I've been running a web hosting service my self for a while now, but as I always intended to keep my support among the best and to never max out my servers I decided to close it for new members. Therefore, due to an ever increasing popularity and web hosting requests, I decided that I had to review other web hosting companies that I could recommend to those who where interested in web hosting with me.

I was looking for a company with top servers, great support and low prices as I could not afford to let any of my possible future clients down. You know, they could maybe come back to me one day when I open up my web hosting service to the public again, right?

As a result of this.... Here is my review of HostGator(hostgator):

First of all; HostGator is one of the most trusted web hosting companies out there, and that is not without a reason. I am not going to go through the in-depth "tech nerd" stuff here but they do of course offer Cpanel as the standard interface for their clients. They run on top-of-the-line Dual Xeon servers that can provide instant backups of your site and they have almost no downtime ever. Many companies claim to have 99,99% up-time guarantee etc but very few companies actually lives up to this promise. HostGator does!! They promise 99,9% up-time and while such claims are usually pointless as it is hard for a client to verify anyways, HostGator seem to actually live up to their promises. We've hosted a couple of rather heavy test sites with HostGator the last 6 months or so and according to our site patrol software they had only a downtime of 10 minutes total for the last 6 months!! Beat that!!

But what really separates HostGator from their competitors is their ultra fast customer support. They have live chat, e-mail support, telephone support etc and they always answer within 30 seconds, literally. I once had to wait for 43 seconds for a support assistant to answer me on the live chat but except for that, they have answered all our other live chat support requests, 7 in total, in 30 seconds or less.

On the negative site it has to be said that they do not have a lot of extra features and pre-installed scripts like many of their competitors. My own web hosting company offer a wide range of pre-installed scripts and programs for our clients to use, which HostGator doesn't. But maybe you don't need a lot of extra stuff, and fancy scripts you won't even use anyways? They do have both SoHo and Fantastico auto installer and these are the two most important features in my view. I don't like SoHo since my site crashed really bad because of it, but many still use it and are happy with it.

I've not heard much bad mouthing about HostGator from others either, which is good. You always here the bad stuff first, right, so if no-one are talking shit about them or complaining it has to be a pretty good hosting provider. Just remember not to overload their servers because that can get you suspended, I've heard. I rate it 5/6 and will recommend them to any other users or resellers as well.