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Hostgator Review

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With over 20 years in the industry HostGator has grown from a solo operation to the web hosting powerhouse it is today. The company offers wide range of hosting services that come with a built-in website builder, which is convenient for newbies. The company was sold to Endurance International Group in 2012 (and later to the NewFold Digital) and now joins the many who are part of a big conglomerate. They still retain their signature iconic cartoon alligator logo.


Suitable for: Beginners-friendly Budget, or Adult Website Hosting

Website: https://www.hostgator.com/

HostScore
62.54%
Promo Coupon*


What We Think About Hostgator Hosting

Hostgator Pros

  • Affordable pricing
  • Free domain name with all shaerd hosting plans
  • Free $100 Bing and $100 Google ad credits
  • 45-day money-back guarantee

Hostgator Cons

  • Resources limited by server constraints
  • Not much variety in VPS plans
  • Only US-based servers
  • Price increase during the renewal

Jump: See how many readers recommend Hostgator

Hostgator – Our Experiences & Findings

Performance What server speed features does Hostgator offer?

Hostgator offers dependable hosting services, with a focus on steady website functionality. While their hosting performance is not especially great, the web host incorporates essential technologies like built-in caching mechanism, HTTP-2, and various server upgrades to further enhance your website’s speed.

Security Are websites hosted at Hostgator safe?

Hostgator excels in security, offering top-notch measures to safeguard your website. Their platform boasts features like advanced web application firewall (WAF), free SSL, daily backup, to ensure your data remains secure and your site impervious to common cyber threats.

Supports Is Hostgator customer support good?

You can reach out to Hostgator’s support team via phone, live chat, and email.

Value for Money Does Hostgator offer good value for its pricing?

Hostgator is not cheap but reasonable priced when weighed against its feature offerings and long-term cost. At $3.75 per month (renews at $9.99/mo), basic shared hosting allows you to host 1 website with 24/7 customer support, a free domain name, daily backup, and 45-days money back guarantee. Higher plans with better features like VPS starts at $34.99/mo, cloud hosting at $4.5/mo and dedicated hosting at $89.98/mo.

Overall Users Satisfaction What other users think of Hostgator?

Based on our market research, HostGator generally receives positive feedback on user satisfaction. Customers often praise its customer support and reliable hosting uptime. However, some users have raised concerns about billing practices and experienced occasional issues with server speed performance. If you’re considering HostGator for your hosting needs, it’s wise to thoroughly evaluate these user complaints before finalizing your decision.

For additional insights, please refer to the user reviews section below.

Newbies Friendliness Is Hostgator suitable for beginners?

HostGator is an attractive choice for those starting their web careers or blogging, offering low initial pricing and a user-friendly website builder with free templates. As a full-service host, it provides ample room for growth and scalability, catering well to expanding web projects. Additionally, easy application installs and unmetered bandwidth make HostGator a hassle-free option for users, especially until their sites require significant scaling.

Small Business Friendliness Is Hostgator suitable for small businesses?

With the many features available at Hostgator, freelancers and small business owners should be more than happy. The environment is a great build-and-forget way to handle a basic digital presence. At the same time, for business owners who may decide to scale up, there is always the option to build further

Web Developers Friendliness Is Hostgator suitable for developers?

Although HostGator lacks the team support that many agencies will tend to need, developers can still find themselves at home here. There is wide support on even their shared web hosting plans for development. The ability to use Perl, Python and Ruby on shared plans isn’t all that common – but you get it here.

Onboarding There isn’t much significance in the HostGator sign-up process that you won’t have seen elsewhere. We do find the aggressive upselling a little annoying. But the good point is that if you’re doing this again, you won’t really get confused. Newbies will just have to follow the arrows and instructional email you’ll get as part of the onboarding process.

An excellent point to note is that HostGator has very extensive documentation to help you with all your needs. I often find this more helpful with basic features instead of relying on support staff since they will take some time to revert, which can be frustrating.

Learn more, visit Hostgator online.

Hostgator Plans & Pricing

Hostgator offers various hosting solutions, including Shared, VPS, Dedicated, and Reseller hosting plans. Additionally, the company also provides specialty hosting services, such as Managed WordPress, Adult Websites, Email, and Minecraft hosting.

