HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

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In this Hostgator review 2024, we will discuss all about this web host, its pros and cons, pricing, uptime, performance, etc.

So stick with this blog and scroll below to know more!

Affiliate Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase anything from these links, I may earn some commissions without any extra cost to you. Furthermore, this post has been included as an entry into a giveaway/sweepstakes.

HostGator Review: About Hostgator

Roughly, HostGator has already hosted more than 2 million websites, which is a great achievement.

Year Of Foundation: 2002

Location: Houston, Texas, United States

However, in 2012, HostGator was acquired by Endurance International Group, an IT company that offers Web host-related services. The same company has acquired Bluehost.

HostGator has collected prestigious awards in the competitive web hosting services and reviews field.

Just check some of the reviews by top experts:

HostGator Review
HostGator Reviews

HostGator provides a one-stop solution for:

  • Domain Registration
  • Website Builder
  • Shared Hosting
  • Cloud Hosting
  • VPS and Dedicated Hosting
  • WordPress Hosting
  • Windows Hosting

HostGator provides all these services with excellence and at a very affordable price.

What is special about HostGator?

As you can see, Hostgator offers various services, particularly web hosting, starting from $2.75 per month.

Apart from shared hosting, you will get a dedicated hosting service, VPS, and cloud hosting.

VPS hosting starts at $19.95/mo and dedicated hosting starts from $89.98 per month, which is the most expensive service.

  • Free Domain: Yes
  • Uptime: 99.9%
  • Average load time: 1.03 s
  • Average response time: 143.4 ms
  • Support: Live Chat / Knowledge base

These are only the overview. In the coming paragraphs, I am going to discuss everything in detail and share important details about HostGator as well.

HostGator Features:

Here, we will discuss the best features that HostGator is providing to its customers and will briefly describe each one:

1. Real-Time Monitoring

This means Hostgator is monitoring all their servers 24×7. Thus, all sites will be live without any issues, and it will prevent attacks on the servers.

They perform regular tests and malware tests so that they can identify whether any malware is embedded in their servers. So that they can remove it asap and let all your sites be free from it all the time.

2. Hostgator Speed

Speed is one of the important factors for a better UI, and all web hosting companies focus more on keeping all your sites online and providing blazing speed.

So, for better understanding, let’s go through some reviews.

HostGator Review
HostGator Review

He has been using Hostgator for more than 11 years, and he recommends that all his clients go with Hostgator because of its uptime and great customer support.

Before we move ahead in analyzing the Hostgator shared hosting website speed of one of the websites already hosted on Hostgator from the past few years.

Good website speed can lead to:

  • Low bounce rate
  • Great User Interface
  • Better Conversions
  • Higher ranking in SERP

Hostgator hosted website speed on GTmetrix:

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

This is one of the best tools for analyzing the website’s performance and speed. This tool is used by thousands of people all around the globe to analyze their website speed.

You can see from the above picture, its loading time is under 1 sec. It’s 866 milliseconds, which is the best load time any website can have.

Hostgator speed test result on Google Page Insights:

Here is the page speed of the website on the official Google website speed testing tool, i.e., Google page sped insights.

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

The above speed is on desktop mode, and below, you can find mobile pages.

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

Hostgator Speed Test Result: Pingdom

It’s also a great website to test the website or blog speed and run diagnostics to eliminate the problems associated with your website and improve its performance.

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

So, from the above pictures, you can assure yourself that in terms of speed, you will not regret it after purchasing HostGator web hosting.

3. Hostgator Uptime

Regarding Uptime, Hostgator claims to have a 99.99% uptime, close to 100%. So, to cross-check this claim, we went on HRANK and analysed its data.

HRANK has more than 300 shared hosting providers and ranks them according to uptime, response time and other features.

Let’s go through the data from HRANK about HostGator.

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

The remarkable thing to be noticed is that it’s always above 99.950%. And talking about the tracked data, it’s always around 99.99%.

Talking about Response Time, we have other data from HRANK. Do check and verify from your side.

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

As we know, the website’s content badly affects the page loading time. Let’s suppose your website has more images, so its loading time will be higher.

Thus, it affects the server response time. To test it, I ran a test on BItcacha, the same website that we used for speed time on GTmetrix.

And here is the result we got. It’s really awesome. Check it now, guys.

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

Thus, we can say that HostGator offers the best services in terms of Speed, uptime and great server response.

4. HostGator Support

Customer support is also vital in selecting a good web service for your blog or website.

Apart from good performance, if any issue arises with your website, it will be difficult for you to solve as a beginner.

So, good support is needed to solve that particular problem efficiently and in less time.

Now, talking about HostGator, they deserve a round of applause for the kind of support they provide their customers. Here, we are talking about the support for both pre-sales and post-sales.

Hostgator provides various ways through which customers can connect to their support system:

  • Phone– To get any kind of help directly from the support team, you can call this number: (866) 964-2867
  • Live chat- If you are not comfortable enough to talk on the phone, you can go with a live chat option. And believe me, this is the best ever option for you all. This solves all your queries in less time. Even I used to go with live chat for any queries.

