HostGator Web Hosting Review: Pros and Cons

HostGator is a web hosting service that offers several different hosting options and additional options users typically need when they are setting up a website. The company’s extensive features that come with every plan make it a beginner-friendly web host—you can upgrade your hosting plan from a one-site shop to a an e-commerce plan as your business matures.

As with all services, there are benefits and disadvantages to signing up with HostGator. Given that the best deals are available for multi-year plans, you’ll want to make sure to research the pros and cons of the service before committing.

In this HostGator review, we’ve outlined the highlights below:

Pros

HostGator offers an affordable price and attractive introductory deals. With unlimited storage and unmetered bandwidth for all plans, and an uptime of 99.9%, HostGator’s plans are solid options, regardless of which tier you end up choosing.

Users who want to build a website easily without code will be able to use the company’s website builder, a tool that offers drag-and-drop functionality to easily build websites.

HostGator also provides essential features for free. You’ll receive a domain name for free for the first year. Plus, you’ll be getting an SSL certificate for free, an add-on that’s essential for any website and usually costs money.

Cons

While HostGator offers many services for free, there are also many add-on services offered at an extra cost. These may easily add up and should be considered when evaluating the overall cost of web hosting with HostGator. For example, the advanced tiers of the website builder, advanced security and automatic website backups all cost a monthly fee.

While HostGator does have the standard uptime offered by web hosting platforms, there are some competitors that promise better uptime (99.99% compared with 99.9%, which amounts to being guaranteed service for around an extra eight hours per year). Depending on the nature of your business, this difference could be worth considering.

Furthermore, while HostGator has plenty to offer Australian consumers, they don’t have any servers located in Australia. This is not a problem if you’re targetting an international customer base, but it you’re a local outfit seeking local customers, then it is best to opt for a web hosting provider with server locations closer to Australia.

HostGator Web Hosting Services

As far as hosting options, HostGator offers many to choose from including VPS hosting, cloud hosting and dedicated hosting. Here’s a breakdown of the hosting options available and what each one is best suited for.

Types of hosting available for Australian businesses include:

• Shared hosting: Shared hosting means that you are using space on a server that is also used by other websites, and is the most popular plan for websites.
• Cloud hosting: With cloud hosting, you can use the resources of multiple servers instead of using one fixed to a single location.
• WordPress hosting: This type of hosting is optimised to use WordPress sites in the easiest and fastest way.
• VPS hosting: This type of hosting is best suited for website owners who want more flexibility in software installations and more freedom to send emails and stream media.
• Dedicated hosting: The most powerful type of hosting, this choice is suited to meet the requirements of large businesses. Dedicated hosting is best for businesses that have heavy traffic or a very popular site.
• Reseller hosting: This type of hosting is suited for website owners who want to sell hosting services for profit. This plan is suited for users who want to start their own web hosting company and white label HostGator’s products.

Reliability and Uptime

HostGator’s uptime is 99.9%, which is standard for web hosting businesses. This means that HostGator guarantees that service is available 99.9% of the time, which equates to around 8.76 hours of downtime per year. It is rare for web hosting services to guarantee a higher uptime (after all, no one can truly guarantee available service 100% of the time).

However, some competitors, including Bluehost, ScalaHosting and Hostwinds, do guarantee 99.99% uptime, and that extra digit reduces the overall downtime per year to 52.56 minutes.

Speed and Performance

Overall, HostGator’s speed and performance are rated highly among users. However, some users did complain about slow load times on review sites, such as ProductReview.

Security

HostGator has security protection from DDoS attacks. HostGator’s additional server security and precautions are confidential. However, the security is set up to enable network-level flood protection.

For added security to individual websites, HostGator offers the feature SiteLock Security for $US5.99 ($9.06 AUD) per month. This feature scans your website for malware daily, automatically removes malware from your website and defends against malicious attacks.

Storage and Bandwidth

HostGator comes with unlimited storage and unmetered bandwidth for all plans. For automated website backups, HostGator offers an add-on feature for $US4 ($6.05 AUD) per month, billed annually at $US47.95 ($72.51 AUD). The first year’s special promotion is $US2 per month ($3.02 AUD), billed annually at $US23.95 ($36.22).

Customer Support

HostGator offers 24/7 live chat and email support to all customers. When Forbes Advisor Australia connected with a live agent through chat, we were able to speak with someone within five minutes, and the agent was able to answer our queries.

HostGator offers three plans for shared web hosting, all with competitive pricing. The company also provides introductory offers where your first contract can be as low as $US2.75 ($4.16 AUD) per month. After the terms of your offer are finished, the service goes back up to the standard pricing. The section below highlights some of the main distinctions between these plans.

