Why is HostGator So Popular?

Do you want to know why HostGator is so popular? There are a couple of reasons for their popularity. One reason is that they have affordable prices, which makes them an attractive option for many people. The other reason is that they’ve always had excellent marketing, with ads in all the right places. Maybe this review has brought you here!

If you’re looking for a web hosting company and HostGator sounds like the right fit, read on!

History of HastGator

HostGator was founded in October 2002 in Florida. So, they are around 20 years old (at the time of writing). They know the hosting game really well.

But, in 2012, HostGator was sold to EIG, which is infamous for making good hosting companies “bad”.

After 3 years, HostGator launched WordPress-specific plans in an effort to compete with the managed WordPress hosts.

Today, HostGator claims to have over a million sites and nearly a million customers using its service.

Now, let us look at their hosting plans.

HostGator Hosting Plans

Here are some of the hosting services offered by HostGator:

• Shared Hosting
• WordPress Hosting
• Cloud Hosting
• Reseller Hosting
• VPS Hosting
• Dedicated Hosting

Now, let us look at all of these services one by one.

Shared Hosting

This is the most popular type of hosting used by their customers. They provide 3 types of shared hosting:

• Linux SHared Hosting
• Windows Shared Hosting
• Open Source Web Hosting

Linux Shared Hosting

This is the most common type of shared hosting due to the fact that this is the cheapest of the bunch.

Here are the Linux shared hosting plans:

Windows Shared Hosting

Windows shared hosting is suitable for anyone who wants to host an ASP.NET application for cheap.

Here are the Windows Shared Hosting plans:

Open Source Web Hosting

Open Source hosting has all of the open source softwares (WordPress, MediaWiki, Magento etc.) in an easy to use one-click install click.

Here are the plans:

WordPress Hosting

WordPress hosting was launched by HostGator back in 2015 in an effort to compete with the managed WordPress hosts. This move singlehandedly made HostGator extremely popular among other web hosts.

Here are the plans of WordPress Hosting:

Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting is suitable for websites which get heavy traffic as the resources are virtually dedicated and it is also highly scalable. So, if there is a spike in traffic, the server will scale up and assign more resource to your site so that the site doesn’t go down.

Here are the cloud hosting plans:

Reseller Hosting

You can also resell HostGator’s services and earn quite a bit of money for yourself. Here are the two types of reseller hosting provided by HostGator:

• Linux Reseller Hosting
• Windows Reseller Hosting

Now, let us look at them one by one.

Linux Reseller Hosting

Linux reseller hosting is best for anyone who is looking out to start reselling for a low price.

Here are the plans for Linux reseller hosting:

Windows Reseller Hosting

Windows reseller hosting is perfect for anyone who wants to provide windows-based hosting to customers.

Here are the plans:

ALSO READ – Hostinger WordPress Hosting Review

VPS Hosting

VPS hosting is suitable for high-traffic sites. The main difference between cloud hosting and VPS hosting is that VPS hosting provides root access to your server whereas cloud hosting does not. So, if you need root access to your server, VPS hosting is the way to go.

HostGator provides two types of VPS hosting:

• Unmanaged
• Managed

Unmanaged VPS Hosting

In unmanaged VPS hosting, you are responsible for keeping your server updated and also for it’s security. If you break your server, you have to fix it. HostGator WON’T help you out with anything related to server administration, security etc.

Here are the plans:

Managed VPS Hosting

Managed VPS hosting is perfect for anyone who wants to have dedicated resources for their site but don’t want to have any headache of server management. Keep in mind that you will be paying a significant premium.

Here are the plans:

Dedicated Server

A dedicated server is perfect for anyone who wants dedicated resources for their site. Their resources won’t be shared with anyone. Also, the user will have root access to their server.

Here are the different types of dedicated servers available for you:

• Linux dedicated server
• Managed dedicated server
• Windows dedicated server

Now, let’s go through all of them one by one.

Linux Dedicated server

The Linux dedicated server is perfect for anyone who wants dedicated, non-shared resources and root access. Here are the plans:

Managed Dedicated server

Managed Dedicated servers are similar to dedicated servers but it relieves you from the headache of managing the servers. But, they are significantly cheaper than the unmanaged plans.

Here are the plans:

Windows Dedicated Server

Windows Dedicated hosting is perfect for anyone who wants to run windows applications and have access to dedicated resources and also admin (root) access.

Here are the plans:

These were all of the plans and their features. Now, let us look at their performance.

HostGator Performance

Cost is only one of the factors which helps to decide about purchasing a product. Just like that, performance is extremely important to decide if HostGator is good for you. So, I have tested a test site hosted on HostGator’s shared hosting (as this is the most common type of hosting purchased by consumers).

As you can see, the TTFB is on the higher side (which is not uncommon for budget shared hosting).

As you can see, the response time never increases above 300ms even from India! This is pretty impressive considering the price.

HostGator Uptime

Uptime is one of the major factors for deciding on a hosting provider. HostGator guarantees 99.9% uptime, which is a lot less compared to the industry standard (99.99%). Here, I have checked the uptime of some of the popular hosting providers for the last 2 years.

As you can see from the table above, HostGator’s uptime clocks in at 99.91% (in the year 2020) which is more than their promised uptime but I have seen better hosting providers which provide better uptimes.

Verdict

Would I recommend HostGator? To be frank, I won’t just due to their subpar performance and uptime and also due to their pricing (anything less than 4 years will cost you a lot per month).

Also, they are under EIG, a company notorious for having pretty bad hosting services and customer support.

They are only popular due to their insane marketing.

Here are some of the great HostGator alternatives – WordPress Hosting Comparison