2021 HostGator Reviews: Incredible Features & Discounts
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To keep our website running, we partner up with some of the companies featured in our reviews. This means that Review42.com may receive compensation from the companies we review when you sign up for a service or purchase a product using one of our links, at no cost to you. Our goal is to test, evaluate and spread the word about solutions that work. Therefore, the expressed opinions in this article are independent and unbiased. Please read our disclosure for more info.
Strengths
- Money-back guarantee on basic hosting services within the first 45 days
- 24/7/365 support and server monitoring
- Free SSL, website builder and templates, and instant (6-minute average) setup
- There is no contract, which gives you freedom to cancel, but this is discretionary and limited to first-time accounts
- Generous discounts on introductory and longer-term packages
Weaknesses
- Short-term packages and renewal costs are substantially higher
- Administrative, set-up, domain fees may be incurred even when there is a discount
Breakdown
Uptime
99.9% guarantee
Free Domain Name
Included One free domain name (.net/.org/.com) for the first year for contracts of 12, 24, or 36 months with the Shared/WordPress/Cloud hosting planIncluded One free domain name (.net/.org/.com) for the first year for contracts of 12, 24, or 36 months with the Shared/WordPress/Cloud hosting plan
Free SSL certificate
Included
Website Builder
Included
Best Offer
60.5% discount on 36-month Hatchling Plan at $2.75 per month HostGator reviews recommend to look out for special offers, such as HostingAdvice.com readers’ deals on a range of hosting options (e.g. 78%-off VPS, 76%-off Basic)
Best For
Small business websites, Cloud hosting, Webmasters & Semi-technical users and beginner bloggers
Founded 18 years ago, and acquired by Endurance International Group in 2012, HostGator has offices in the U.S., India, and Brazil as well as various international sites.
HostGator reviews rate the company as outstanding, reliable, and helpful, while HostingAdvice.com ranks HostGator in the top three for the “best overall web hosting” in 2020.
Shared Hosting Overview
HostGator offers three contract-free shared web hosting plans:
- Hatchling – for a single domain
- Baby – allows unlimited domains
- Professional – unlimited domains plus ecommerce functionality
Numerous features are offered across plans, including:
- Free/Instant (max.15 mins) setup
- 24/7/365 support via live chat, email, or phone
- Guarantees: 45-day money-back; 99.9% uptime
- Automatic SSL per registered domain ensuring website visitor encryption
- One-click installs for popular apps such as WordPress, Wiki, Joomla, and Magento
- Unmetered disk space (20 GB soft limit) and bandwidth
- Unlimited emails, subdomains (a domain that is part of the main domain), FTP (File Transfer Protocol) accounts (re. file uploads/downloads), and MySQL (version 5+) databases
- $100 Advertising credits each for Google AdWords and Bing
- Anytime instant backups of entire cPanel account to restore your account via a forwarded download link
WordPress Hosting Overview
WordPress hosting plans from HostGator include free SSL and domain registration, and/or migration, and relate primarily to the number of sites that you intend to offer, as follows:
- Starter – for a single blog, starting at $5.95 per month
- Standard – for two blogs, from $7.95 per month
- Business – for three ($9.95 per month+) or five ($11.95 per month+) sites
- Pro – for 10 sites ($22.95 per month+) or 20 sites ($33.95 per month+)
Key additional factors determining the best plan for you include expected visits and storage needs, as well as the desired speed and computing power.
- Starter – 1 GB daily backup; 100k average monthly traffic; 2x Relative Compute Power
- Standard – 2 GB daily backup; 200k average monthly traffic; 2x Relative Compute Power
- Business – 3 GB daily backup; 500k average monthly traffic; 5x Relative Compute Power
In addition to free SSL, domain, and/or migration, the key features of HostGator’s managed WordPress hosting plans include:
- 24/7/365 customer support
- Unmetered storage space
- Automatic malware removal
- Automated daily backups and one-click restore (within plan limits)
- $100 Google AdWords credit
HostGator user reviews highlight affordability, powerful admin tools, and an accessible control panel. While it is not among the three WordPress-recommended hosts, HostGator WordPress hosting reviews note that the company offers an affordable and fast WordPress service.
