HostGator
HostGator
Go where the pros host.
Web hosting that scales from easy to expert.
A ton of website hosting options, 99.9% uptime guarantee, free SSL certificate, easy WordPress installs, and a for a year.
Yeah, that’s how we roll.
HostGator, a Newfold Company, is a leading provider of shared, reseller, VPS & dedicated web hosting. Staffed by web pros who know more than a thing or two about building your perfect site, HostGator is the one-stop shop for all your hosting needs.
HostGator hosts over 10 million domains and is one of the most popular web hosts in the industry. With 1-click WordPress installation, 99.9% up time guarantee, and 24/7 support, it’s a smart choice for every website owner. We consider them one of the best web hosting for businesses. They’re offering our readers an exclusive 62% off discount, a free domain name, and free SSL certificate.
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. 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 our own performance tests to analyze this.
- Customer Support: Can you count on their customer support? Will you be able to easily get help when needed?
- Features: Do their features help you easily create and manage your website?
- Pricing: Do they offer the best pricing in industry? Are there any HostGator deals that can save you money?
Stay with HostGator.
This gator scales.
We’ve been doing this since the Jurassic (aka since 2002), so we know that to help newbies and pros alike that it takes all kinds of plans. Our tools are designed to grow with you, so you’ll never outgrow us (unlike with some of those other guys, just sayin’). That’s what being unstuckable is all about.
30% of customers are web pros.
2 million +
websites currently hosted.
Free domain
Get your first year of domain registration on us.
Free site transfers
Already have a site? Bring it on over to us, we gotchu covered.
Unmetered bandwidth
Bring in all the traffic your little heart desires. We can handle it.
99.9% uptime guarantee
The best ability is availability — so we make sure your site stays up.
One-click installs
Integrating your apps couldn’t be any easier.
Free SSL certificate
Show your visitors you take security seriously.
Pros and Cons of HostGator
Like every other product and service, each hosting company has its pros and cons. Here are the pros and cons of HostGator that we learned.
Pros
- Reliable hosting: HostGator guarantees an uptime of 99.99%. If you experience downtime below that, then you will get back one month credit on your account.
- Generous moneyback guarantee: HostGator offers 45 days moneyback guarantee. Normally, web hosting companies do not offer a moneyback guarantee beyond 30 days.
- 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 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 quite higher than annual plans. You can avail lower HostGator pricing by choosing the annual plans as they do offer a 45-day moneyback 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 when needed.
HostGator Performance
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, and this will cost you more money and headache.
That’s why you want to choose a web hosting provider that is reliably fast with stable performance record all around. But how would you get this information?
We decided to check HostGator’s performance by running our own 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 your users, and it also helps your SEO rankings.
In fact, studies suggest that 1 second delay in page load will cost you 7% fewer conversions, 11% less 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 Pingdom website speed testing tool to run the tests. Here are the results:
As you can see, our test site loaded in 1.03 seconds which is great.
However, this is a new website with no traffic at all so speed test alone is not the best way to judge its performance. We wanted to see how it would perform under peak traffic.
To test this we used a tool called K6 (formerly LoadImpact). We used it to send virtual users to a website and gradually increased the number of users on the site up to 100 at once.
Pricing
Pick your perfect web hosting plan. We got ’em all.
Shared
hosting
Easy, affordable, and includes a for a year. Score!
Starts at $2.75/mo*
WordPress
hosting
2.5x the speed, beefed up security, and free migrations.
Starts at $5.95/mo*
VPS
hosting
Full root access in a fully scalable hosting environment.
Starts at $23.95/mo*
Dedicated
hosting
The ultimate in performance. Get total server control.