Several HostGator shared servers suddenly became very slow and support blamed their scripts.
48signal
137reviewsi
A score out of 100. Negative and mixed reviews take points off, and so does having only a few reviews, so a handful of glowing reviews can’t beat a product many people like.
11%85% Negative
Opinion is split, but the main complaint is poor support, with several long-time customers saying it declined over the years.
What customers love, and what they don’tWhat customers noticed
Customer reviews (137)
Add your reviewShowing 51 reviews mentioning poor support Show all
After a malware attack on shared hosting, HostGator support wanted over $300 to fix and restore.
HostGator shared plans reject python-requests user agents, support would not escalate, and suggested a VPS the rescue groups cannot afford.
Hacked twice in a month on HostGator shared hosting; support cleaned files but the malware kept returning.
After 15 years they were told a $200 migration fee would be waived then billed anyway, and an hour-long support call with an agent lacking root access.
HostGator's own page says all servers have mssql, but support spent an hour insisting it needs a dedicated Windows plan, then refused to install it.
HostGator removed Softaculous WordPress Manager without notice and its Add Site workflow created an empty domain with no WordPress files.
After about 20 years with HostGator they are leaving because overseas support is bad, their plan now has space limits and prices have gone up.
Their shared HostGator site timed out, support blamed caches, and getting the domain EPP code took days of calls.
Sites on HostGator kept getting hacked and support was poor, so they moved to SiteGround.
A HostGator customer of 10+ years says it degenerated into forced upselling, charges for cancelled services and horrible support.
Linking two URLs crashed all their HostGator-hosted sites, the backup did not work and promised compensation never came.
After a malware infection, HostGator blocked all outbound HTTP/HTTPS connections, breaking SMTP, Twilio, Stripe webhooks, license checks and REST calls.
Customer service is terrible, emails go undelivered and HostGator wanted $350 to clean malware, which another host did automatically.
A HostGator pre-sales technician could not understand a simple image-hosting use case, so they ruled the host out.
HostGator renewed four days early, made cancelling painful and the Baby plan costs $23.80 versus $4.50 advertised.
Ten years with HostGator brought consistent slow loading and downtime that support never fixed.
Moved two domains away a month before renewal and was still charged for both; support refunded but could not close the account.
On the Business Reseller plan in 2013, servers went down 2-3 times a month and a 15-hour outage was ruled not covered by the guarantee.
For a month the customer portal login failed silently; ten support contacts and two escalations ended with the ticket closed unresolved.
Adding a domain hit new limits and broke their main site's SSL; support said escalation takes 24-48 hours.
A long-time HostGator customer says it was great 10 years ago but is now the worst, with inexperienced support.
HostGator removed their domain and DNS, taking site and email down, then said 24-48 hours; they also found the monthly fee more than doubled without notice.
A site owner used HostGator for several years and found its platform insecure and its support unable to help with critical issues.
HostGator login stopped working and a week of support gave no fix, leaving them unable to use the service they paid for.
After four support chats, HostGator could not fix Google being unable to fetch robots.txt, so they moved to Hostinger.
HostGator lost a high-value domain during transfer, with support that did not know what to do.
After 21 years on a $35 reseller plan, HostGator suspended and deleted the account when a card expired, offering a $100 a month VPS to restore.
Cancelled a 3-day-old order and got a refund email, then was charged for a 3-year renewal of the cancelled plan.
All 25+ email accounts stopped working for days three times in four years; finally told cPanel was full of malware with no clean backup.
Common questions about HostGator
What do customers say about HostGator?
Opinion is split, but the main complaint is poor support, with several long-time customers saying it declined over the years. Others report price rises, upselling and a few outages. Some customers have had stable hosting for years and found support helpful.
Is HostGator worth it?
Of the 47 reviews with a clear verdict, 4% are positive, 11% mixed and 85% negative. The praise mentioned most is helpful support. The most common complaint is poor support.
What do people like about HostGator?
The praise reviewers mention most: helpful support (3 reviews), reliable (2 reviews) and easy to use (1 review). For example: A PHP 8 500 error was fixed when HostGator reviewed the error log and found a wp-config misconfiguration.
What are the most common complaints about HostGator?
The complaints reviewers mention most: poor support (15 reviews), renewal price hike (15 reviews) and hidden fees (11 reviews). For example: A long-time HostGator customer says it was great 10 years ago but is now the worst, with inexperienced support.
What does the signal score of 48 mean?
It's how well reviewed HostGator is, out of 100. Negative and mixed reviews take points off, and so does having only a few reviews: a service needs plenty of them, compared with the most-reviewed services here, to reach the high 80s and 90s. It's worked out from reviews only, needs at least 5 of them, and updates as new ones come in.
What are the specs of HostGator?
Category: Shared hosting.
Where do these HostGator reviews come from?
137 are quotes from Reddit, each linked to the original. Customer reviews are checked for spam before they appear. Every review, written here or quoted, is read as positive, mixed or negative.