HostGator is one of the most popular web hosts on the internet. They offer web hosting solutions for businesses of all shapes and sizes. Whether you are running a simple coffee shop website or a full-featured WooCommerce-based online store, these guys have the right solutions for you.
One of the reasons why so many businesses trust HostGator is the amount of scalability they offer. You can scale your web hosting backend as you get more traffic by simply clicking the upgrade button.
- BUT is HostGator’s WordPress Hosting any good?
- Is their service reliable?
- Is it secure?
- Do their packages offer the best bang for your buck?
I will answer all these questions in this article. I will review their WordPress Hosting packages and introduce you to all the features they offer.
By the end, you will know for sure whether HostGator is the right choice for your hosting your WordPress site or not.
About HostGator’s WordPress Hosting
Although you could install WordPress on HostGator Shared Hosting packages, in this article, I will only review HostGator’s WordPress Hosting Packages.
These packages are optimized for WordPress and offer the biggest bang for your buck. With these packages, you just can’t go wrong.
HostGator’s WordPress Hosting comes with everything you need to launch and manage a successful online business at affordable prices:
The Starter plan, for example, allows 1 website, and up to 100k visits per month. 100 thousand visits are enough for most websites. Your website will probably never run out of this limit in its first year.
If you are thinking of going with Shared Hosting, think again. This plan comes with enough power to handle massive loads.
If your website ever goes viral, it will most likely go down on a Shared plan if it gets too many visitors at once. With this plan, you don’t have to worry about such a thing.
And when you start getting more visitors, all you have to do is click the Upgrade button. The Standard plan allows 2 websites, and up to 200k visits per month.
All three of these plans come with a free domain name for the first year. And you get free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates for all your domain names.
An SSL certificate lets your website operate on the secure HTTPS protocol. This protects your customers and users from getting their data intercepted by hackers.
If you aren’t sure which HostGator package is right for you, read this review of HostGator’s pricing plans.
In that article, I review all their pricing plans and help you decide which one is best for your business.
Standout Features
Free WordPress Site Migrations
Migrating a WordPress site from one web host to another is a pain even if you know what you’re doing.
And if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll probably break something on your website.
If you already have your WordPress site hosted on another web host, HostGator’s team will migrate your WordPress site for you over to your new HostGator account.
This service comes free with all their WordPress plans.
Setup Email Addresses on Your Own Domain Name For Free
Most web hosts would charge you a lot of money for this service. HostGator, however, lets you set up custom email addresses on your own domain name for free.
You can create as many of these accounts as you want.
This makes you look professional and builds trust with your customers. You can create email addresses for free for everyone on your team.
This service can cost up to $10 per month per email address easily.
24/7 Support
HostGator’s support team is one of the best in the industry. They are well-trained technically and know how to solve more than just basic problems.
If you ever run into a problem, you can reach out to them whenever you want via live chat or email.
I’ve been a HostGator customer at one point, and I can assure you their team responds really quickly.
You can get in touch with someone in less than two minutes most of the time.
Automatic Backups
HostGator automatically backs up your website every day. This way, if your website ever breaks, you can revert back to an older version with just a single click.
Automatic backups are the best insurance in case your website gets hacked. You could lose all your hard work and effort if you don’t have backups of your website.
You get 1 GB of backup storage space on all plans per site. So, you can also set up your own regular backups for your website on a custom schedule.
Free SSL Certificate
If your website doesn’t have an SSL certificate, your users won’t trust you. And if you are thinking of selling something online, forget about it.
That’s because browsers now display a full-page warning before you visit an insecure website that doesn’t have an SSL Certificate. They also show multiple warnings before letting you enter your credit card details.
An SSL certificate can cost upwards of $100 per year. But HostGator gives you one for free for all the domain names that you host with them.
Pros and Cons
Although we recommend HostGator all the time, you should definitely check out our review of the best HostGator alternatives before you sign up.
And if you have made up your mind, before you sign up for HostGator, here’s what you will get with every plan:
Pros
- Unmetered Bandwidth: HostGator gives you unmetered bandwidth and doesn’t penalize or charge extra if your website gets a lot of visitors. However, there is a fair-use limit to this bandwidth.
