HostGator review - How it Stands in India? [2024]

  • Best uptime (99.97%)
  • Their pricing is competitive.
  • Free Site Migration
  • Their technical support is beyond fantastic.

Starts at $2.75

per month

HostGator is a leading web hosting provider founded by Brent Oxley in October 22nd of 2002, headquartered in Houston and Austin, Texas.


HostGator is considered as one of the top web hosting company in the business, hosting over eight million domain on its servers. 


Our best web hosting in India article concluded HostGator as the “Best affordable web host for the Indian demographic.” However, other hosting services, too, were fantastic options.


Providers such as Siteground and Bluehost weighed more on the quality side, whereas Hostinger prioritized the cost. 


HostGator, we believe, struck the best balance on that scale. And this is the full HostGator review to help you make a sound decision on whether that right balance is best for you or not.


Let’s go in-depth to find out why we think so.

HostGator overview

Here’s an overview table for quick information— this pretty much sums up the reasons for our conclusion.

Our ratings

A+ | 4.4/5

Average response time

~210 ms

Avg. response times in top-targeted countries

US: under 40 ms | India: 3-4 ms

Uptime

99.97% (guarantees 99.9%)

Support

24/7 chat and calls

Site transfer

Free

Introductory Pricing

Starts at $2.75/mo. (on a 3-year tenure)

Top features

Unmetered bandwidth, free domain, 45-day money-back guarantee

For those who are seriously considering HostGator, read the full review, starting with the company information.

Company Information

Overall, HostGator has managed a steady growth since its beginning. Some of the key highlights include:

  • Moving their headquarters from a 2000 sq. ft. space in Florida to 25,000 one in Houston, Texas, in 2006.
  • Establishing a new office in Brazil in 2007, and hence giving the start to a dream of worldwide reach.
  • Crossing 500 employees in 2011.
  • Getting acquired by Endurance International group in 2012.
  • And launching Managed Wordpress plans half a decade back, in 2015.

All these numbers might tempt you to question, “But why? Why is HostGator so well-recognized?”


The simple answer? Their services are just that good. Here are some “pros” one gets when he/she purchases a HostGator website hosting plan:

HostGator India Review

11 reasons why HostGator is a fantastic Web Host!


1. It’s affordable


As we discussed in our top 5 web hosting in India list, “Price” is one of the prime considerations people factor in while going through their hosting options. 


And we must admit, HostGator has nailed it in this department.


HostGator is one of the most value-centric web hosts in the business[the cheapest value-hosting being Hostinger]. Their basic plan, i.e., Hatchling plan, costs a mere $2.75/mo. You will need to buy the plan for three years, though, if you want to grab the special price.


The features, performance, and free perks you get for this price are incredible. And this is the top reason we recommend HostGator to anyone with a limited budget, especially those looking to host their small sites.


What features, performance, and free perks are we talking about? The upcoming points will answer this question.


2. Uptime


The first performance metric most people care about is server uptime. If the server is going to go under maintenance or won’t be available now and then, then there’s no point renting such server(s).

In HostGator’s case, there won’t be any such downtimes.


HostGator guarantees 99.9% uptime to its users. If it fails to stand by that promise, they may give you one month of credit on your account, as per their terms of service


In our testing, we didn’t need to talk with them regarding server downtime because we had about 99.97% uptime. Meaning, on average, the server was down for about a minute per hour.


And even if the server was down during peak hours, we could’ve got it up quickly with the help of their award-winning support team.


3. Support


Having quality technical support is a priority. A company with the best servers but terrible support is a big NO from our side.


To judge any hosting company’s support team, we have a bunch of pre-throughout questions⁠— ranging from typical setup problems to loading speed ones and security issues. 


In our experience with HostGator support, the team understood our concerns well, were polite, and gave some quick solutions. And that’s what we look for in a support team.


