HostGator hosts over 8 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:
Bottom line: Want to skip the details? To summarize, we found HostGator to be reliable and customer friendly hosting service. Their 24/7 customer support is among the best.
That’s why we’ve added HostGator as one of the best WordPress hosting companies.
Let’s jump to the more detail oriented parts of our HostGator review. This will help you figure out if HostGator is right for your website.
HostGator was founded in 2002 and grew quickly to become one of the biggest hosting companies in the world. You can credit the monstrous growth to their great shared hosting plans, reliable web hosting, and quality customer service.
Today it is headquartered in Houston, Texas and hosts over 8 million domains. They have 850+ employees that offer around the clock support and serve businesses of all sizes.
Like every other product and service, each hosting company have their pros and cons. Here are the pros and cons of HostGator that we learned.
Pros
Cons
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 company 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.
The most important performance indicator is the 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% less conversions, 11% less page views, and 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 just under a second for a server in Dallas, Texas. That’s faster than 94% of all tested sites.
That’s nice but how would your site perform under peak traffic hours?
To test this we used a tool called LoadImpact. It sends virtual users to a website and gradually increases the number of users on your site up to 100 at once.
You can see the result in the chart below:
The green line in the chart is page load time and the blue line shows the number of users on the site. As you can see, our test site performed really well up to 80 users, after that it started to slow down.
These results are particularly good for a shared hosting account. Remember that on a shared hosting account, you share server resources with other sites hosted on that same server. You will need to upgrade your hosting account if you start getting more visitors at the same time.
Another remarkable thing to be noticed is that our test site didn’t went down during the test. As you can see in the screenshot below.
The content of your website significantly affects the page load time. For example, if your website has many images, then it will increase the page load time.
This affects your server’s speed test results. We wanted to see how fast the HostGator server actually responds.
To test this, we used a tool called Bitcatcha. It works differently than other website speed testing tools. Instead of loading the content, it only tests the response time of the server.
It also runs the test three times from multiple locations spread all over the world to get the average response time for each location.
Here is how HostGator performed in these tests:
Our HostGator review site performed really well. The server response time remained less than a second. In the United States, it was merely 37 ms.
Overall, this result indicates that your site will load quickly around the world.
HostGator offers a variety of hosting plans. You can choose from shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated servers, cloud hosting, and WordPress hosting plans.
All these plans are feature rich and suitable for different budget and hosting requirements.
Let’s take a look at these plans offered by HostGator.
Shared hosting plans are great for new websites and beginners. They allow you to easily set up your website, so you can start working on getting more traffic and growing your business. You can later upgrade your hosting as your website grows.
HostGator’s shared hosting plans come in three different levels. All plans include unlimited storage and bandwidth. The main difference is the number of websites you can host.
HostGator offers one of the best customer service in the industry. This includes 24/7 phone and live chat support as well as ticket based email support.
Inside your hosting dashboard, you will find their support portal. This portal helps you find quick answers from a knowledge base of 680+ articles and 500+ video tutorials.
Every HostGator account is fully guaranteed by the CEO, Adam Farrar. If you ever have a problem with the regular support, then you can ask your ticket to be assigned to Adam. He will actually respond personally to each ticket assigned to him.
Now that you have read our detailed HostGator review, you are probably thinking if HostGator is right for you?
HostGator offers variety of hosting plans that fit all budgets and requirements. They offer all the tools you will need to build a website.
Over 2 million customers have already trusted HostGator. Whether you are a seasoned Internet pro, or just starting out with your first website, you’ll find every necessary tool to bring your website to next level.
Ready to get started with HostGator? Click here to select your HostGator plan today.
WPBeginner users get an exclusive 60% OFF with our HostGator coupon code.
All you have to do is click on this link to purchase. The discount will be applied automatically.
Hostgator is about half the price that we were paying to host our sight. Its working great!
Site is live
Thanks
Hostgator has always been responsive to my phone calls which is not too often. Any issue I may have had is always corrected pretty much right away. I don’t really have any complaints. Hope this helps people.
I use HostGator for 2 years and no problem with the services. I am working with different hosting providers and I found HostGator among the best.
I have found customer service at Hostgator knowledgeable and courteous. Helped me get up and running, held my hand through the process, in no time.
