HostGator Reviews

I've been a HostGouger customer for 15 years. I signed up at a low fee and, for the the first few years, they were fine. In recent years the quality of their service and price gouging have become ridiculous. At this stage, it would be fair to say they engage in deceptive pricing and marketing. Shop around and find a better company.

It is the worst host company I ever seen, they drop my website with no reason and do nothing to solve it.

STAY AWAY! We were Hostgator's customer for more than 6 years. Very satisfied all these years but this year it looked like some dodgy company took them over. First, they discontinued shared server packages and as we were late to renew our late package, as this was done automatically till this year, they forced us to upgrade to dedicated server of course for 10x cost if we even wanted to migrate our site. We agreed to pay the cost and specifically explained we will only use it for 1 month till we migrate to a new provider. Our new provider's admins also contacted Hostgator for some issues regarding migration and they actively participated with the migration. On 17th this month the Hostgator's 1-month package expired.

Host Gator Billing Deleted my transferred Domain Name, No Warning, No Explanation, No Refund. Almost lost it - destroying my business. Couldn't Care Less Attitude. HG Charged me for Services they added without telling me. Refused to reply to basic billing questions. Will not allow me to transfer 3 year service w/o losing $300 - No Prorate. Avoid HG if you value your business!

I had a wonderful host for 20 years until he died. Panic snuck in. Host gator was suggested so I hired them, paid for 2-3 years. They did everything except make changes. I would have had to pay more to make any changes and learn how. Everything was ok for about three months until our site went down. A guest told me when looking for it. I didn't think I had to check it. I figured host gator was getting paid but guess what I was told by customer service: “we have 5 million customers and no time to check each one”. I thought that is what I was paying them for. I'm sure with 5 million customers they made enough money to check our site.

Our organization has maintained a long-standing relationship with Associated; however, recent experiences have raised serious concerns regarding service quality, transparency, and data security. Despite ongoing rate increases, there has been a noticeable decline in support responsiveness and effectiveness. Requests for assistance are frequently met with delays, insufficient answers, or attempts to upsell rather than resolve issues. Of particular concern is a potential security breach involving unauthorized access to credit card information within our system. This issue alone calls into question the company’s reliability and safeguards. Given these factors, we can no longer recommend their services and advise others to carefully evaluate alternative providers.

My experience with HostGator has been nothing short of frustrating. What initially looks like an affordable hosting option quickly turns into an expensive and disappointing long-term commitment. The first thing that stands out is how misleading the pricing structure feels. The advertised prices look great at first glance, but they only apply to the initial term. Once that period ends, the renewal costs jump significantly. Over time, what seemed like a budget-friendly hosting plan becomes surprisingly expensive, especially considering the level of service you actually receive.

I asked many times for higher level tech and they said not available and they will call back but they never call. I not recommend anyone to use unreliable company like Hostgator.

I’ve been with HostGator for years, since starting my website in 2017. No issues until I had to upgrade my storage by getting a higher hosting plan. A representative spoke to me on the phone to help me upgrade my plan and told me I just need to migrate my data, and my site would be back to normal within 24 hours. That was Monday, and it’s now Sunday. My site completely crashed and I was on the phone or virtual chat with someone from HostGator every day of the week… For a total of 8 phone calls, 2 virtual chats, and speaking to 8 different people. I probably wasted at least 6 hours of my life, all of which I missed out on making money working (my site was also down so I lost money there, too). It became a part-time job to figure out why my site was down.

Worst hosting company I've ever used. Over the last four years or so, every update brought more confusion. I changed the email I wanted to use for contact and not even the reps could tell me everywhere it should be changed. Then somehow my privacy protection auto-renew got turned off and my information was EXPOSED for WAY too long. Did they do anything to make it right? Nope. They shifted it all to me. I transferred a domain out to another provider and suddenly my inbox is FLOODED with spam emails.

Shitty hosting. They state uptime to be 99.9%, but it's not there. From my experience, for the last 365 days, the uptime was around 87%. We pay $300 for a dedicated server, and almost each month, the server is down for more than 1 hour, with no explanation. They close the case stating that the server is now responsive and no issue can be found, with no lookback on why it happened, no explanation of the root cause.

