HostGator Review [2024] – Is This Web Host Past Its Prime?

HostGator Must Be Doing Something Right. But Is It Right for You?

HostGator used to have an impressive presence in the web hosting space – or at least an impressive marketing budget. But fame alone doesn’t ensure that a host will provide the performance, security, and features you need, especially with so many new competitors on the market.

I personally had a great experience with HostGator in the early 2010s, but things change. Some corporate meddling and “business optimizations” are all it takes for a great company to take a turn for the worse.

I decided to see for myself how the company fares today and signed up for the basic shared web hosting plan. Other than shared hosting, HostGator also provides managed WordPress, VPS solutions, and dedicated servers. Everything is available in English.

I’ll get into a lot more detail below, but long story short – you can do better. HostGator isn’t really cheap, support has been outsourced to who knows where, and it doesn’t offer the features you should expect from a modern hosting provider.

The Basic Features You’ll Need to Get Started, but Nothing Too Impressive

HostGator offers all the basic features of a modern web host. You probably won’t be surprised (or particularly excited) to know you get security tools like an SSL certificate or SpamAssassin to keep your email protected.

HostGator also advertises automatic backups and free website migrations, though the latter is only available on the most expensive shared hosting plan, and HostGator clearly states that the former is more of a courtesy than a guarantee. If you really want to be sure your site is getting the protection it needs, you can add daily backups with CodeGuard for an additional fee.

For the basics, HostGator does offer unmetered bandwidth, a free domain for one year, free SSL, and Cloudflare CDN integration for most of its shared and WordPress plans. Also, there are free website migrations for VPS and dedicated hosting plans – although with this host, you’ll want to check the fine print first to see if you’re eligible.

Scalable Resources

The cPanel control panel offers one-click scalability. This means if you’re experiencing a peak or (hopefully not) a trough in your traffic levels, you can easily increase the capacity requirements with just a couple of clicks. Not only does this ensure your performance remains consistent — you only pay for the resources you need, when you need them.

Blazing Fast Servers

According to HostGator, thanks to “supercharged cloud architecture, low-density servers, CDN, and multiple caching layers,” your WordPress website should load up “freakishly fast.”

What constitutes freakishly fast, you ask? Well, I’m wondering the same thing. HostGator isn’t exactly clear on the specifics. However, what is clear is that your content will be managed efficiently, with dynamic content requests processed quickly via cloud hosting services. And our tests do show that HostGator’s performance is quite decent.

Developer-Friendly Features (Beginners, Skip This Bit)

HostGator is definitely a beginner-friendly host, but if you’re by no means a beginner, don’t let that stop you. It also comes with all the standard advanced-level features (e.g., MySQL databases with phpMyAdmin access and FTP accounts), as well as some value-added extras.

There’s support for PHP 8.2, CGI, Fast CGI, Ruby on Rails, Perl, and Python, and SSH access and Cron job scheduling for optimal system management.

HostGator Features at a Glance

HostGator Makes Hosting Easy

HostGator’s features are designed to make your life easier. From account creation to account cancellation, the processes are uber beginner-friendly. Take advantage of the one-click installers, the managed WordPress hosting, and the website building tool, which can all help you get set up without any coding experience or technical background.

Creating a New Account With HostGator

Creating an account with HostGator is ridiculously easy. There are only a few steps on the online signup form and your dashboard is set up for you. It’s all done entirely from the browser and you don’t even need to confirm your account via email to finish the process.

If you opt to buy a domain name during registration, you’ll get it for free (for one year). This can make it even easier to connect your domain name to your hosting account. But beware all the upsells before you check out – you might end up with some add-ons that you didn’t budget for.

Connecting a Domain and Installing WordPress

Largely due to cPanel, the process to connect a domain and install WordPress is easy as pie. It only took me a few minutes and I didn’t need any help from customer service.

However, if you’re a beginner or you just want to ask live chat for support while you’re doing it, be prepared to wait on hold for a long time.

Automatic Backups

The plans come with automatic weekly off-site backups. Okay, so it’s not the best backup policy I’ve ever seen (for example, IONOS includes daily backup and restore at cheaper prices). However, at checkout, you can upgrade to CodeGuard backup and restore for an additional monthly fee.

Application Hosting

HostGator plans are compatible with all the usual applications, such as WordPress, Joomla!, Magento, and Wiki. If that’s not enough for you, you can install more than 75 open-source scripts with the one-click installer.

It’s not the most premium one-click installer out there (some include 300 – 400 apps), but all the popular programs are included.

cPanel Access

If you’re a newbie, you’ll be pleased to see cPanel is the control panel. Sure, more advanced users may prefer a customized in-house panel, but for beginners (or people who want things to just work), cPanel is a reliable, easy-to-use, and well-recognized option.

It’s from here you’ll access your website statistics, setup your password protected directories and custom error pages.

Impressive Test Results

HostGator offers a solid, but fairly standard 99.9% uptime guarantee. While it’s not going to break any world records, it is good to see it’s backed by a full month’s credit in the event of excessive downtime.

Other third-party tests show uptime records well over 99.98%. However, anecdotal evidence from other customers often cites downtime and slow website load speeds as major issues with the service.

Never to take things on face value, I decided to run a Sucuri Page Load Test of my own. It’s important to know how fast your website is going to load, as we all know that Google recommends less than 2 seconds if you want your visitors to stick around.

As you’ll see from the screenshot, the overall performance is A+. You can’t ask for better than that. The website loaded in as little as 30 milliseconds for some locations, with the slowest locations at around 800 milliseconds. Whatever location you’re in, the page load speed is far below the 2-second rule.

Customer Service is Not HostGator’s Strong Suit

My experience with HostGator’s customer support was much like the rest of my experience with HostGator: unimpressive. It was far from the worst support interaction I’ve ever had to endure but it wasn’t what I’d call “great” either.

My first attempt at contacting HostGator’s customer support was through live chat. There, I asked about the location of HostGator’s data centers.

As it turns out, tough luck for me. Besides saying “we’re US-based” (which you can easily find on its site), I didn’t get any additional information (though ironically, I did volunteer that my “US-based” site was in Colorado). What you see above is just one of many interactions of me trying to get that information.

I also contacted HostGator’s phone support with questions about its content delivery network (CDN) integration. Though the phone representative was much more knowledgeable and direct, I still got the feeling that they didn’t exactly answer what I was asking.

HostGator also has a blog and knowledge base, but I’d be wary of relying too much on these since there’s a lot of outdated information.

Pricing Breaks at 3-Year Commitment

HostGator displays its prices for three-year terms on the main product pages, so at first glance, the prices seem very cheap. However, if you’re looking for a month-to-month plan or any term less than one year, you’ll pay a much higher price. In this case, you’re better off with a cheap unlimited plan from InterServer. You’ll have the option to sign up for monthly billing.

HostGator offers a generous 45-day money back guarantee, but you’ve got to watch out for the pricey (and optional) add-ons which are added to your cart by default.

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