Choosing the right web hosting platform can make all the difference in website performance and success.
After years of web hosting experience (and a few run-ins with some less-than-stellar hosting providers), I know a wrong choice can mean disaster for your site.
That’s why I was eager to dive into HostGator’s features and capabilities when searching for the perfect hosting provider for my projects.
After an extensive HostGator review in 2023, I’ll share what the team at TYB and I found.
So how did we go about testing it?
We set up a staging site tybtestsite.com.
Then, we put it through the wringer in terms of the following:
- Hosting Types & Features
- Performance & Speed
- Ease of Use
- Pricing & Value
- Security
- Help & Support
- WordPress Features
- All extras
Let’s get into the details!
HostGator Review From Our Experts
HostGator is a well-known and reliable web hosting provider that offers a variety of plans and features for everyone, from beginners to advanced developers.
HostGator offers the following:
- Shared Hosting
- VPS Hosting
- WordPress Hosting
- Dedicated Servers
- A Website Builder
- Domain Name registration services
HostGator has been around since 2002 and boasts over 8 million customers and over 3000 workers.
HostGator is known for its excellent customer service, reliability, affordability, and flexibility in plans and pricing.
The Tweak Your Biz team and I constantly test hosting providers throughout the year. As a result, you can be sure that this review is up-to-date and thorough.
HostGator Pros and Cons
HostGator has a ton of advantages such as affordable prices and great customer service. However, with any service, there are a few drawbacks.
Let’s look at the good and the bad when it comes to HostGator hosting services.
HostGator Pros
- Consistently reliable uptime
- 24/7 customer support with live chat
- Easy to use hybrid dashboard and cPanel
- Wide variety of hosting options
- Affordable prices
Hosting Cons
- No cloud hosting option is available
- No ticket system for customer support
- Servers only available in North America
HostGator Pricing & Plans
HostGator offers a variety of great plans for the price.
Let’s get into each to give you a better idea of what you’re getting into!
HostGator is one of the most popular web hosting providers in the world, and for good reason.
Their shared hosting plans are reliable, feature-packed, and affordable.
In this section of the review, we’ll take a look at HostGator’s shared hosting to find out if they’re right for you.
We’ll go in-depth on the speed, uptime, ease of use, and our final thoughts.
Hatchling Plan
Now 65% off!-
Single website
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10GB Disk space
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Unmetered bandwidth
-
One-click WordPress installs
Baby Plan
Now 73% off!-
Up to 5 websites
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40GB Disk space
-
Unmetered bandwidth
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One-click WordPress installs
eCommerce Plan
Now 69% off!-
Unlimited websites
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Unlimited disk space
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Unmetered bandwidth
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One-click WordPress installs
HostGator’s shared hosting plans are powered by high-performance servers and optimized for speed.
Using our staging site, we found this to be mostly true.Â
Here’s what we found in terms of data:
Grade: B
Performance: 83%
Largest Content Paint: 1.1s
Total Blocking Time: 98ms
Cumulative Layout Shift: 0.57
Â
HostGator’s uptime is guaranteed at 99.9%, and they back it up with a 30-day money-back guarantee if they fail to meet this standard.
In our 30 days of testing, we had less than a minute of downtime.Â
Let’s go over the features that comes with each plan!
Hatchling:
- Single website
- 10GB Disk space
- Unmetered bandwidth
- One-click WordPress installs
- Email included
- Chat support
- First-year domain free
Baby:
- Up to 5 websites
- 40GB Disk space
- Unmetered bandwidth
- One-click WordPress installs
- Email included
- Phone & Chat support​
- First-year domain free
- $500 Google Ad spend match credit
- $100 Microsoft Advertising credit
eCommerce
- Unlimited websites
- Unlimited disk space
- Unmetered bandwidth
- One-click WordPress installs
- Email included
- Phone & Chat support​
- First-year domain free
- $500 Google Ad spend match credit
- $100 Microsoft Advertising credit
- Cloudflare CDN​
- Dedicated IP address​
- Positive SSL upgrade​
- SEO Tools
- Professional website migration services
HostGator’s shared hosting plans make it easy to get started, with their simple setup wizard walking you through the process.
Their cPanel dashboard is also user-friendly and intuitive, making it easy to manage domains and design your site.
In addition, they offer helpful video tutorials and 24/7 customer support if you ever need help.
My experience with HostGator’s shared Hosting services has been positive throughout the testing period.
