HostGator Hosting Review

		9.5
		9.5 (2)

Visit http://hostgator.com

Plan Details

Plan Name:	Hatchling
Price:	$4.95
Disk Space:	Unlimited
Data Transfer:	Unlimited
Domains Hosted:	1
Hosting Services:	Shared Hosting • VPS Hosting • Dedicated Hosting • Reseller Hosting

About HostGator

HostGator is one of the most popular web hosting companies providing Shared Web Hosting, Reseller Hosting, and Dedicated Server Hosting. They were established in 2002 by Brent Oxley in Florida and are now head quartered in Houston, Texas.

HostGator hosts over 1.3 million webstites with over 150,000 customers on more than 5,000 servers. It is safe to say that hostGator has found a great formula for success. They run cPanel for their hosting control panel and Joomla runs great on cPanel.

Awards

HostGator have won a huge amount of awards over the past few years including fastest growing company and a variety of editor choice awards. You only have to visit the site to see a list of them.

HostGator Plans

Host Gator offers 3 types of shared web hosting plans: Hatchling, Baby, and Business:

Hatchling $4.95/month- Allows you to host 1 domain. You get most all of the features as in the other plans, the limitation is that you can only host one domain.

Baby $7.95/month -- All the features of the Hatchling plan with ability to host unlimited domains. If you think you may have the need to host multiple domains the baby plan is for you.

Business $12.95/month -- The business plan has all of the features of the Baby plan plus a dedicated IP address and a free private SSL certificate. If you have special business requirements or are considering an ecommerce site the business plan may be the best plan to fit your needs.

HostGator Joomla Features and Hosting Environment

HostGator servers use cPanel for the hosting control panel. There servers run php5 and have full ftp access. With cpanel all of the mysql run on the same server as your website

cPanel provides an excellent environment for joomla to run in. You have complete access to all your mysql databases through phpmyadmin. You also have full control of your htaccess file allowing you to run your favorite SEF (Search Engine Friendly) URL components. Fantastico, which is a very popular script installer is available and will install joomla for you automatically.

HostGator Customer Support

Host gator provides technical support via a ticketing system, chat, phone and email. One of the strong aspects of host gator has been their support. The wait to get a chat session is typically very short, with knowledgeable people assisting you. Their support is available 24 hours a day and they mean it, you can get assistance at all hours of the night. HostGator has a Toll Free Support Phone Number 1-866-96-GATOR (42867)

Visit: http://www.hostgator.com for more details.

Editor review

Best All Around Joomla Host

Overall rating:		9.5
Price:		10.0
Support:		9.0
Features:		9.0
Uptime:		10.0

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Reviewed by Steven Johnson
February 10, 2009

Last updated: June 22, 2009

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful

We have been very pleased with Host Gator, especially with the customer support. I have not needed to use customer or tech support very often but every time I do they have been very easy to reach and quick to resolve the issue.

Sign Up
The sign up process was very quick and easy. Within 15 minutes we were up and running with our new HostGator account.

Support
Very easy to get intouch with Hostgator support through email, chat, or helpdesk ticket. Most often we use the chat and the techs have been knowledgeable and helpful. We find that chat customer support gets the issue resolved faster and we learn more about the Host gator network.

Joomla
Setting up the server to install is a breeze with Hostgator. Very easy to set up the mysql database and user. Easy to upload files. Since cPanel is being used no weird permission errors that you may experience with other custom or Plesk control panels.

Server Uptime and Speed
The several sites we host with Hostgator all have excellent uptime and server speed. On the occasion that the server does have an issue Hostgator typically has the issue resolved before we contact support.

Summary
Host Gator has so many great services and support, that it becomes the best option for both novice and advanced webmasters to Host their Joomla sites. The 45 day moneyback guarantee makes trying out Hostgator a very safe option.

Pros and Cons

Pros	Unlimited Data Transfer Unlimited Disk Space Excellent Price Joomla cPanel Hosting 99.9% Uptime Guarantee 24/7 Customer Support

User reviews

Average user rating from: 2 user(s)

Overall rating:		9.5
Price:		9.5 (2)
Support:		9.5 (2)
Features:		9.5 (2)
Uptime:		9.5 (2)

Awesome host overall

Overall rating:		10.0
Price:		10.0
Support:		10.0
Features:		10.0
Uptime:		10.0

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Reviewed by Chris Walker
August 06, 2009

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

I recommend these guys to all my friends... I have been on about 5 hosts and I have admined for friends on about another 5.

Out of all those hosts... when I found hostgator I have never felt like I had to find another...

Before when I was on other hosts I always felt like I was being over charged.. or thier techs were too dumb to recover from a real server disaster... and really BUILDING a web server is not hard... keeping it safe, backed up, and recovering from failure is what is hard.

WHM and CPANEL I know are not custom... and are real common... so saying the rock doesn't really seperate hostgator from the pack... but I want to say they are the best tools I have used... and the learning curve is low... so the fact they did NOT build a custom panel is awesome... you use what works the best... you don't re-invent the wheel.

I am VERY happy with these guys.

Pros and Cons

Pros	Price Uptime Management tools (WHM and CPANEL) Tech knowledge level Tech friendliness
Cons	Stumped here... can't think of any.

Excellent Joomla Host

Overall rating:		9.0
Price:		9.0
Support:		9.0
Features:		9.0
Uptime:		9.0

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Reviewed by Jackson
March 11, 2009

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

We have been very happy with HostGator, great support and features in the control panel.

Everytime we have had a question HostGator has been there to answer it for us.

Glad we chose HostGator