When evaluating your options, it’s crucial to remember that many hosting companies offer substantial discounts during the initial signup period, but the pricing often increases significantly upon renewal. You should thoroughly research and compare the renewal prices, not just the introductory rates, to understand the true cost of hosting over an extended period.

To help you make a more informed decision, we have prepared two tables below which compare the initial signup and subsequent renewal costs of Hostgator services with several other providers that we actively monitor.

Review Hostgator Signup Price

Web HostSharedVPSDedicatedCloudWordPressWindows
Hostgator$3.75 - 6.25/mo$34.99 - 93.99/mo$89.98 - 139.99/mo$4.50 - 13.95/mo$4.50 - 13.95/mo$4.76 - 14.36/mo
BlueHost$2.95 - 13.95/mo$29.99 - 69.99/mo$89.98 - 139.99/mo$ - /mo$2.95 - 13.95/mo$ - /mo
Vice Temple$3.75 - 44.00/mo$28.00 - 418.00/mo$165.00 - 2420.00/mo$ - /mo$ - /mo$ - /mo
Cloudways$ - /mo$ - /mo$ - /mo$11.00 - 1056.00/mo$14.00 - 487.00/mo$ - /mo
SiteGround$3.99 - 10.69/mo$ - /mo$ - /mo$100.00 - 400.00/mo$3.99 - 10.69/mo$ - /mo
HostPapa$2.95 - 12.95/mo$19.99 - 249.99/mo$ - /mo$ - /mo$19.95 - 114.95/mo$ - /mo

Review Hostgator Renewal Price

Web HostSharedVPSDedicatedCloudWordPressWindows
Hostgator$9.99 - 19.99/mo$79.95 - 149.95/mo$179.99 - 279.00/mo$8.95 - 17.95/mo$8.95 - 17.95/mo$12.99 - 21.99/mo
BlueHost$11.99 - 28.99/mo$79.99 - 142.99/mo$179.99 - 259.99/mo$ - /mo$11.99 - 28.99/mo$ - /mo
Vice Temple$3.75 - 44.00/mo$28.00 - 418.00/mo$165.00 - 2420.00/mo$ - /mo$ - /mo$ - /mo
Cloudways$ - /mo$ - /mo$ - /mo$11.00 - 1056.00/mo$14.00 - 487.00/mo$ - /mo
SiteGround$17.99 - 44.99/mo$ - /mo$ - /mo$100.00 - 400.00/mo$17.99 - 44.99/mo$ - /mo
HostPapa$2.95 - 12.95/mo$19.99 - 249.99/mo$ - /mo$ - /mo$19.95 - 114.95/mo$ - /mo

Bottomline: Is Hostgator Right for You?

HostGator offers a variety of hosting services with a focus on affordability and user-friendliness, including a free domain name with shared hosting plans and $200 in ad credits. However, it’s limited by server constraints, lacks VPS plan variety, and has only US-based servers. Also, prices increase significantly when you renew.

To recap, here's what we like and dislike:

Hostgator Pros

  • Affordable pricing
  • Free domain name with all shaerd hosting plans
  • Free $100 Bing and $100 Google ad credits
  • 45-day money-back guarantee

Hostgator Cons

  • Resources limited by server constraints
  • Not much variety in VPS plans
  • Only US-based servers
  • Price increase during the renewal

Alternatives

HostWinds

HostScore: 50
%
Services: Shared, VPS, Dedicated, Cloud, and Reseller

Cloudways

HostScore: 82.8
%
Services: Cloud, and Reseller

NameCheap

HostScore: 77.1
%
Services: Shared, VPS, Dedicated, and Reseller

User Reviews: What Others Think About Hostgator



User Reviews Summary

Recommended: 18
Not Recommended: 13

31 thoughts on “Hostgator Review”

  1. The customer service was great. Not automated responses and very fast with getting back to me. They’re thorough in answering questions and addressing all concerns. Loved the design tools. There were a lot of choices and very easy to understand. Simple for anyone to be able to understand, but the design doesn’t look cheap. The storage options were incredible. Other domains completely limit storage, and you’re left with not having all that you need. Whereas this domain company gives you plenty of storage for your needs. Ease of use is fantastic. Creating Web pages can be very difficult and time consuming. But it’s made a lot easier with this domain company. Ease of use equals peace of mind.