Apart from searching for some FAQs in their knowledge base, we tried their two primary forms of communicating with a concerned customer:

  1. 1
    24/7 Live chat: As soon as we pasted our query in the live chat, within seconds, a customer representative joined the conversation and gave a concise answer.
  2. 2
    24/7 Phone: We also tried calling through their toll-free number, and surprisingly, we were with an expert within a couple of minutes.

In short, we were largely impressed by the way they conduct their customers. And for this reason, it’s one of our top three hosting recommendations.


4. Server Response time:


Server response time is the time required to load an HTML document of a website from a server so that the client/browser can begin rendering the page.


HostGator’s server response time is the reason we declared it as the “best affordable web hosting for an Indian demographic.”


We hosted one of our test sites on HostGator India. We chose Mumbai datacenter to store our site.

And when we ran the URL through Bitcatcha, a server response time checking application, we found it to be 3 ms when accessed from Bangalore, India.


That’s the best server response time we’ve witnessed after testing dozens of web hosting.


Globally, too, the server response time has been excellent. It averages at approx. 210ms worldwide; moreover, when tested in the US, the server response time was about 40 ms.


We love those numbers— pretty much justifies why HostGator is a fantastic web hosting service.


5. Perfect for beginners


HostGator, of all the hosting providers we’ve tested, has been one of the best beginner-friendly packages.

 

If you’re trying to build a blog for the first time or are a marketer building a site for your first client, HostGator is perhaps the best hosting for you.


Their site is full of guides & tutorials, and the UI/UX is straightforward & understandable for any layman.


They also have their own website builder, Gator. If you are unaware of Wordpress or don’t have the technical know-how of installing such CMS, this is a perfect choice. You can use their already available templates and quickly build your first site. Moreover, these templates are customizable as well; thus, you can drag and drop sections as per your need. 


Similarly, if you want to build an e-commerce site, HostGator has an e-commerce plan, too⁠— a hassle-free way to get your first online store up & running. 


In short, HostGator is perfect for beginners.


6. Free Migration

Migrate your site to HostGator for free


However, if you are not a beginner and have a site(s) but with another hosting provider, HostGator has got you covered with their free site migration service.


You can get your website transferred for free within the first 30-days of your signup with HostGator. All you need to do is contact them and ask. They will do a full site transfer(content, databases, scripts, and domain name) for you. Even if you have subdomains, they’ll do a complete cpanel migration to get everything up and running.


However, depending on the plan of your choice, there’s a limit to how many sites you can transfer.


Anyway, it’s better than many hosts, like Namecheap, that even charge for inter-server transfers.

7. Unmetered everything

Though it’s technically metered because of server limitations and the number of users on the same server, HostGator does claim and provide unmetered everything on their plans.


Apart from their hatchling plans that let you host only one domain, you get:

  • Unlimited domains: You can host as many domain names as you want on the same plan. With many other hostings, there’s a limit on the number of sites you can host on a project.
  • Unlimited bandwidth: Essentially, “unlimited bandwidth” means you can scale your site as much as you want and not worry about the number of real-time visitors. And HostGator does provide unmetered bandwidth, but it will put a cap if the site starts utilizing other sites’ resources on shared plans. Moreover, chances are, someone from the team will contact you to upgrade your plan. That’s totally fair, in our opinion.
  • Unlimited free email addresses: You probably won’t need it, but just in case you do, you have the option to create as many professional emails as you want.
  • Unlimited subdomains and FTP accounts: Again, just in case you want to give the website access to clients or coworkers, you can create an account for them. 

Overall, HostGator provides unmetered everything, and that’s a pro you will rarely find in any other competitors.

8. Clean energy powered

“If you’re already a HostGator customer, your hosting service is already green. HostGator switched to wind power in 2008 with the purchase of Renewable Energy Credits equal to 130% of the power needed to run and cool our shared and reseller servers. The move allowed us to reduce our carbon emissions and provide green hosting services to more than 1.3 million customers without raising rates.” - Source


This is not a feature per se. However, it gave us the satisfaction of moving towards a better future— the fact that our sites are running on power produced by renewable resources instead of carbon-emitting fuels made us and should make you happy.