Additional features are listed below:
| Features | Hatchling Plan | Baby Plan | Business Plan |
| DOMAIN/WEBSITE/FTP | |||
| Domains Allowed | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Addon/Parked Domains | Unlimited | Unlimited | |
| Anonymous FTP | Y | ||
| Dedicated IP – Unique IP address for account. | $4 per month | Free | |
| Private SSL Allowed – Enabling ecommerce and protection of your users’ data by encrypting data to and from your website. | Y | Y | |
| Free Comodo-backed Positive SSL Upgrade for one domain. | Y | Y | Y |
| AWStats (Real Time Updates) – Web analytics for accurate stats of Unique Visitors, Click Paths, and traffic origins (e.g. search engines, campaigns, referrals), together with analysis of downloads, bandwidth usage, errors, and more. | Y | Y | Y |
| Webalizer displaying in-depth site traffic statistics. | Y | Y | Y |
| Raw Logs – Access to download your sites’ raw logs. | Y | Y | Y |
| Referrer Logs of website visitors’ origins and referral sites. | Y | Y | Y |
| Error Logs of any errors occurring on your website. | Y | Y | Y |
| WEB HOSTING | |||
| CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripts provided in your CGI-bin. | Y | Y | Y |
| Cron – Crontab is a Unix process using a cron daemon to execute the user’s commands. | Y | Y | Y |
| Curl – Command line tool for transferring files with URL syntax. | Y | Y | Y |
| FastCGI method to improve the speed of almost any HostGator-supported scripting language. | Y | Y | Y |
| GD 2 (latest version) – ANSI Graphics Library for creating images (e.g. PNG, JPEG). | |||
| ImageMagick (latest version) – Tools and libraries for image reading, writing, and manipulation. | |||
| Perl (version 5.8.7) CGI scripting language. | Y | Y | Y |
| PHP 5 – Server-side HTML embedded scripting language. | Y | Y | Y |
| Python programming/scripting language. | Y | Y | Y |
| Email Hosting: | |||
| POP3 (Post Office Protocol) Accounts – Requests for custom modules reviewed within 24 hours. | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Mailing Lists | ≤20 Lists | ≤25 Lists | ≤50 Lists |
| Control Panel: | |||
| PW (Password) Protected Directories | Y | Y | Y |
| Redirect URL to redirect your site pages to any chosen URL. | Y | Y | Y |
| Soholaunch Pro Edition website creation software | Y | Y | Y |
| Web-Based File Manager enabling direct uploads of your files. | Y | Y | Y |
| ecommerce (online store management): | |||
| osCommerce – Open source, easy to install and use. | Y | Y | Y |
| ZenCart – Open source, easy to install and use. | Y | Y | Y |
Pricing and Plans
HostGator offers a range of plans across a variety of service options, ranging from basic Shared Web Hosting (from $2.75 per month) to Dedicated Server Hosting (from $89.98 per month). HostGator recommends the standard plan to new customers across all options except the Reseller hosting, where the top (Silver) plan is recommended.
The best prices are realized on a 36-month billing cycle for each hosting option and for 24 months on Website Builder, which is equal to the monthly costs over this initial discounted term, for entry to upgraded level plans, as follows:
| Hosting Package | Entry/Basic | Median/Standard | Top/Premium |
| Shared | $2.75
(Hatchling) |
$3.95
(Baby) |
$5.95
(Business) |
| Cloud | $4.95
(Hatchling) |
$6.57
(Baby) |
$9.95
(Business) |
| WordPress | $5.95
(Starter) |
$7.95
(Standard) |
$9.95
(Business) |
| Reseller | $19.95
(Aluminium) |
$24.95
(Copper) |
$24.95
(Silver) |
| VPS | $19.95
(Snappy 2000) |
$29.95
(Snappy 4000) |
$39.95
(Snappy 8000) |
| Dedicated | $89.98
(Value) |
$119.89
(Power) |
$139.99
(Enterprise) |
| Windows | $4.76
(Personal) |
– | $14.36
(Enterprise) |
| Website Builder | $3.84
(Starter) |
$5.99
(Premium) |
$9.22
(ecommerce) |
Website Builder is geared for new businesses, including domain name and hosting, while Reseller hosting caters to new hosting businesses. Here are some of the various hosting options on offer:
- Shared: Basic web hosting for lower-traffic sites and, on Business Plan, limited ecommerce activity.
