HostGator Review 2021 – Is HostGator Reliable WordPress Hosting?

Updated: Sep 16, 2021 By: Dessign Team

HostGator is one of the oldest hosting companies around with over 8 millions domains and 850+ employees to provide you superior around-the-clock support. Founded in a dorm room at Florida Atlantic University by Brent Oxley, HostGator has grown into a leading provider of Shared, Managed WordPress, Reseller, VPS, and Dedicated web hosting.

In this review we will focus on their Managed WordPress hosting plan, as this is one of the more promising plans for any WordPress client. HostGator might not be as popular as Bluehost or SiteGround when it comes to managed WordPress hosting but with their new re design admin dashboard and better customer support 24/7 their performance is better now.

What Products does HostGator offers?

HostGator offers domain registration and domain transfer, the .com domain will start from $12.95/year but when you register for their WordPress managed hosting plan you will get your domain for free which is great to save some money for beginners.

Shared hosting plans are mostly for small personal account if you looking to start affordable blog site than HostGator share plan starts from $2.75/month with free domain and 1 website.

Managed WordPress hosting is probably the best choice for their hosting plans, as this is easy way to start your WordPress website for around $5.95/month with free domain name and also it comes with free migrations which is great when you want to transfer from another hosting.

Dedicated hosting is probably the most expensive plan HostGator offers with dedicated servers both for Linux or Windows. This plan is for high traffic sites, this would not be a choice for beginners who just looking to get their website up and running, the starting price is $89.98/month with 4 core and 8GB of ram.

VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting is perfect if you looking for something between managed WordPress hosting and dedicated hosting. If you have good traffic and around 50K monthly visitors this would be choice for you. Priced at affordable reasonable $19.95/month so if you want to develop games or heavy apps or email use this would fit your budget.

Reseller hosting plan is HostGator one of the most popular option for anyone looking to host the clients websites with white label so if you are in business of reselling website hosting this would be great option for you starting at $19.95/month.

HostGator WordPress Plans and Pricing

HostGator managed WordPress hosting plans and prices are simple you can start with Hatching plan for around $5.95/month with 100K monthly visits this should be great for beginners and new WordPress site or blog.

Try HostGator with 45-Day Money Back Guarantee

What we don't like about the plans is that you can only have 1 sites for the cheapest option, but then only 2 sites for second plan or 3 sites for business plan compared to other hosting providers you will get unlimited websites for business plan.

HostGator Business plan is for website with high traffic as this could be 500K monthly visits which is more than any new website will get. It also offers Sitelock fix which is great way to protect from viruses with daily scan it and remove it.

Pros and Cons of HostGator

As with any hosting company there will be pros and cons to their hosting plans and prices. Overall HostGator is great hosting with more pros than cons so you can test it for 45 days money back guaranteed.

Pros

Reliable and Strong Hosting: With 99.99% uptime and amazing customer support
45 Days Money Back Guarantee: HostGator offers 45 days money back guaranteed no question ask if you not 100% happy.
Great Security Features: Codeguard Daily Automatic Backups with Website Time Machine and full security 24/7
Free Website Migration: HostGator can transfer website files, databases, scripts, and one free domain registration transfer for free within 30 days.
Very User Friendly with great User Interface Dashboard: HostGator has one of the cleanest dashboard and cpanel we did quick review below so you can see how it looks and works.
Free SSL: Your hosting package includes a free SSL certificate that provides security for your website domains and subdomains

Cons

Support time: Sometimes the support is not as fast as one would like.
Upselling: To get the best deal with HostGator you will have to sign up for 36 months, also a lot of extra features will be extra charge.

HostGator Performance – Desktop & Mobile – Uptime at 99.99% and Load Speed at around 417ms Review

HostGator GTmetrix Page Speed Performance

We tested one of our websites hosted on HostGator with GTmetrix to see how fast it opens and what is the PageSpeed Score. So how fast does a HostGator website load? Our website loaded in 2.7 s with PageSpeed Score of A.

• PageSpeed Score Performance – A (96%)
• YSlow Score – B (86%)
• Fully Loaded Time – 2.7 seconds
• Total Page Size – 290KB
• Requests – 9
• Minify CSS – A (96%)
• Avoid bad requests – A (100)
• Leverage browser caching – B (88%)
• Optimize the order of styles and scripts – A (92%)
• Defer parsing of JavaScript – A (93%)
• Specify a cache validator – A (98%)
• Minify HTML – A (99%)
• Minify JavaScript – A (98%)

HostGator Website Speed Test 25 Locations Average 2.5 sec

We also tested Page Load Speed from 25 Locations around the world to see how fast it opens in different locations. The Page Load Results are by Website Speed Test it shows that the average first-time visit is around 2.8 sec and the average repeat visit is around 2.1 sec which is very fast around 2 sec.

