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HostGator

HostGator Review

HostGator is one of the most popular hosting companies that host over 8 million websites from all around the world. HostGator particularly rocks the shared hosting space with their affordable starter plans and easy setup. They offer unmatched 45-day money back guarantee to try their web hosting service risk-free.

Table of Contents
Overall
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Full   4.8 / 5.0
Features
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Full   5.0 / 5.0
Performance
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Empty   4.0 / 5.0
Support
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Full   5.0 / 5.0
Ease of Use
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Full   5.0 / 5.0
Pricing
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Full   5.0 / 5.0
FAQs
HostGatorFAQs
User Reviews
63 User Reviews
Overall Rating
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Full   4.8 / 5.0

HostGator Review: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

hostgator review

HostGator was founded in 2002 by Brent Oxley, a student at Florida Atlantic University, which now hosts over 8 million websites turning into one of the most popular web hosting providers in the industry.

With every HostGator plan, you get a vast array of tools that help you quickly get your website up and running. Whether you want site builder tools or one-click application installer, SEO tools or backup solutions, you get everything at your fingertips. It also comes with a 45 day money back guarantee, so you can sign up for a hosting account risk free.

HostGator’s award winning support team is available every day throughout the year whenever you need it by telephone, live chat or email. The documentation is extensive that helps you walk you through every aspect of website hosting with ease.

Hostgator always strive for excellence by upgrading their infrastructure as well as user experience. Whether you want to build a hobby site or a company website with off-the-charts growth, you’ll find their backend user interface extremely easy to use. As your business grows, you can easily upgrade to their VPS and dedicated server options.

  • Free site builder. $100 each Google AdWords and Bing Ads credit
  • 1-click WordPress installs
  • Unmetered disk space and bandwidth
  • Regular price $6.95 / mo. but our users pay $2.64 / mo!
  • 24/7 phone, chat and email support
  • Get started with HostGator now!
Cheap Hosting Rating
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Full   5.0 / 5.0

HostGator Cheap Hosting Review

hostgator shared hosting

HostGator offers cheap hosting, also known as shared hosting, which is the best choice for users who are just starting out and are expecting a low traffic volume for their site. With HostGator’s cheap hosting, many websites will share a single hosting server.

You can choose from a hatchling plan, baby plan, or business plan. All shared plans come with unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth. You can create unlimited websites with the baby and business plan. And on the business plan, you’ll get one free dedicated IP address and free domain name.

HostGator also offers cloud hosting for a website that requires faster page rendering even during frequent traffic surges. While cloud hosting plans utilize multiple server resources for your website, shared hosting is limited to a single server.

With every HostGator’s cheap host plan, you get tons of different website scripts that let you easily kick start a website, including WordPress, Joomla and Drupal with one-click installers.

Unlike most other hosting providers, all the HostGator plans allow you to set up unlimited email addresses from your account with your domain name with unmetered storage. Plus, you can try their hosting service risk-free for 45 days. It’s the best web hosting choice for beginners.

  • Free site builder. $100 each Google AdWords and Bing Ads credit
  • 1-click WordPress installs
  • Free SSL certificate
  • Unmetered disk space and bandwidth
  • HostGator pricing starts at $6.95 / mo. but our users pay $2.64 / mo!
  • 24/7 phone, chat and email support
  • Get started with HostGator now!
Dedicated Hosting Rating
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Empty   4.0 / 5.0

HostGator Dedicated Hosting Review

hostgator dedicated hosting

HostGator’s dedicated hosting is the ideal solution for extremely high traffic blogs and websites. With a dedicated server, you have the full system resources directly at your disposal.

You also get data center level DDOS protection and an IP-based firewall, which ensures the security of your website and also gives you peace of mind. With dedicated hosting, you get a minimum of 4 cores per server, 1TB of RAID storage, and between four and 30 gigs of available RAM.

If you want to save big, you can subscribe to a plan with their legacy server for as low as $79 / mo. While both generations of dedicated servers are powerful and flexible, the new servers allow multiple Linux distributions.