I have used them for years, hosting my hobby websites. I dealt with the price hikes for a bit. Their hosting and a couple of technical support calls were handled well during that time. My issues really didn't happen until I decided that I was going to cancel them. I was paying for 3 years at a time, and unfortunately, it was linked to an email that I didn't use anymore. I was paying through PayPal. I did not see the renewal notice they sent for a high dollar amount. I did see it hit my credit card. I instantly reached out to HostGator and then through PayPal for a refund before the old subscription ran out. I also went to the cPanel and deleted all the sites. I had no responses. I opened a dispute with PayPal, which they denied with no reason, but did say that HostGator did respond to them. I had shown proof that I reached out in time and everything. Then I read the reviews and I guess they are doing this with lots of people.

I have been a HostGator customer for years, and what I’ve experienced with this company in 2024–2025 has been unbelievable and completely unacceptable. I no longer feel my information, my business, or my website is safe with them. Back in 2024, I discovered that unauthorized people somehow accessed my HostGator account and created three fake businesses under my hosting—without my knowledge. I am a tax professional, not a tech expert, and I never give anyone my HostGator username or password. The only people who ever accessed my account were HostGator representatives during support calls. I trusted them.

I have been with Hostgator for over 7 years. One day they got acquired and decided to double the price of hosting overnight. Now they charge over 20 dollars a month for a mediocre service. Customer service is bad, I guess they fired some people as well. Long story short, stay away from hostgator, they will try to squeeze the client in any possible way.

I wish I could give it 0 stars. Started out with them about 3-4 years ago for my business’ website and at first it was a good price for a dedicated server. The chat was somewhat useful and at least you could get a person on the line when you were really stuck. Then customer service went down the tubes fast! Calls were routed to people who couldn’t understand basic English. They upped the price by nearly $1,000. Then the next year at some point you couldn’t even call people and they only had the chat and zero support. They wanted me to sign up for an extra $500/year just to basically get any contact with customer support or even customer service. They started charging my card 2+ weeks BEFORE the renewal of my services and saying they could not issue a prorated refund.

DO NOT SIGN ON WITH THIS COMPANY. Note: they are affiliated with Blue Host so don't think that is the way to go. Our church hosts and uses email. We were sold by the unlimited email accounts and inboxes. Although we only needed a few email accounts, we needed space because we have to keep documents and multiple people are using one email address. HostGator dropped the quota to 100MB recently. So all accounts created after a certain period only get 100MB. 100MB is NOTHING in the email world. They do not grandfather in accounts that signed up for this plan. But it gets better. If we upgrade to the next yearly plan level, they will give all accounts 100MB! Scam artists!!!

This company scammed me. I purchased a domain name in July for $12.99 per year. They double charged me: $12.99 AND $13.17. I called about a dozen times to have the latter charge removed. They gave excuse after excuse. It is now September and the double charge still is not removed. DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THIS COMPANY.

Hari Ravichandrak is the criminal behind EIG and Newfold Digital destroying web hosting. Hostgator used to be great until this criminal got his hands on it. He's ruined every hosting company he's involved with. They raise prices nonstop and downgrade services and they put malware in accounts to sell a scam called Sitelock to clean your websites. Report him to the attorney general office. He has a record of breaking the laws.

I have been a customer of HostGator for a little over 10 years. I have numerous domains and websites through them. So, it makes it very tough to migrate away. My grievance with HG is with their support. First, chat support has been offline for weeks now. Could have been longer, but I started trying to use it a couple weeks ago and it still is not working. No message or warning from HG. Just a dead link. Calling in for very complicated hosting related issues is super frustrating. Chatting is much better for this, 'cause I can copy/paste in links, errors, etc.

HostGator has ruined my website. I can't even tell you how many hours I've spent trying to get help from them. They lie, they ruined my website (literally) and now I can't get into my new Squarespace website because - even though I have Squarespace and NameCheap as web domains/hosts, their hands are tied because HostGator is listed as my web host.

They charge me early, but I called to cancel the service before it was renewed. They agreed to cancel my 1 year renewal but never gave me my refund, after they agreed to. I WILL NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH THEM. THEY ARE BANNED FOR LIFE.

