HostGator Review 2023: Expert Reviewed 4.7/5

HostGator Pros and Cons

HostGator makes it easy to scale and switch between the various hosting options and offers the perfect support in terms of domain names and bandwidth. At the same time, there are certain aspects of its services that could be improved.

What we like about HostGator

• Extensively used: Over 2 million websites rely on HostGator’s servers.
• Multiple hosting packages: In addition to its popular shared hosting offering, HostGator also provides managed WordPress hosting, cloud hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated hosting services. It also offers Windows hosting.
• Easy scaling: HostGator makes it easy to upgrade to a different hosting plan and adding more RAM, CPU, or disk space to a package is easy.
• Free site transfers: If you have a website hosted with another hosting company, you can easily transfer it to HostGator free of cost within the first 30 days.
• Free SSL certificate: Every package, including the entry-level ones, comes with a free SSL certificate to ensure a minimum level of security. Depending upon the hosting plan, you can use more robust security features at an affordable price.
• Money-back guarantee: HostGator will refund the fees in full for your basic hosting services within the first 45 days if you are not satisfied with the performance.
• Reliability: Outages are expensive. With HostGator’s 99.9% uptime guarantee, you don’t need to worry about downtime.
• Unmetered bandwidth: HostGator does not charge based on the bandwidth and disk space they use as long as the usage is within the limits prescribed in the Terms of Service.
• Flexible billing: You can choose to pay on a monthly or yearly basis, depending on what is most convenient.

What fell flat

• Upselling features: HostGator’s user interface prompts clients to buy features or add-ons at purchase. We suggest being thorough at this stage to avoid adding unwanted features.
• Slow customer support: Although HostGator offers round-the-clock quality customer service, we find that there is room for improvement when it comes to waiting times.
• Weekly backups: HostGator runs backups on a random day every week.

Digital.com’s Editorial Review

At Digital.com, our technical editors have tested and analyzed HostGator’s web hosting services comprehensively. The ease of setting up or transferring a website, a myriad of useful features, and the affordability of its plans make HostGator an excellent choice for anyone who values scalability at low price point.

Add to the mix overwhelmingly positive feedback from beginners and pros alike, as well as highly reliable servers and you get a well-rounded hosting provider.

Cloudflare CDN integration

You can enable Cloudflare on any domain hosted on HostGator’s servers or using its name servers. Cloudflare caches the most requested files and pages from your sites, so your websites load faster. Additional benefits include spam minimization, reduced CPU usage, and offline site accessibility if the servers are unavailable.

While it is never good to see uptime below the industry standard of 99.9%, fluctuations happen. HostGator’s long-term uptime is over 99.99%, which is exceptional.

Site response times

HostGator is extremely reliable but slower than average. The average response time for pages hosted by HostGator is 525ms, which is several times more than other services like Bluehost and GreenGeeks.

Compare HostGator Alternatives

Although HostGator is a powerful web hosting service provider, there are some strong alternatives. Depending on your needs, one hosting environment may be better than another. After spending hours researching all the different options, we have compiled a comparison chart. You can use it to weigh the pros and cons of each site hosting platform in relation to HostGator, before choosing the right one for you.

Check out the comparison table below to see how HostGator stacks up to its closest competitors or dig deeper into all of our top web hosting picks to see all of your options.

How We Reviewed HostGator

I test web hosts based on the following factors:

• Plan value: What plans are available, and do they offer a good value?
• Ease of use: Is the dashboard easy to navigate?
• Support: How fast can you get help when needed, and is support genuinely helpful?
• Features: What features does the host offer, and how do they compare to similar competitors?
• Security: Does the host offer SSL certificates, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack protection, backup services, and scans for viruses and malware?
• Speed and uptime: Does the provider offer a fast, stable environment for your website? How does it perform in tests, and what kind of servers does the hosting company use?
• Recent improvements: What has the host done lately to update its technology and services?

Learn more about our review methodology.