| Overall
Rating: |
 |
| What's
Special: |
Monthly
Payment |
| Recommended
Plan: |
Baby
Plan |
I
became a Hostgator's customer around the later part of 2006. I am firm
believer of spreading my risk around and not to be over-reliant on any
one web hosting company. In fact, I love their fantastic offering so
much so that I upgraded my basic Baby plan to become a reseller of
Hostgator. I did so because the nature of my work requires me to host a
few customers' sites. Hostgator is probably one of the few companies
which allow you to make monthly payment where most require an upfront
payment of 3-12 months. Take a look at the chart below, a good sign that customer base is on the rising trend.
Company
Background
Houston, Texas-based hosting provider has an impressive track record of
hosting over 1.3 million websites since 2002. Hostgator might seem
pricey compared to the rest of our recommended companies, but we reckon
the strength of their plan really lies in the fact that they won't tie
you down with any yearly contract. Payments are collected on a monthly
basis.
Hostgator offers 3 services namely shared hosting, reseller hosting and
dedicated servers. The Baby Plan I recommend falls under the shared
hosting category. It is ideal for those hosting many websites and yet
does not want to be bogged down by the technical challenge that comes
with reseller hosting and dedicated servers.
Reseller hosting as the name suggest allows you to resell the
webhosting space to your own customers or friends. This plan is more
suitable for those who are web developers, web designers and intends to
set up a web hosting business. It's technically more challenging to set
up a reseller hosting account thus I do not recommend if all you want
to do is just host your own sites. Other the hand, I was so please with
our overall experience hosting with Hostgator that I decided to upgrade
my own package to a reseller plan.
Dedicated Server is reserved for those who wants to manage their own
web server and is intended for those who are operating very large scale
website and needs a much higher level of scalability in terms of their
hosting requirements.
Reliable
Uptime & Fast Connectivity
All their 3 network/data centers are located in Dallas, TX.
Connectivity is also not an issue as their backbone carriers are
provided by companies such as Global Crossing, UUNET, AT&T etc.
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Hostgator's
Cpanel is somewhat similar to Bluehost's offering. Checkout their
virtual Cpanel to better appreciate what you are will be getting when
you host with Hostgator.
Our
Verdict
Setting up of your hosting account is almost immediate. But you might
be asked to call in to verify your account. If your demand for
diskspace is not high, go for its Hatchling plan instead. Take note
however that this plan does not come equip with a Site Builder and the
uptime guarantee is only 99.5% instead of the normal 99.9% but honsetly it's not by sheer luck that one gets to host over 600k websites.
Dislikes
None whatsoever.
Likes
We also like the fact we are able to host unlimited websites on just
one account. Minimum contract is just 1 month instead of the usual
minimum 3 months to 1 year contract imposed by other companies.