You’re probably familiar with the name of HostGator, but do you really know what they have to offer? And is HostGator the right choice for your website? The platform offers website hosting and building in one sleek package. The website-building platform of HostGator is known as Gator. It is a budget-friendly platform, packed with all the necessary tools and features that are required to build and run a website.
Even though HostGator is mostly famous for its domain and hosting services, its website builder is no joke either and is just as efficient and reliable. In this HostGator review, we will walk through and explain the features and tools Gator has to offer all the while giving you an overview of its hosting services.
HostGator Review: At a Glance
| HostGator Review | |
| Web Builder Price | Starts from $4.95 per month |
| Hosting price Price | Starts from $2.75% per month |
| Drag-and-Drop Interface | Yes |
| Social Media Integration | Yes |
| Email Tools | Yes |
| Inventory Management | Yes |
| SSL Certificate | Yes |
| API | Yes |
| Uptime | 99.99% |
| Hosting Types | Shared, WordPress, VPS, Dedicated, Cloud, Reseller |
| Server Location | US |
| Customer Support | 24/7 live chat and phone |
| Free Perks | Free domain name, free SSL |
| Refund Policy | 30 days |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered |
Gator is an easy-to-use, beginner-friendly website builder. The drag-and-drop editor allows users to build a website without hassle. Gator offers users two editor options namely, Traditional and Express. The Traditional editor offers users a list of templates from which they can choose the appropriate one and start editing. Whereas the express editor further simplifies the process by building a custom template automatically based on the users’ website category.
Gator is not only user-friendly but also pocket friendly. The website builder is quite affordable and is light on the wallet. It is ideal for those who are on a tight budget and are looking for a website builder that is cheap but efficient. Plus, Gator also offers social media integrations, email tools, inventory management, SSL certificate, and API.
When it comes to hosting HostGator is a company that provides affordable hosting services. They help people to make their own websites. HostGator has different hosting plans with advanced features and a free website builder. They provide 24/7 customer support via live chat, phone or video tutorials. If you want to create a website, then HostGator is worth considering.
HostGator Review: Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
| Easy to use drag-and-drop editor | Design flexibility and creative freedom is limited |
| Unmetered bandwidth on shared hosting plans | Renewal prices are high |
| Fast performance | Doesn’t offer appointment booking feature on low price plans |
| Introductory prices are excellent | Is not suitable for building complex sites |
| Efficient email marketing tools | Limited configuration options for VPS/ dedicated servers |
| Unlimited storage on shared hosting plans | Not every plan supports window |
| Top-notch social media integration |
HostGator Review: Web Hosting Services
Regarding hosting types, HostGator provides a wide range of options to consider. These include VPS hosting, Cloud hosting, and dedicated hosting. Let’s delve into the available hosting options and their respective strengths for different purposes.
HostGator Review: Types of Hosting Available
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is the most popular hosting plan where you can utilize shared server space with other websites.
Cloud Hosting
Instead of being limited to a single location with fixed resources, Cloud hosting offers the flexibility to utilize resources from multiple servers
Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting is the most powerful hosting. It is specially designed to meet the needs of large businesses. It is best for businesses with high website traffic or extremely popular websites.
WordPress Hosting
This hosting type is specially designed and optimized to ensure WordPress’s easiest and fastest utilization.
VPS Hosting
VPS hosting type is ideal for website owners looking to enhance flexibility in software installations, along with greater freedom for email communication and media streaming.
Reseller Hosting
Reseller hosting type is specially designed for website owners looking to venture into the profitable business of selling hosting services. It is well-suited for individuals interested in starting their own website hosting company and leveraging HostGator products under their their own branding (white label).
HostGator Review: Features
Let’s take a closer look at some of HostGator’s advanced features:
HostGator Review: Security
HostGator offers powerful security actions against DDoS attacks. The security system is designed to safeguard against network-level flood attacks. To enhance security at website level, HostGator offers an exclusive feature called SiteLock Security, available at a monthly cost of $5.99. This amazing feature scans your website daily to detect any malware presence. Furthermore, it automatically eliminates malware from your website and provides reliable defense against malicious attacks.
HostGator Review: Uptime and Performance
HostGator gives its users a 99.9% uptime guarantee. HostGator is a prominent leader in the web hosting industry and has continually demonstrated its dedication to fulfilling this promise. It not only excels in reliability but also showcases remarkable performance capabilities.
By choosing this, customers can enjoy page load time that are up to 2.5 times faster. Moreover, HostGator provides exceptional customer support to further enhance the overall experience.
HostGator Review: Storage and Bandwidth
HostGator provides unlimited storage and unmetered bandwidth across all plans. Additionally, it offers a helpful feature for automated website backups. This feature is initially included in your plan without any extra charges. However, when its time for renewal, you can continue to enjoy the convenience of automated backups for just $4 per month, with an annual billing of $47.95.
