You have probably already seen a ton of ads about Hostgator review 2019. They are a really big web hosting provider that has been in business for over 17 years now. But generally, there are two schools of thought when it comes to Hostgator. One group of people think, its web hosting heaven and others think its web hosting hell that should be avoided at all costs. Well, in this article, I will show you the latest performance test, I will show you how good their support is and I will give you a walk through the backend of Hostgator. So, you could make a decision on how good or bad the Hostgator is for yourself based on actual data.
Hostgator Price
Let us take a look at the Hostgator pricing models and compare them to some other major web hosting providers.
If you use the links down below you will get a 60% discount applied automatically and the cheapest Hostgator plan will cost you just $2.75 per month.
If we comparing with a 3years plan with Bluehost would cost $106.00 and a 3years plan with GoDaddy would cost you $215.00. Keep in mind that these prices are for the first time only and the price does increase when its time to renew your plans. So, I can definitely say that HostGator is on the cheaper side of web hosting providers and they are not overcharging you for their services but obviously price is not everything and people often mention that you get what you pay for. So, I did some performance tests with Hostgator and let us see how well they actually perform?
Performance Test
If we talk about the performance then this is a major concern for many other webmasters. Obviously, you always want that your website should be performed as fast and stable as possible. So, In my review, I have done some performance tests.
I have used the default WordPress installer that comes with Hostgator and tested the speed on an empty WordPress website and the result well it was not all that good. My empty web site loaded in 3.2 seconds for reference your empty WordPress website should load anywhere between 0.7 and 1.5 seconds.
So, this is more than twice as slow as anything. I have tested before! So, does that mean that Hostgator is just a giant evil corporation that’s put on this earth to steal your money? Well, maybe not. The default WordPress installation from Hostgator comes pre-installed with a lot of extra features that I did not need and I was not planning on using.
So, while I was thinking that I am testing an empty WordPress website that was not the case these extra features that were pre-installed were slowing my website down and as a general rule of thumb with WordPress if you are not using something, remove it because it will slow your website down so I removed everything that I was not using.
I did some optimizations myself using Litespeed cache and then re-did the tests. Immediately much better results my website loaded in just 1.3 seconds which is completely acceptable. So, if you plan to use Hostgator yourself I recommend you do some optimizations as well if you do not plan to use all the features that come pre-installed in terms of stability.
Hostgator final call on performance
Hostgator performs ok. Expect your website to be down for around 1 hour every month other than that the response times are quite stable just a couple of spikes around the course of 30 days. So, the main take away from this is that Hostgator performance is not actually that bad sure they are not as stable as other web hosting providers but at the same time, they are much cheaper.
It’s as simple as that by the way real quick I want to mention that my article is supported by affiliate links that mean if you make any purchases through the button down below you will get a discount and I will make a commission. Of course, you are not forced to use those links but they really help out me as a blogger because I always try to make these articles informative, entertaining and they just take a lot of my time. So, if you want to support me even a little bit get yourself a discount and click the button down below.
Hostgator Control Panel
Let us get back to this Hostgator review! One of the biggest pluses of Hostgator is their control panel, its super up-to-date, the design is nice and easy to navigate, you get everything you need in one place. You can manage your hosting plans or domains, there a one-click WordPress installer that will allow you to create a website in less than five minutes. And the file manager is right there on the front page.
For more advanced controls you can access the cPanel and of course, you have all of these standard cPanel controls so you are not sacrificing any functionality for the design. If you are in need of support you can find that on the dashboard as well. Over all, I really liked the Hostgator control panel, its easy to navigate, it looks good and most importantly it does not sacrifice functionality for design. But I did run into some issues with it and I have to contact the support.
Hostgator Free Stuff
SSL Certificate:
So, I think this is the perfect time for me to talk about how their support handles issues. While trying to install my free SSL certificate. I could not get it to work on my dashboard it says it was active, but it was not redirecting me through HTTPS and my website was shown as not secure. Naturally, I have contacted the support team for this I have got connected to a support agent in less than 10 seconds and he quickly explained to me that the SSL was installed but not enabled and he could do it for me but I wanted to do it myself. So, he gave me the instructions and I managed to activate the SSL certificate myself the way you activate your free SSL certificate on Hostgator is actually kind of complicated most other web hosting providers offer this feature automatically or at least gives you a free one-click solution to use.
Free Domain Name and Email features:
Every Hostgator plan includes a free domain name for your website a free SSL certificate even though it takes a bit of work to set it up and a professional email box. Overall, for the money, you are saying you’re getting a pretty good deal since other providers usually charge extra for at least one of these features.
Conclusion
So based on all of this information that we just covered in this Hostgator review is Hostgator worth it? Well, I would say if you get a good deal on their plans goes for it. Black Friday sales, holiday sales, super discounts are the prime time to get Hostgator plans and especially now you can get a 62% discount if you click the button down below:
Hostgator is the jack of all trades but a master of none an all-rounder, good web hosting provider that offer good service in every single area they are just not trying to specialized in any single niche. So, if you dont exactly know what you need from your web hosting provider Hostgator is an excellent choice for you but if you think that Hostgator is not the right web hosting provider for you my other reviews of other web hosting providers at the end of this article.
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