Is HostGator Web Hosting Fast?

What is one of the most important aspects about a hosting provider that you’ll use in the future? Speed, of course!

After all, everyone who owns a website (or more) wants it to load fast and work seamlessly for any visitor. There’s a good reason behind this thinking: a big percentage of people will leave a website, if it won’t load in less than 2-3 seconds.

So, if you’re the owner of a website, or you’re planning to launch a website, it is of utmost importance to look out for loading speeds in your new host. This way, the site will grow in popularity quicker and easier.

But you may be asking yourself: Which web hosting company is known for being fast? That’s a good question! In this article we’ll discuss the answer.

More exactly, we’ll talk about a hosting provider that is a worldwide used service. It’s called HostGator.

A main subject of this article is to let you know why HostGator is a quick service, and which hosting plan would be best for getting the fastest website.

About HostGator

HostGator is an American company. It was founded by Brent Oxley back in 2002 with its first office in Florida. Quite some time has passed since the company’s first release. How does it stack up today against the competition?

We can safely say that HostGator is among the top 10 web hosts around the globe. Why? Because since 2002, hundreds of thousands of customers have grown to love the services they provide.

That means, hundreds of thousands of websites are hosted using one of HostGator’s services.

A main reason why so many people chose this provider over others, is the pricing. For instance, every hosting package you can find on their official website, costs way less than what other companies have to offer.

But being cheap isn’t everything. After all, who wants a cheap service, that won’t get the job done? Luckily, HostGator isn’t such a host. Every plan they offer is top-notch. They include all the needed features accordingly to the chosen package (we’ll see about this in more detail later).

But now that you know why HostGator is so popular, it’s time to see if they are as fast as you would like them to be:

Is HostGator Fast?

The short answer is: Yes, HostGator is definitely a fast web hosting service. Ok, I know you want more details, so let’s move one, and talk about some proof:

SSD storages

The first thing we must mention talking about website speeds, is the hardware HostGator provides its customers. You’ll be happy to know that every single hosting plan offers free SSD storage.

Why is this so important that it needs to be mentioned? Well, SSD drives are a lot quicker than standard, traditional spinning drives (HDD). But how much quicker?

In most cases, an SSD will output the required information to the visitor’s screen up to 10x faster than a normal HDD drive. If the drive used by the company is a quality product (which it is), this number can go up to even 20x faster.

Just imagine that! For instance, instead of waiting 10 seconds for a page to load, your user will see the content in less than 1 second on his/her screen.

An SSD is that important. That’s why HostGator is using it as a base for every hosting plan on they make available.

Low density on servers

Another must-mention aspect that makes HostGator so fast, is the low density on their servers. I’ll tell you what this means right now. First, you should know that this aspect applies mostly for those who work with shared hosting plans. But since most people are using these types of services, there’s a high chance you’re among them as well.

When you sign up for a shared hosting plan, it means that you’ll share the resources of one single server with other websites. Because of this, the resources will be split among all the users of a single server.

Let’s say the server has 100GB of storage space (only an example). If there are 10 users on this server, every user will have around 10GB of space for their website. But the number can greatly fluctuate because some websites require more resources than others. The point is, you’ll share resources with other users.

But because HostGator has low-density servers, you’ll share those resources with way less users than you’d do at other companies. This way, your website will receive more processing power, storage and other bonuses needed to maintain it.

And because you’ll get more of everything (specifically RAM and server power), your site will load very quickly, no matter how complex it is.

Fast servers

As a third proof, I’ll give you some speed testing statistics about HostGator. You’ll see that a website we run on HostGator’s shared server will load in a blink of an eye. This is a WordPress site loaded with lots of images, scripts and receives decent daily traffic too.

A test performed with Pingdom from London (UK), at 1:30 PM local time gave the following results:

• Performance Grade: 81 points
• Load Time: 2.87 seconds
• Page size: 390 KB
• Number of requests: 29

HostGator’s data centers are situated in the US. So, making this test from a European country makes it even harder to get a good score.

Keeping all this in mind, notice that HostGator managed to load the site in less than 2 seconds. This is an impressive feat.

This achievement easily speaks of a great hosting provider who puts a lot of effort into bringing fast loading speeds.

We’ve run the test few minutes later on the Google PageSpeed Insights tool as well. We got two results with this tool, one for mobile one for desktop. Here are the screenshots:

HostGator – Google Speed Test Mobile

HostGator – Google Speed Test Desktop

As you can see, the test results are pretty promising with Google speed test as well.

Now, it’s time to see which hosting plan would be best for having the quickest website:

Fastest HostGator Plans

Choosing the right hosting plan for your website depends mostly on your specific needs. Why do I say that? Just think about it!

A newly built website won’t need too many resources to work properly. Why is that true? Because, usually a beginner site won’t have too many daily visitors from the start. It takes time to grow. So, having a simpler hosting plan is all you need.

But if you own a more complex website, that is already receiving lots of visitors on a daily basis, you might want to look for something more competitive. After all, more visitors require more resources, right?

So, how should you proceed to have a quick website? There are 2 methods you could choose from:

HostGator – Business Plan

1. If you only just want to release your new website, you need a good shared hosting plan. Fortunately, HostGator is offering 3 separate plans for such needs. Though, if you want the best performance, you should go with the 3^rd package called Business hosting. This plan also include free SSL certificate, dedicated IP and SEO tools.

It costs a monthly $5.95, so it’s quite cheap. Also, you get unlimited SSD storage and unmetered bandwidth, so you’ll be able to work with a fair number of visitors as you grow bigger.

HostGator – VPS Hosting Plans

2. The second situation occurs when your website is already well-established. This means that you get hundreds (possibly thousands) of daily visitors. In this case, a shared hosting plan won’t be enough to keep a fast loading website.

HostGator offers 2 alternatives: VPS Hosting and Dedicated Hosting. There’s a notable difference between the 2: VPS hosting lets you use a certain amount of resources, clearly outlined, but you’ll work on the same server with others. This hosting is cheaper than Dedicated hosting.

Dedicated hosting will give you an entire server all for yourself. This is the main difference. However, Dedicated hosting is a lot more expensive than VPS hosting.

To be able to choose the right plan for your needs, take a look on HostGator’s official website. There, you’ll find both the VPS hosting and Dedicated hosting plans clearly described. All the features and resources are listed, so you’ll know exactly what is that you need specifically.

Keep in mind though, that Dedicated hosting is only for those who own very big websites. By this I mean huge site, with thousands of daily visitors and tens or even hundreds of pages. For most users, VPS hosting is just enough to have a fast site.

Conclusion

Now you now know that HostGator is a well-known hosting provider with a growing popularity. Is it fast? Of course! From the 3 reasons written above, it’s clearly seen that HostGator cares about website speeds very much.

Actually, they are evolving in this area by the day.

All in all, choosing the right plan for your website, is entirely up to you. Just think well about what you need specifically, and you’ll know how to proceed!