The CaymanHost Web Hosting Directory

It is virtually impossible nowadays to miss the fact that Hostgator are one of the largest shared hosting providers out there. This makes writing a review of their services particularly difficult in the sense that there are a huge number of supporters and loyal customers together with a number of people who express dissatisfaction with the service. They are also heavily promoted because commissions for affiliates are generous.

Obviously, the bigger you get, the law of averages says that there are bound to be some users who will have a less than perfect experience and as with all hosting companies it must be borne in mind that users are sometimes the authors of their own problems when it comes to web hosting. In an attempt to give a balanced review of Hostgator we have tried to look at the supporters versus the naysayers in an even handed way.

Looking at service plans and prices, Hostgator have become popular because on a features to price ratio they stack up very well against the competition. There are four levels of shared hosting offered with cute names such as "Hatchling" and "Swamp" and they range in price from the $6.95 monthly to $14.95 with a semi dedicated server coming in at $74.95. The middle range plan, entitled "Baby" costs a very reasonable $9.95 per month and you certainly seem to be getting a fair bit for your money. All Hostgator’s plans offer C-Panel and Fantastico with a huge range of ready to install scripts (around 52 at the last count). At the "Baby" level you also get unlimited MySQL databases, PHP 4&5, 100GB of storage and 1000GB of data transfer - this all looks very impressive for the price. The uptime guarantee is 99.9% and all plans are "no contract" so in theory if you are in any way dissatisfied you can move with no strings attached. They claim 24/7 support which is pretty much a given these days but, on the face of the figures alone, the "Baby" plan offers a powerful package for the money. You can easily check the full packages at the Hostgator site which is very clear and easy to navigate, with an ’at a glance’ summary for potential customers.

If there are any downsides to using Hostgator they appear to be on the support side, and users often complain that they are a victim of their own success and that as they have grown some deterioration in service has appeared. By the same token, there are plenty of users willing to stand up and defend the host and claim a very high standard of support and this is a really difficult area to call. On the whole, it has to be said that there seem to be more supporters than those crying "foul". It is not a good sign that some general hosting forums are crowded with Hostgator users asking support questions - whether this is lack of knowledge on behalf of the users or genuine problems with the official channels is impossible to know with any certainty, but if it is indicative of support problems it’s something the company should address. To be fair, I have seen several incidents of customer complaints on an independent forum being addressed by the owner of the company himself through that forum, which suggests an awareness and willingness to talk that goes far beyond the normal official support channels in place, and has to be applauded.

However, a hosting company cannot be held accountable for the actions of its customers and on balance, Hostgator has become successful for a reason. Their pricing is competitive and their features comprehensive. The "Baby" plan offers a big bang for your buck and will probably be more than adequate for a very high number of users.

In the current marketplace they are certainly difficult to ignore and deserve a place on anyone’s shortlist. You can address any concerns you may have in a number of Web Hosting Forums where Hostgator are always a hot topic of discussion.

Overall a good no nonsense host offering value for money and, judging by positive feedback on the web, a good customer support infrastructure which occasionally suffers a hiccup but is generally satisfactory.

If you have something to add to this general review, your own experiences to share, we would love to read your comments about Hostgator .

Technorati Tags: Hosting Reviews , Hostgator Review , Hostgator Shared Hosting , Affordable Hosting , Web Hosts Reviewed , Hostgator

No Rating

Rate this:

2.5

Filed under: Hosting Reviews