Setting up a website is today most mainstream method of advertising and marketing your product and services, or whatever content you wish to share online. While there are free platforms that you can find on the web, they just do not match up to the quality of websites that are hosted by professionals.

Host Gator is one of among dozens of web hosting companies in the industry, and they have been up and running for years, delivering high quality services to their patrons, ranging from individual website owners to Fortune 500 companies. Hostgator has received a great number of positive reviews over the years, but what are its downsides? How does it differ from other web hosting companies? What do they have to offer?

Overview of Host Gator

is web hosting company that specializes in shared hosting, as well reseller, VPS, and dedicated web hosting services. The company was founded by Brent Oxley in 2002 in Boca Raton, Florida. In 2007, their headquarters was moved to Houston, Texas; and in 2010, they branched out with another office in Austin, Texas. With over 12,000 servers, Host Gator proves to be a very efficient web hosting company, catering to over 400,000 clients in more than 200 countries.

Host Gator offers flexible web hosting services that are brimming with features: unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited e-mail, one-click script installs, $100 Google AdWords offer, over 4,500 free website templates, 99.9% uptime guarantee, and a whole lot more.

Products and Services

Host Gator offers four main services: shared hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated servers. The company, as mentioned, specializes in shared hosting. The great thing about their shared hosting service is that it permits you to host unlimited domains in one account, and it comes with unlimited disk space and bandwidth.

The Hatchling Plan (monthly rate starting at $3.96) provides the most basic needs for a website, though you can only host one domain. The Baby Plan (monthly rate starting at $6.36) is the most popular choice among customers, providing you with advanced web hosting features, and the performance rate is up to par with the Business Plan, which costs more. The Business Plan (monthly rate starting at $10.36) offers free private SSL and dedicated IP, plus your very own toll-free number. As the name suggests, this plan is the best choice for more robust websites offering to sell their products directly from their website.

If you wish to make more money online, Host Gator recommends its reseller hosting. This type of web hosting service is priced differently according to your needs: aluminum, copper, silver, gold, or diamond. The difference among the five falls on your required disk space, bandwidth, and number of domains. Other than that, the services are more or less of the same great quality.

Host Gator’s Linux VPS hosting is an ideal option if you are looking for a service that goes in between shared hosting and dedicated hosting. The VPS hosting packages are divided into 9 levels, depending on your requirements.

Dedicated servers are recommended if you wish to have full control on your website. Host Gator offers dedicated hosting to both Linux and Windows platforms, and the price for both operating systems are more or less comparable.

The company offers all the general and expected web hosting features that most users are seeking, such as a free website builder and website building tools; a wide variety of unique and free website templates; free transfer for existing sites, domains, MySQL, and scripts; one-click open-source scripts that can be instantly installed to your site; latest cPanel control panel; unlimited POP3 e-mail accounts; and the use of green web hosting. Every package also comes with a spam protection program, Spam Assassin, for optimal protection of your website.

The Advantages of Using Host Gator

• in one account, without having to worry about disk space and bandwidth size. This is something that you cannot find in other web hosting service companies.
• Another great thing about Host Gator is that they provide very comprehensive hosting packages that provide you with everything ones needs to start a website. Whether you are lacking in technical knowledge or an expert in the web hosting field, the company offers great services however small or large your needs are. Furthermore, for a service as complete as Host Gator’s, their prices are relatively cheap and affordable. This is a good selling point for the company: reasonably low prices without sacrificing the quality of service.
• Hosting proves to be very stable, and they stay true to their 99.9 percent uptime guarantee. Though there may be a few delays at times, performance is relatively fast, with little to no server crashes or downtime.
• Host Gator’s updated cPanel is very intuitive to use. You can easily install CM software from the cPanel and have your sites running in just a few clicks.
• Host Gator provides a 45-day money-back guarantee, which is quite longer than the usual 30-day guarantee offered by most companies. For those who have the shared, reseller, or VPS hosting accounts, you are entitled to a full refund. However, dedicated hosting is an exception. Fees on admin, installation, and domain name registration are also not included in the cancellation policy.

The Disadvantages of Using Host Gator

• Though Host Gator boasts of its 24-7-365 support, there seems to be a significant number of complaints about the sluggish delivery of customer service and technical assistance. However, the site offers insightful help documentation and a wide variety of contact methods. They will need to improve on their response time.
• Host Gator offers a very comprehensive set of features, but some of the features are not intuitive. If you are a beginner, you may need some time to figure out how to navigate through its interface. As a redeeming factor, Host Gator does all of this for you, so this shouldn’t be much of a problem.

Our Final Verdict

Host Gator is a reputable web hosting company that has been in the industry for more than a decade. , but they also offer other services such as reseller, VPS, and dedicated hosting. Host Gator offers feature-rich packages that provide you with all the general requirements for a website.

Though Host Gator has its fair share of cons, we believe that this company is reliable when it comes to the quality of their services.