- Free WordPress Site Migration: If you already have your website hosted on another web host’s server, HostGator’s team will migrate it for you for free. Doing it on your own can be a huge pain!
- Free Domain: You get a free domain name for the first year on all plans. It renews at the regular renewal price.
- Free Email Addresses on Your Own Domain: Most web hosts charge extra if you want to create a custom email address on your own domain such as [email protected]. HostGator, on the other hand, allows you to create an unlimited number of free email addresses.
- $150 In Google Ads Match Credit: You get a coupon when you sign up for Google Ads. This coupon will give you $150 in credit when you spend $150 on Google Ads.
- 45-day Moneyback Guarantee: Most web hosts only offer a 30-day moneyback guarantee. With HostGator, you can ask for your money back within the first 45 days.
- Free CodeGuard: Other Web Hosts charge for this security tool. HostGator gives it to you for free.
- Free SSL Certificate: An SSL Certificate secures your website and makes sure hackers can’t intercept the data sent between your website and its users. You need this if you don’t want browsers to display a full-page warning that your website is insecure.
- 24/7 Support: If you are just starting out, you will need help every now and then setting up your website. Host Gator’s team is available 24/7 and will help you out whenever you get stuck.
- SiteLock Fix and Malware Removal: HostGator offers free access to the SiteLock Fix tool. It’s a security tool that protects your websites from hackers. You also get a free malware removal service that removes malware from your website automatically.
- SpamAssassin To Preven Email Spam: When you set up an email address on your domain name with HostGator, you don’t have to worry about getting a lot of spam. SpamAssassin will block all spam emails as they come in.
Cons
- Renewal Prices Are Higher Than Promotional Sign-Up Prices: This is an industry-wide practice where they lure you in with promotional prices and then jack up the price when you renew. Every web host does this.
- No Site Staging Tools: Even on the higher-priced plans, you don’t get website staging tools. These tools let you create a staging site that is a duplicate of your live site. This lets you test out changes on your site without breaking anything.
Our Verdict
HostGator is one of the most popular web hosts. They have been around for over a decade now and are trusted by thousands of website owners around the world. Their services are affordable and reliable.
They offer many WordPress-specific features on their plans that make them one of the best choices for WordPress.
Their friendly support team and beginner-friendly control panels also make HostGator one of the best web hosts for beginners.
If you still aren’t sure about HostGator, read my in-depth HostGator hosting review. It will clear all your doubts.
Recent Improvements & Updates
HostGator constantly improves its hosting services with additional features. HostGator has introduced several updates and improvements to its services and hosting products recently (last checked November 2024):
- Easier Customer Portal: They’ve redesigned their customer portal to make it easier for you to handle your account. Now, you can quickly change your contact details or how you want to handle your billing.
- Faster Website Loading: HostGator has teamed up with Cloudflare CDN, which means your website can load faster for visitors around the world. This is because Cloudflare has servers globally that keep a copy of your site, so it loads quickly no matter where someone is accessing it from.
- Website Builder: The Gator Website Builder from HostGator uses AI to assist users in creating websites, making the process simpler, especially for those with limited technical skills. This tool allows for easy setup of blogs or e-commerce stores as part of the site.
- User Interface and Experience: HostGator uses the popular cPanel for its control panel, known for its ease of use, making it a good choice for both beginners and experienced users. The user interface is intuitive, simplifying tasks like managing files, databases, and email accounts.
- Security Features: HostGator’s hosting services include various security features such as free SSL certificates, automatic backups, malware scanning and removal, and DDoS protection. These features enhance the security and reliability of websites hosted on their platform.
Reviewing HostGator: Our Methodology
When we review web hosts, our testing and evaluation are based on these criteria:
- Value for Money: What types of web hosting plans are on offer, and are they good value for money?
- User Friendliness: How user-friendly is the signup process, the onboarding, the dashboard? and so on.
- Customer Support: When we need help, how quickly can we get it, and is the support effective and helpful?
- Hosting Features: What unique features does the web host provide, and how do they stack up against competitors?
- Security: Are essential security measures like SSL certificates, DDoS protection, backup services, and malware/virus scans included?
- Speed and Uptime: Is the hosting service fast and reliable? What types of servers do they use, and how do they perform in tests?
For more details on our review process, click here.
