HostGator Review
HostGator (HostGator.com) has become one of the better known web hosts in the industry by being themselves. Though nothing they do is completely spectacular or unbelievable, they do what they should do. That is, HostGator actually answers their phones, replies to their emails, responds to live chat requests, doesn’t rip you off, and provides quality hosting. It’s actually quite sad that most hosts can’t seem to get these things right, but it’s great for HostGator as they’ve banked on it and it’s translated into success.
At first glance, HostGator is not too impressive. They have a fairly generic web site, a logo with a fairly lame slogan - “we eat up the competition” (the alligator in the logo is eating the “H”) (sorry HostGator), ordinary copy on their text, an apparent lack of updates on their site, a pretty standard ModernBill setup, cPanel, and basically everything an average web host has.
However, that’s the beauty of HostGator. They don’t have too many bells and whistles, marketing ploys, or anything of the sort. What you see is what you get and it’s that simple. HostGator’s terms of service is pretty standard, as is their order process. Marketing isn’t shoved down your throat at every page and billing is simple. The order process takes about 5 minutes and HostGator accepts both credit cards and PayPal (which is always nice), as well as debit cards.
HostGator Support
I found it interesting how HostGator accepts quite a few forms of payments, so I contact them, and be a little, different. I requested a live chat, and it went like this I was George, pretending to be someone whose English wasn’t the best.
Chat Information Please wait for a HostGator operator to respond.
Chat Information Welcome to HostGator! You are now chatting with ‘Bueford’
Bueford: Welcome to HostGator, how may I assist you?
George: Hi Bueford!
George: Hi Bueford!
George: I have a question regarding your order process - the process at which you order.
George: Would you be willing to assist me with answering these questions regarding the ordering process at HostGator.com?
Chat Information Please wait while I transfer the chat to ‘Kafel’.
Chat Information Welcome to HostGator! You are now chatting with ‘Kafel’
George: Hello?
Kafel: sure, go ahead
George: Why was I transferred from Bueford?
George: Never the matter. My question is this.
Kafel: he is tied up with another chat and didn’t want to keep you holding
George: Oh, very well then! tell Bueford I appreciate his kindness.
George: My question is this. I live in another country and I am unable to pay with a credit card or with PayPal, as my country does not support PayPal.
Kafel: I will do
George: Do I have the ability to “DHL 5-7 Day International Express” HostGator.com a check for the amount of the total of my order?
Kafel: One moment please…
George: That is fine. I will wait one moment. You’re welcome.
George: Excuse my English, please. English is not the principal language of the country that I live in.
Kafel: yes, you could send a bank check to us and once we receive it we will apply it to your account
Kafel: You could call me on the phone if you’d like
Kafel: and by the way your English is excellent
George: That is okay, Kafel. I do not have a telephone that calls international numbers.
George: That sounds very good, Kaefel! Thank you very much for your help in assistance with helping and assisting me with your order process at HostGator.com.
George: I will be honored and excited to be hosted by such a company as HostGator.com.
Kafel: Oh ok.. I thought you were calling from within the US
Kafel: Thanks for your kind word. Looking forward to assisting you in the future
George: Have a wonderful day, Kafel! Many wishes to you and your family!
They handled the somewhat different situation quite well and answered the question (which was not a standard process, apparently). It’s nice to see companies that don’t always go by the book and offer to help you, without you having to constantly request their help. I later spoke to Kafel as Douglas and told him who I was and that he did a very good job in handling the situation.
HostGator’s phone support was just as good, and when I asked the three standard questions (Do you support mod_rewrite, mod_security, and are your servers Windows or Linux (Linux)) they were answered promptly. I sent those three questions, along with “Do you support PHP5 and Ruby on Rails?” at 5:44 PM on a Monday, and got a response about 10 minutes later that said:
“We support PHP4.4 We support mod_rewrite Our servers on Linux this on our shared server but if you take dedicated server then we installed php5 and mod_security on your server.”
It wasn’t worded too well, but it did answer most of the questions (Ruby on Rails was completely ignored).
HostGator offers some other services such as web design, merchant services, domain registration, SSL certificates (which at $75 each, are overpriced), and script installation. They outline all of their upgrades quite clearly in the Addons section of the Support Center, which is always nice.
The actual HostGator control panel is cPanel. There is absolutely nothing that I can tell that is different than any other standard installation of cPanel. It has the standard mail and database features. Speed was good. Everything worked fine and installation of the scripts I tried worked just fine.
Pros: Good support, easy to contact, competitive pricing, plenty of features with cPanel, straight forward
Cons: Not too many free addons or extra features, no Web 2.0 technology support
Bottomline: HostGator is a solid hosting company that provides excellent support and competitive pricing without too many frills or marketing ploys.
Rating: 
–Thanks to Douglas Hanna for this review!
