HostGator Review: Is it the best web hosting service provider (2022)?
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Abdul Wadood
Web hosting service is one of the primary requirements for creating any website.
There are several web hosting service providers out there. However, not all providers offer the same performance, reliability, and features. Thus, website owners need to make a correct decision in choosing the web hosting service provider for their website.
HostGator is an established and top-notch web hosting company in the world. As of 2020, over two million websites have used HostGator as their web hosting service provider, which is mind-boggling!
In this blog, I’ve reviewed HostGator and given a verdict on whether it’s suitable for your website.
Let’s get started with the review!
Table of content:
HostGator web hosting plans
HostGator offers a wide range of hosting plans. Depending on your budget and requirements, you can opt for a hosting plan that suits you the best.
Below, I have explained the hosting plans of HostGator in detail.
- Shared Hosting
- WordPress Hosting
- Cloud Hosting
- VPS Hosting
- Dedicated Hosting
1. Shared Hosting
As the name suggests, in Shared Hosting, a single server is shared with multiple websites. In this hosting, a website shares the same server resources. So, if a website in that server receives higher traffic, the performance of other websites will decrease.
If you’re starting a new website and have less money to spend on hosting, you can opt for Shared Hosting. However, if your website receives high traffic, you need to opt for more expensive hosting solutions as your website will require more resources.
Under Shared Hosting, HostGator offers three plans.
- Hatchling Plan
- Baby Plan
- Business Plan
If you opt for a month-to-month billing cycle, the costs will be $10.95, $11.95, and $16.95 for the Hatchling, Baby, and Business Plans (respectively).
Generally, the month-to-month billing cycle is much expensive than the annual billing cycle. We usually don’t change the web hosting service provider every month. So, I personally prefer opting for a one-year billing cycle as it’s cheaper ($55.93/year or $3.95/month), and you get a free domain name for a year.
If you opt for a three-year billing cycle, you’ll pay only $2.75/month for the Hatchling Plan. However, I don’t recommend this billing cycle as three years is a pretty long duration.
As for the plan, I recommend the Hatchling plan over others as it offers all the necessary features for a new website. Some features include one-click WordPress installation, free SSL certificate, free WordPress website transfer, etc.
2. WordPress Hosting
The WordPress Hosting of HostGator is pretty similar to Shared Hosting. However, if you plan to use WordPress as your website’s Content Management System (CMS), you’ll appreciate the additional features that HostGator offers.
Some of the additional features of WordPress hosting include auto backups, one-click backup restores, a 99.9% uptime guarantee, etc.
Besides the additional features, WordPress Hosting also makes it easier to set up WordPress and provides a simplified control panel.
HostGator offers three tiers of plans under WordPress Hosting.
- Starter Plan
- Standard Plan
- Business Plan
If you opt for a month-to-month billing cycle, you’ve to pay $14.95, $20.95, and $27.95 for the Starter, Standard, and Business Plans (respectively). Again, opting for a yearly billing cycle can save you money, and you also get a free domain name for a year.
Now, many of you might be confused between HostGator’s Shared Hosting and WordPress Hosting as they have many similarities. Here’s my answer to your confusion.
In my opinion, I find WordPress Hosting to be just a marketing gimmick. Though you get some additional features in WordPress Hosting, overall, it’s pretty similar to Shared Hosting. Moreover, if you want added functionality on your website, you can easily add them through WordPress plugins.
3. Cloud Hosting
In Cloud Hosting, your website resources are shared with multiple servers across the world. By doing so, your website’s loading speed becomes faster, and its uptime may also increase.
Cloud Hosting is the best hosting plan for those who want fantastic performance at an affordable price.
Some of the notable features that HostGator includes in its Cloud Hosting plan include the following.
- Integrated caching – With integrated caching, you can ensure that your website loads fast.
- Resource management – If you notice a boost in your website’s traffic, you can easily increase the resources.
- Automated failover – If there occurs a hardware issue in your website, HostGator will automatically switch your website to another server.