HostGator Review: Plans and Pricing
How much does HostGator Cost?
HostGator offers amazing price plans on all its hosting services. You can pay for hosting services via credit cards, PayPal, cheque, money orders and bank wires. They also offer money-back guarantee on their shared, WordPress, VPS, and reseller hosting plans. However, there is no money-back guarantee for dedicated hosting, setup fees, or domain name purchases.
Here’s an overview of HostGator’s pricing tier:
HostGator Review: Shared Hosting
| Plan Name | Space | Bandwidth | Panel | Numbers of sites | Price |
| Hatchling | 10GB | Unmetered | cPanel | 1 | $2.75/month |
| Baby | 40GB | Unmetered | cPanel | 5 | $3.50/month |
| Business | unlimited | Unmetered | cPanel | unlimited | $5.25/month |
HostGator Review: Cloud Hosting
| Plan Name | Bandwidth | CPU | RAM | Numbers of sites | Price |
| Hatchling | Unmetered | 2 cores | 2 GB | 1 | $4.95/month |
| Baby | Unmetered | 4 cores | 4GB | Unlimited | $6.57/month |
| Business | Unmetered | 6 cores | 6GB | unlimited | $9.95/month |
HostGator Review: WordPress Hosting
| Plan Name | Visits per month | Bandwidth | Free migration | Numbers of sites | Price |
| Hatchling | 100,000 | Unmetered | 1 website | 1 | $5.95/month |
| Baby | 200,000 | Unmetered | 2 websites | 2 | $7.95/month |
| Business | 300,000 | Unmetered | 3 websites | 3 | $9.95/month |
HostGator Review: Reseller Hosting
| Plan Name | Space | Bandwidth | Panel | Numbers of sites | Price |
| Hatchling | 60GB | 60GB | WHM & cPanel | Unlimited | $19.95/month |
| Baby | 90GB | 90GB | WHM & cPanel | Unlimited | $24.95/month |
| Business | 140GB | 140GB | WHM & cPanel | Unlimited | $24.95/month |
HostGator Review: VPS Hosting
| Plan Name | Space | vCPU | RAM | Bandwidth | Price |
| S. 2000 | 120GB | 2 cores | 2GB | Unmetered | $23.95/month |
| S. 4000 | 165GB | 2 cores | 4GB | Unmetered | $34.95/month |
| S. 8000 | 240GB | 4 cores | 6GB | Unmetered | $59.95/month |
HostGator Review: Dedicated Hosting
| Plan Name | Space | CPU | RAM | Bandwidth | Price |
| Value | 1 TB HDD | 4 core/ 8 thread | 8 GB | Unmetered | $89.98/month |
| Power | 2 TB HDD or 512 GB SSD | 8 core/ 16 thread | 16 GB | Unmetered | $119.89/month |
| Enterprise | 1 TB SSD | 8 core/ 16 thread | 30 GB | Unmetered | $139.99/month |
HostGator Review: Gator Features
Templates and Editors
When building a website, Gator offers users hundreds of beautiful mobile responsive templates to choose from. Plus, these templates are customizable, so you can use the drag-and-drop editor to customize the template as much as you want. Users can easily change the fonts, customize colors, add or remove sections, and much more.
Plus, the website builder offers two editors a Traditional editor and an Express editor. If users wish to use a pre-existing template and customize it to suit their needs, they can use the Traditional editor. However, if you want a custom template based solely on their niche, they can take help from the Express editor.
SSL Certificates
Gator also offers SSL certificates, that ensures the safety of users’ websites. With the SSL certificate, a padlock icon will appear beside the site URL. This little icon will ensure the visitors that the website is safe and secure. Without the SSL certificate, the warning ‘not secure’ will appear beside the URL and will drive even the bravest of hearts away from the website.
Social Media Integrations
Like many other efficient website builders, Gator also offers social media integrations. These integrations allow users to embed content from social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and many more onto the website. These integrations will help connect different aspects of users’ online presence and will further help enhance the website with social buttons, image galleries, and live feeds.
Website Analytics
Website Analytics allows users to trace traffic, view stats and track important information. The analytics informs the users about the number of visitors their site is receiving, how long they are staying, and which page they are frequently visiting. With the help of these analytics, users can make necessary changes that can help boost their website and increase traffic.
Blogging
Gator offers excellent blogging features and tools. The templates for blogging are not only beautiful but are also modern and intuitive. Gator provides all the necessary tools that users need to start blogging. Bloggers can format text, include headings and links, add tags, images, videos, and header images, and can also change the URL of the post.
E-commerce
For all the entrepreneurs out there, who are looking to establish an online store, Gator has all the necessary e-commerce tools that will are helpful. With the help of these tools’ users can, sell products, process payments, and track visitor interactions. Plus, users can also import product catalogs using Google Sheets, Excel, Ecwid, and CSV.