Thanks
Good service ,cheap prices working well with wordpress
my website is alive and kicking
I am very satisfied with Host Gator and my site is live.
Thanks!!… Everting is fine and worked.
Regards,
Fernando
I am satisfied with service of hostgator and recommend it.
I love hostgator! I have worked my page very easily and quickly! I recommend them !!!
We’re happy with the account and the service.
Live and living it so far.
I will soon move all my sites to HostGator bc it’s simple and user friendly.
Very happy, Customer service is very good also.
Good hosting and good server speed
All is well with the new hosting.
Thanks
Roy
Thanks for the updates. My site is working just fine.
I use hostgator for a long time for several domains and email purposes.
Recently I hosted my first site and the process is easy and efficient.
For several times used the helpdesk and have been extremely satisfied. Their support is solid when they solved my problems. They are great.
I am a starter on making web pages. So my first experience doing it is with Hostgator services. It’s been so good and so well that I had almost not to think about my hosting.
There is much I have to learn but this has been a great start.
Yes, this goes back to the point of “unlimited resources”. There is no such thing. The smaller tier plans work great for smaller sites, but once you start getting too much traffic, they will ask you to upgrade.
I have been using hosting services from Hostgator for past many years and have found them excellent on every count. First, it allowed me to reduce my initial costs significantly; second I got prompt services as and when required.
Just take a look at the pricing offered by them, and you will realize that it is within your budget. And I am not the only customer who is happy about up-time and tech support.
Finally, if you are going with Hostgator, you are with the best web-hosting.
I am hosting my website and two others on hostgator from last one year. In starting my wordpress email not going to customers. but soon they start.Also there support takes much time to help otherwise it is good overall
I have been using Host Gator for about 5 years now and have never had a problem.
Using Host Gator is one thing I never have to think about. Owning a small business your time is pulled in many directions and time is money. I love having Host Gator because it just works as expected and rarely needs me to do a thing.
I have had Hostgator as my only hosting for about 7 years now. I love it because it is easy to set up and use for a newbie. I have set up databases, chron jobs, and multiple email accounts using only the instruction on their website. I couldnt do that at GoDaddy, it was too confusing. I’m soo glad I switched!
If my website was ever down, it must have been very short, because I have never noticed it being down. Not even once.
I began using Hostgator a few years ago while I was taking coding classes and haven’t really had too many issues with it. The only think i would like to convey is that pricing could come down and be relative to the site. My site is not used for ecommerce or anything else really and the plan I have is more than I need. However when I attempted to down-grade the plan I was told I would have to “pay” to move the site??? That to me seemed rather harsh and it kind of put me off -I certainly will not and have not referred anyone to Hostgator because of it. On the up side, as far as I know I haven’t had the site go down which I think is a plus.
Hostgator has been easy to use and the customer service is responsive and helpful. I’ve never built a website before, but after using Hostgater once, I’ve now buikt dozens of sites.
Its easy and friendly to use! Their technical support is helpful and informative too.
We’ve been a customer with Host Gator going on 4 years now. We’re very satisfied with the service they provide hosting our sites. Technical support as always been very responsive when we’ve had questions or issues with their service. And you can’t beat their pricing plans. We plan to continue working with Host Gator as part of our business model for our clients.
For the number of years I’ve been using HostGator, I’ve had only positive experiences. Granted, I tend to be pretty self-proficient for managing my site, but whenever an issue has popped up, they’ve been quick at giving me an answer.
Host Gator has provided a reliable, straightforward, and affordable service. I am happy with Host Gator as a web hosting service and plan to continue using them for the foreseeable future.
Hostgator is easy to use, inexpensive and comprehensive. I’ve been using it for about 3 years now and am very happy.
I have been a HostGator customer for several months now, and the experience has been completely positive. Early on, I changed my name servers and then messed up my WordPress install. I went to the HostGator website and was quickly connected with a super friendly, super helpful support agent. Five or so minutes later, he had fixed my WordPress install and my site was working great! Definitely recommend HostGator.
As a new or beginner blogger I started with hostgator eight months ago without taking any knowledge for my Ease Bedding and niche and one another. I started on two accounts with two domains due to penny program. But after three months I have noticed that I was getting two bills and I requested them to make it one billing account.