December 13th, 2007
I have been with HostGator since 17 January 2007. They have been one of the most reliable web hosting companies I have ever hosted with.
HostGator provides excellent web hosting, sensibly priced. But why take my word for it? Head over to my website and pick up a coupon code to give you one month of hosting on their Baby Croc account for 1 cent, or use the coupon to get $9.94 off any other plan. Absolutely no strings attached!
December 26th, 2007
Looking forward to get an host at hostgator.
January 24th, 2008
[...] Hostgator (review) and DreamHost (review) are among two of the most popular shared web hosting companies. [...]
January 30th, 2008
I have not used hostgator but really reading reviews suggests that it is a great host provider. How easy is it to set up and can we buy domains from other providers and then change DNS to hostgator.
January 31st, 2008
[...] HostGator is a top notch host. They provide quality support and have a good reputation as a quality hosting [...]
February 3rd, 2008
Worst support team ever on the planet. Monkeys could assist you better that those idiots. Stay away from them total ripoff.
February 4th, 2008
Nick = Shill
http://www.google.com/search?q=define:+shill
February 12th, 2008
[...] HostGator (review) is a cPanel shared, reseller, and dedicated host based in Houston [...]
February 18th, 2008
[...] web hosts. If you’re in this difficult position and especially if you are considering HostGator, don’t flip a coin. Check out some host vs host [...]
February 21st, 2008
All I have to say is this: HOSTNINE SUCKS!!!
Really. They did server upgrades one day and wiped out several of my blog’s MySQL database. Without a word of apology, they blamed it on hackers. How bloody convenient!
When I was with HostGator, all I had to tolerate was a bit of downtime. But never technical errors as severe as getting my entire blog wiped out.
HOSTNINE sucks! Heed my warning.
March 4th, 2008
well..I am sure the chat operator is able to monitor these information from you:
1) website you link from;
2) country you are location;
3) browser’s version;
4) history chat;
:)
March 10th, 2008
HostGator is good for php, and seems to have reasonable support. I wouldn’t recommend them for Ruby on Rails, however, as they only support fcgi (meaning you have to use cgi, which means you app restarts with each request which makes it pretty slow).
Other than that all right.
March 14th, 2008
Hostgator Sales sucks !! Looking to become a customer, I called in after being optimistic even after reading a lot of negative reviews on Hostgator. The guy on line was chatting with someone else on his computer and did not care 2 hoots about me wanting to be their customer !! He even said you can hang up and did not care that I was a potential new customer. The guys name was harold.
So I did hang up.
Hostgator - NEVER again.
14 Mar 2008
March 19th, 2008
horrible, terrible, stupid, worst in response, cannot host site without changing NS, so if you want to host site with Just MX or A record, they are not a choice for you. they are horrible. and no good. support didnt respond back for 5 days [on 5 days we had to remind them to send email].
very bad host, dont even think to host here.
if any one wants reference i can give you.
April 9th, 2008
I’ve been with them for the past 3 years, and I’ve never had any problems. I’ve contacted support twice, and each time they came back promptly. They’re cheap, and they upgrade your existing account with the new goodies they offer (more bandwith, storage space, RoR, ssh access…)
You can complain all you want about not being able to do certain things (and believe me, they allow a lot more than most other hosts), but you got to keep in mind they only charge 5$ a month for an enormous amount of bandwith, storage and features.
If your site’s too big for hostgator, then you’re certainly better off on dedicated (virtual or metal), or with a scaling app host (google’s app engine or amazon’s ec2/s3 for example.)
To reiterate: dirt-cheap, rock-solid, feature-rich.
April 16th, 2008
After reading this review of HostGator, I might go ahead and sign up. I hate the host I’m currently with, which is Globat. They really suck but I won’t get into the details. For the past few days I’ve been desperately looking for a new host, I’ll try this one out because I’ve heard more positive comments than negative.
April 19th, 2008
i’m looking for a hosting provider that can give big hosting size in server and bandwith. but what rikin said is make me worried, we cannot change NS? because some of my domains are registered on another domain provider. does any one have detailed features for hostgator, espescially for domain management. thanks
April 20th, 2008
I just joined them last month. Still no problem until now. I never need to contact support yet. Their features is so so, you get what you paid. Cpanel version still 10, so i recommend NOT to use it’s Fantastico for instant installation. My current concern is the same as you guys, we cannot change NS.
April 20th, 2008
Rikin, Mario, and RS,
I asked about changing “A” records last year on the HostGator Forums and was told that you can create an “A” record pointing to your account IP, assuming of course, that you control your own DNS. I have never tried doing this on HostGator but cannot imagine why they would not allow it.
RS, I just checked with someone who has a HostGator Reseller account and the cPanel version is 11.18.3.