  • 4 Cores to 8 Cores CPU
  • 8GB to 30GB RAM
  • Supports both Linux and Windows OS.
  • Price $89 / mo.
  • 24/7 phone, chat and email support
  • Get started with HostGator now!
VPS Rating
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Empty   4.0 / 5.0

HostGator VPS Hosting Review

hostgator vps hosting

HostGator’s VPS server gives you more flexibility and performance around your website. With entry-level VPS nodes, you get more flexibility without a significant performance improvement from your cheap hosting. Whereas the higher end VPS gives you both flexibility and performance improvement.

HostGator strives for excellence and regularly improve their VPS server hardware infrastructure by working with industry leaders like Intel and AMD to constantly evaluate the platform for maintaining optimal performance.

With every VPS hosting plan, you also get a weekly off-site backup of your data, so in case something goes wrong, you can easily revert it back without hassle.

All VPS plans include 2 IP addresses with a disk space ranging from 120 GB to 240 GB.

WordPress Hosting Rating
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Empty   4.0 / 5.0

HostGator WordPress Hosting Review

hostgator wordpress hosting

Having been a recommended WordPress partners for years by WordPress.org, HostGator now also offers managed WordPress hosting for those who want to build a highly efficient WordPress website. With WordPress hosting, you get additional protection out of the box to prevent WordPress-specific vulnerabilities and attacks.

Unlike traditional web hosting option, HostGator’s managed WordPress hosting comes with an easy to use cPanel interface by which you can quickly auto backup your WordPress sites, handle traffic spikes and access your email accounts.

You can experience 2 times faster website speed, a higher level of protection for your WordPress sites and automatic WordPress updates.

All WordPress hosting plans include 100% free migration, automatic malware removal and automated daily database backups along with unmetered storage space.

Reseller Hosting Rating
Rating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star FullRating Star Full   5.0 / 5.0

HostGator Reseller Hosting Review

hostgator reseller hosting

HostGator’s reseller hosting allows you to make some extra income by hosting your clients’ website. With the best reseller hosting plan, you get all the powerful tools you need to succeed ranging from WHM to billing software.

Not only can you allocate resources to best fit your clients’ need, but you can also even offer additional services to your clients, like SSL certificates, domains, etc.

All HostGator’s reseller hosting plans come with unlimited domains, SQL databases, email accounts, and FTP accounts. For your privacy, you can set private nameservers based on your domain name.

The WHM control panel lets you monitor server status and set a brandable client panel with your company logo for white labeling your service.

  • 60 to 140GB disk and 600GB to 1400GB bandwidth
  • Free client management system and billing software
  • 400+ brandable video tutorials for your clients
  • Price $19.95 / mo.
  • 24/7 phone, chat and email support
  • Get started with HostGator now!
Domain Nil
Disk Space Unmetered
Money Back Guarantee 45 Days
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Domain Nil
Disk Space Unmetered
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Domain Nil
Disk Space Up to 2TB HDD or 1TB SSD
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Domain Nil
Disk Space 120GB to 240 GB
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Domain Nil
Disk Space Unmetered
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Domain
Disk Space
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Domain Nil
Disk Space 60GB to 140GB
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Features

(5.0 / 5.0)

HostGator comes packed with features you’ll need to run your website smoothly. Let’s take a look at some of their highlights.

  • 1-click WordPress install: This lets you set up your WordPress installation in minutes. You don’t need any technical skill and you won’t have to hire a developer. If you can point and click, you can install WordPress with HostGator.
  • Backup and security: All your files are backed up daily and can be restored with a single click. Plus, HostGator has partnered with SiteLock to ensure your website is protected from malware and hackers.
  • Free website transfer: Move your existing website from a different host or domain for free.
  • Free SSL and domain: Enjoy free SSL protection along with a free 1-year domain registration.
  • eCommerce and SEO tools: Get tools to create your online store to sell goods and services. Plus, you can make use of SEO tools to get your site to rank on search engines.
  • cPanel access: Take full control of the backend of your website with a user-friendly control panel.
  • Professional email: Make use of email and productivity tools to connect with your subscribers

HostGator has a lot to offer but like every hosting company, it has its downsides too. Keeping this review fair, we’ve listed out the pros and cons of this hosting provider.