They said ok and for around forty dollars. I decide to close both accounts and move to another hosting company. They closed my accounts and refunded for couple of weeks. So I have no complaint about them, but not so much experience with them as well.
I can say for opening two different accounts, was my own mistake, not their. So I can say they are good, but I don’t have much experience to say a lot about them.
HostGator has great servers but their technical support is GODAWFUL.I’m trying to setup an SSL and it has taken them 3 weeks to reply… and this isn’t the first time it’s taken them forever to reply. Other than that, they are great.
Jamie
A huge chunk of the company reviews talk about the reliability of the hosting packages offered by the website. It is true that for some of the hosting plans, the lack of security features can be a bummer. However, when it comes to all the other features like supported scripts and multimedia, the email hosting and the control panel features, HostGator more than meets the standards – a fact which is not entirely surprising given that HostGator has been recognized worldwide as the leading provider of web hosting.
Love them!
Hi WP beginner could you please update this review?
Hostgators cloud hosting plans seem ridiculously cheap – and flexible.
Their presales support says yes to everything I ever wanted.
Being able to add an extra gb memory or cpu core for $1 per month is insane.
But all of the post 2015 user stories in the comments here mean that I won’t buy it.
There has got to be some more balanced story – what can I reasonably expect to get from HG, and what not?
Stay away from Hostgator!
Hostgator is no longer a viable host and here is why
1.) Performance is way below par
2.) MySQL databases constantly crash
3.) Wait Time for support is far too long – 30-40 minutes. It used be single digits
4.) CPanel is basically and advertising platform instead of a cPanel. Try it and you will see all the pop-ups and advertisements.
5.) Tech support, when you can actually get a hold of someone, is basically an excuse generator instead of true technical support. They are always trying to place the blame on the customer.
I used to recommend them, but please look elsewhere for hosting at this point
Agreed about staying away from Hostgator. That’s how I found this article – looking for somewhere else to move my hosting. Below par speed, slow Customer Service, and occasional crashes. I’ve had enough.
Terrible support.
I upgraded my server.
They took my money immediately and never performed the upgrade.
Have been sending tickets and no response.
On chat they tell me, oH I see it is just being done.
When I check later, there is still no upgrade!
Support is dead and they have become a scam hosting company. Run while you can and don’t sign up at Hostgator
I paid by PayPal… then could not login… then received a message they want me to send them a photo copy of my passport or my credit card?… get real!
What a mob… dont even think of dealing with this mob.
HostGator seems to have very mixed reviews. Personally, I use them to host all the websites I manage and I find them to be very decent for the price. The customer support could be better, but the uptime and speed is great. In fact, I’ve never had any issues with my website not loading. I haven’t tried their email, as I use a free Gmail account for everything. The websites I host have a lot of content and get a decent number of views, so I think this is a pretty fair review. Thanks for reading!
Very poor customer support. Once they get their money, they never bother to respond to your queries afterwards.
Completely agree! I requested to have an SSL installed for one of my domains. They billed me the same day for it and then it took them 2 months to PROPERLY configure the SSL license. Now, I’m in the same boat. I have now waited 2 weeks for them to add a domain to the SSL license. I will definately be looking into getting a new host when my current hosting expires.
I’m now using A2hosting that offers free SSL with let’s encrypt their performance and optimization tools are super useful for WordPress sites.
5 rating ? Its dead hosting now. Never use it.
Not good any more
Hostgator used to be a good company. I have been using their services from last 10 years but from some time back their services are not upto the mark. Support does not reply to the ticket opened for 7 days. You check with Live Chat and they don’t have any clue. It has become a company saying “NO” for everything. Somebody deleted the code from their server and they are not even telling me the access IP address. Not a reliable company anymore. I have 4 accounts with them 2 VPS & 2 Shared. thinking to move to some other good host Amazon?
My HostGator Review: Before I signed up the service with sales was amazing. They were very friendly and helpful. Several months after getting setup I needed help and support was not responsive. Billing was providing me information that was not consistent with the website pricing… When I inquired why this pricing was more and if the policy changes I stopped receiving service all together. Today was the last straw. I have followed up with support multiple time over the past week and I have not even received an update to my problem. This is no way to run a business, my own customers are upset with me and HostGator is costing me more money compared to what I saved thinking they truly provided great value. You have been warned… You get what you pay for! Stay Away from HostGator.
