HostGator Reviews & Product Details
HostGator is a popular web hosting service packed with powerful tools and is known as an easy-to-use and straightforward website builder. Popular among bloggers and small business users, make no mistake, HostGator is still packed with numerous, feature-rich hosting plans, shared hosting options, and easy-to-use tools that are perfect for novice webmasters. Notably, Hostgator also has outstanding uptime with reliable customer support.
| Segment |
|
|---|---|
| Deployment | Cloud / SaaS / Web-Based |
| Support | 24/7 (Live rep), Chat, Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base, Phone Support |
| Training | Documentation |
| Languages | English |
HostGator Pros and Cons
- 99.99% uptime guarantee
- One-click WordPress install with cPanel transfer
- Unmetered bandwidth
- Exceptionally fast site loading speed
- Really user-friendly UI
- No free backups
- Just one website available on the cheapest plan
- Constant upselling on the system
- Has only two data centers
- Not the most affordable for renewals
The price is the only reason anyone would sign up for service here. If price is the main consideration, you have many other options for your website that are better than HostGator. Any option is better, literally, any option is better. It does not matter which tier of plan you are on, it is a horrible, horrible service that I was unlucky to have had to manage in two different occasions, both of which ended up in switching hosting providers.
Their servers fail all the time for no reason and IT has no idea what's wrong in any bad situation. Their email hosting fails to receive and deliver email and you have no idea how bad the problem is. The hosting is slow. The customer service is ridiculous, it takes many calls to escalate an issue to a person with a pulse and maybe the knowledge on how to fix the issue. I have been in many situations with hosting with HostGator where our company had to send notices to our clients on MANY occasions when their websites would no longer load because of HostGator's service. It was pretty bad, at least once a month. This has got to be the worst hosting service provider in the world. I have nothing to like about the company.
I used HostGator for many purposes and it did not even meet expectations. The service provided more problems than solved.
Hostgator has a good customer service department that is easy to work with and timely in their responses.
HostGator is best known for the shared hosting which is not very useful in the modern world. Their VPS hosting is much better now, but still not as streamlined as a firm like DigitalOcean. So why would I want to use HostGator? If hosting a static site, there are far cheaper options. If running a Wordpress site, it does not make a very strong case against a paid account on Wordpress.com. HostGator has a problem finding it's niche in the modern web.
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UI and administration interface within cPanel is clear and contain great options for email administration, backup generation, up-to-date manipulation of databases and custom DNS settings, and more. Customization of email quotas, redirects, and similar settings are simple and easy to find. General administration is a breeze.
The two biggest issues easily overshadow all the quality in the product - downtime and upselling. Since HostGator's acquisition by EIG, they have gone with a company with nearly 100% uptime (by my records) to having issues at least once every few weeks, ranging from hour-long-plus downtime to transient dips for minutes. It's frustrating that tickets following up or requesting cause information go unheeded or unresponded to. Upselling is almost as large of an issue in terms of annoyance - despite my already paying them, each time I log in to the billing or cPanel client I'm bombarded for ads for services I neither want nor need, intent on upselling me on services that are clearly not applicable to my site - it's extremely frustrating.
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