HostGator offers three plans under Cloud Hosting.
- Hatchling Cloud
- Baby Cloud
- Business Cloud
If you opt for a month-to-month billing cycle, you’ve to pay $12.95, $13.95, and $19.95 for the Hatchling, Baby, and Business Plans (respectively).
4. VPS Hosting
In Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting, many websites will share a single server. However, the websites shared in a server are far less than Shared Hosting. Thus, you get better performance.
If you want your website to perform well without paying a bomb for Dedicated Hosting, you can opt for the VPS Hosting plan of HostGator.
HostGator offers three tiers of VPS Hosting plans.
- Snappy 2000
- Snappy 4000
- Snappy 8000
The pricing mentioned in the above image is applicable only if you pay for three years upfront. If you pay on a month-to-month basis, the price will be $79.95, $119.95, and $149.95 for Snappy 2000, Snappy 4000, and Snappy 8000 Plans (respectively).
5. Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated Hosting is the best hosting plan that HostGator offers. If you opt for this plan, you’ll have complete control over the resources of your server.
Also, in Dedicated Hosting, you can choose between both Linux and Windows OS options.
It’s great to see that HostGator has packed their Dedicated Hosting plan with lots of features and performance. However, they come at a price.
Under Dedicated Hosting, HostGator offers three plans.
- Value Server
- Power Server
- Enterprise Server
The month-to-month billing costs a whopping $189.00, $249.00, and $289.00 for the Value, Power, and Enterprise Server plans (respectively).
If your website has lots of content and receives high traffic, you should opt for the Dedicated Hosting plan from HostGator. If otherwise, you can opt for more affordable hosting plans as they offer enough performance and features.
Note: Click here to view the detailed pricing chart of all the hosting plans of HostGator.
Pros and cons of HostGator
HostGator offers several beneficial features like one-click WordPress installation, fantastic uptime, free domain name for one year, etc.
However, like any product or service, HostGator also has some disadvantages. Thus, before making your final decision, ensure that the drawbacks aren’t a deal-breaker for you.
First, let’s see the pros of HostGator.
Pros of HostGator
First, let’s see the advantages that HostGator has to offer.
1. Unmetered disk space and bandwidth
If you opt for the Shared Hosting plan of HostGator, you’ll get “unmetered” disk space and bandwidth.
By the term “unmetered“, HostGator states that they won’t charge based on your usage of the disk space or bandwidth.
However, if your website occupies significant resources in the server, HostGator will send you an email to reduce your resource usage.
In most cases, if you’re a beginner, you’ll rarely exceed their disk space and bandwidth limitation. However, if your website receives lots of traffic and has several blogs, courses, etc., you’ll need to opt for more dedicated hosting solutions.
Many web hosting service providers charge you based on the usage of disk space or bandwidth. Thus, HostGator deserves an appreciation for making its Shared Hosting policy more flexible.
2. One-click WordPress installation
The installation process of WordPress can overwhelm many beginners. However, as a HostGator user, you don’t have to worry about that — thanks to the one-click WordPress installation feature.
Again, HostGator deserves applause because many web hosting service providers don’t provide a one-click WordPress installation feature to their customers.
Note: Only the new customers of HostGator can make use of the one-click WordPress installation feature. Also, the installation is possible only in the primary domain.
3. Great performance
The loading speed of a website has a significant impact on its SEO. Moreover, loading speed is one of the ranking factors of Google.
Fortunately, HostGator offers pretty good performance even for the users in the Shared Hosting plan. As you upgrade to much higher hosting plans, the website performance will increase drastically — thanks to the more dedicated server resources.
4. Fantastic customer support
HostGator offers fantastic customer support to all its customers. Regardless of the problems you face, HostGator can solve them for you.
You can reach out to the support team of HostGator through live chat, email, or phone. Besides these support features, HostGator also has a Knowledge Base where you can find answers to pretty much everything (DNS, design tools, cPanel, database, etc.).