The future of the world depends on factors like the future of data centers, so go green with HostGator.

9. Free Ad credits

You must be building a website if you are purchasing a hosting. And chances are, you are thinking of monetizing the site you will create, whether through ads, products, or services.


To give your site an initial boost, advertising is a great way to go about it. And what better way to get direct sales than search engine advertisements?!


If you opt for HostGator, you will receive $100 ad credits each on Google Adwords and Bing ads. There sure are some T&Cs like claiming it within the first 15 days, but given the fact that you can purchase HostGator’s basic plan for about $100 for three years, and you get awesome services and features alongside $200 in ad credits make the purchase a no-brainer.


In essence, if you are thinking of marketing/advertising your business, HostGator should be your top web hosting priority, given the free ad credits benefit.

10. Security:

HostGator’s shared plans only pack the essentials to keep it affordable. But they do offer a lot of add-ons separately.


Extra security features are a few of those. 


Within the plan, you get password protection, free SSL, DDoS attack protection, etc. They use extensive custom firewall rules and large mod security rules to protect the servers from a variety of attacks. They have network level flood protection too. 


Everything combined makes for a super-secure web hosting. However, if you need extra security, you can add:

  • Sitelock: This defends your site(s) from malicious attacks. It removes malware automatically. Additionally, it protects your brand reputation; meaning, your site won’t get blacklisted from search engines, ever. If your site is an e-commerce store, adding the sitelock badge adds to the trust factor and boosts visitor’s confidence.
  • Codeguard: With Codeguard, you get daily backup insurance and a one-click restore option. In times of mishaps, you can restore your previous perfect version of your site.

Apart from these two, you can opt for a paid SSL certificate too.


Anyway, the point is, HostGator is fully secure and gives you the option to make your site extra safe.

11. Security:

While most web hosting companies that provide money-back guarantee give only 30-days to make a decision, HostGator is being much generous and giving a 45-days money-back guarantee.


There sure are some strict T&Cs to avoid exploitation(such as buying just for a free domain or those ad credits, using the freebies, and asking for a refund) and value their employees' work. But, if you genuinely disliked their services(and it’s rare), chances are you’ll receive a refund.


In a nutshell, test the services for yourself.


The only reason(s) you might dislike their offerings are:

2 things that can be improved about HostGator


1. Mediocre page loading speeds


HostGator’s response times are fantastic. They have numerous data center locations too. However, they use traditional HDDs instead of modern SSDs to store data.


This affects data read & write speeds. And because of this, we noticed page loading time of our test sites to be comparatively higher than other hosting services we tested. The overall loading speed for a Wordpress site with dummy content was under one second, though, which is the recommended number.


However, we feel, if they started using SSDs like in their cloud plans, HostGator would become the affordable hosting king like another EIG owned hosting company, Bluehost.


2. Upselling like no other


Indeed, HostGator is an affordable, value for money hosting— meaning, their profit margins are low. But they are a company too and have to show an increase in revenue and profits to be in the business.


We believe upselling is their go-to option to get the best business results. However, this doesn’t mean you don’t get value from the upsells. 


You will definitely get better security if you pay a couple of extra bucks for the Sitelock or Codeguard. Or, paying $4.99 in license fee for Office 365 professional email instead of their free webmail is worth the price if you’re a service business.


All we mean is their upselling strategies are aggressive, so make sure to uncheck the unnecessary boxes while reviewing your order at the checkout. 


If someone from HostGator is reading this, please keep the “to upsell products/service” transparent.

HostGator India vs HostGator United States

HostGator has some of the best server response times in India. But, is it any good if the primary target is Indian demographic? Yes.


HostGator has set up an enormous and well-optimized servers/data center architecture throughout the globe. India is no different. 


So, if you are trying to target the Indian audience, move forward. HostGator for India is fast & reliable from both service and support perspective.  And each of the pluses we discussed for HostGator, in general, applies to HostGator India too.