The hybrid dashboard is straightforward to use, and cPanel provides the features I need to manage my website quickly and efficiently.
The HostGator shared Hosting plan is perfect for users who:
- Need an easy setup process
- Require reliable, consistent uptime
- Want 24/7 customer support with live chat
- Need an affordable web hosting option
- Have basic requirements for their website
HostGator VPS Hosting Review
HostGator offers Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting that allows businesses to scale their websites and applications quickly, providing security and stability.
VPS Hosting is a type of web hosting that provides users with a virtual private server.
VPS offers more control than shared hosting but at a lower cost than dedicated services
Let’s review HostGator’s VPS plans more in-depth to help you decide if they suit your website needs!
Snappy 2000
Now 75% off!-
2GB RAM
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2 core CPU
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120 GB SSD
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Unmetered bandwidth
Snappy 4000
Now 75% off!-
4 GB RAM
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2 core CPU
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165 GB SSD
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Unmetered bandwidth
Snappy 8000
Now 75% off!-
8 GB RAM
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4 core CPU
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240 GB SSD
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Unmetered bandwidth
HostGator VPS Hosting Speed Review
HostGator offers a wide range of VPS hosting solutions.
We tested their performance and found that the speed was generally consistent across all plans.
The servers responded quickly to requests, loading pages in under 1 second on average using our staging site.
Here is what we found:
- Grade: B
- Performance: 83%Â
- Structure: 92%
- LCP: 1.2ms
- TBT: 84msÂ
- CLS: 0.58
HostGator VPS Hosting Uptime Review
HostGator offers a 99.99% uptime guarantee on all of their plans, including VPS hosting.Â
The TYB team and I can safely say that their VPS hosting uptime is impressive, with an almost unheard of zero downtime in 30 days.
HostGator VPS Hosting Features
Here is a list of several HostGator VPS hosting features:
- Host unlimited domains
- Create unlimited email addresses
- Weekly backups
- Full suite of tools
- 30-day guarantee
- 24/7/365 support
- Full root access
How Easy Is HostGator VPS Hosting To Use
HostGator’s user interface is easy to use, even if you don’t have much technical know-how.
It makes it easy to customize and manage your VPS hosting plan.
Here is a screenshot of the cPanel to give you a better idea.
Plus, they provide 24/7 customer support if you ever have any issues or need help with something.
HostGator VPS Hosting Our Final Take
HostGator’s VPS hosting plans are ideal for businesses that need a reliable hosting solution with more control than shared hosting.
The packages come with SSD storage, unmetered bandwidth, and a choice of Linux or Windows OS, all at competitive prices.
Our team’s test of HostGator’s VPS services revealed impressive loading times, excellent customer service, and great value.
If you’re looking for a reliable VPS provider, HostGator is definitely worth considering.
HostGator Dedicated Hosting Review
HostGator offers a range of dedicated hosting plans, from entry-level dedicated servers to high-end enterprise solutions.
We tested all of their plans to give you a good overview of how they stack up against the competition.
Lets get into it!
Value Server
Now 50% off!-
4 core / 8 thread
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Intel Xeon-D CPU
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8 GB RAM
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1 TB HDD
Power Server
Now 54% off!-
8 core / 16 thread
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Intel Xeon-D CPU
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16 GB RAM
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2 TB HDD / 512 GB SSD
Enterprise Server
Now 52% off!-
8 core / 16 thread
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Intel Xeon-D CPU
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30 GB RAM
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1 TB SSD
HostGator Dedicated Hosting ​Speed Review
HostGator’s dedicated servers were very fast – much faster than the dedicated hosting from a lot of the competition.
The speed and responsiveness were excellent, allowing us to quickly and easily access our data without any hiccups.
Here’s the info we gathered using our staging site:
- Grade: A
- Performance: 100%
- Largest Contentful Paint: 703ms
- Total Blocking Time: 42ms
- Cumulative Layout Shift: 0.02
HostGator Dedicated Hosting Uptime Review
As previously mentioned, HostGator boasts an uptime guarantee of 99.99%.Â
This is no exception for their dedicated hosting plans.
We did experience more downtime with these plans than any other, but their lightning-fast speeds and quick response from customer service more than made up for it.