HostGator Pros:

1. Uptime Guarantee

HostGator promises an uptime guarantee of 99.99%. Moreover, you get one month credit on your account if you experience downtime that falls short of their uptime guarantee.

hostgator review

2. Generous Money Back Guarantee

Unlike most web hosting companies out there, HostGator allows you to try their service risk-free for 45 days and if you’re not fully satisfied with their service, you’ll get your money back.

3. Free Migration

HostGator’s expert migration team helps you transfer your existing website and domain registrations from anywhere to your HostGator account. This way you can manage your entire online portfolio under a single hub. All new accounts are eligible for HostGator’s free transfers.

hostgator web hosting review

4. Award Winning Customer Support

HostGator offers 24/7/365 server monitoring and customer support via telephone, live chat, and email ticket system. Their extensive support portal boasts over 500 video tutorials and about 700 step by step articles that help you explore different aspects of web hosting.
hostgator hosting customer support

5. Unlimited Email Accounts

Unlike most other hosting providers, all web hosting plans allow you to set up unlimited email accounts with unmetered disk space.

6. Flexible Billing Periods

When signing up with HostGator, you can choose to pay for one month to 36 months, with discounts for longer periods.

7. Add on Website Builder

You can build your website with the HostGator website builder which starts at $3.84 per month. It lets you create email campaigns and online stores as well.

HostGator Cons:

Here are some limitations of HostGator hosting:

1. Limited Free Domain Registration

HostGator offers a free domain only for the first year, after which you’ll need to pay.

2. No WooCommerce Hosting Package

Unlike Bluehost, HostGator doesn’t offer WooCommerce hosting option. So there’s no dedicated option to create an online store. However, you can use their WordPress Cloud hosting service for hosting a WooCommerce website.

Performance

(4.0 / 5.0)

HostGator Speed Tests and Uptime Guarantee

Website performance is one of the biggest factors you need to consider when choosing a web host.

Without a doubt, your visitors expect your site to load quickly – and they’ll abandon your site if it takes about three seconds to load, according to a study.

To test the performance of HostGator, we created a test site with WordPress using the default Twenty Seventeen theme. We also uploaded some dummy content to mirror the live environment on our test site.

speedtest hostgator

According to Pingdom’s website speed test, our test site loads in less than a second for a server in Dallas, Texas. That’s faster than 94% of all tested sites.

Apart from Pingdom, we also used a testing tool called Load Impact to figure out how HostGator handles visitors during a traffic surge. Load Impact sent some virtual users (VUs) to our site and gradually built up to 100 visitors at a time.

For a detailed look, take a look at the charts below.

loadimpact hostgator

In the chart, you can find a blue line (VUs active) which shows the number of virtual users sent to our HostGator site and a green line (VU load time) which represents how much time it would take to load a web page for a user.

Evidently, our site was quick until there were about 80 visitors at a time. As traffic grew, the site started to slow down.

Considering the shared hosting environment, these results are pretty good. With shared hosting, you’ll be sharing your server resources with other sites. If you often get that much visitors at a time, you’ll likely need to upgrade your hosting to VPS for smoother performance.

That being said, the site never went down during our speed test. Take a look at the report on uptime and response time of our HostGator site.

uptime hostgator

HostGator Server Response Time

Content published on your website will have an impact on the performance of your site. For instance, a site containing too many images will likely take more time to load compared to a site with no image.

To get a more accurate result on server response time, we decided to ignore the content of our page entirely and test the response time.

For this purpose, we used a speed testing tool known as Bitcatcha, which works differently by completely ignoring the content and records the loading time from eight different global locations: New York, LA, London, Brazil, India, Singapore, Japan, and Australia. The speed for each location is measured three separate times, and then the results are averaged.

bitcatcha-hostgator

From the report, you can find that our HostGator site was rated C by Bitcatcha. In the United States, the web hosting server responded quickly, in just a few milliseconds.