You can also utilize the YouTube tutorial videos of HostGator, or you can join in their Facebook Group to get support from other HostGator customers.
Nevertheless, I personally prefer to directly contact the customer support team to get solutions to my issue.
5. Free SSL certificate
HostGator provides its customers a free SSL certificate, which is fantastic. Though many web hosting service providers are offering this feature, some still don’t.
An SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate encrypts the information sent to the server using SSL technology. In other words, if your website has an SSL certificate, your server-to-client communications will be encrypted and protected.
An SSL certificate converts a website from HTTP to HTTPS, making it more secure. Moreover, search engine algorithms prefer ranking websites with an SSL certificate higher in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
If your website has an SSL certificate, a padlock icon will appear in the search bar.
If otherwise, a “Not secure” warning will display in the search bar, which reduces the visitor’s trust in your website.
6. Great uptime
Website uptime is the period of time when a website is live and available to the users without any disruption.
Website uptime has a significant influence on the user experience and the growth of a website. A website can go down rarely. However, if it’s frequent, the users will develop a negative feeling about your brand.
Moreover, a poor website uptime can negatively impact a website’s SEO too.
HostGator guarantees an uptime of 99.9% even in their Shared and Reseller Hosting server. Moreover, if HostGator can’t keep up its uptime guarantee, they will provide you one month of free credit on your account.
7. Unlimited MySQL Database
If you’re an advanced user with technical skills, you’ll find the unlimited MySQL Database feature that HostGator offers beneficial.
MySQL Database is a free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). MySQL is used by most web-based applications, including WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, phpBB, etc., to store the data.
Regardless of the hosting plan you choose, you need not worry about the size of the database that you can create with MySQL. The maximum possible size of your MySQL database is the size of your cPanel’s disk space.
Cons of HostGator
Having seen the advantages, now let’s see the disadvantages of HostGator.
1. Renewal prices are pretty high
The initial pricing of HostGator’s hosting plans is some of the best in the industry. However, the renewal fees are pretty high.
Before moving on to the next disadvantage of HostGator, I would like to mention HostGator’s marketing strategy tricks.
HostGator advertises that its hosting starts from $2.75/month. However, this pricing is applicable only if you pay for three years upfront. If you pay monthly, the price is $10.95, making it significantly higher than the advertised price.
Many web hosting service providers follow the same pricing strategy to make their pricing seem low. However, I personally feel that it’s deceiving to the users. I’m pretty sure that you’ll feel the same too.
2. Add-ons are expensive
Though HostGator includes several features in its hosting plans, it’s worth mentioning that the add-on services are pretty expensive.
For instance, the SEO Tools add-on costs about $35.40/year, which is pretty expensive. Similarly, the SiteLock Essentials add-on costs $23.88/year, which is again highly-priced. SiteLock Essentials is a tool that detects and fixes malware from your website.
I personally don’t recommend purchasing any add-on services from HostGator. The reason is that, in most cases, you can find a free WordPress plugin having the same functionality as the add-on. Also, instead of purchasing add-ons like Google Workspace from HostGator, you can buy them directly from Google to get a better deal.
Conclusion
HostGator is one of the best web hosting service providers. They offer fantastic performance and features at an affordable price.
HostGator charges a lot for add-ons. Similarly, the renewal prices are pretty high. However, most web hosting service providers do the same, unfortunately.
Here’s a quick recap of this review.
- If you’re a beginner and want an affordable yet decent hosting solution, you can opt for the Shared Hosting plan of HostGator.
- If you want more WordPress-related features, you can opt for the WordPress Hosting plan.
- If you feel that the basic hosting plans can’t satisfy your needs, you can pay slightly higher and opt for the Cloud Hosting plan.
- If you want more dedicated server resources, you can opt for the VPS Hosting or Dedicated Hosting plans.
Summing up, I would rate HostGator 4.5/5 stars, which is a fantastic score for a web hosting service provider.
I hope you found this HostGator review to be beneficial.