April 28th, 2008
Hostgator Service is lousy. I applied for hosting and paid by credit card. After four days I was still not hosted and I asked a refund. It will now take them a week or more to refund me although they recieved the money immediately. They can do with better staff that can do the job.
May 6th, 2008
[...] HostGator has been one of the few hosts to receive a perfect rating of 5/5 stars in our review of their shared hosting service [...]
June 19th, 2008
Hi,
I am hosted on hostgator with domain name vid3xx.com. The service of hostgator is prefect with 100% uptime. Previously I was hosted on yfchost.com; its a free host. The host was ok but there was a downtime like 5 to 10 hours in 30 days and sometimes it affected me very badly. I am with hostgator and I am happy with them. Hostgator has 100% support and uptime.
August 27th, 2008
I’ve been with Hostgator for about 5 years total - I’ve had an overall great experience.
I’ve been hosted on the same server for the last 4 years, have possibly had 5 trouble tickets due to server/network problems over that time and support is generally at least adequate (usually good to great), but it’s evened out substantially since they’ve updated their ticket system.
I don’t assume that Hosgator will work for everybody, but I’ve been running 15+ websites using a reseller account for years without any major problems, and support tickets usually get responded to within a couple of hours, if not sooner.
Well worth the money, in my opinion.
September 10th, 2008
I am using hostgator now.. I want to say i don’t have any problem until now and it is 100% uptime
September 11th, 2008
There is not date for this thread, not date for answers. When a page reviews a service, the date is absolutely required. Maybe the thread is 10 years old and the service has changed to be better or worst…
September 11th, 2008
a reviewer,
I checked and this review was written circa January 2006. I think it’s important to have the date appear too so I added the comment date code. When we uploaded all reviews and content from static pages to the new CMS, we didn’t input the original dates because of the time it would have taken. That said, I think you can get a general sense of when the review was written by the reviewer’s question to HostGator Support: “Do you support PHP5 and Ruby on Rails?”
September 29th, 2008
I have been using hostgator for 3 months now and have not recieved any complaints with their services. The support team has been good helping me out whenever I had a problem. Although I never used the phone to contact, the sales and support executive on the chat through internet were replying my queries. And I quite like their ticketing system. Its great
October 5th, 2008
I’m using Hostgator for a month now and found their services absolutely amazing. Not in terms of extra features (they don’t give free advertisement credits too) but in terms of support (support is really great), service, speed, all the basic things you want from a hosting company.
October 6th, 2008
I’ve been with hostgator for about 5 months now and they are pretty great actually. There are a few times where the live chat wasn’t so fast, but at the same time they did manage to answer my questions.
There are some issues I may have had which was resolved immediately. I’ve never had any serious issues..
I’m not really worried about losing my sites because they are all backed up regularly -.-” Which should be the first instinct of anyone who runs a busy website.
October 21st, 2008
A few days ago I contacted Hostgator support for a general enquiry.
I received a support’s email reply within 10 minutes. My enquiry proceeded into a communication involving several emails. All of these support emails came within 1 hour.
That was amazing, and better than the usually very good support response I’ve had with them in the 2 years using them. I find it pretty funny that a few people have 1 bad experience with 1 support member and then whine and rant that the whole organization is flawed.
I’ll bet that these ‘complainers’ are probably at fault in not communicating their problem decently with ’support’ and this is probably due to a typical poor communication they have contacting any other support too.
October 31st, 2008
I love hostgator!!
November 1st, 2008
I like hostgator! :)
November 12th, 2008
I’m a complainer, but only of late and, trust me, I communicate the problems I’m having in a clear, concise way.
The problem comes with the tech acting like they know what they’re doing and then proving they don’t by taking the customer around & around in circles until they either get dizzy and leave or get mad and blow up.
I use to love everything about HostGator and I still love their product. Unfortunately their tech support has become so hit and miss that I dread having to enter the system anymore.
November 19th, 2008
I had horrible luck with their affiliate program. We weren’t credited with a single referral because of their ‘last cookie’ policy. We sent several clients to them via their affil program and all the clients promptly signed up and sent us back ftp info so we could begin transferring their sites.
Not one credited sale. Stay away from this affiliate program… we sure will be.
November 26th, 2008
wow
now i will try hostgator
December 1st, 2008
I have been with HostGator for 4 hours and I have been blessed to have. They are by hare the most amazing companies out there. They now have Ruby on Rails support! :D Also, their new cPanel is amazing and gives you some well need features and data right there on the main page you can’t get with other hosts! I would recommend HostGator to anybody. Although their Dedicated servers are over priced, their shared hosting accounts are fast and they are setup within 20 minutes! They are dirt cheap too! If they only had Virtual Private Servers (VPS)….