For all locations around the world, HostGator still responded in less than a second. It came as no surprise since HostGator servers’ are located in the United States. It also means your site will load quickly for your website visitors around the world and even faster for US visitors.

Support

(5.0 / 5.0)

HostGator Customer Support

Over 2 million customers have already trusted HostGator; without a doubt, HostGator is one of the most reliable web hosting companies in the world.

HostGator’s award-winning customer support team is available every day throughout the year whenever you need assistance via telephone, live chat or email. Upon subscription to any of their hosting plan, you’ll get access to HostGator’s dedicated support portal from which you can manage all of your support tickets.

The documentation is extensive that helps you walk you through every aspect of website hosting with ease. Their extensive support portal comprises answers to your pertinent questions regarding web hosting. You can easily find a solution by using the search bar in the portal. Their robust help center/knowledge base includes 680+ help articles and 500+ video tutorials.

The best thing is that HostGator support is guaranteed by the CEO, Adam Farrar himself. If you find an issue with the regular support, you can ask your ticket to be assigned to Adam, so he can respond directly.

Ease of Use

(5.0 / 5.0)

HostGator is currently home to millions of websites from all over the world. It offers a robust platform that is extremely easy to use for beginners and fully matured for advanced users.

cPanel

All HostGator hosting account comes with an easy to use cPanel by which you can manage all your website, emails, billing and support portal. This dashboard provides users access to all the features offered by their hosting plan. You can manage your websites, get FTP details, check CPU usage, install your free SSL certificate, and more, from a very graphical and easy to use interface.

hostgator-cpanel

1-Click Apps Installers

Most users want to set up their websites as quickly as possible. HostGator makes it incredibly simple with their 1-Click installers for the most popular content management systems and other web apps. This includes WordPress which users can install with just a couple of clicks. You’ll find tons of different website scripts that help you easily kick start a new website.

Web Based Hosting Management Tools

Most beginner users don’t know how to use SSH or SFTP to access their files. They don’t know how to create new databases or manage existing databases from the command line. HostGator’s cPanel allows users to do all that using web-based tools. This makes life a lot easier for people who are creating websites for the first time.

Help and Support

Help is easily available throughout the hosting environment. Users can easily launch live chat from any screen to ask questions. There is comprehensive and very detailed documentation available for almost any topic.

Website Builder

HostGator also comes with a complete drag and drop builder known as HostGator website builder, which is shipped with 100+ mobile-friendly templates. It also offers seamless integration with PayPal, making it easier for your customers to purchase your product or services right from your site built with HostGator builder.

Pricing

(5.0 / 5.0)

No matter which HostGator’s hosting plans you’re choosing, you’ll get unmetered storage and bandwidth along with an unlimited number of email addresses you can set up for your domain.

Here are some of the shared hosting plans offered by HostGator:

PLAN DISK SPACE BANDWIDTH PRICE
Shared Hatchling Unlimited Unlimited $2.64 / mo.
Hatchling Cloud 2 GB Unmetered $4.95 / mo.
WordPress Starter Unlimited Unmetered $5.95 / mo.
VPS Snappy 120 GB 1.5 TB $23.95 / mo.
Dedicated Value Server 1 TB HDD Unmetered $89.98 / mo.
Reseller Hosting 60 GB 600 GB $19.95 / mo.

FAQs

Having helped thousands of users choose a web hosting plan and start their website, we have answered just about every question you can think of. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about HostGator.

Which HostGator plan should I get?

Use shared hosting if you’re just starting out and are not expecting extremely high traffic volume. As you grow, you can upgrade your hosting to VPS (Virtual Private Server), which gives you more flexibility and high performance.

Dedicated server is for hosting a website with high traffic volume. It doesn’t share server resources with any other websites, except yours.

Where are HostGator servers located?

HostGator servers are located in Provo, Utah and Houston, Texas.

Can HostGator handle high traffic?

Yes. It depends on your hosting plan. If your site starts consuming too much resources, then HostGator will ask you to upgrade to a higher plan.

What’s unmetered bandwidth and disk space?

This means you’re NOT charged based on the amount of bandwidth or disk space you use. However, keep in mind that with a shared hosting account, according to HostGator’s Terms of Service, you can only utilize disk space and bandwidth in the normal operation of a small business website.

