Based in Texas HostGator is a well known web hosting company with over 15 years of existence. It is now part of the Endurance International group, along with Domain.com, Bluehost, iPage, SiteBuilder.com and more.

HostGator offers a solid line of products that cover all the major hosting basics: Shared Hosting, a drag-and-drop Website Builder, Cloud Hosting and VPS Hosting, Dedicated Server, a handful of Windows Hosting Products, Reseller Hosting Accounts and more.

However, there is not much depth in any given area. For example, HostGator only offers three VPS server plans and three basic dedicated servers, and these have very limited configuration options.

For example, on dedicated servers, you can only select Windows or CentOS operating system. Hostwinds now has four VPS plans for Linux and Windows. Dedicated servers allow you to choose up to three additional disks, add RAID support, additional RAM, choose from five operating systems and multiple versions, and add additional IP addresses and bandwidth.

However, the products offered by HostGator are surprisingly powerful, especially in the budget range.

Shared Hosting

HostGator’s range of shared hosting offers you right from the start. Even the cheapest shared hosting plan, lion cub, you don’t get metered space; unlimited bandwidth, MySQL databases, email and FTP accounts; A free SSL certificate, easy installation of WordPress and shopping carts (osCommerce and ZenCart), and full cPanel-based site management. That’s more than enough power for many personal and business websites, but the price of the three-year plan is only $2.75 per month ($6.95 with renewal).

At the top of the line is the Business Plan supports unlimited domain hosting and adds professional features like a free dedicated IP address and a premium SSL certificate. This has a very low overall price of $5.95 per month over three years and extends for a still reasonable $14.95 to $16.95 depending on the length of the subscription (1 month to three years).

All plans are backed by a generous 45-day money back guarantee, which is subject to the usual restrictions (for example, if HostGator has already paid to register a domain for you, it will not be refunded).

The only minor issue we could see was HostGator’s selection of automated installers. Many web hosts offer Softaculous, a smart platform that makes it easy to install WordPress, Joomla, phpBB, PrestaShop, Drupal, Magento and hundreds of popular web applications. HostGator focuses primarily on WordPress, with only a handful of others. That’s fine for most users, but if you’re looking for something else, you may have to install and configure it yourself.

WordPress hosting

HostGator simply offers WordPress hosting at a very low price, but without some of the high-end features you get with the more specialized competition.

The Starter Plan supports a single site with an average of 100,000 users per month for $5.95 per month over three years; B. $9.95 Business Plan includes more resources, can handle three websites, 500,000 visitors per month and costs $9.95 per month over three years and $22.95 upon renewal. HostGator also offers a free migration service to transfer your existing WordPress site to the new account, while automatic WordPress updates should keep your site safely patched.

Liquid Web’s WordPress plans add a testing environment to allow updates to be tested without breaking your production site and a very smart update system that can automatically update WordPress and plugins and alert you if there are any problems. Bandwidth is capped at 2TB per month, which is probably enough for most users. This is a great product, but the price is $19 per month or $15.83 on the annual plan. So, if all you need is the basics of WordPress, this is still a better deal.

Gator Website Builder

Shared hosting plans also come with a free Weebly Builder plan. This has a great drag and drop editor, the site can be hosted on your own domain and free SSL is added. The hook? Well, there are two: your website is limited to 500MB and it will display ads.

You can upgrade for $5.99 a month over a three-year period with a shared hosting plan, which reduces advertising and space restrictions. This includes website search, password protection, HD video and audio support, and much more. However, if you just want to drag and drop, check out Gator Website Builder from HostGator first. Prices start at $3.84 per month and you can get e-commerce support for less than $10 per month during the initial period.

Features

cPanel gives you everything you need to control and manage your website

If you’re an experienced user who doesn’t need that handheld position, that’s fine. A fully functional cPanel installation gives you all the FTP, SSH, database, file management and domain features you need to get your site up and running.

A comprehensive support website contains many helpful guides and tips

Don’t know how to do something? Start typing in the search box and the site will immediately display matching articles. There’s a lot of content that’s reasonably organized, and we usually found what we needed within a click or two.

If you’re not so lucky, support is available 24/7 via live chat and phone (toll-free in the US).

We’ve always had great results with HostGator support, and this time was no different. When we tried the live chat, a helpful agent responded within two minutes, immediately understanding our question and giving us reasonable and accurate advice: exactly what we needed.

performance

We started our performance tests by creating a simple static website on our HostGator plan, then using the website. Uptime to check availability and response time for a week.

Our website was never unavailable during the monitoring period. We expected this after only one week of testing, but it was still good to see.

The average response time was 378 ms at the slowest end of the shared hosting market (most providers average between 200 and 400 ms).

There is better news in HostGator’s worst case. In over 2000 tests, the slowest recorded response was only 556 ms, which is significantly better than many hosts (the current average in our last 30 reviews is 891 ms).

As a final check, we used dotcom tools. Website Speed Test to check the load time of our website in 16 locations in the US and Europe. At about 870ms, it performed much better and was therefore in the upper middle ground of the shared hosting competition.

That’s good news for HostGator, but keep in mind that these comparisons are based on the lower-end shared hosting products for each provider. If you’re looking to buy a VPS or any other high-end plan, the results can vary considerably.