• Minneapolis – First Visit 6.2 sec – Repeat Visit 417 ms
• New York – First Visit 3.8 sec – Repeat Visit 624 ms
• London – First Visit 4.6 sec – Repeat Visit 631 ms
• San Francisco – First Visit 802 ms – Repeat Visit 415 ms
• Miami – First Visit 1.0 sec – Repeat Visit 427 ms
• Hong Kong – First Visit 2.8 sec – Repeat Visit 1.5 sec
• Montreal – First Visit 885 ms – Repeat Visit 435 ms
• Frankfurt – First Visit 1.9 sec – Repeat Visit 638 ms

Google PageSpeed Insights Mobile Performance 90 Score

Last page speed we did was from Google PageSpeed Insights where our HostGator website score on a mobile device with a score of 98 % with an average of 1.8 s performance which is very fast in a top performance in green score 90-100 our site score top rank at 98.

• First Contentful Paint – 1.5 s
• First Meaningful Paint – 1.5 s
• Speed Index – 4.9 s
• First CPU Idle – 1.5 s
• Time to Interactive – 1.6 s
• Max Potential First Input Delay 60 ms

HostGator Support and Customer Service

HostGator has the most extensive support options such as Live chat, 24/7/365 Support toll free: 866-96GATOR. HostGator has Customer Portal, Support Portal, Video Tutorials, Network Status and Live Chat. Also one of the best features is Knowledge Based

HostGator Inside a Customer Dashboard Admin

Since you need to signup for HostGator to get a view of their dashboard we took a screenshots how it looks inside so you can see what you will have once you signup with HostGator hosting.

HostGator Dashboard will have on the left sidebar: Dashboard, Hosting, Marketplace, Domains, Billing, Support

Below you will have under Manage: SSL Management, CodeGuard Backups, SiteLock Security, Office 365 and Weebly Builder
Under Control Panel: Email Accounts, Webmail, Databases, File Manager, Install WordPress
Under Quick Links: Manage Domains, Transfer Domains, Add a Hosting Package, Billing History, Make a Payment, Manage Credit Cards, Request migration, and Contact Support

HostGator Control Panel Overview

HostGator Request migration Overview

HostGator FTP Dashboard Overview

How to Cancel HostGator Hosting Account?

If for some reason you need to cancel your hosting account with HostGator login into your dashboard go to Hosting – Billing – Cancel Package also here is a quick article how to cancel hostgator account

45-Day Money Back Guaranteed Refund

HostGator has one of the best refund policy of 45 days vs a regular 30 days from other hosting companies. To get the 45-day money-back guarantee for your shared, reseller, or VPS hosting, please cancel your account within the first 45 days of purchase. We cannot refund you until the cancellation request is complete.

Conclusion: Is HostGator Reliable WordPress hosting for your site?

Yes, HostGator is a best option for someone who is just starting out or a professional looking for great hosting solutions. One of the best option is that you can always upgrade or downgrade your hosting plan so when you start with a beginner plan you can always upgrade to more advanced or professional package.

Also HostGator has one of the best reseller hosting available so you can easily sign up for reseller plan and host your clients websites. HostGator also has a amazing affiliate and refer a friend program so if you refer a friend You'll get a $40 Visa Gift Card, your friend will get up to 60% off! which is a great deal.

HostGator Coupon Code and Discounts

Need HostGator promo discount code to get up to 63% off. Click here to visit our HostGator Coupon Code or use Dessign60 at checkout to get your discount.

HostGator Alternatives

If you decided after reading our extensive HostGator reviews that they are not for you, and you would like to try something else, we have few HostGator alternatives for you to consider.

One of the best HostGator alternatives is Bluehost as its the best for beginners WordPress hosting that is also recommended by WordPress.org as the best most affordable and best support 24/7 hosting for WordPress. When it comes to easy of use and 30 days money back guarantee, this is great choice for anyone.

If you looking for fully managed WordPress hosting alternative SiteGround should be on top of your list, for its 100% uptime, performance and security. SiteGround is also recommended by WordPress.org as the top choice for WordPress hosting.

If you looking for something more expensive WP Engine is the best fully managed WordPress hosting, it might not be for everyone because of its price but this is the best of the best when it comes to hosting any great website without technical knowledge.