HostGator Review: Gator for Different Kinds of Websites
| Website type | Benefits | Limitations |
| Online store | Quick and easy to set up Offers great email marketing features and eCommerce tools | Even though Gator offers eCommerce on all plans, users must choose the expensive one in order to get rid of transaction fees |
| Business website | Great business featuresSEO and marketing tools, are available on all plans including the cheapest one | Tools are a bit too simple to run a business site efficiently |
| Blog | Simple, clean, and minimalistic blogging interfaceReliable and good SEO tools | Basic blogging toolsGator’s focus isn’t on blogging |
| Portfolio | Users can easily add various types of media to their websites, like image galleries and audio files | Limited design and creative freedom |
For Online Stores
If you are looking to set up an online store then Gator might be the best option for you. Not only is it inexpensive but is also easy to use. Therefore, even new entrepreneurs can easily set up and run an online store via Gator. Its e-commerce tools are available on all the plans including the cheapest one. This is a great advantage and most website builders don’t usually offer e-commerce tools on low-tier plans. However, there are a few drawbacks most of the useful marketing and business tools are available on the cheap plans, plus the cheap plan users also have to pay transaction fees.
For Business Website
Gator has many great business features in its arsenal including analytics, SEO, e-commerce, and social media integration. All these features can come in handy if you are a beginner however an expert might find them lacking. However, if you are looking for a simple, low-budget, and quick way to set up a business website then Gator is the best website builder for you.
For Blog
Bloggers can easily add and manage a blog with the help of Gator website builder. It has all the tools necessary for blogging, moreover, the blogging interface is user-friendly and minimalistic. Users are provided with various tools through which they can edit, modify, and elevate their blogs. Unfortunately, Gator’s main focus isn’t on blogging so will not be able to find advanced blogging features and tools on the website builder.
For Portfolio
If you are a beginner and want to create a portfolio site using Gator then good for you. However, if you are looking for design flexibility and creative freedom then you won’t find any on Gator. Gator is easy to use and simple but with ease and lacks features and flexibility. Therefore, Gator might not be the best website builder to set up a portfolio site if you want complete creative freedom.
HostGator Review: Gator Plans and Pricing
| Website | Website + Marketing | Online Store | Online Marketplaces | |
| Introductory price | $4.95/month | $7.95/month | $13.95/month | $19.95/month |
| DIY website builder with built-In blog | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 150+ mobile-optimized templates | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free domain | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free private domain registration | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free SSL | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Unlimited appointments | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Online payments & deposits | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Unlimited products & categories | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Marketplace selling | No | No | No | Yes |
| Fulfillment automation | No | No | No | Yes |
Gator offers three plans namely Website, Website + Marketing, Online Store, and Online Marketplaces. Their introductory price ranges from $4..95-$19.95 per month. if you are looking to establish and manage a basic website then the first plan might be the best option for you. however, if you want to set up an online store then you will have to subscribe to either Online Store or Online Marketplace.
HostGator Review: Comparison of All Plans
| Appointment Scheduling | Website | Website + Marketing | Online Store | Online Marketplaces |
| Unlimited Appointments | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Online Payments & Deposits | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Appointment Reminders | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| E-commerce | Website | Website + Marketing | Online Store | Online Marketplaces |
| Mobile-Responsive Online Store | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Unlimited Products and Categories | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Secure Online Payment Options | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| 24/7 Automated Sync Technology | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Advanced Shipping | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Connect to QuickBooks Online or Xero | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Real-time Shipping Rates | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Custom Discount Codes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Abandoned Cart Saver | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Unlimited Inventory Locations | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Sell on Facebook and Instagram | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Marketplace Selling | No | No | No | Yes |
| Automated Sales Tax Calculations | No | No | No | Yes |
| Bulk Editing Tools | No | No | No | Yes |
| Fulfillment Automation | No | No | No | Yes |
| Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment | No | No | No | Yes |
| Quick-Fill Listing Templates | No | No | No | Yes |
| Restock Management | No | No | No | Yes |
| Barcode Creation | No | No | No | Yes |
| Analytics | E-commerce | Website | Website + Marketing | Online Store |
| Basic Website Analytics | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Easy Google Analytics & Tag Manager Setup | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Powerful Ecommerce Reports | No | No | Yes | Yes |
HostGator Review: Customer Support
HostGator offers various ways through which users can contact them if they require assistance. Users can either email them, chat with them on live chat that is available 24/7, call them, or consult the knowledge base that HostGator has to offer. Customer support agents are reliable, polite, and professional. If you have any queries or are facing problems in accessing the website builder’s services, you can contact them, and they will provide a solution to your problems.
HostGator Review by Customers