However, unless you are an Indian, we would suggest purchasing HostGator services from HostGator global/US version only because of a few non-tangible reasons like better technical support. 

HostGator Hosting Plans and Features

HostGator Hosting Plans and Features

Right from individuals and SMBs to Fortune 500 organizations, businesses of every scale use and trust HostGator. But not everyone uses their shared hosting plans or Managed Wordpress ones. Their other offerings are pretty popular too.


“What else do they have for us? Which one’s the best for me?” you ask? Well, let’s look at it objectively and find out:

Shared hosting:

In shared hosting, a single physical server hosts numerous sites. This is the reason “unmetered” is, in fact, metered with the ability to handle sudden traffic spikes.


HostGator has three shared plans:

  1. 1
    Hatchling plan: If you want to host just a single domain and are expecting low real-time traffic, this is the perfect plan at $2.75/mo. You get all the benefits such as free SSL, free domain, free site transfer, unmetered bandwidth, etc.
  2. 2
    Baby plan: If you are searching for a hosting to host multiple domain names, this is their best shared, value plan for just $3.95/mo. Of course, you get all the free stuff you would in the Hatchling one.
  3. 3
    Business plan: At $5.95/mo., this one’s quite similar to the Baby plan. You just get a few additional benefits such as a free upgrade to Positive SSL, free SEO tools, a dedicated IP address, etc.

Overall, if you are looking to host a niche/micro-niche site or are an SMB, the shared plan will suffice.

Wordpress hosting:

In our Hostinger review, we briefly mentioned how Managed Wordpress hosting’s underlying architecture is the same as one of the primary ones(in that case, shared) and only a few Wordpress-centric performance tweaks are made.


Well, with HostGator, the underlying technology for Wordpress hosting is ‘cloud’. With supercharged cloud architecture, you will get up to 2.5x the loading speeds of shared ones. And therefore, we tested our main sites on Wordpress hosting.


If you have the budget and are using Wordpress or are intending to, we will recommend HostGator’s Wordpress hosting over shared one any given day.


With any of the following plans, you get a low-density server, CDN, and multi-layer caching system:

  • Starter plan: Starting at where we left off, i.e., $5.95/mo., with this plan, you can host one domain on the server. The server is capable of handling 100k visitors per month. And like with shared plans, you get a free SSL & free domain. You also get backups up to 1 GB, which is something shared plans lack.
  • Standard plan: For $7.95/mo., you get double of what you receive with starter plans. The server can handle 200k visitors monthly, you can host two domains, and you’ll be able to take backups of up to 2 GB.
  • Business plan: For supremely high performance, at $9.95/mo., this plan can host three domains and handle up to 500k visits per month. Additionally, you get 3 GB Backups capability too.

Overall, for high-performance, this cloud-based Wordpress hosting is possibly the best value HostGator has to offer. Compared to shared plans, this is substantially better. However, for low-performance, shared plans are perfectly alright.


If these plans also don’t satisfy your appetite, here are a couple of big guns:

VPS hosting:

In shared hosting, a single server is shared among multiple clients. In Wordpress hosting(essentially cloud), various computers are shared amongst multiple clients. But what if you want dedicated resources? VPS is one of the options.


With HostGator’s VPS plans, you’re provided with a dedicated part of the server with dedicated resources. You can choose one of these plans according to needs:

  • Snappy 2000: For $19.95/mo., you get 2 GB memory, 2 Cores CPU, 120 GB disk space, and 1.5 TB bandwidth.
  • Snappy 4000: You will receive 4 GB RAM, 2 Cores CPU, 165 GB disk space, and 2 TB dedicated bandwidth for $29.95/mo. 
  • Snappy 8000: At $39.95/mo., you get whopping 8 GB RAM, 4 CPU cores, 240 GB disk space, and 3 terabytes of bandwidth.