HostGator Tiered Features and Pricing

Hatchling Plan

The Hatchling plan offers a single website, a domain and SSL certificate, unmetered bandwidth and WordPress installs as well as WordPress/cPanel website transfers.

Hatchling plan costs after introductory offer:

• $US11.95 ($18.07 AUD) per month for the month-by-month plan
• $US9.99 ($15.11 AUD) per month for the annual plan (one payment of US$119.88, or $181.28 AUD)
• $US7.99 ($12.08 AUD) per month for the three-year plan (one payment of US$287.64, or $434.96 AUD)

Baby Plan

The Baby plan is very similar to the Hatchling plan, but comes with an ability to make unlimited websites, as opposed to only one. It also includes a $US500 Google Ads spend match credit and a $US100 Microsoft Advertising credit. If you plan to spend these credits regardless or know in advance you need more than one website, the small price increase for this plan may be worth it.

Here’s how the costs for this plan break down by contract length for Australian consumers:

Baby plan cost after introductory offer:

• $US12.95 ($19.58 AUD) per month for month-by-month plan
• $US14.99 ($22.67 AUD) per month for the annual plan (one payment of US$179.88, or $272.01 AUD)
• $US12.99 ($19.64 AUD) per month for the three-year plan (one payment of US$467.64, or $707.15 AUD)

E-commerce Plan

Formerly called the Business Plan, the e-commerce plan includes the same features and credits included in the Baby plan plus a free upgrade to Positive SSL, a dedicated IP and SEO tools. The Positive SSL upgrade secures a domain and subdomain and is backed by a $10,000 warranty. This may be a good option for Australian businesses targetting the US market.

Here’s how the costs for this plan break down by contract length.

Business plan cost after introductory offer:

• $US17.95 ($27.14 AUD) per month for the month-by-month plan
• $US18.99 ($28.72 AUD) per month for the annual plan (one payment of US$227.88, or $344.59 AUD)
• $US16.99 ($25.69 AUD) per month for the three-year plan (one payment of US$611.64, or $924.91 AUD)

It’s worth noting that while the introductory offer is a compelling deal, the prices jump when returning to normal rates. HostGator also does not have servers in Australia, but has a number in the US.

This may not be a problem if you’re targetting the US market and load speeds will be high, but you may prefer a local server location if you’re squarely focused on the Australian market.

HostGator makes it easy to buy a domain name and use that same name for your account. You can search for available domain names here, and sign up for a hosting plan once you find one that suits for business. Then, all of your account needs can be managed under one dashboard. HostGator offers your domain name for free for the first year.

HostGator also has domain locking, which will prevent unauthorised transfers of your domain name. You will also be able to protect your personal information from being publicly available on the WHOIS database for a small fee. Additionally, you can also choose to auto-enroll your domain, so you never have to worry about forgetting to renew it and risk losing it.

HostGator offers a website builder that makes it easy for Australians to set up and customise a website with no knowledge of code. The website builder uses drag-and-drop functionalities and includes features such as a blog, shopping cart and payment gateway, which make it simple to set up a professional-looking website in no time.

Here’s how the costs break down for the website builder:

• Express Start: $US9.98 per month ($15.09 AUD)
• Express Site: $US12.98 per month ($19.63 AUD)
• Express Store: $US24.98 per month ($37.77 AUD)

The Basic plan comes with most of the features you would need to build a basic website, including more than 100 mobile-friendly templates, pre-built sections and pages, SEO tools, social media links and PayPal integration. However, the main limitation is in the page count as you cannot add more than six pages to your website for this plan. The paid plans, on the other hand, do not limit the pages you can build.

The Professional plan also comes with a few more features including Google Analytics Integration and revision history for when you need to look back at past drafts of your work. The Business plan comes with an e-commerce shopping cart, inventory management, multiple payment processors, coupon codes and Facebook integration.

The best plan will depend on your needs. For basic websites such as portfolios or landing pages hosted on their own web page, the Basic free plan is plenty. Those who are looking to build more complicated websites can consider HostGator’s website builder paid plans, or may also want to consider using an open source tool such as WordPress (and forgoing the drag-and-drop functionalities), or competitors such as Squarespace or Wix.

Related: Wix Vs. Squarespace (2024 Comparison)

Additionally, you can read more about how to find the best website builders in our guide. And if cost is an issue, check out our overview of the best free website builders for Aussie businesses.

All told, HostGator provides a solid balance of pricing, features and usability covered in this comprehensive HostGator review. The fact that the plans come standard with so many tools for hosting and managing your personal website makes it a good one-stop shop for beginners. You won’t have to worry about the additional cost of essential services such as an SSL certificate. HostGator’s helpful customer support also helps it stand apart from its competitors. However, as mentioned above, there are no servers located in Australia.

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