HostGator was founded by Brent Oxley at Florida Atlantic University in 2002. Today, it is owned by Endurance International Group (EIG). In this blog, we will look at the services it offers, how good the performance is, and much more.
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A careful analysis of HostGator revealed it has:
Excellent Server Performance
The one thing that reviewers should focus on a lot in their hosting reviews is server uptime. If your site goes down frequently, can you imagine what would happen to your business? If your site does not stay online, additional features are not what someone will look for.
HostGator has an uptime > 99.99%. So, if you wish to opt for Cloud hosting, WordPress hosting, o shared hosting, you can rely on HostGator.
If you conduct a speed test with tools like Bitcatch and Webpage Test, you will be impressed with the HostGator Cloud Hosting.
Various Pricing and Plans
Since hosting services have such variety in plans and deals, it is difficult to get a fair comparison. For this, you need to visit the official website. The most basic plan of HostGator is known as the Hatchling Plan. But, if you observe carefully, the offering is misleading, and there is no option to get billed at just $2.75 per month.
To acquire the Hatchling Plan, you need to prepay for three years, which amounts to $105.35. If you wish to acquire the yearly plan, you pay $76.11, and for a monthly plan, you pay $10.95 per month.
Some other prices that you may want to check out:
- – Shared hosting starter plan: $2.75 per month.
- – Cloud hosting starting at $4.95 per month.
- – WordPress starter plan: $5.95 per month.
- – Reseller hosting starting at $19.95 per month.
- – VPS hosting starting at $19.95 per month.
- – Dedicated server’s starter plan: $89.98 per month.
Limited Facilities in the Base Plan
HostGator offers unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited mail. However, these facilities are limited in terms of operation.
They also mention:
“HostGator expressly reserves the right to review every shared account for excessive usage of CPU, disk space, and other resources that may be caused by a violation of this Agreement or the Acceptable Use Policy.”
This means that you cannot have a vast backup space and you can’t abuse the resources you purchase. So, you should buy reasonably and use the resources judiciously. And the Hatchling Plan would not be enough if you aim to achieve big, such as huge traffic or promotion.
However, there are some compelling aspects to the base-level package. First, as we move forward in a search for a safer web, the availability of free SSL for your website is significant. This adds the little lock icon to the address bar of your browser and ensures that traffic is encrypted between your site and your guests. And you also get 24*7 support.
WordPress Installation with Lots of Upsells
Are you aware of the fact that WordPress has a 60.8% market share in the CMS market? Prices went uphill at $399 from the $2.75 deal advertised by the company. On this setup page, the promos didn’t specify what theme they would install. But, a nice collection of free themes comes with WordPress, and most themes are relatively inexpensive.
The only difference between the $399 and the program was the addition of SEO and WordPress site security. But, HostGator doesn’t make an effort on what plugins it provides in the $400 bill. Hence, you need not pay attention to the upsells.
The upsells, added plugins, and other unnecessary promotional links make the site crash initially. For instance, HostGator’s plugin Mojo Marketplace, also comes with several plugins which slow down the site.
Worthless Security
Today, security is one of the most important aspects which you have to consider while operating a website. You have to make sure that it is protected with a robust firewall, is not susceptible to third-party breaches, etc. Moreover, you have to secure your payment systems.
However, when it comes to security, HostGator fares pretty bad. First comes multifactor authentication. It is way too easy for hackers to just bang away at the login screen of a website and brute-force a password.
All you need are a username and password when you log into their customer portal. However, you need to support PIN if you want to ask questions about support and get answers. This is a partial advance. You should be easily able to change the email address associated with it if you can break into the main management account and then get a new support PIN sent out. Thus, the security is worthless without a two-step authentication factor.
There’s more to it. But it is beyond the scope of the blog. What you should know is that HostGator does not have good security measures.
Free Site and cPanel Migrations
HostGator is extremely reliable if you are trying to move over to an existing file. After sign up, you get 30 days to get in touch and have the executives shift your database, site files, scripts, and even domain name.
If you have multiple site installs, you can take the help of the cPanel transfer. All shared hosting plans from HostGator come with a single migration site (or cPanel) included. For example, different plans, such as resellers, can get access to more (up to 30).
Compared to other hosts, a single free migration of sites is not much. But it’s also better than others, such as Bluehost, but they’re going to charge $150 to travel up to five places at a time.
As you can see, HostGator has a lot of positive as well as negative aspects. Fortunately, they have paid heed to the customer feedback and have improved the loading time, 857 ms. So, it depends on your requirement and what you wish to accomplish. You cannot deny that HostGator comes with a lot of features.