    Yes, Recommended
  2. The company deleted files that affected my site and wants me to pay for the restoration. Additionally, they refused to allow me to speak with a supervisor. It appears that the customer service process has changed. They charge for everything to make money instead of providing customer service.

    No, Not Recommended
  3. I have been with HostGator for 3 years on the Business plan, they did some updates on there server and now my website keeps going down with a message stated: error connect time out. I have contacted their help desk more than 20 times with in the past 3 weeks, and my site still keeps going down then back up after 5 mins making my website unusable, I have lost a lot of business because of this. Their help desk and server team have told me they don’t see anything wrong on their side. Troubleshooting steps taking on my end: I have disable all plugins, created a whole new WP site, rebuilt the database and nothing has worked. I will be move my website to a different hosting company.

    No, Not Recommended
  4. April was lovely and helpful. She was patient and I also learned a great deal from her about how to do this. She basically corrected a problem that came about, but that HostGator failed to communicate to me. Therefore I’m very happy with her but not so happy with HostGator. They failed to do the migration that I requested and they DID NOT let me know there was a problem – !!!. Luckily I noticed my site was completely broken and got on the phone however it was offline and Host Gator really should’ve sent a note to alert me that they needed further action from GoDaddy to effect the migration. I had followed all the instructions from the previous call with another HG rep, but they also didn’t tell me I needed info from HG and to use it to change the nameservers at GoDaddy. Thanks to April it got done.

    Yes, Recommended
  5. Great customer service. I got the help I needed to set up my website and I’m really happy about it. Now I get to enjoy my website. Thank you customer service. I enjoy the design tool. Very fun to use to tweak my website and it’s very helpful. I think it’s the best design tool than other webhost because others have a limit. It comes with great storage. I can store a lot of GB in there so I can use a lot of space to set up my website. I’m really happy with the storage. I found it very easy to use. Most of them are difficult to use but not this one. I know how to use everything and had no problem. Very happy with the ease.

    Yes, Recommended
  6. Any and all experience I have had with HostGator web services have been filled with false statements and poor customer service. The service is slow and provides limits on the speed and volume of data that can be handled by the service. In my humble opinion, HostGator is an inferior web service provider from the service I had with them.

    No, Not Recommended
  7. It’s fairly cheap and high-quality hosting. Especially enjoyed building up a website with their cm system… I also received a free domain which I think is a nice addition to the service I am getting.

    Yes, Recommended
  8. HostGator is a complete scam. DO NOT & I REPEAT DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY. I ordered a dedicated server with HostGator & the representative that assisted me with my order did not sell me the correct dedicated server package that I had intended to order. I needed the WHM & cPanel along with the dedicated server. I put in a request not even 1 day later for a cancellation & a refund and was told I couldn’t get a refund and I would be also charged hundreds more to do an upgrade. I’m so sick & tired of companies like this. The representative made the mistake and now me the buyer is being penalized for it. When does the GREED end? Stop giving companies like Hostgator your money.. DO NOT BUY A SINGLE PRODUCT FROM HOSTGATOR. You have been warned.

    No, Not Recommended
  9. The customer service for this website is very friendly and helpful. They make sure that they provide excellent and quality service to their customers. They are very professional and do their best to solve any problems that you may have. The design tools for this website are very unique compared to other similar websites. There is also a wide variety of tools that you can use. The storage options for this website are very good as well. The storage options are very organized and easy to use. It allows you to store all of your information in a very organized and easy to access location. This website is very easy to use. Everything is pretty self-explanatory, but there are help features that explain to you how to use everything. You definitely don’t have to be tech savvy in order to use this website.

    Yes, Recommended
  10. Host Gator offers the best service on the net. I was desperate with WIX2 years ago (great tool but no service) and they helped me a lot to set up my SiteMaps, they helped me to index my site astrologers.us, they helped me connect my domain, they answered all the questions I’d with Gator Site Builder, it’s the only provider where they answer your chat in less than 2 minutes and help to the end, I personally don’t know them, they’re in the States and I’m in Denmark and although Site Builder lacks some features, I still use it because they help me a lot. My account with Gator. **

    Yes, Recommended
  11. I recently had a disappointing experience with HostGator that I feel compelled to share. Over the last couple of years, I’ve consistently faced issues with my domain, including losing access to it multiple times. Each incident required me to pay an additional redemption fee, adding unexpected costs and frustration to my experience.