We signed up in Nov 2023. That day we cancelled and went with Blue host. HostGator refused to refund our money. Then a year later they auto renewed us and kept that money. We called again and pleaded to cancel our account. We got the credit card company involved. Still in dispute but credit card is siding with HostGator even though we thought they had cancelled based upon conversation, if they don't cancel they can continue to auto renew and keep the money. We never used any of their services but they have charged us for 2 years. Read Reddit to see how many folks hate HostGator. Read CNET to see how many folks think HostGator engage in deceptive business practice. We would never ever use HostGator

Terrible Experience with HostGator – Avoid Them! ⭐☆☆☆☆. HostGator was a nightmare for our small business website. We experienced constant downtime, which caused major disruptions for our operations. Every time I contacted their technical support, instead of resolving the issue, they tried to upsell me on a ridiculously expensive hosting plan costing hundreds of dollars a month. It became clear that they weren’t interested in fixing the problem—they just wanted me to spend more money. This felt like a shady tactic to force small businesses into upgrading unnecessarily.

I have had HostGator for 2+ years, as a VPS service with Cpanel. Somehow they were able to change the wrong (and expired) card at renewal instead of the new, correct, and and expired card. When I contacted customer service, they told me the only option to fix this was to spend $2k more on another product, because then they could *potentially* request a refund. Want to downgrade because you don't need the speed or storage you purchased? Can't do it. Not even at renewal. Avoid them like the plague.

I have been a Hostgator client for years, but lately the company is moving in a direction that seems to be increasingly anti-consumer. For example in the past if you ran into an issue with your hosted website you reached out to support, and they would restore your website to an earlier date. Recently Hostgator implemented a new change where they are now charging $49.99 to perform a restore of your website.

We have been using Hostgator for almost 10 years... But recently things are very, very disappointing... They allowed scammers and hackers access their site... Our website has been down for more than 2 months... And customer support not able to help and unwilling to ESCALATE this security breach issue.... We have filed a complaint with the US DOJ internet crimes unit... What a disappointing experience... Many complaints on Social Media and they don't seem to care

We have been using Host Gator for many years. We are overall happy with it and find the costs involved to be low. Recently we had an email issue which seemed to be a sticky problem with distribution lists. A phone call away and they identified the issue and it will take a few hours to get the fix populated. Our service contact was helpful, polite, and efficient. It also helps if you have a bit of IT knowledge to begin with.

If there was a way to give a zero star review I would. Our accounts have been compromised for 3 days. We are in no way responsible for the downtime and HostGator has failed at every interaction to do what they say they will do - or to follow up on tickets. They have promised multiple times to correct their error within the hour and have not. We are a small business and have lost 3 days of productivity over this. Unacceptable.

Hostgator started well (4 years) but as soon as my web designer ghosted me a lot has transpired. I would say if you're not familiar with WordPress then think twice about implementing and working with Hostgator or any other host company. There can be a lot of questionable issues with the site and then conveniently sales try to sell products to help resolve issues, that seem to pop up out of the blue. The sales team in the U.S. are questionable and the logistics in India ...Well there's some odd going on. The team in India can be helpful but it seems like you're working with different companies when trying to resolve matters. It can be time-consuming and if you fall into the hands of sales trying to sell you maintenance to your site - it seems very intentional and scammy. As soon as my account expires I think I'll review other means of hosting because this has been a problem...more so lately. Good luck!

I was negatively billed $500 for a renewal. The price was outlandish. I called in and negotiated a better price. It took hours because their outsourced staff is completely useless. Then hostgator DELETED my entire site causing data loss. When I called in I was told I could pay MORE money to recover my site and there was no other way to recover it. I cancelled with them and forced them, with great effort. to refund all the $500. They have been bought out. They have been stripped of all talent and expertise. They're hoping people will just renew and they can treat hostgator as an annuity. Cancel these people. Cancel Hostgator that doesn't provide good support and only over bills.

