HostGator, A Hot or a Not For Cloud Hosting This Year
HostGator is without a doubt one of the oldest hosting platforms on the Internet which has immensely gained popularity over the years. When it comes to hosting your website in a cloud environment, HostGator brings one of the most affordable packages for its online visitors. So whether you’re starting out with a website or want to shift your existing one to a reasonably priced cloud hosting package, choosing HostGator is the best choice for those who can afford it.
Today, I am going to do a complete HostGator review of the reliable HostGator service and how it stands a class-apart from the rest of the hosting services. So without further ado, let’s get started!
Which Areas Make HostGator a Reliable Hosting Platform?
While many hosting platforms promise a variety of things, only a few are able to meet the demand of their customers. As far as the reliability of HostGator is concerned, here are some valuable points;
Reliability – While many websites promise many things among which website availability is a core aspect, when the problem occurs, they fall short on their promises. What’s the worst? You feel your hands are tied and you can’t do much about it. HostGator is a reliable hosting platform that rarely suffers any downtime. Their service is available around the clock 24/7/365.
Performance – Website performance is one of the major concerns for many digital businesses out there. While everyone wishes their website can deliver the best page load time, only a few handfuls of these websites are able to deliver the best results. HostGator is one such platform that can give you great performance when it comes to page load time. And the performance is simply consistent.
Customer Support – In a time where cloud hosting services are moving in a highly competitive market, HostGator promises to deliver a par excellent customer support to its visitors. In fact, some claim that it makes GoDaddy customer support look as if it’s lagging behind. With that being said, it indicates that the customer support offered by HostGator is truly remarkable and one of the best inline.
Features – To begin with, HostGator comes with an extremely simple and easy to use dashboard. It leverages the power of a modern architecture which eventually allows website pages to load up quickly & efficiently. On the plus side, you get other interesting features, like Let’s Encrypt, automated daily backups, high-quality technical support, affiliate programs, 1 Click Installers, etc.
So now we’ve done a quick overview of what HostGator is all about, it is time to take a deeper delve.
About HostGator
The organization started off in 2002, and who knew that it would eventually grow into one of the largest hosting organizations in the world. This magnanimous growth of the platform is because of the great shared hosting plans, web hosting plans, cloud hosting plans it had to offer at remarkably reasonable price tags. Above all, HostGator had a very sound technical/customer support service which made the organization one of the best services all across the United States.
It is currently headquartered in Houston, Texas and hosts more than 8 million domains around the world. They house a total of 850+ employees who deliver a non-stop around the clock hosting service and are highly focused at delivering a world-class hosting experience in the website world.
What’s Special About HostGator’s Cloud Hosting?
Cloud hosting is faster and reliable than any other type of hosting offered right now. While it has earned its upkeep in reseller shared hosting & web hosting, its recently launched cloud servers are in fact, more reliable, blazing-fast and incredible when it comes to hosting a website in the cloud.
You can now host your website in a cloud environment where your bank accounts are safe, and they won’t suck your bank accounts dry. Just the entry-level package at HostGator’s cloud starts at an affordable price of $10.95 per month (12-month contract). One of the best things about HostGator’s cloud service is that you won’t even realize that it is there. And this is one of the perks that make this web host quite a remarkable one for users. While other hosting platforms keep giving your website a hard time to stay up and running, HostGator doesn’t let your website spiral down at any point in time.
Speed Test
A Speed test performed by BitCatcha revealed that the HostGator comes out on top in the cloud host as it scored an A+. They recorded a remarkable worldwide average of 144 ms server response time. These numbers are far greater than Google’s recommended average which tops around 200 ms.
Here’s a snippet from BitCatcha’s test which they performed for their own website.
As per why HostGator stands atop among the rest of cloud hosting providers, it is because it uses an integrated caching system, world-class hardware and a whole lot more to ensure blazing fast speed.
Highly Responsive Customer Support
Do you know what is the best thing about hosting your very own cloud server on HostGator? These guys are never off and they never spend a day without delivering high-quality customer support to their customers. They have an absolutely responsive technical/customer support team who is always on the standby to assist you with all your possible queries. You will find these people online and responsive around the clock and during every season (including the holidays).