Hosting accounts that use 25% or more of system resources for longer than 90 seconds would be in violation of HostGator’s Terms of Service.

What happens if you exceed usage?

Once you exceed usage, you’ll receive an email notification asking you to reduce the usage. If you continue to exceed usage, you’ll probably need to upgrade to a higher server.

Does HostGator offer free website migration?

If you have an existing website that you want to transfer to HostGator, the good news is they offer FREE site transfers for new accounts within 30 days of subscription.

Can I upgrade my HostGator plan later?

We always recommend users to start with the smaller plans and upgrade as needed. HostGator makes it easy for you to upgrade without hassle.

Does HostGator offer a month-to-month payment option?

Yes, HostGator offers a month-to-month payment option for all of their hosting plans. Although it’s important to note that they offer significant discounts for longer-term deals.

Can I create subdomains in HostGator?

Yes, you can easily create subdomains in HostGator using the cPanel.

Do I need to purchase the addons that HostGator offers me?

No, you do not need to purchase any addons while purchasing a hosting plan. Should you decide that you need them later, you can always add them to your account.

How can I start an online store with HostGator?

HostGator supports a lot of different online store tools, including Magento. With a single click, you can install Magento on your hosting server.

If you want to create an online store with a WordPress powered solution like WooCommerce, you’ll first need to install WordPress on your host and then WooCommerce on top of it.

Which is better HostGator or Bluehost?

Both HostGator and Bluehost are reliable web hosts that offer feature-rich hosting packages. In terms of Bluehost vs HostGator, they’re pretty similar when it comes to MySQL databases, CPU resources, pricing, unmetered bandwidth, disk space, and more.

We find Bluehost performs slightly better and is a cut above when it comes to SSD storage, security, and value for money. With HostGator, you’ll benefit from a 45-day moneyback guarantee, cheaper hosting plans, and faster support.

HostGator vs Other Hosts

Wondering how HostGator stacks up against other web hosting companies? See our side-by-side comparison to see for yourself.

Final Recap

HostGator allows you to select from a wide variety of hosting plans that best suit your needs. You can find dozens of one-click installers to quickly kick start your website. Each plan also comes with a built-in free website builder with 100+ free mobile-friendly templates to choose from.

Over 2 million websites have already trusted HostGator, which proves that HostGator is one of the most reliable web hosting providers. Whether you are a seasoned Internet pro, or just kick starting your online career with your first website, you’ll find all tools to run an awesome website without hassle.

If you’re looking for an affordable and reliable web host, HostGator is the best bet for you.

  • Free site builder. $100 each Google AdWords and Bing Ads credit
  • 1-click WordPress installs
  • Unmetered disk space and bandwidth
  • Regular price $6.95 / mo. but our users pay $2.64 / mo!
  • 24/7 phone, chat and email support
  • Get started with HostGator now!
DomainNil
Disk SpaceUnmetered
Money Back Guarantee45 Days
Claim Special Offer »

User Reviews

(63)
  1. Tyra Woods-Wade March 8, 2015 at 4:23 pm

    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!

  2. I was with HG for like .. 10 years, may be less a bit, but very long time. It was solid. But have to look for a new home now. Forget about HG, its dead..

  3. HostGator is terrible. I knew I’d made a mistake before I even got my WordPress site set up. I had to call just to get them to release some whatever so that I could even set up WordPress and migrate my blog over from blogger! I should have changed right away but I didn’t. I knew the day would come sooner or later when I’d absolutely have to and that day has arrived just 6 months later. I’ve had issues with my blog being slow, but I put up with it. Then it went from slow to impossible to load, returning 504 errors half the time and just spinning forever the other half. I jumped on chat support and within minutes I saw a “server reset” message show up on my blog, then the chat person came back and said “everything looks fine on our end”. Then it would load and continue loading for about a half hour before I’d be right back where I started. The second time I jumped on chat the tech blamed it on a lack of caching plugin (which I had). Within an hour after that chat I couldn’t reach my blog at all. Then I couldn’t even get the cpanel to load. I spent most of the time on hold looking for other hosting companies so I could make the switch. Of course, I’d pre-paid for HostGator but I’ll take the loss to find a hosting company that actually works and doesn’t find a reason to come up with excuses for everything. While on the phone with tech support the girl was mumbling I couldn’t understand half of what she said and I told her that. Her response was “oh it’s the connection, I can’t really understand you either”. The funny thing was starting with that statement I could understand everything she said. Excuses once again. The phone call ended with still no resolution as she had to get an admin to monitor the server and none were currently available.

