If you are considering to start a blog, forum, CMS or even eCommerce store, you may want to include Hostgator as one of your options. The company founded in 2002, provides shared, reseller, virtual private server (VPS) and dedicated web hosting services. With more than 10 years in the industry, Hostgator is one of the most popular service provider. In this review, we will touch on the list of free applications available on Hostgator cPanel and a quick comparison of the 3 plans (Hatchling, Baby & Business) available on their Shared Web Hosting packages. OK, let’s jump right into the details that matters.
What Free Applications does Hostgator provides?
Billing
WHMCS
Blog
LifeType
Wordpress
Calendar
WebCalendar
Chat
CraftySyntax
phpFreeChat
X7 Chat
CMS
b2evolution
concrete5
Drupal 6
Drupal 7
glFusion
Hotaru
Joomla
liveSte
Mambo
Modx
Nucleus
ocPortal
Open Atrium
PHP-Nuke
phpwcms
Pligg
Saurus CMS
Textpattern
Tiki
Trendy Site Builder
Typo3
Xoops
Zikula
Directory
DewNewPHPLinks
eCommerce
Magento
phpCOIN
PrestaShop
SugarCRM
Vtiger CRM
ZenCart
eLearning
Claroline
Moodle
ePortfolio Software
Mahara
Forum
Advanced Electron Forum
bbPress
MyBB
phpBB
punBB
Simple Machines Forum (SMF)
Gallery
4Images
Coppermine
Gallery
Piwigo
Pixelpost
Zenphoto
Guestbook
Lazarus Guestbook
Mail
Dada Mail
phpList
Project Management
dotProject
PHProjekt
Push
Z-Push
Social Networking
Elgg
Jcow
ThinkUp
Support
MantisBT
OpenDocMan
osTicket
phpMyFAQ
Survey
Advanced Poll
LimeSurvey
phpESP
Wiki
MediaWiki
PmWiki
Wikka
Easy One Click Installation
Setting up the applications is easy and fast with Hostgator “QuickInstall“.
cPanel Settings – one click installer “QuickInstall” can be found here
Manage a bunch of settings on the control panel such as spam control, FTP, view web statistics, security, add domains or sub-domains, advance tools and cronjobs, etc.
cPanel – settings for emails, spam, and FTP
Which Hostgator Plan to Choose?
For Shared Web Hosting services, you have 3 different plans to choose from depending on your requirements. For website owners that have bigger volume of traffic, you may want to go for the dedicated web servers instead.
Hatchling Plan
Choose this if you are a beginner and/or only owns one website with low to moderate traffic.
Baby Plan
Ideal if you own multiple websites, and wants to have extra options such as Dedicated IP ($2/monthly) and Private SSL. Personally I find that this plan provides more value as it allows you to host unlimited domains so that you can scale up or do experiments, etc.
Business Plan
Even better than Baby Plan plus you get your own toll-free number.