Service OK as long as I was a customer but they turn nasty and very unprofessional as soon as you need to close service.
I had two accounts and I had decided not to renew my subcriptions but they went ahead and renewed just the same some three weeks before the renewal date without asking me whether I actually wanted renew or otherwise.
No hope of getting a decent answer from them; just a lot of penny pinchers. They abuse of their position. Pity because I had good service as long as I used them,just left me with a very bad impression when I had to close the accounts.
Anthony Pace
Easy to sign-up and great customer service to start blogging website. Once I tried to cancel via the 45-day money back guarantee the issues started. Over two hours on hold and talking with representatives at hostgator in order to try to cancel my membership via their website. Informed I would be sent an email within two business days with the cancellation information. Received the email with a cancellation date a year out from when I signed-up with hostgator instead of the date I actually cancelled. Spent another two hours on hold and talking with representatives from hostgator. Spoke with a very rude representative who indicated hostgator policy is to use a cancellation date one year from when you sign-up unless you write them to indicate you want to cancel immediately. I thought the previous two hour phone call where I stated I wanted to cancel and receive a refund via the 45-day money back guarantee in addition to following their instructions to cancel online covered this. I contacted paypal and put them on the phone with the representative. The representative was still rude. I disconnected the phone call with hostgator and worked directly with paypal regarding the refund issue. The cancellation confirmation email from hostgator also indicated I should cancel my hostgator subscription information in paypal to ensure I would not get charged again. The email had faulty instructions so I worked with the paypal rep to cancel. I will never deal with hostgator again and will notify people not to deal with this company. They seem to use every sneaky means necessary to prevent you from receiving the 45-day money back refund!
These guys have an unethical practice when you setup a domain they stick their advertising page up and make money off your domain if its pointed to hostgator.
The other things is 404 pages sometimes appear with a hostgator page and joining hostgator.
Please take my friendly advice. Run from HostGator as you would from the plague. I used to be their client for 6 years, almost from their very beginning. Always great service. Then, when they moved to TX, and started to grow bigger and bigger, service started to become worse and worse. Then my hosting customers began to leave me because they couldn’t send emails and their websites were unstable. I begged HG support to solve the problems or even to give me a reasonable explanation for the issues. They never did. It just seemed like they didn’t care at all. The last drop was when my VPS was down and support took more than 24h for a reply. When I demanded an explanation it was: “We are too busy. Too many clients and not enough support people”. I always paid my bills on time, even early, because I couldn’t afford to risk compromising the availability to my customers, so I asked myself “why are they still in business and taking my money in exchange for nothing”? Unfortunately I live in Brazil and it would be too difficult for me to sue them legally, otherwise I would because they made me lose many businesses. So avoid them, especially if you are ‘just a foreign guy’ like me. They treat you like scum.
I am writing this email to express my utmost gratitude and satisfaction with Hostgator, and the entire staff I dealt with today. This morning I inadvertently deleted my entire /home3/public file, and it caused all my sites to go down. I panicked immediately, thought I would have to rebuild all those sites, started hyperventilating, almost cried… was just a “hot mess”! LOL
SO…. I thought it was a long shot, but I called Hostagtor, and spoke to a man in the technical support area at 7:55AM Arizona time 03/08/2015(I forgot his name). This man calmed me, he took the time to figure out what needed to be done, and where to point me so that I could have a resolution. I also was educated on how I can do my own backup in Cpanel, because I had never done one! I opened a ticket online to get a file restore. This man went above and beyond my expectations, and gave me hope.
Within an hour I got an email from them.
It is Sunday, so I was more than pleasantly surprise to get such a quick response. Ricardo was able to fix everything perfect, communicated via email every step of the way, and had the knowledge to help me. My sites are all up and running perfect again THE SAME DAY they went down, on a Sunday!
This experience has made me a Hostgator customer for life. I also have some websites hosted on Godaddy, and was approached by Godaddy to bring all my sites over to have them be my sole company. I was contemplating it, but today’s experience has definitely made my mind up to stay with Hostgator.
If there is anything that can be done to make sure these 2 individuals are recognized for their stellar passion to serve the customer, as well as their knowledge base, I would love to have that happen. I am a business owner myself, and strive to get employees like Ricardo, and the first man I spoke to. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SAVING ME TODAY!