- Cloud: Managed and drawing on multiple servers’ resources (including data mirroring), for about double the speed and greater security and control than Shared hosting, for high and fluctuating visitor traffic.
- WordPress: Cloud-hosted and server-managed, with higher protection (online security and daily backups) and faster (2.5x) page loading than Shared hosting, for higher visitor traffic and speed.
- VPS: Managed Virtual Server dedicated to your site for advanced control (including root access), flexibility, and scalability according to site complexity, business, and traffic growth.
- Dedicated: Access to full resources of your managed dedicated server, for maximum control, speed, customization, and flexibility, geared to high traffic sites and larger businesses.
Within each hosting plan there are additional options and add-ons which are included as free features in some plans:
- Shared/Cloud:
- Positive SSL Certificate ($3.33 per month, included in Business)
- SiteLock ($1.99 per month) for hacker/malware protection
- Professional email and more Office 365 features ($6.00 per month)
- Site Backup by CodeGuard ($2.00 per month)
- SEO Tools ($2.95 per month, included in Business)
- WordPress:
- Positive SSL Certificate ($3.33 per month)
- Number of blogs available for selection on Business (3/5 sites) and Pro (10/20 sites) plans
- VPS:
- cPanel ($10 per month)
- Dedicated:
- Managed (from $4.76 per month added)
- Hard drive (HHD on Value; SSD/HHD on Power; SSD on Enterprise)
- Operating System (CentOS/Windows) options
Support
HostGator rates highly on the quality, effectiveness, and reliability of its support. Its customer support staff is noted as friendly, well-trained, and knowledgeable, and it can be reached round-the-clock via live chat or by phone (North America), fax (U.S.), or email (including a support ticket system).
Additional support options include an extensive online knowledgebase or Support Portal, including numerous articles and over 500 video tutorials, as well as Customer and Billing Portals and Peer Support Forums, for help and specific inquiries.
Pros and Cons
Money-back guarantee on basic hosting services within the first 45 days
24/7/365 support and server monitoring
Free SSL, website builder and templates, and instant (6-minute average) setup
There is no contract, which gives you freedom to cancel, but this is discretionary and limited to first-time accounts
Generous discounts on introductory and longer-term packages
Short-term packages and renewal costs are substantially higher
Administrative, set-up, domain fees may be incurred even when there is a discount
HostGator Reviews
HostGator rates among the top web hosting services in 2020 across multiple review platforms, notably for its support, infrastructure, and reliability. HostGator reviews rate the company as reliable, efficient, and among the best-known web host options on the market.
HostGator customer support reviews are predominantly good, with users describing its customer support as “excellent”, “always available”, “knowledgeable”, and “courteous”.
Wrap Up
HostGator has a strong industry reputation for reliability and customer support and emerges as a leading service for small business and personal websites. Unmetered storage and bandwidth are offered on Shared, Cloud, and Windows Web (ASP.net) hosting options, with unmetered bandwidth also available for Dedicated hosting.
HostGator reviews note its value for money, particularly for HostGator’s Cloud, WordPress, and Shared hosting options. Its guarantees (99.9% uptime; 45-day money-back; 24/7/365 support) are another benefit to keep in mind.
FAQ
What Are The Pros and Cons of HostGator?
Money-back guarantee, 24/7/365 support and server monitoring, and the lack of contract are just some of Hostgator’s advantages. Add to it the free SSL, website builder and templates, instant setup, and generous discounts, and you’ve got yourself a winner. Meanwhile, the price of short-term packages and some additional fees are some of the cons.
What Are the Key Features of HostGator?
Some of the main features are the 99.9% uptime guarantee, website builder, cloud hosting, free domain name, and a free SSL certificate. Another huge one is discounts.