Category
Feature
Hatchling Plan
Baby Plan
Business Plan
Web Hosting Packages
Domains
1 only
Unlimited
Unlimited
Bandwidth
Unmetered
Unmetered
Unmetered
Disk Space
Unmetered
Unmetered
Unmetered
Toll Free Number
No
No
Yes
Free Dedicated SSL
No
No
Yes
Free Dedicated IP
No
No
Yes
Package Details
24/7/365 Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Backup
Yes
Yes
Yes
No Contract Required
Yes
Yes
Yes
99.9% Uptime Guarantee
Yes
Yes
Yes
45 Day Money Back Guarantee
Yes
Yes
Yes
Domain/FTP Features
Sub Domains
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
FTP Domains
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Addon/Parked Domains
No
Unlimited
Unlimited
Anonymous FTP
No
No
Yes
Supported Web Hosting Features
Wordpress Hosting
Yes
Yes
Yes
MySQL Databases
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
CGI
Yes
Yes
Yes
Fast CGI
Yes
Yes
Yes
PHP 5
Yes
Yes
Yes
Ruby on Rails
Yes
Yes
Yes
SSH
Yes
Yes
Yes
Perl
Yes
Yes
Yes
Python
Yes
Yes
Yes
SSI
Yes
Yes
Yes
Cron
Yes
Yes
Yes
Curl
Yes
Yes
Yes
GD 2
Yes
Yes
Yes
Image Magick
Yes
Yes
Yes
Streaming Audio/Video
Yes
Yes
Yes
Free Module Installation
Yes
Yes
Yes
Email Hosting
POP3 Accounts
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Web Mail
Yes
Yes
Yes
E-Mail Alias
Yes
Yes
Yes
Autoresponders
Yes
Yes
Yes
Mailing Lists
Yes
Yes
Yes
Catch Alls
Yes
Yes
Yes
Spam Assassin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Mail Forwarding
Yes
Yes
Yes
IMAP Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
SMTP
Yes
Yes
Yes
Control Panel Features
Latest cPanel
Yes
Yes
Yes
Soholaunch
Yes
Yes
Yes
Hotlink Protection
Yes
Yes
Yes
IP Deny Manager
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom Error Pages
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Blogs
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Portals
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant PHPnuke
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Forums
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Guestbook
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant Counter
Yes
Yes
Yes
Instant FormMail
Yes
Yes
Yes
Redirect URL
Yes
Yes
Yes
Web Based File Manager
Yes
Yes
Yes
PW Protected Directories
Yes
Yes
Yes
phpMyAdmin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Website/FTP Features
AWStats Real Time Updates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Webalizer
Yes
Yes
Yes
Raw Logs
Yes
Yes
Yes
Referrer Logs
Yes
Yes
Yes
Error Logs
Yes
Yes
Yes
E-Commerce Features
Your Own Toll-Free Number
No
No
Free
Private SSL Allowed
No
Yes
Included
Dedicated IP
No
$2.00/Monthly
Free
Shared SSL
Yes
Yes
Yes
osCommerce
Yes
Yes
Yes
ZenCart
Yes
Yes
Yes
Hostgator Plans
Hatchling Plan
Baby Plan
Business Plan
Coupons
IMSTASH25OFF - 25% discount off package, or use IMSTASH994 to get $9.94 off package
IMSTASH25OFF - 25% discount off package, or use IMSTASH994 to get $9.94 off package
IMSTASH25OFF - 25% discount off package, or use IMSTASH994 to get $9.94 off package
More Information
Visit Hostgator
Visit Hostgator
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*coupons valid for web hosting packages only.
Payment Options
Hostgator does not require you to commit for 12 or even 6 months contract if you are not ready. However taking up a longer contract period costs lesser compared to a monthly renewal. From time to time, there are discounts or coupons provided by Hostgator. The discounts on sign-up are applied on the first term only, so if you pay on monthly basis, then your first month will be at say 20% discount off, then the 2nd and subsequent months will be a normal prices. Want to save more money? Go for longer term. Business owners should consider signing up at least 1 year contract to avoid lapse of services due to forgetting to renew, or because of unforeseen circumstances.
Side Note
One thing to take note is that Hostgator advertises their Disk Space and Bandwidth as “unmetered”. Not to be mixed up with “unlimited”. Basically this means you are not charged accordingly to the disk space or bandwidth that you use. To put it simple, Hostgator expects customers to use diskspace and bandwidth as per the normal operation of a blog or small business website. So if Hostgator determines unusual high activity/usage, or abuse of their network, the account may be suspended or dealt with accordingly to their TOS. Probably this is fair enough for most users. If you find your blog(s) consuming excessive resources, you may want to consider hosting with a dedicated server.
Hostgator Guarantees
No matter what you choose, you can be assured of your choice as Hostgator guarantees
24/7/365 support – whether you are a first time user, or professional, having 24 hours support each and every day gives you peace of mind that someone will always be backing you up.
45 day guarantees – usually on the web, what we see is 30 days guarantee. However Hostgator is allowing users to explore at NO RISK for up to 45 days. As long as you cancel within this period, you get your complete refund.
99.9% uptime – Hostgator guarantees at least 99.9% uptime. Hostgator understands the importance of running a website and this is of utmost priority to them.
Source: A Review of Hostgator Shared Web Hosting