Is WordPress Slow on HostGator?

No, it’s not! Alright, this is the short answer. But let’s see why we say, that WordPress is fast using HostGator as your hosting provider.

In this article we’ll talk about HostGator specifically used with WordPress. We’ll see why WordPress runs well using HostGator, and we’ll also talk about 2 tools you can use to test your website’s speed.

Hosting WordPress Sites with HostGator

HostGator is among the top 10 web hosting providers on the globe. They have grown quickly into a well-regarded and efficient web host. What makes them so special anyway?

There’s 1 main reason that stand out when we compare HostGator to other services: the pricing. If you take a look around HostGator’s official website, you’ll quickly notice that almost every hosting service comes for a fairly low price. Let’s take an example!

But since we’re talking about WordPress, I’ll give you the Managed WordPress cloud hosting capabilities:

1. Starter Plan: costs a monthly $5.95
2. Standard Plan: costs $7.95/month
3. Business Plan: costs only $9.95/month

As you can see from above, not even the most expensive plan surpasses $10/month. This is great news, because most other companies who offer dedicated WP hosting, will price their plans much higher. But having cheap plans doesn’t mean much if you have no features included, right?

Well, with HostGator you don’t have to worry about that. They give you everything that’s needed to manage your website efficiently, according to each plan separately.

For instance, these are the features and resources they give you with the Standard plan (they recommend this one):

• 2 websites for hosting in a single account
• Supports 200,000 monthly visitors (this is good for even bigger sites)
• 2x more computing power than the first plan has to offer
• Free migration of 2 websites
• 2GB of storage for automatic daily backups
• Malware removed automatically
• Unlimited storage space
• $100 of Google advertising credits
• Free SSL certificate (great addition, considering that others charge for it separately)

Now, we reached our main question: what makes WordPress run fast on HostGator? And why should you choose one of HostGator’s cloud hosting services specifically created for WordPress? I’ll give you more than one reason for this (5 actually).

How Can HostGator Provide Such a Great Speed?

SSD Drives

The first and probably most important aspect that ensures a fast loading WordPress website, is the storage device used by the company. Every hosting plan from HostGator comes with free SSDs for storing your site’s data.

Why is this so important? Well, a modern SSD drive, can be up to 10 and even 20 times faster than a standard, traditional spinning drive (HDD). The information is found and outputted to the users screen very quickly, compared to an HDD.

Actually, an SSD will make any sort of website work ways faster than with using older HDD drives. Even so, the fact that HostGator is using this type of storage with every hosting plan, will make WP run seamlessly, no matter the plan you would go with.

Low density servers

Our next reason that you should consider for choosing HostGator’s managed WP hosting is this one: the servers working with your website have a low density level.

What does this mean more exactly? Here’s the explanation:

Usually, one server handles more than 1 website. The exception is only if you sign up for dedicated server hosting. But that’s not the case with us. So, because of the fact that 1 server is hosting multiple websites, the resources of the server at hand, will be split among the users.

For example, if a server has 100GB of storage space and 10 websites are using it, that means, every website will have 10GB of storage for use (this number can fluctuate depending on the size of every website using the server). The CPU and RAM (processing power), is also split between the many users. You get the point.

The servers used by HostGator for WP cloud hosting, are low on density. This means that there are only a few websites using a single server’s resources. Because of this, your website will have more resources available for storage and processing purposes, thus it will run a lot smoother, than with other hosting providers.

Control Panel

The next reason is the control panel and ease of use of the platform. A control panel is a standard feature that comes with pretty much every version of hosting. For handling WordPress efficiently, you need a control panel capable of all tasks related to this CMS.

Fortunately, HostGator makes available a control panel that was developed with simplicity and complexity in mind. This might sound like a weird statement at first. But it really isn’t.

The platform is made to be easily handled by even non techy people. So, the point is, that you don’t have to waste a lot of time learning all the ins and outs of the hosting service.

On the other hand, I said the platform is complex as well. It’s true, because anything related to web hosting (specific WordPress features too), is built into the control panel. For instance, you can set up automatic backups as per your needs. To restore the website to a previous version, all you need to do is 1 click.

The platform is also great at handling all your professional email accounts in one place. You won’t have to open lots of tabs, to keep an eye on everything. All is taken care of in a simple manner.

Pro customer support

Our 4^th reason for choosing HostGator’s WP hosting, is the customer support they provide. When you sing up for a new service, no matter its kind, you’ll probably want to have access to a reliable support team.

HostGator has exactly that. If you need help from them, you can contact the team via phone or live chat. You’ll have the chance to speak with experts on WordPress hosting and technical requirements.

But keep in mind that a support team has to meet at least 2 important goals: it has to be fast and also efficient. Customer support at HostGator is just like that. They will answer you on spot, so no waiting time is needed on your part.

Efficiency is also important for the team behind WP hosting. They will answer you quickly, with the best and most efficient way to solve a certain problem. Whatever your issue might be, they sure have it covered.

Special security features

The last reason I’m going to mention here, is closely tied to WordPress itself. Every cloud hosting package at HostGator that was built to handle WordPress needs, is backed up by specifically created security features.

In other words, the WordPress hosting is built to resist against all kinds of attacks and hackers, all WP-specific attacks. This is great news for any WP user. Your website will be safe from all types of threats that target WordPress websites.

Check Your Website Speed

Now that you know WP runs really well on HostGator’s service, you should know how to test your website’s speed for yourself. I’ll give you 2 of the best tools that will help you in this matter:

Pingdom

This is an online tool that covers all types of services related to website health. The one that suits our needs, is the Page Speed Monitorization tool. This will tell you exactly how long it takes for your website to load its content. Many other statistics will also be displayed when a test was run.

These will help you identify certain problems that may slow down your website, so you can get rid of them. The tool is great when you already signed up for one of HostGator’s WP hosting plans. This way, you’ll be able to test for yourself how fast HostGator really is.

They offer a 14-day trial period, so you can test all the product’s features. Once the period is over, you can opt to renew the service on a monthly or yearly basis, choosing between 4 different plans.

Uptime Robot

Uptime Robot is a great alternative to Pingdom. The service is very similar, differences being mostly in the pricing. What’s really appealing about Uptime Robot compared to Pingdom, is the fact that they offer an entirely free plan.

Of course, there are some limitations, but for a starter website, it will grant you everything that you might need. For instance, they include 5-minute monitoring intervals, 50 monitors and 2 months of logs.

However, if you want the premium package, you can opt for that too. It costs $5,5/month, if you bill on a monthly basis, or $4,5/month, on a yearly basis.

Compared to Pingdom, the prices here at Uptime Robot are cheaper, the service though is just as good.

Conclusion

Now that we’re at the end of today’s article, you should have a pretty good idea why WordPress runs quickly on HostGator’s managed WP cloud hosting service. I gave you 5 reasons, why it’s worth checking out, and even 2 platforms used to monitor site speeds.

The rest is up to you. Choose the right plan, that fits your website (and pocket). This way, you’ll have a modern WordPress website running quickly using a top hosting provider.