    No, Not Recommended
  12. HostGator’s tech support has always been poor. Customers cannot contact tech support directly. Even if customer support promised to “escalate” the matter, it takes days for tech support to get back to us by email, and either they’ve closed the case prematurely or they ask us to repeat the information we gave customer support in the first place, adding several more days to down time. But, now they have also reduced their customer support to a robotic chat, internationally outsourced. They have eliminated phone support completely. Every time we now try to get help through the chat support, the poor support person comes back with the same empty promises and platitudes: “I understand your concern,” “I’ve escalated this case,” “24-48 hours,” and it’s still taken weeks — yes weeks — to resolve, causing loss of revenue for our business.

    No, Not Recommended
  13. We are a web hosting company reselling HostGator’s services to our customers. We had made the decision to become a web hosting company initially because of our eCommerce clients that we process their credit card payments for to ensure that they were processing via a secure method. From there, since we had the extra capacity, we made the service commercially available to others and have been happy with the service.

    Yes, Recommended
  14. I have been using HostGator for my business and personal domain for well over 10 years. I use HostGator’s services for my website, emails, Moodle platforms, and custom projects. I’ve set the members as well to use their services. I have also used HostGator to manage my domains. Their service has been solid and reliable.

    Yes, Recommended
  15. I was a HostGator customer since 2009 and was decently happy up to the point where I wanted to upgrade my ecommerce platform in mid 2016. I looked at their plans online, found one I wanted, and called in. After asking some questions it became apparent that the price I would pay would be higher than advertised. I told the sales lady this will not work for me so she found a plan that is within my budget and will work for my technical needs. I told the sales lady exactly the software platform I intend to work on, Magento 2, and she told me that I would be able to make the changes needed to the server to get everything running correctly.

    No, Not Recommended
  16. Very easy to get in touch with. They respond in a quick manner. Very polite. Always satisfied with their customer service. Very professional. Has some of the best tools for designing to make every project look its best and the most professional. Love their tools also. Great value. Very resourceful. It’s a essential part of the program and a valuable piece of the service that I enjoy using more than other parts of the service. Great company. One of the best available. Very integrated to makes it easy to use for every user. Love the level of access to no issues or hassles along the way. It’s easy to navigate also.

    Yes, Recommended
  17. We didn’t have too many issues with HostGator when we utilized them, for hosting services, but when we did contact customer support they were always incredible. The web tools provided by HostGator were excellent and allowed us to create exactly what we needed to make our business shine. The tools were comprehensive and easy to use. HostGator offers a wide array of storage options which provides a fit for any size business’ needs. Switching options when you need more or less storage is always easy. We have used other providers’ web interfaces for config. HostGator’s interface is by far the most user-friendly we have used, and provides a positive experience no matter your level of expertise.

    Yes, Recommended
  18. We use HostGator to host our website, and to provide automated backups of the website. We get our SSL certificate through them, and also have their SiteLock add-on for providing an additional piece of security. To manage the site, we use their cPanel interface. Until about a year ago, we also had them hosting our email addresses but we migrated off of that plan, and retained only the website services.

    Yes, Recommended
  19. I purchased a website on Saturday, 13 December 2014. Up till today, I’m still battling to get the account verified so that I can start building my website. I’ve phoned the customer care, I’ve send numerous emails, but still no joy. They say that they’ve received everything, I must wait 24 – 48 hours for them to activate the website. It’s now 72 hours.

    No, Not Recommended
  20. It seems Hostgator resolved the issue overnight. I went in and modified the SEO information the next morning and the problem recurred. After some time spent on chat with tech support, the knowledgeable tech found a file with excessive redirect code and renamed it. The problem is gone, at least for now. Upgraded the rating to 3 of 5 as the issue should never have gone as long as it did.

    Yes, Recommended
  21. I signed up for a cheap website, tried it out, didn’t like it, asked them to cancel it. So they say, “Yes it’s cancelled.” The next year I get billed for all kinds of crap, bunch of addons, all they did was cancel the annual plan. I says, “You told me it’s cancelled, CANCEL IT ALL.” So they assure me, “Ok this time it’s cancelled.” So now years after signing up, I get ANOTHER billing notice that they’re charging me again. What part of cancel everything and bill me nothing is hard to understand? This seems like some kind of nickel and dime scam.