I have the Hatchling plan. I got an email in February saying that my website's server software is out of date. I have contacted them several times. They keep telling me that it will be updated. Today, 7/18, 4-1/2 months after the first email, the chat tech said that the server is so old that it can't be updated and would not confirm that my website would be transferred to another updated server. I was just told to keep waiting. I'm done with Hostgator. It will be a pain to move everything, but I see that I am not the only one who is getting the runaround about updating out of date software.

I've used HostGator for 20 years. In the meantime, I have also used at least 10 other hosting companies on hundreds of different websites. The last couple of years, HostGator has completely gone astray and turned into an awful company. I don't recommend them whatsoever. Support is terrible these days too.

Abysmal customer service. I received a renewal notice that my domain would be expiring on 7/13/24 unless I canceled. On 6/28/24 they ran my credit card before I even had a chance to cancel. I contacted them and pointed out that I had the right to cancel since it was before the renewal period and they basically said, "Too bad." $300 down the drain for absolutely nothing because I no longer need the site. There is no way I would recommend this company, if for no other reason than they will rip you off even if you do the right things. "Cancel" doesn't mean anything to them.

Their customer service is horrendous. I cancelled my service over a year ago yet they still charged me the annual renewal fee on May 24 2024 without sending the 30 day annual renewal notice like they are legally obligated to do. I had to jump through hoops for over a week just to gain access to my account to initiate refund. I opened a dispute with PayPal on June 1st because I was being charged illegally for a service I didn't want or even have access to. On June 3rd I finally got access to my account and was advised refund was processed. I was also advised I would have the funds deposited by end of week (June 7). Spent all morning on chat June 8th just to be told that refund was already processed and posted. It was not.

All of my sites are down and clients are texting me asking why. I opened a live chat with Hostgator and the rep had no idea what he was talking about. I then closed the chat and called and they said the issue has been "escalated". I get an email from Hostgator saying the issue will be resolved in 24-72 hours. Unbelievably horrible, slow service. I have 7 hostgator accounts and considering going elsewhere now that this issue has arisen without a prompt resolution. The sites on the affected account are owned by high-end clients and they are losing business due to Hostgator's server issues. Hostgator didn't offer a solution, any credits or anything... at all. Absolute nightmare of a company. Was with them for over a decade but will most likely be leaving them for a better host who doesn't take 3 days to provide a solution. Unacceptable.

It is one of the most expensive hosting providers, although they advertise other prices you somehow end up with almost 250 per year for the simplest site you can imagine. Plus I have complained to them that for some reason although I have received their promo mails I do not find my warning mails for renewals. I ended up without a site twice, and them telling me that in order to have my back up online again they are requesting 149 dollars more. They are practically thieves. Do yourself a favour and go for other companies.

Horrible company. Some guy calls you to sell you 5 month service to help you do a new website and they did nothing. Charged me 700$. Called 2 days later to cancel. Refused to give me back my money for worthless service. Scam company. Stay away.

I have been a HostGator customer for over a decade. They used to be great-the best. Then they sold to EIG. Hostgator has cost me an estimated $100,000 in lost revenue over the last year. Not to mention the hours and hours of wasted time on the phone and chat trying to resolve constant issues. My website has constantly been down over the year. For over a decade they were great but they have totally failed repeatedly over the last two years.

Their "abuse" department is setup to "abuse" businesses. Very bad service. We got a message that you need to reduce space. We reduced the disk space and they keep threatening and shutting down our server every week. We had 200 websites running on the server. It was so scary, every time they send one message and shut down the server at the same time. I wasted time requesting every time they shut down. They were pushing me to take VPS package. Hosting business is trust-based business, you can not shut down by just sending message. It was so rude and scary that I would never recommend HostGator. I have record of all their mails from abuse department. Their abuse department even do not read mails, they just use template to reply.

I started with HostGator almost 17 years ago. Too long ago to remember my pin number. In the first years, I got great service but the service changed. When I retired and didn't need the website, I couldn't cancel it because I didn't remember my pin number. They had no other verification way. Not my SS number, not my mother's maiden name. Just this one pin number. So I was forced to pay a year's service for a service I didn't need. The outsourced people couldn't help me. (When did Texans move to India?) They write bot scripts in their chats. And to add to this, GoDaddy had hacked my site and Hostgator did nothing. Hostgator is not the business they started as. If you want service, talk to a Bot.