  4. My website has gotten hacked 3 times since allowing them to host my site (never had a problem before that). To talk to someone online, expect a 30 minute wait, which sometimes does not even connect you to someone after that time. Support is bad. I have sent in multiple tickets to try to get issues resolved. Very disappointed with hostgator.

  5. I have been using HostGator for a while now and they have just been hosting my website while I work on it and I have not had any trouble. They do what they are mean’t to do.

  6. Im using hostgator almost 10 years now. it was great. great technical service too. they helped me redirects my website and all without question. now, it was disaster, technical support is never there waiting time is 30 mins then none will assist you they will close your window.
    Im leaving hostgator by tonight.

  7. I was in love with hostgator. Now their support is slow as f***. More than 24h my websites are down. If you want a professional attitude go for hostgator. White hair is guaranteed. When i was paying for a dedicated everything was fine. But on shared – very, very poor support. More than 24h downtime is more than a breakdown for any type of business. 2 out of 100.

  8. In Spite of lot of Feedback on Y axis, Still HOSTGATOR remain the best Sharing Host. Getting someone to help it out is always there, OF course When u really want 24X7X12 then One must go for VPS hosting to insure this. Otherwise One can stick to Hostgator.

  9. Hostgator is a shining example of a company that forgot what made it great.

    7 years ago they were a great company, with excellent support and short wait times. Now, you are better off going to almost anyone else.

    We have had constant downtime and went 48 hours with a complete lack of access to email. Furthermore, online chat wait times are now a minimum of 30 minutes, with my average being closer to an hour. Several times I have just give up.

    I currently have two open support tickets. One is on hour 90 with no response and the other is on hour 104 with no response.

    This is a sinking ship. Get off while you can.

  10. all the positive reviews here about Host gator are bullshit. They are the absolute worst hosting company to choose when running any type of CMS or dynamic script. STAY AWAY, it might be cheap, but its cheap for a reason…. better to spend $2 than to throw $1 away.

  11. I read about all reviews here about host gator and frankly I am about to vomit. I am quiet surprise to read about host gator`s so called integrity.
    Well let me tell you my experience with them anyway. I bought domains to be hosted by them and had monthly subscriptions going for those domains. They eventually requested for my id which is normal. I did. Then comes the weird part. I waited to have access to my control panel but none. I sent one email informing them of the log in problems….no reply. I logged into the ticket dept and informed them of my access being denied but no one replied. I thought to myself, this is weird..so I send another email and waiting for 24 hours, nothing I waited for 48 hours nothing.I send another email and waited for another few days…nothing. One week and counting down for the next subscription cycle to take place…nothing. So for all the quick reply folks, it`s not always the case. They have some bad ass ppl in the house as well. They can control that monthly subscription thing by playing dumb.I wasn`t even rude when I send my emails.
    I am still waiting….this is genuine scam. I don`t care how people interpret this but in my books,this is scam at it`s best.

  12. I used to love HostGator – great cheap hosting that worked. That was until they were bought out by EIG and then migrated my site. When they moved it from the old data center to the Provo UT location? Service plumeted. My uptime was affected. It appeared that they had jammed me onto too many other users as it was painfully slow even after optimizing it and running both MaxCDN and CloudFlare!

    I was getting inconsistent times between 3-30 seconds! After the last outage they had? I moved off of them to a new host and now couldn’t be happier. If you have been moved to the Provo UT location? I’d start researching for a new host. Just make sure you search for “EIG Owned Hosting” and then stay away from all of them. They are now just ‘dummy’ companies – which are now stuffed in that same junk data center.