December 31st, 2008
i have been with HostGator for 2 hours and i have had 100% uptime. I have had no problems for 2 hours and I would highly recommend to anyone to use them, as i have had no problems nor my customers for 2 hours. i have no customers but if i did they too would have no problems for the last 2 hours.
use them. do it now. i love you hostgator.
February 13th, 2009
So far, so good.
My only concern is the low prices. Can they add enough bandwidth and servers fast enough to keep up with the demand?
Unlimited space and bandwidth for less than $10. Seems too good to be true.
March 2nd, 2009
I have had many technical issues that support techs could not fix. I have been disconnected too many times to count and the only time I have ever been satisfied is when I threatened to cancel my account. I would strongly urge people to not use this hosting site!
March 4th, 2009
I have a dedicated server with Host Gator for about 2 weeks now. No problems whatsoever, speed is good, their support seems good so far and the price is fair.
I would recommend them.
March 28th, 2009
Hi Douglas!
Do you use mod_rewrite and .htaccess to cloak your affiliate links?
I am having a hard time figuring out how to hide my affiliate links and I would like to know how you did it?
Can you point me to a “How-To” or a tutorial or anything you used to make yours work?
Thanks!
Billie G.
March 28th, 2009
Hi Billie, I am trying to get a handle on this too and here is what I have found so far that has been helpful:
http://www.reaper-x.com/2007/09/08/hiding-affiliate-links-using-htaccess/
April 21st, 2009
I really love HostGator but their price is a little high for me. Now i am using Godaddy.
April 24th, 2009
I had no problems with HostGator until recently. I had a dedicated elite server for my sites and they offered me a deal for more bandwidth. They gave me an extra TB of bandwidth for $100/mo. My total was $379/mo.
Recently, my sites have grown and HostGator tells me they can’t honor their deal anymore as their bandwidth bill has gone up. Not only did they take the extra bandwidth away, they charged me $0.50/GB over 2.5 TB! I was under the planned 3.5 TB THEY AGREED UPON and they took back the deal. Keep in mind, I’ve had that deal for over a year.
They ended up stealing $250 from me. I cancelled immediately and found a host that won’t screw me over. Don’t trust these guys, they steal from loyal customers. I was with them for a couple years and they pulled this crap? TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE!
April 28th, 2009
I’m with Verio right now, and they have not been able to resolve my emails getting blocked by sbcglobal and simpatico.ca after two weeks of complaining. I had the same issue with AOL last year and after a week of messages to tech support, the problem finally got resolved, but not this time. There must be 1000s of hosting companies now and I finally narrowed it down to 5 candidates. Hostgator seems too good to be true with “unlimited” bandwith.
So how has your email experience been using Hostgator’s SMTP server. Do your emails get through?
April 28th, 2009
Bob, we have a HostGator account where I work and I don’t recall ever having any problems with email delivery, although we don’t use that feature intensely. I have had experienced email deliver problems with other accounts. My problems are usually due to the host or even the ISP blacklisting an IP address due to someone on the server/network spamming.
April 28th, 2009
I think Hostgator does something different with their outgoing mail server to make it more reliable (better deliverability), but I can’t remember what it is that I read. Something like they switch up the IPs or something — I can’t remember.
I don’t send a lot of emails, but on one of my sites (using Hostgator), I probably send out 300+ emails/week — hotmail.com, live.com, gmail.com, yahoo.com, and even a few AOLs — I’ve only had one issue in the last few years, and it appears as though it was a temporary fluke. I don’t think I have any @rr.com or @sbcglobal.net that I regularly send to right now, though.
Hostgator’s great, but I’ve been on the same server for years… I have a reseller account, so I can’t vouch for the individual packages… but it’s a good company, overall. Use one of their coupons & get the first month for a penny, or some other coupon — they’re out there, or maybe at the top of the page.
I think that throwing the ‘unlimited’ badge on their package really cheapens what they’re offering, and makes it look suspect — If I hadn’t used them before, and I read ‘unlimited’ on the package, I would be skeptical, too.
April 29th, 2009
I’ve never seen so many technically misguided responses anywhere. To everyone, HostGator is great. I’ve been with them for a year and a half. You can’t go wrong. Plain and simple.
May 24th, 2009
We’ve been with them for over 2years now. Haven’t had any serious problems with them. On occasions, we would get an email from them without any content in the email. But other than that, its been good.
June 9th, 2009
Yup! Hostgator is very good. I tried various hosting companies, and I think HostGator is very good!
June 20th, 2009
Looking forward to trying it out!
June 24th, 2009
1. servers are horrible.
2. support is even more horrible.
3. they made a mistake and they apologized about it after i demanded apology 5 times.
4. Support persons just ignore every message of clients and respond standard copy paste messages.
Just horrible no other word for it
Nik
July 1st, 2009
Nik, can you give us more details, especially as regards your remarks about the servers? What specifically makes them “horrible?”