themes, free domain transfers, and unlimited mySQL databases.
In addition, new site owners can attract visitors to their new site using $100 worth of Google Adwords credits, courtesy of the HostGator team.
One-click installations are available for all major open-source CMS, such as WordPress, Joomla and Magento.
Good support and guarantees
A 45-day money back guarantee gives you plenty of time to try HostGator and make sure their hosting can meet your needs.
A 99.9% uptime guarantee is pretty standard for the web hosting industry and will cover most people’s needs. If you need a higher uptime rate, you can find it, but it will cost you.
24/7/365 support is available via phone, chat, ticket system and an online knowledge base.
Performance and Security
With a 99.9% uptime guarantee, HostGator offers a really decent uptime performance. This level of service is the industry standard, and while there are hosts with higher uptime, they also have a higher cost.
HostGator has been in the industry for a long time, so you can rest assured that they are not a ghost host and that they will be around for the long haul.
Ease of use
HostGator is very beginner-friendly. With a quick control panel and clear icons, it’s easy to get started with HostGator. We found the experience simple, and when we had questions, we could easily contact someone via live chat to get a quick answer.
They also have plenty of tutorials, FAQ pages and documents to help you out, with detailed explanations and simple step-by-step tutorials.
The rather large number of options available can create some complexity for the novice user.
Managing your sites on HostGator is done through the latest version of cPanel. It is very easy to use! Many simple tutorials will help you to better understand the features offered.
Rates
HostGator’s rates are really competitive on mutualized.
They offer different rates and a wide variety of hosting packages, all coupled with aggressive promotions to attract the customer. No long term commitment at Hostgator, but overall the longer you stay, the less you will pay. You can subscribe for a period of up to 3 years and enjoy incredible discounts especially for the “Hatchling” offers.
The prices and features of each plan available at HostGator are very well detailed when you sign up.
A Hatchling plan: This plan starts at $2.75 per month. It supports 1 domain name, unlimited disk space and storage and unlimited subdomains.
Baby plan: This plan starts at $5.95 per month. It supports unlimited storage, bandwidth and domain names.
Business Plan: This plan starts at $5.95 per month. It supports unlimited storage, bandwidth and domain names. It comes with a free dedicated IP, SSL certificate…
Options:
Ease of registration: easy registration process.
Payment methods: credit card, PayPal.
Hidden fees and clauses: you can not use more than 25% of their system resources for more than 90 seconds at a time. Shared and reseller hosting accounts cannot have more than 250,000 inodes. Accounts with more than 100,000 inodes are automatically deleted from their backup system.
Promotions: many good deals.
Account activation: 24 to 48 hours.
Control panel and dashboard: cPanel.
Application and CMS installation (WordPress, Joomla, etc.): they make it easy to install popular applications and CMS in a few steps using QuickInstall.