All in all, these are some supreme performance plans to get the benefits of dedicated hosting if you don’t have the budget or the need to rent one. However, for those who do, here are your options:

Dedicated hosting:

Maximum performance. If that’s what you need, HostGator has a flexible, managed dedicated server hosting platform. 


Powered by Intel’s Xeon-D CPUs and capable of running on Linux or Windows OS, here are Dedicated hosting plans you can purchase from HostGator:

  • Value Server: At $118.99/mo., your site will be powered by a 4 core/ 8 thread CPU on unmetered bandwidth. You will get 8GB RAM and 1TB HDD storage. 
  • Power Server: For power users, this $138.99/mo. plan might be sufficient. You’ll get an 8 core/ 16 thread CPU, 16 GB RAM, and 2 TB HDD or 512 GB SSD(your choice).
  • Enterprise Server: For large-scale organizations, this is the ultimate plan at $148.98/mo. Specifications include an 8 Core/ 16 Thread CPU, 30 gigs of RAM, and 1 TB SSD storage.

These are the ultimate performers HostGator offers.


Each plan of each hosting type is value for money. 


That was all about the backend Hardware and Software. What about the frontend? The UI/UX of your admin account?

HostGator Control Panel  

HostGator Control Panel

HostGator uses the traditional cpanel most hosting providers in the business use. 


Though many people love it, most of us here find it dated from an interface standpoint. But when it comes to functionality, everything’s there.


Once you are logged in to HostGator’s cpanel, you can:

  • Manage your files, FTP accounts, backups, disk usage, and much more.
  • Access database(s) from the backend and make changes.
  • Add domains, subdomains, aliases, site publishers, etc.
  • Also, add/remove email addresses, set email forwarders, filters, etc.
  • Check metrics too. E.g.You can have a look at no. of visitors, bandwidth used, etc.
  • Have access to SSH, IP blocker, and Hotlink protection.

Apart from all of these, there is a quick install option and some advanced options such as Cron Jobs, Track DNS, Error Pages, etc.


All in all, HostGator’s cpanel is a 10/10 from a functionality standpoint.

HostGator Pricing, Discounts & Coupon codes

You can avail any of the hosting plans at the mentioned special price through our discount links(up to 75% discount). If you purchase via our links, you get a special discount, and we receive a commission for bringing them a new customer. In essence, this helps us test numerous hosting services, VPNs, and everything you might need throughout your online journey.


Until now, we considered pricing mostly objectively. Now, let’s discuss it subjectively.


“Affordable”, “Value for money”, etc. are the words we used throughout this review, and that’s what it is. 


HostGator is one of the finest value hosting providers in the business, and the theme can be noticed throughout its offerings, whether it’s their shared plans or the VPS ones. 


The primary value lies in their quality hardware and software, but apart from it, HostGator offers a lot of freebies such as a domain, SSL certificate, ad credits, etc. And that’s the cherry on the top.


Everything combined, HostGator provides a competitive option in terms of most things. And if this is the package you’re looking for, here’s our special link[Link] to get any plan at the best price possible.

Conclusion- Do we recommend HostGator?

It’s a huge nod from our side— a big YES.

For us, HostGator strikes the best balance between cost and quality. Though we find their use of HDD a bit off-putting, they have most other things figured out and in place.

  • Their pricing is competitive.
  • They provide unmetered storage and bandwidth.
  • Freebies such as domain & ad credits are always welcome.
  • Their technical support is beyond fantastic.
  • They will help you migrate your existing site from other hosting for free.

Starts at $2.75 per month

Apart from these, the servers your site will be using are powered by green energy. And there’s practically no limit to the size of server you can rent— it can be shared one, or you can have a full server to yourself. 


In sum, one thing we can assure you of is this: If you’re opting for HostGator, you’re getting the best combination of hardware, software, and customer experience your budget can buy you.

hostgator web hosting logo

Starts at

$2.75

/ month

• Best uptime (99.97%)

• Free Site Migration

• Free SSL Certificate

• Perfect for Beginners