I tried contacting them through live chat, and you won’t believe me. Within 10 seconds, they joined my request and started answering my queries.

They are very friendly, and you would love to help them with your queries. See the live chat that I did with them.

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)
HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

Hostgator live chat support is tremendous. Nothing can be better than this.

  • Knowledgebase

This is another method of solving the queries that customers may face.

This is based on the most repetitive questions or any help that customers seek. So Hostgator created massive knowledge-based answers to lots of questions from which you can get help.

When you enter knowledgebase, there will be various options to select from, or you can directly search from the search bar for any particular queries.

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

Once you click any of these, it will start showing a variety of questions related to that. It is just shown below.

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

You can start reading of your interest. So this is how Hostgayor knowledgebase support works.

  • Hostgator blog– You can get help from the company’s dedicated official blogs.
  • Twitter- You can also get help from the customer team by tweeting and tagging @HGSupport, and they will definitely help.

Hostgator Pricing & Plans (Affordable)

As mentioned earlier, Hostgator provides you with various web hosting services at an affordable plan. Here are listed services:

  1. Shared Hosting
  2. Cloud Web Hosting
  3. WordPress Hosting
  4. VPS Server Hosting
  5. Dedicated Server Hosting
HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

Now, let’s discuss the shared hosting plan in detail. You can read about others in detail by visiting HostGator’s official account.

Hostgator shared hosting has 3 plans. They are as follows:

1. Hatchling Plan

If you are a beginner and looking to start a blog, then you can go with this plan. This allows you to host a single website with unlimited storage and unmetered bandwidth.

This will cost you $2.75 per month if you purchase hosting for 36 months.

Features:

  • Single website 
  • One-click WordPress installs 
  • Free WordPress/cPanel website transfer 
  • Unmetered bandwidth
  • Free SSL certificate
  • Free domain included

2. Baby Plan

This is the recommended plan by the HostGator company. Here, you can host unlimited sites with unlimited storage and unmetered bandwidth.

The introductory offer is $3.50 per month if you purchase 36 36-month plan.

Features:

  • Now 65% off!
  • Unlimited websites 
  • One-click WordPress installs 
  • Free WordPress/cPanel website transfer 
  • Unmetered bandwidth
  • Free SSL certificate
  • Free domain included

3. Business Plan

If you have a budget for expensive shared hosting, then a business plan is for you. You can get a lot more features included in this plan.

It is available for an introductory price of $5.25 per month when you opt for a 36-month plan.

Features:

  • Unlimited websites 
  • One-click WordPress installs 
  • Free WordPress/cPanel website transfer 
  • Unmetered bandwidth
  • Free SSL certificate
  • Free upgrade to Positive SSL
  • Free dedicated IP 
  • Free SEO tools
  • Free domain included

Guaranteed:

If you’re not happy, you’ll get a refund of your hosting fees in the first 45 days.

HostGator Highlights (You shouldn’t miss)

Here, we have listed some highlighted features that Hostgator is providing to its customers that should be mentioned.

1. Free Domain Name

If you are a new HostGator customer, you will get a free domain if you purchase hosting for at least a 12-month plan.

You will get a domain of extensions .com, .org, and .net for the first year, which is free with any hosting plan.

Getting a free domain with hosting will help you reduce the time and effort needed to set up DNS settings.

2. Free site transfers

If you have already hosted websites on other hosting companies and you are looking to change or migrate to another web hosting company, then Hostgator is the perfect hosting to get migrated.

Most beginners find it tough to transfer their sites from one host to another, so HostGator will do this job for you for FREE.

Yes, you heard it right.

Hostgator will transfer your sites to their own servers hassle-free and safely. All you have to do is purchase any plan and ask them to do this migration for you.

3. Free SSL certificate

This is very important and required for each site. Without this, your site will be shown in google as not a secured connection and thus losing credibility in front of google and visitors.

Google love those sites which have secured connections and shows those sites in SERP. You may have observed the “lock” button appear on the left-hand corner of the search bar.

This is enabled only when your site has an active installed SSL certificate. This certificate changes HTTP:// to HTTPS:// to enable a secure connection between the server and your site visitors.

4. One-click installs

If you are looking for integration with apps like WordPress, woo-commerce, etc, then installing those apps on the HostGator server can’t be easier than this.

To get started, you can install WordPress with a single click on your website or blog. It is as simple and easy.

5. 99.9% uptime guarantee

The best ability is availability, so Hostgator makes sure your site always stays up.

6. Unmetered bandwidth

With all hosting plans, you will get unlimited storage and unmetered bandwidth, so you are not required to pay for any extra disk space or bandwidth usage.

7. 24/7/365 support

Get help for all your queries easily and faster. It is always available for you. I prefer to go with live chat to sort out all my queries.

8. $150 Google Ads

If you are starting out and looking to spend money on ads, then Hostgator provides you with a credit of $ 150 that you can spend freely on Google AdWords.

