Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Hostgator review

[Siropel]

Ok, I signed up with hostgator again after they launched the new offer, I had an account with them in the past but left when I got my own server.
This is day 22 of the month and I host 3 wordpress blogs with hostgator.
One having served 200544 pages , one 188908 pages and one 92524.
I'm talking about +53.000 uniques served.
Bandwidth (this month) 29268.42 Megabytes (I might reach 40+GB)
Speed: excellent at all times, example: 19 queries. 0.123 seconds
Uptime: excellent, I don't think I had more than 8 minutes of downtime totaled for this month and the other. The server wasn't down, the only service that was offline then was Apache (down for upgrade as I understand).
Server load: mostly under 0.75 but it's a dual xeon.
Support: Always online via livechat, your problems always get answered and resolved in a timely manner (less than 1 hour). In the past, the server where I was got in a spam blacklist and I emailed HG support, in less than 24 hours the server was removed from the blacklist. This can happen to anyone. I had no other issues.
Domain? Oradeanul.com (somehow popular Romanian blog)

Would I recommend them? Yes, they are in my toplist.
Other hosts that I had or have account with and feel the same about: wirenine.com and webcinch.com
These 3 hosts (hostgator, wirenine and webcinch) might not get a perfect 10 but (they get a 9.8 ) they are the best hosts I've been with until now (and I've been with alot).

[extras]

Do you have reviews for other hosts you've used?

I think it's easier to get better picture of hosts from the reviews done by the same person, rather than mixture of many people with many different pointo of views and tastes.

Also, have you noticed any differences between the past and now, at HostGator?

[Siropel]

Do you have reviews for other hosts you've used?

No, just comments / replies here and there but you can get the picture by searching for my posts. I really don't like posting "this host sucks" on whatever host it may be, I always elaborate. It's complicated but you will see more reviews coming from me. Don't want to talk here about other hosts, I don't like to be offtopic, this is a hostgator thread
Send me a private message or IM and I'll tell you my view about others right now
P.S: I really like the way you asked the questions, definitely questions worth asking in other threads too.

Also, have you noticed any differences between the past and now, at HostGator?

No.

[ByteMaster]

Excellent review! So refreshing to read positive comments as opposed to all the negative we normally get. I too have heard good things about HostGator. Sounds like they are still on the ball.

[extras]

Originally Posted by Siropel

No, just comments / replies here and there but you can get the picture by searching for my posts. I really don't like posting "this host sucks" on whatever host it may be, I always elaborate. It's complicated but you will see more reviews coming from me. Don't want to talk here about other hosts, I don't like to be offtopic, this is a hostgator thread
Send me a private message or IM and I'll tell you my view about others right now
P.S: I really like the way you asked the questions, definitely questions worth asking in other threads too.

Thank you.
I'll send PM.

It's good to know that HostGator is not changing anything in the quality, as HG was one of the host I considered last time I changed my primary host, and they are still in my list of candidates.

[foobic]

Good review. It's great to see the cpu info, type of use, traffic and load figures - 40Gb of Wordpress traffic with no problems and load average < 1 on a dual xeon sounds good.

Two questions: Which plan (Baby croc)? Do you use a Wordpress cache module?

Thanks

[nicholaszen]

I also have read many positive reviews about Hosgator.. that was the reason for me to try them out a few weeks ago.. And I must say.. most of the things people told about Hostgator is true.. Good uptime and quite fast.. The helpdesk is not tha fast.. but willingly to help.. So that compensates the speeds a little bit..

But the problem I have with Hostgator is the following.. I've a webshop using OsCommerce.. but for some reason it's generating the following message to me:

Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: User ... has already more than 'max_user_connections' active connections in /.../.../public_html/.../includes/functions/database.php on line 12
Unable to connect to database server!


First we thought it was the pconnection.. but even after we disabled it.. the error still coming back.. so the advice of other users of OsCommerce is to seek for another host..

They told me the reason is because of the limitation of users to the database.. So now I'm on the road to find a host who fits us..

[Siropel]

foobic: Yes, I'm on Baby Croc. Didn't do 40gb yet. I don't use caching but I intend to in the future. I think this ( http://mnm.uib.es/gallir/wp-cache-2/ ) might be the best caching plugin for wordpress for now

nicholaszen: yes, that's because you got too many open mysql connections for the user Oscommerce is on. From what I know hostgator has max_user_connections set to 30 (it was 25). Almost all hosts have a value set and there are a lot of reasons to do it.

[Jedito]

nicholaszen probably you have persistant connections sets ON on your Oscommerce, you can change that on the configuration if I'm not wrong, to set Pconnect to OFF

[nicholaszen]

Originally Posted by Jedito

nicholaszen probably you have persistant connections sets ON on your Oscommerce, you can change that on the configuration if I'm not wrong, to set Pconnect to OFF

Hi Jedito,

thank you for your advice.. but it was already disabled.. HG and I have already searched for many solutions.. But nothing helped.. too bad..

And I'm not saying HG is bad.. but just don't suits me..

[schmeg007]

Good review and glad to hear they can quickly handle something as common as the blacklist removal (it's happened to me too and it wasn't resolved in 24 hours).

[ldcdc]

Siropel, you've been teasing us with a future Hostgator detailed review in a couple of your posts if I remember it right. Nice to see it in full view now. Hopefully you'll never have any reason to change your opinion on them.

[Siropel]

UPDATE: Bandwidth (this month) 41252.78 Megabytes
It seems I did made it to the 40GB+ transfer like I said
No problems, no headaches

[Quartz]

Good job with the review, Host Gator is a great company and seem to please many along the way.

[logodesignteam]

Even I have been with them since last few months and have not no issues whatsoever.

What I love the most is that support is always available on Online Chat. Fortunately I have never found them to be offline as yet