With HostGator, you first start with presenting your problem through a live chat feature. They hardly take around 15-20 minutes to respond back to the query and that too when their queues are maxed out. If their queues are empty, they hardly even take a minute to respond back to your query. In case, your issue is too complex and a live chat support agent is unable to assist with resolving the query, then they refer you to launch a ticket. Once, the support opens up the ticket, a more expert server technician will take a look at the problem and eventually make a more worthy suggestion.
Also, they have a phone number so just in case, if you’re not satisfied with the solution, you can always make the call and ask them to assist you on the phone so you can resolve it on your own.
Reliability & Uptime
When it comes to reliability, most cloud hosting services offer a 98% uptime which is good. But, when it comes to measuring this percentile on a yearly basis, it indicates that your server can suffer downtime for at least 7 days/year. A week worth of downtime does not put your website in a good place among customers or on the Internet. What you basically need is a platform that can offer you a bit more. For example, a cloud hosting provider promising a 99.8% uptime will reduce the percentile to a single day/year. Here’s what makes HostGator stand a class apart from the rest as it offers 99.8%.
User-Experience
Another interesting thing about their cloud hosting service is the remarkable user-experience which they have to offer to their customers. While many cloud hosting platforms prefer a user-friendly dashboard, they are still stuck with managing their server resources through an ugly looking cPanel. Now, if you’re a tech-savvy individual who knows the ins and outs of coding or has been dealing with such interfaces, it might not be a problem. But, in case, you’re a layman who has just hosted a website, a user-friendly dashboard can make all the difference. HostGator has a smartly designed dashboard that encompasses all the necessary features and includes a variety of features for hosting.
What are the Pros and Cons of Using HostGator as your Host for Cloud Computing?
There are plenty of hosting providers in the world. In fact, some of these are known for the variety of features they have to offer; while others simply focus on delivering the best quality servers at a reasonable price. Just like every other host has its pros and cons, so does the HostGator.
The Pros of Choosing HostGator as Your Cloud Host
- At HostGator, you have complete liberty to choose your billing period. You can choose to pay on a yearly basis, or you can choose to pay on a monthly basis. The choice is completely yours to make.
- HostGator is a very reliable platform for hosting your website and guarantees up to 99.99% of uptime. But that’s not where they draw the line, if you suffer downtime below what they promise, they pay you back the price of a complete single month. Also, it won’t be wrong to mention here that HostGator comes with a complete money-back warranty for up to 45 days whereas others don’t after a month.
- If you are just starting with HostGator, it offers you FREE migration. You get in touch with one of their support agents and they will transfer your website to their own host in just a matter of minutes.
The Cons of HostGator as Your Cloud Host
Just like everything else, if there are pros to it, so are the cons present as well. There aren’t quite as many cons to HostGator as one must suspect. But here are a couple of them, I’d like to express.
- HostGator does not offer any free domain. Unlike other hosting organizations, they do not have any policy for offering their visitors a free domain registration at the time of signing up on their platform.
- HostGator offers many additional services as an upselling perk which as a new user you aren’t quite aware of. Hence, it is best advised that you do uncheck them during the sign-up. Once, you have signed up on their platform, then you can always add these services later on separately as preference.
- They do promise to deliver you unlimited bandwidth, but just like many other hosts, they fall short on delivering it for a long consistent period of time. If you’ve consumed their services for at least 90 seconds, then you can easily tell the difference and that’s the only big catch.
At the End
In the end, I would just like to add here that HostGator is a great hosting platform for everyone who is searching for a professional cloud hosting service. While many can charge an overpriced cloud hosting package with limited resources and features, HostGator brings unlimited features to your doorstep giving you the ultimate liberty to choose your desired resources and consume them properly.
So whether you’re just starting out with a website or you want to shift your host to a better option, HostGator is a great & reliable option that can bring an absolutely interesting hosting experience.