This is best for beginners, and I recommend that everyone do that, as by doing this, you can learn a lot about running paid ads without spending a single penny.

9. cPanel access

You will get access to Cpanel, so it’s great to manage all your stuff hassle-free from the backend of your site.

10. FREE Email

You will get free email aliases, autoresponders, and email forwarders for all shared hosting plans. So you don’t have to pay extra for custom email.

How do you sign up for the HostGator plan?

Here are simple steps that you can follow to sign up for a HostGator plan and purchase hosting.

Click here to visit the discounted page of the HostGator plan.

It will look like this;

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

From there, hit the “Get Started” button, choose any plan (let’s say hatchling plan), and click on the Buy Now button afterwards.

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)
HostGator Plans

Now, follow these simple steps.

Step 1: Choose a Domain Name

Firstly, you have to choose a domain name. You are getting a free domain with hosting, so just put your desired domain name to look for whether it’s available or not. If it is available, then you can proceed to the next step.

Note: If you already have a domain and don’t want to register a new one, you can click ” I Already Own This Domain”, put in your domain name, and proceed further.

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

After putting the desired domain name, in my case, bloggingsprout.com, you can see that .com is not available, but you can get other extensions of this domain for free.

Step 2: Choose a Hosting Plan

Next, you have to select the hosting plan and the billing cycle period, i.e., 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, 24 months, or 36 months.

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)
HostGator pricing

I would recommend you choose 36 36-month plan for the best pricing.

Step 3: Create your Hostgator Account

Fill in all these data carefully and create your account with Hostgator.

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

Step 4: Enter your Billing Info

For the purchase, you have 2 options available for payment. You can use any one of the methods for the payment i, e through credit card or PayPal.

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

Step 5: Add Additional Services

There will be various additional services that you can opt out of for better performance and better website features.

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

As a newbie, I would recommend you uncheck all these add-ons and proceed further.

Note: Make sure you uncheck “Domain Privacy Protection” below the domain in step 1.

Step 6: Enter a Coupon Code

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

In the coupon section, just put BSPROUT60 to avail of 60% OFF on your hosting plans. This is an exclusive coupon code for Bloggingsproout.com readers.

Step 7: Review Order Details

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

Cross-check your order details from here, and lastly, tick on the agreement button and click on “Checkout Now“.

Congratulations! You have successfully purchased your hosting, and now you can install WordPress and start going.


Cons of HostGator

Nothing can be 100% perfect. So, in the field of web hosting services, there is no complete perfection. We tend to choose which is best among all.

In the HostGator case, one thing missing is the automatic backup.

Even if you go with the business plan, you will not get an automatic backup for your blog or website.

You have two options: purchase their Codeguard (addon feature), which costs you $19.99 per year, or manage backups from Cpanel, which is a hectic job.

HostGator Review: Features, Pricing (October 2024)

To avoid this limitation, you can go with UpdraftPlus, a plugin that will automatically back up your site.

Hostgator Alternatives

However, Hostgator provides you with a hassle-free money-back guarantee within 45 days if you claim it. But still, if you want to explore more hosting services, so here we have the 3 best alternatives to HostGator.

1. A2 Hosting

This is the best alternative to Hostgator, which claims to offer up to 20X faster hosting. The best thing is that you will get free automated backups of your site on a regular basis.

So, if you are looking for fast, blazing speed, then you can explore A2 hosting.

2. Bluehost

Bluehost is also part of the Endurance International group, which provides features similar to those of HostGator.

So, Bluehost can be the best alternative to HostGator, and I recommend that you choose this.

3. Hostinger

If you are looking for the cheapest alternative to HostGator then hostinger shared hosting is for you.

You can get this hosting for just $0.99 per month. This is super affordable web hosting for beginners.


FAQs On Hostgator Review

1. How much does HostGator cost?

Hostgator shared hosting plan starts from $2.75 per month if you purchase it for 36 months.

2. Does HostGator have a website builder?

You will get a free Gator builder with your shared hosting plans.

3. What are the best HostGator alternatives?

The best HostGator alternatives are A2 hosting, Bluehost and hostinger.

4. Does HostGator bill monthly?

Yes, you can pay on a monthly basis with Hostgator. It will cost you much more compared to a 36-month plan. So I would recommend going with at least a 12-month plan, not on a monthly basis.

5. Does HostGator provide a money-back guarantee?

Yes, you can get your money back hassle-free if you claim within 45 days from the date of purchase.


Final Words On HostGator Review 2024

So, this is the end of the HostGator review 2024. I have gathered and compiled the best of my knowledge in front of you guys. I hope you all loved it.

If you want to start your WordPress blog, you can go with the HostGator shared hosting plan without any second thought.

If you have any questions or suggestions, you can put them down in the comment section or contact me.

Masood Ahmad
Masood, besides studying at IIT Kharagpur, loves to share his blogging and affiliate marketing experience to help people make money online.

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