HostGator Dedicated Hosting Features
Here’s a list of some of the features you get with HostGator’s dedicated hosting plans:
- 100% server control
- HDD or SDD hard drives
- DDoS protection
- IP-based firewall
- cPanel and WHM on Linux
- Plesk and Webmatrix on Windows
- 24/7/365 support
How Easy Is HostGator Dedicated Hosting To Use
Our team found HostGator’s control panel is extremely user-friendly, making it easy to manage your server without any technical knowledge.
All the tools are well-labeled and straightforward to use making these plans especially suited for people who are new to dedicated hosting.
Here’s a screenshot of the cPanel to let you know what you’re getting into.
HostGator Dedicated Hosting Our Final Take
HostGator is at the top of the list of dedicated hosting providers, offering competitive prices of $89.98/month for server management and an easy-to-use cPanel, ideal for those new to dedicated servers.
HostGator’s packages come with:
- Unlimited bandwidth
- A choice of Linux or Windows OS
- DDoS protection
- Firewall
- Full root access!
HostGator WordPress Hosting Review
WordPress hosting is a specialized form of web hosting optimized specifically for WordPress websites.
HostGator offers WordPress hosting that is fast and reliable.
This is thanks to their solid infrastructure and 24/7 monitoring.
We put it through the paces in terms of speed, uptime, features, ease of use, using our testing site at tybtestsite.com.
Starter Plan
Now 54% off!-
1 site
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100k visits per month
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1 GB backups
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Free SSL certificate
Standard Plan
Now 53% off!-
2 sites
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200k visits per month
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2 GB backups
-
Free SSL certificate
Business Plan
Now 64% off!-
3 sites
-
500k visits per month
-
3 GB backups
-
Free SSL certificate
HostGator WordPress Hosting Speed Review
In this section, we’ll get into how we tested HostGator’s WordPress speed specifically.
Spoiler alert: it’s great.
On our staging site, we found that HostGator WordPress hosting averaged out to load in 1.2s (including DNS lookup) which is quite a bit faster than many of the other competitors we’ve tested.
This makes it a great choice for sites with high traffic.
Here are the specifics:
Grade: A
Performance: 99%
Largest Contentful Paint: 925ms
Total Blocking Time: 75ms
Cumulative Layout Shift: 0.01
HostGator WordPress Hosting Uptime Review
HostGator offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee for its WordPress hosting, and so far it has proven to be very reliable.
Just like their dedicated hosting, we experienced no downtime in the entire 30-day process. Because of that, we’ve got to give it to HostGator for their reliability.Â
HostGator WordPress Hosting Features
HostGator has the following features for their WordPress plans:
- Free domain for 12 months
- Free site migrations
- Easy to use control panel
- Malware protectionÂ
- Site backups
- Resources to help with scaling
How Easy Is HostGator WordPress Hosting To Use
Setting up a WordPress website with HostGator is easy enough – all you have to do is choose your plan and follow the simple instructions on the platform’s dashboard.
Their cPanel (shown below) is also fairly easy to use and navigate, so you should have no trouble getting your website up and running.
HostGator WordPress Hosting Our Final Take
My time using HostGator’s WordPress hosting services has been incredibly positive.
The one-click WordPress site installation makes setup a breeze, and the automatic updates ensure that my website stays updated with the latest security patches.
HostGator’s quick loading times are perfect for websites with high traffic, and their customer support team is always available 24/7 for any questions and concerns.
HostGator Customer Support Review
HostGator’s excellent customer service stood out during our review. HostGator’s customer service team is always friendly and helpful, quickly responding to our inquiries.
HostGator offers the following:
- 24/7 customer support
- A live chat function
- Helpful tutorials and guides on their website
HostGator also provides access to their knowledgeable staff via phone or email.
The only downside of HostGator’s customer service is the need for a ticket system. Currently, HostGator customers cannot track their tickets or follow up on inquiries.
Overall HostGator’s customer service was great, and its helpful staff made HostGator a pleasure to work with.
HostGator Security
When it comes to hosting, security is a top priority.
HostGator takes this seriously and has invested in advanced technologies, like SiteLock, to ensure the safety of their customers’ data.
Additionally, they offer several plans that include free SSL certificates and provide reliable 24/7 customer support.
Here’s a quick overview of the security features offered by HostGator:
- SiteLock Security Suite
- Free SSL Certificates
- Firewall Protection
- Automatic Backup & Restore
- SpamAssassin protection
- Email protection & filtering
HostGator SSL
All HostGator plans offer free SSL with every account, so your website traffic and any data sent between you and your visitors will be secured.