    I’m surprised that people still offer links or promote their hosting.

  13. I have been with Host Gator for several years. I have about 40 sites hosted with them. Moving all the sites to a new hosting provider is no small task but I am thinking about doing it. Just like many of the other reviews here I have since experienced a decline both in Service and be. I have repeatedly complained to them that the server that I am on seems to respond quickly while other times it seems to be pathetically slow. This seems to be happening more and more. I am not an IT professional but I am guessing that they are cramming more and more sites on their shared server machines or they are not monitoring their servers. Whatever the reason I am not as happy as I once was.

    With regards to support. Old times have definitely ball supply over the last year or so. Please to be on Paul no more than a few minutes now it seems it’s at least 20 to 30 minutes every time I need to call them. That doesn’t bother me so much as the performance issue. Performance’s be it is critical for me as I’m sure it will be for you as well. As much as I hate to say it I cannot recommend Host Gator.

  14. I love hostgator, been using them for about 3 years now and never missed a beat. Great support.

  15. My advertising company was been with Hostgator for years. Up until recently they were really a great company to work with. However then hold times became REALLY REALLY long, and then they started screwing up stuff. Today I discovered that they cancelled our server account for non-payment last month. However when I called our bank I discovered that the charge was actually approved. As a result of Hostgator’s screw up tons of our client’s websites went down, as did their Adword campaigns for over a week. Our clients are furious, as we have egg on our face, all because Hostgator actually got paid and then said that they didn’t. WHAT THE &*#$(# ?

    Avoid Hostgator. Not a professional organization.

  16. I’ve been with hostgator for a few years now. Up until they moved their data centers everything was fine. Ever since then it’s been a nightmare. Down time, server updates, and slower speeds. Do not waste your time or money. They used to be great. Things have changed with them.

  17. I started with one company not listed in these reviews and after a very short period switched to HG. Been with them for almost four years now. In the beginning I thought they were the absolute best. Support was 24/7 and they would help with any problem. I was so green I didn’t even know what WordPress was or FTP or server and I called and asked hundreds of questions about anything that came up. They always patiently helped me out.

    I rarely had any down time to speak of. In over three years I can remember one very short period where my site was down. When I called about it, they explained what was happening and the problem was resolved in a very short period.

    I sung their praises. My site is not about technical stuff but I wrote about HG, talking about their one of a kind support and pointing everyone in their direction. I advertised HG. It has been the banner ad on my header almost exclusively since day one, although I have never once gotten a sale for my efforts.

    Now, however, things have changed. The support personnel are very very difficult to get on the phone. I believe HG has recently marketed for expansion but didn’t allow for additional support. My last support call required over 20 mins wait time and the chats aren’t any better. On one occasion, when I did get through and asked about backups – the alert said there was too much to backup – instead of an explanation on what was happening I got the emotional equivalent of “tough crap.” Backups are fine now but I still don’t know what the problem was.

    And on top of that, my site goes down regularly now. I think it is still up 99.9% but why the difference? Why more down time now? What’s happening now that wasn’t happening before?

    Will I move? I think that is inevitable but I’m not sure to where. Better, more reliable hosting, will cost more, but which host will do the best job, is the question.

    I am, however, disappointed with the accessibility of HG.

  18. Understood. The reason I ask is because my current provider is very slow with even an “out-of-the-box” install of WordPress … so at least that way, I know it’s not the site design, plugins, etc when it comes to my issues there.

    Thanks for the help.

  19. Considering moving to HostGator … especially considering the price. But speed is definitely one of my larger concerns, and it’s why I want to leave my current host.

    Can anyone comment on the average speed of sites hosted on the Hatchling/Baby Shared Plans? I’m sure dedicated is the way to go if money is of no consideration, but it’s still a factor.

    Thanks for any and all help.

  20. I have been using HostGator for the last year and have been extremely satisfied. Their support is solid and their prices are great. Three Thumbs up.

