Jamie likes HostGator
Updated November 20, 2019

Jamie likes HostGator

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with HostGator

My client required a new website, domain, and Webhosting. The company wanted to keep the website operations within one company platform as much as possible and at a reasonable cost, and after some extensive research and advice from colleagues, she decided on HostGator for domain and Webhosting, and the HostGator website builder to create and maintain her new website.
  • cPanel is a wonderful one-stop-shop. Multiple web building support tools.
  • If my client hadn't chosen the HostGator website builder, we would have gone with WordPress Installer, included in the package. Additional HostGator website builders included.
  • Emails provided with the domain. Better than having to rely on 2nd party email servers.
  • Decent add ons, such as SEO Gears.
  • Too many supported website builders competing with one another (Gator, Weebly, goMobi, Joomla, HostGator website builder). One or two plus WordPress Installer would be sufficient and cut down on the confusion of choices. Why have Gator AND HostGator website builders?
  • Unnecessary to offer Constant Contact as a carrot. It's an expensive add-on.
  • Navigating around the cPanel is great if you know what you need to do, but not so intuitive for first-timers.
  • For the current client using the HostGator domain and WebHost, and website builder, it's too early to tell, as the website is still being built out as an information gateway for colleagues. However, we feel the 2-year initial investment will be a very small expense if the website attracts a minimum of international clients in this first year. We designed the website to be beautiful, which we've found to be lacking in competitors (regulatory specialists).
  • For a current client who prevously used HostGator domain and WebHosting services: the cost of 6 years of HostGator service was negligible compared to $1 million+ in grant, donor, and fundraising income between 2008 and 2016.
This is for web design purposes. In versatility, not as good as WordPress, but pretty close to Squarespace and Wix. In ease of use, much easier than WordPress, about the same as Squarespace and Wix. In the choice of design templates, as good as all three.

The current client chose HostGator after we poured through hosting, email, and web design comparisons. She wanted all these services through the least number of vendors, and the price was right.
When setting up the account and getting started, we needed direct support on a number of occasions. It was pretty good. Phone and email support were generally better than online chat support but got needed help. But what's important is that direct support is always available to us. The only thing that keeps me from giving a higher rating is that a few times we were given a sales pitch to go with one of the other HostGator-supported web designing software as if there was an internal competitive sales challenge going on (and maybe there was). Felt like a diversion.

Do you think HostGator delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with HostGator's feature set?

Yes

Did HostGator live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of HostGator go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy HostGator again?

Yes

Apricot by Social Solutions, Microsoft Office 365, QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop Pro, Airtable, Citrix ShareFile, Wix, Squarespace, Mailchimp, ReachMail, Canva, Dropbox, Eventbrite, Zoom
HostGator for email, domain and website hosting--delightful, 100% satisfied! Have always had ample capacity for company email needs, features work well. I have used it off and on for several organizations since 2011.

HostGator website building is fairly straightforward, although I wouldn't recommend it for first-time web designing. The pluses on the HostGator website builder: great-looking themes, adequate webpage capacity, really cool scrolling capabilities, which trends well now. Easier than building a WordPress website from scratch, which can also be done for free in HostGator. I'd say it's limited compared to feature-rich WP, but it designs as nicely as Wix.

Evaluating HostGator and Competitors

  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
  • Prior Experience with the Product
  • Vendor Reputation
  • Third-party Reviews
Product features--very robust webhosting and email hosting; website design features were everything that my client needed, not a huge learning curve. I was familiar with the webhosting and email hosting, but this is the first time I've designed a HostGator website. Lots of fun!
HostGator promotes a number of web design platforms. I could be tempted to try one of their other softwares. As far as the basics, HostGator "Hatchling" level of domain and webhosting support has never let me down.