Plus, HostGator makes it easy to install and configure an SSL certificate on your site with just a few clicks.
The security and peace of mind this provides is invaluable, especially if you are running an e-commerce store or collecting sensitive information on your website.
HostGator Website Builder
Hosting isn’t the only thing you can expect from HostGator. They also offer a website builder to fully customize your website while you host it.
Let’s break down HostGator’s website builder and see if it performs as well as its hosting packages.
Getting started with HostGator is the perfect way to jump into building your own website.
Thanks to HostGator’s drag-and-drop web editor, your site will be up and running quickly.
All you need to do is:
- Sign up
- Pick a template from HostGator’s extensive library of designs
- Have fun dragging and dropping your favorite features to customize your web page
Not tech savvy? No problem, HostGator’s onboarding tutorial will quickly get you up to speed. No need to be intimidated by the process.
What’s more, getting started doesn’t have to cost you a thing! Signing up for free unlocks 6 pages of beautiful design made simple!
Is HostGator Good for Business?
The simple answer is yes!
HostGator has plans for businesses of all sizes.
Their shared hosting plans are great for small businesses, while their dedicated servers are perfect for beginners looking to get into dedicated hosting.
For larger businesses looking for more control or scalability, we recommend their VPS and WordPress hosting plans.
HostGator Final Verdict
For those who are just starting, HostGator ticks all the right boxes.
It’s reliable and affordable, with a straightforward setup that won’t take long to learn.
From excellent customer service to its wide range of hosting options, HostGator has proven itself a reliable web hosting provider.
HostGator’s 99.99% uptime guarantee ensures users that their website will remain up and running, and HostGator’s dashboard makes it easy to manage your site with just a few clicks.
HostGator is an affordable solution for those looking for reliable Hosting services at a reasonable price.
I can confidently end this review by saying HostGator has earned our approval, and we highly recommend them as a web hosting provider.
HostGator Alternatives
HostGator is a fantastic hosting platform, but if you don’t see exactly what you’re looking for from their offerings, you might want to consider a few other web hosts.
Let’s examine a few alternatives to HostGator and see how they stack up.
Hostinger
Hostinger is an international web hosting platform that offers a range of features for users at competitive prices.
Hostinger provides free SSL certificates, one-click WordPress installs, and unlimited bandwidth, making it an ideal choice for those who want to create their own website without breaking the bank.
Hostinger also offers a wide selection of hosting types, including Minecraft hosting for those looking to set up their own virtual world.
A2 Hosting
A2 hosting is an excellent alternative to HostGator if you’re looking for an all-in-one hosting solution with affordable prices.
A2 offers fast website loading speeds, excellent customer service, and reliable uptime, ensuring your site stays online.
Plus, A2 Hosting has a great price point, with plans starting at just $2.99/month. It also offers free SSL certificates to ensure the security of your website.
Bluehost
Bluehost is an excellent alternative to HostGator for those looking for reliable web hosting with flexible options.
Bluehost offers a range of plans tailored to fit any website’s needs, from entry-level shared hosting plans to more advanced VPS and Dedicated hosting solutions.
They also provide free domain registration and free SSL certificates as part of their service.
Plus, they offer 24/7 customer support and a 30-day money-back guarantee to ensure you’re always taken care of. With Bluehost, you can trust that your website will run smoothly in no time.
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HostGator FAQ
HostGator is a web Hosting provider that provides shared, WordPress, VPS, dedicated, and reseller hosting plans. HostGator also has its website builder and a domain registrar.
GoDaddy is a domain registrar, and HostGator is a web hosting provider. HostGator offers more services than GoDaddy, including shared, WordPress, VPS, dedicated, reseller hosting plans, and a website builder.
Yes, HostGator is an excellent choice for beginners. HostGator’s shared and dedicated hosting plans are easy to use and have helpful features like one-click WordPress installation and website-building tools. Plus, HostGator has an excellent customer service team to help answer any questions.
It depends on the services you are looking for. HostGator is a web hosting provider, while Namecheap is a domain registrar. HostGator has more features and capabilities than Namecheap, including shared WordPress, VPS, dedicated and reseller hosting plans, and its website builder.
Yes, HostGator is a reliable and trustworthy web hosting provider. HostGator has been in business since 2002 and is known for its dedicated servers, user-friendly control panel, helpful customer service team, and wide range of features.
