Without a doubt, HostGator is one of the biggest web hosting company in the world today. They started as far back as 2002 and have continued pushing updates, features, and improvements to their products. This makes them quite relevant today and used by over a million subscribers around the globe.
As a new user, when you subscribe to any of their plans, you get unlimited storage, one-year free-domain, unlimited bandwidth and free SSL certificate for your website. These perks and more are what attract new users to their site. HostGator also offers good customer service that is available around the clock and is ready to answer any query.
However, as with other hosting companies, they have several downsides, such as hidden fees and slow page load. In this article, we shall review all its features including pros and cons. Explore further!
HostGator Review
A quick overview of their features shows that they are a reliable web hosting company and that they provide good services. They also have an uptime of 99.98% and provide live chat customer support. Their plans start as low as $2.75 per month and include Shared, WordPress, Cloud, VPS, and dedicated servers. However, in this article, we shall focus on HostGator’s shared plan.
Plans
HostGator shared plan starts as low as $2.75 per month and is suitable for small business and blog owners. It includes three plans that you can choose from.
- Hatchling plan – the cheapest and starts at $2.75/month. One free domain name, unlimited disk space, subdomains, storage, and SSL certificate.
- Baby plan starts at $3.95/month. It includes all the above and unlimited bandwidth and domain names.
- Business plan starts at $5.95 per month. It also includes all the above, as well as a dedicated IP and toll-free number.
HostGator has an easy signup process, and payment can be made via credit card or PayPal. It takes up to 48 hours to activate your new account and it comes with cPanel. From cPanel, you can easily install your favorite apps and CMS, such as WordPress and Joomla.
Here’s a quick rundown of its advantages
Uptime
For two years, HostGator has consistently provided its customers 99.98% uptime with several months consecutively 100%. What’s more, they promise one-month free credit on your account if your uptime is lower than 99.90%. This does not include planned maintenance or unpredictable hacks.
Good Customer Support
HostGator provides impeccable customer support via email, phone, and live chat. Their support staff are seasoned and can proffer quick solutions to your query. Live chat being the fastest means for communication takes an average of 15 seconds for an agent to reach you.
Money-Back Guarantee
HostGator offers a 45-day refund policy, which is quite impressive as most hosting companies offer 30 days. However, it does not apply to dedicated servers but only shared, VPS and reseller hosting plans. Asides that if you apply for a refund, fees like administrative and installation fees are deducted from the amount. And it is not given back as cash, but can be reused to purchase another hosting plan. It is also available for new accounts and plans, so you do not get a refund on your second renewal.
Site Security
HostGator provides the basic security for your site, and this might be adequate if you run a static site or blog. You can, however, get extra protection by buying SiteLock and other security features if you run dynamic or multiple websites.
Free Site Migration
Like many web host companies, HostGator provides its users with free site migration via cPanel when you subscribe to a plan. This is exceptionally useful for people who had websites and domains before signing up. All your database, files, and scripts are transferred without any hassle. HostGator shared plan offers only one site migration while the reseller plan will allow you to migrate up to 30 websites.
User-Friendly
HostGator is specially designed so that new users and beginners can navigate the site easily. It includes multiple tutorials and walkthroughs that help users understand each feature. It also includes features that allow non-tech people to build their site with little or no code. Gator is a website builder that allows you to drag and drop features on your page. Modern templates are also available, so all you need to do is customize your details in the template.
Not surprisingly, HostGator has a few cons, and they are listed below;
Slow Page Speed
Nothing irks a visitor more than a slow page load, and HostGator servers are notoriously slow to load. It takes more than second for a few text-based websites to load and far more on high-resolution images website. HostGator has an average of 1113ms, which is quite disappointing and unimpressible. Although there some things you can do to speed up your website, it is still not enough when your host is consistently slow.
Hidden charges and extra fees
Despite its low introductory offer, the overall charge can be quite high. Extra features like Gmail access and SiteLock are not free, and when added at checkout can inflate your total cost. And it’s quite disappointing as these features were labeled free on their page ad.
Price inflation on website renewal
Site renewals are double your introductory offer as several free features are now paid. They also expect you to pay a 2-3 year upfront fee on some plans to get its complete reward. For example, HostGator shared plan that costs $2.75 only applies when you pay three years upfront. Otherwise, you would be paying $10.95 per month for the same service.
Conclusion
Overall, HostGator shared is a good plan with many amazing features for web owners. It is user-friendly and comes with an impeccable support service. However, due to its slow page load and price inflation, it may not be your best option. You should check out other plans by HostGator to see what fits you best.
WordPress Cloud hosting is worth trying out. It is a little expensive than shared hosting. However, the performance is far better. And even when you add the extra fees that come with shared hosting, in the end, the prices may be the same. WordPress Hosting starts for as low as $5.95 per month and is truly superior.