    No, Not Recommended
  22. I was at first put off waiting on a return call, but Dan called me back and he was the greatest. He was perfect, I could understand him very well, he was slow talking and did everything, and I cannot say enough about his help and expertise. I am not a great computer person but with his help I am doing so much better. Hostgator.com Dan is a keeper.

    Yes, Recommended
  23. They were fine to host website. When needed new one built they did it. Took forever and many problems. Price was decent. But now you have problems and they don’t fix right away and same cart problems, or cancel order problems occur. I was a loyal customer of HostGator for more than 15 years. The customer service has continued to deteriorate over time. Keeping customers waiting on hold for more than 30 minutes and then being served by a representative who is clearly dealing with many many customers at once – so that they are totally not focused on the customer, not focused on what the actual issue is and not focused on providing a solution – it is absolutely pathetic! Stay away from them.

    Yes, Recommended
  24. HostGator hosted my company website for a number of years. Then, inexplicably, my website got hacked and was filled with photographs of sushi and monster trucks (I’m not kidding!). I was in a panic. I called their customer service and all they did was try to sell me a very expensive security package. I was understandably very upset, told them I was no longer using their services and in 2019, I switched to WIX hosting service which necessitated me rebuilding my entire website. Two days ago I was billed $216 for an annual “Baby Plan” and have since learned that they’ve been billing me for four years even though I have not used their services. This is outright theft. Because it was on my business credit card and because I have 12 different domains for various creative projects, I didn’t notice until this year.

    No, Not Recommended
  25. I’ve been with HostGator for 3 years and one of my cards expired and I updated my card credit card but they didn’t run the updated card. They ran the old card, lost my site my domain name and won’t even refund me the money. Terrible company to work with.

    No, Not Recommended
  26. I previously had Hostgator about a year ago, and canceled as I was not using it for what I intended. I had no issues at that time. I then decided to reactive account in November of this year. I noticed that the domain name was incorrect, as it had com in the name twice(com.com) which was clearly an error on the reps part. I called and domain name was corrected. I then started getting marketing emails, text messages, and phone calls. I paid for the privacy protect whereas no one could see my profile.

    No, Not Recommended
  27. I have used HostGator in 2 capacities. First, in daily use, our district utilizes HostGator for our web hosting services. When our previous host became too expensive and unresponsive, we found HostGator did everything we needed better. It was cheaper and more efficient than our last host. Tech support was responsive at implementation, and there have been very few times we’ve needed to contact support since the product is stable and reliable.
    I’ve also used HostGator in another organization through which email services are provided. In this capacity, I also find it stable, and it offers a variety of email clients to help fit our needs the best.

    Yes, Recommended
  28. i have purchased a windows hosting plan and there was issue with domain name being registered and it got pointed to the hosting plan as well as attempting to add 2 other domains to the hosting plan when communicated with support it was supposed to cancel the incorrect domain name and register the correct one and fix the hosting plan accordingly, they kept going on loop on how it takes 24/48 without taking any action to change and not even fix on the account was provided until it gets propagated accordingly and after 5 more communication with the support team they only changed the primary domain on the host to yet another incorrect one and only to get it right on the second after 2 days of going back and forth with them about it and refused to cancel the incorrect domain and told me it was non refundable while one of the support team said it will be cancelled as I requested the same day as the incorrect domain was registered yet there is another error to add the other 2 domains when attempting to add them there is error produced “DNS Name already exists” while its not showing in the Plesk to work on when attempting to contact them again the response was oh we don’t support this service which was windows Plesk service and yet the issue persist to this day and not being solved every communication is “will add note to admins to help get it fixed” and yet no action is being taken

    No, Not Recommended
  29. Hostgator hosting in good, Its shared hosting plan (Baby Plan) can handle 5 Lakh traffic per month, if yor upgrade it to Business plan the the hosting provider throlled you by server issues, many down time… so that you may upgrade your plan to vps or cloud hosting..

    Same in his cloud hosting (baby cloud) plan good but if you upgrade it to Business cloud you face same issues like many down time, server issues…

    Yes, Recommended
  30. Not many know what Hostgator belongs under the same umbrella as Bluehost. I admit that I did not test many other providers, but never actually had to. I use Hostgator for over 7 years now, with no issues. Though customer service sometimes need a bit of explanation to help, they always were there when I needed them.

    Yes, Recommended

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