HostGator was founded in 2002 and has grown rapidly into one of the largest hosting companies in the world. You can attribute their monstrous growth to their great shared web hosting plans, reliable web hosting, and quality customer service. Today it is headquartered in Houston, Texas, and hosts more than 10 million domains. They have 850+ employees who offer round-the-clock support and business services of all sizes.
A shared hosting plan is a type of service where a physical server is hosting multiple websites. Shared hosting is the most basic form of hosting. It is very limited, but it makes it very affordable. Server resources are allocated to many users, so there is a lower cost to use this type of hosting. The main advantage of shared hosting is how cheap it is – your site shares a server with other sites, which means resources are spread across all of you.
This allows them to create their online presence without much hassle in server configuration. If other sites are using up too many of those shared resources, then your site suffers. For example, if traffic to another site increases, it may crash. This makes shared hosting best for very small, simple websites with low traffic. As your hosting provider, HostGator will manage your shared server for you, so you can focus on your business and the content of your website.
Contents
Like other products and services, every hosting company has advantages and disadvantages. Here are the advantages and disadvantages of HostGator that we learned.
Pros
- Free migration: HostGator offers a free migration service with all new accounts. Their expert team will transfer your website from your previous host at no extra cost during the first 30 days of signing up.
- Reliable hosting: HostGator guarantees an uptime of 99.99%. If you experience downtime below that, then you will get back one month’s credit on your account.
- Flexible billing periods: You can choose between monthly and yearly billing periods. Longer billing periods will get you the most discount.
- Generous money-back guarantee: HostGator offers 45 days money-back guarantee. Normally, web hosting companies do not offer a moneyback guarantee beyond 30 days.
Cons
- High monthly value: The monthly value is much higher than the annual plan. You can take advantage of lower HostGator prices by choosing annual plans as they offer a 45-day moneyback guarantee.
- Aggressive upselling: You may see additional services such as automatic backups and enhanced functionality. If you don’t need them now, make sure they are unchecked. You can always add these later if needed.
HostGator Hosting Plans and Features
HostGator offers a variety of hosting plans. Their plans include Shared Hosting, VPS Hosting, Cloud Hosting, Reseller Hosting, and Dedicated Hosting. They also offer to host for other platforms like Joomla and Magento. However, their main offer is shared WordPress hosting and this is where most users start their journey.
Let’s take a look at these plans offered by HostGator.
HostGator’s shared hosting plan comes in three different levels. All plans include unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth under their terms of use. The main difference is the number of websites you can host.
- Hatching: Hatching plans allow you to host only one website. It has a one-click WordPress installer and comes with a standard set of features.
- Baby: Baby plans allow you to host unlimited domains and subdomains. It has all the features of a hatching plan and you can use add-ons like personal SSL.
- Business: Suitable for small business websites. This plan includes unlimited websites, unlimited emails, dedicated IP addresses, SEO tools and it is perfect for starting an eCommerce website.
In addition to web hosting services, they also offer Gator Website Builder, a fully hosted website builder. Other services offered include VPS hosting and dedicated hosting with Linux and Windows servers.
HostGator Hosting Plan Features
Hosting is even better with all these free features. Another thing you may want to look at is the features that you will find with each hosting plan. Here is what is included in every hosting plan offered by Hostgator.
- Install WordPress with 1-Click Installer
- Free SSL Certificate
- Easy to use control panel cPanel dashboard to manage hosting services
- Free email accounts
- 24/7 customer support
- 99.9% uptime guarantee
For security features, you can enable free Cloudflare CDN caching to protect your WordPress site from malware and attacks. Cloudflare Free Website CDN gives you an extra performance boost. At checkout, you will be offered purchase of CodeGuard and Seat lock add-ons. Most newcomers don’t need them right now so you can skip them and add them later if necessary.
If affordability is one of your key criteria when choosing a web host, HostGator has some very attractive priced shared hosting plans:
- Hatchling: Starting at $2.75 (and up to $10.95) a month for one website.
- Baby: Starting at $3.95 (and up to $11.95) a month for unlimited websites.
- Business: Starting at $5.95 (and up to $16.95) a month for unlimited websites and access to additional tools.
HostGator may be one of the largest, oldest web hosting companies in the industry, but they are still posting a solid average uptime of 99.93% in the last 12 months. And if you pay in advance for 12 months or more, you will get a free domain name registration which can save you around $10. If you want domain privacy, you have to pay $14.95 a year for it, so it can make more money to buy your domain separately.
HostGator’s shared hosting range distributes from the beginning. Even the cheapest shared hosting plan, Hatching, gets you unmetered disk space; Unlimited bandwidth, MySQL databases, email, and FTP accounts. A free SSL certificate, easy WordPress and shopping cart installation, and full-featured cPanel-based site management. There is also a 45-day money-back guarantee, which gives you time to try this service without any financial risk.
Unfortunately, many additional services, such as backup and security, will be used as additional fees. Also, the renewal rate increases aggressively after your first term expires.
With shared hosting, there will be multiple sites using a single server resource. Typically, you will be partitioned with a certain amount of server resources that your site can use. Generally, shared hosting plans are some of the most affordable plans.
When you have a shared web hosting plan, you will have access to a specific portion of the server resources, defined by the hosting company you choose. You will usually have access to the server environment through an integrated control panel. Shared hosting is also very beginner-friendly, as server maintenance and other necessary tasks are handled by the hosting company.
With shared hosting, multiple sites share the same hardware and software resources on a single physical server. Typically, a shared server contains pre-installed scripts and software that each site on the server must use. Say there is an apartment building where there are dozens of apartments. Each apartment has a separate website. However, building resources such as utilities and other apartment facilities are shared by each individual.
Shared hosting is ideal for small to medium businesses or organizations. For personal projects (blogs or portfolios) that require less traffic. And for those who want to build their website but have limited time and technical skills to manage their servers. When you feel that your site needs more resources, or if you notice or expect more traffic, you may want to consider upgrading to a more powerful hosting plan, such as our dedicated hosting packages.
4] Is HostGator good for WordPress?
Yes, Hostgator is good for WordPress and highly recommended for those who want to start a WordPress website. It offers a 1-click WordPress installation that lets you choose the plugins and templates you need during setup. You also get 24/7 technical support which is useful for most newcomers.
5] Why Hostgator hostings?
When measuring the performance of a web hosting service, uptime and page loading speed are the two most important metrics to consider. Hostgator uptimes in the last six months, Hostgator Cloud had an average uptime rate of 99.995%. It’s almost as exceptional as it gets.
HostGator Cloud is very easy to use. This is a great option for beginners as well as users who have more experience with web hosting. Like other well-known providers like SiteGround and Dreamhost, Hostgator provides a knowledge base, phone, email, and live chat support.
HostGator’s shared hosting plans are fairly bare-sister. You get enough for one site, but nothing extra. Fortunately, they offer some additional security features, such as the ability to add SiteLock monitoring to your site. This service will run every day, detect potential site violations or hacks and notify you if they are found.
Conclusion
Overall, HostGator is a respected name in the web hosting space. HostGator is definitely one of the most affordable shared hosting plans around, especially if you manage to lock the promotion rate for a maximum of three years.
For those who want to take advantage of cloud website hosting, a cloud hosting service is a great option. If you compare those plans with their standard shared hosting options, I think Cloud is a good choice.