  21. I used to recommend Hostgator, but some of their more recent practices have changed my mind and I will NEVER recommend them again. Between getting affiliate commissions from them or buying hosting for clients, I seem to have nothing but problems with them and they give LOUSY customer service. It seems one person doesn’t know what the others are doing.

    It’s happened too often for me and I will NOT be using them for any other sites and when it comes time to renew, I’ll be moving my sites to a different host.

  22. I’ve used HostGator for… well, for years. I have found their up-time to be as close to 100% as possible. The CPanel is a breeze for users of any level (if you even need it!).

    My only complaint is when I was webmaster for over 250 websites on HG, my account and account access was shut down due to high activity on my sites. There was no prior notice of a problem, and the shut downs happened at times when I wasn’t even able to get the one notice that was sent (late at night on a Friday). But when I moved my accounts to a different tier of service, HG made it happen quickly and painlessly with no loss in uptime.

  23. I have been the user of Hostgator’s since 2009, when I have launched my first blog in the universe to earn money from the blogging. I have really enjoyed the luxury of premium Hostgator hosting, even I have used shared hosting for more than 1.5 year, and face couple of deadly attacks on my blogs, such as major attack of Project Honey Bee from Beijing that almost kills the Hostgator server. But still these guys are really quick and awesome, they worked with me up to 72 hours to solve out the issue and completely saves my blog.

    It is not the single time when these guys saved my projects, couple of times I played with their servers to enable many additional features without their permission, but these guys are just awesome and dear to me, they never warned me like other hosts that they will kick me out. They always worked with me, even I trustfully shared my WP – Admin login’s with them for couple of hours to solve out the problem. Just love their response time, and their servers are mind blowing. However, from last couple of months I am having serious problems with servers, but still my vote goes to HG. They are the best hosting in the town, at least for the WP.

  24. Osama Shabrez June 19, 2012 at 1:29 pm

    My journey with hostgator started like a year ago when one of my clients provided me her cpanel password which finally landed on HG hosting with its very own fresh and soothing HG Theme. From the site speed to their awesome live support, phone help and ticket system everything is just fabulous which made me shift my hosting to them just after finishing my job.

    I started with a local hosting company with a limit of 10 entry processes concurrently and due to which soon shifted to JustHost, which seemed to be quite user friendly that time with unlimited addon domains support for as much low as $69 or $79, but I was never satisfied with their service once I started with them, the load time was the same like I was getting from my local provider and nothing seemed to change or improved, but HG really made my blog, my alexa dropped and so do the site load time, the user experience improved, bounce rate decreased and traffic started getting increased day by day and is still climbing the ladder.

    I’m a freelance developer I have encountered hosting companies right from yahoo to the amazon cloud, but when we talk about low budget hosting hostgator is your only choice.

    The only disadvantage I have came across until now is their affiliate network, but I am pretty sure we’ll find a way there too.

    If you are looking for budget hosting with all the features of a pro-level hosting, hostgator should be your first preference and they really eat their competition – thats what the crocodile above is for!

  25. Osama Shabrez June 19, 2012 at 1:29 pm

    My journey with hostgator started like a year ago when one of my clients provided me her cpanel password which finally landed on HG hosting with its very own fresh and soothing HG Theme. From the site speed to their awesome live support, phone help and ticket system everything is just fabulous which made me shift my hosting to them just after finishing my job.

    I started with a local hosting company with a limit of 10 entry processes concurrently and due to which soon shifted to JustHost, which seemed to be quite user friendly that time with unlimited addon domains support for as much low as $69 or $79, but I was never satisfied with their service once I started with them, the load time was the same like I was getting from my local provider and nothing seemed to change or improved, but HG really made my blog, my alexa dropped and so do the site load time, the user experience improved, bounce rate decreased and traffic started getting increased day by day and is still climbing the ladder.

    I’m a freelance developer I have encountered hosting companies right from yahoo to the amazon cloud, but when we talk about low budget hosting hostgator is your only choice.

    The only disadvantage I have came across until now is their affiliate network, but I am pretty sure we’ll find a way there too.

    If you are looking for budget hosting with all the features of a pro-level hosting, hostgator should be your first preference and they really eat their competition – thats what the crocodile above is for!

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