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Bluehost vs HostGator: Which is the Best Hosting For You?
STARTING A WEBSITE BUT CAN’T DECIDE WHICH WEB HOSTING COMPANY TO SIGN UP WITH? READ THIS ARTICLE TO FIND THE BEST HOSTING SERVICE FOR YOU…
You may not know where to begin when it comes to finding the best hosting service if you’re newly introduced to website building and hosting, or even if you’re an experienced techie looking to switch providers. Choosing just one option can be difficult when there are so many possibilities.
Our goal is to provide you with the best service for your site. So we did some extensive research on two of the largest hosting companies, Bluehost and HostGator, in order to see which is actually the better choice.
In terms of what they offer, these two providers seem very similar at first glance. However, Bluehost was found to be a better value for money and had stronger features than HostGator.
Though they both offer world-class hosting, millions of websites are hosted across both platforms, so whichever platform you choose, you’ll be in good hands. We have in-depth reviews on these two providers if you’d like to find out more:
Here is a quick comparison of the two. To help you decide on the perfect hosting service for your site, click on the link to sign up, or read on to learn more about both providers. Which host will it be? HostGator or Bluehost? Come on, let’s find out.
Bluehost
Bluehost
Interested in a free domain name? Who isn't! All Bluehost web hosting plans accompany a free domain name for the primary year. Why make getting your site going more complicated? Get your dream domain and save by using Bluehost for both hosting and domain registration
HostGator
HostGator
Just Grab a hosting plan for your website which you'll need, and your domain's with HostGator Free for 1 Year. Prevent unauthorized transfers of your domain names, & retain control to unlock domains with the Domain locking feature. If you forget to renew your domain, you could lose it. That's why HostGator set up auto-renew, so you don't gotta worry.
Bluehost and HostGator Pros and Cons
Firstly, let’s look at the pros and cons of each provider side by side, to clear up any confusion we’ve encountered so far. The decision you make will be affected by the strengths and weaknesses of both options.
Bluehost Pros and Cons
PROS
CONS
PROS
- WordPress-Approved
- Super Fast Loading Speed
- Awesome Server Uptime
- Flexible and Scalable
CONS
- The amount of storage on a Basic shared plan is below average
- You are given a lot of options when checking out that may hike up your price if deselected
HostGator Pros and Cons
PROS
CONS
PROS
- Great Uptime – 99.99%
- Best cPanel Hosting
- One-Click Install and Free Site Transfer
- Free SSL and Domain
CONS
- The amount of storage on a Basic shared plan is below average
- You are given a lot of options when checking out that may hike up your price if deselected
Clearly, both providers are equally balanced, and your choice will really come down to what you need out of your hosting solution and what matters to your site or business.
Bluehost vs Hostgator: Pros and Cons – Results
The overall winning provider remains Bluehost over HostGator, though they are pretty evenly matched.
Other Top Web hosting services to check out
There are plenty of other web hosting services out there if you’re looking for one that’s right for you, aside from Bluehost and HostGator. In addition to these, we have researched, tried, and reviewed a wide variety of other products. Our research enabled us to come up with a list of the best web hosting companies. There are eight reasons why we chose different web hosting services on our list. Each of these may be the right reason for you. Check out all of our top picks.
Features, Performance, & Ease of Use
The main differences between the two are their features, and Bluehost Ranks higher than HostGator Based on our rankings. The two providers provide a lot of excellent features and, as you might expect, they are mostly comparable.
Bluehost | HostGator | |
Free Domain | Yes | Yes |
Control Panel | cPanel | cPanel |
Free Backups | No | No |
Unmetered Transfer | Yes | Yes |
Disk Space | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Uptime | 99.96% | 99.93% |
Load Time | 688 ms | 734 ms |
Price | $2.75/mo | $2.75/mo |
Where Bluehost Conquest
As recommended by WordPress: You would want to choose a hosting service that you are confident will work with WordPress if you plan to build your website on this platform. WordPress only endorses three hosting companies out of the many available. Among those three is Bluehost. The fact that Bluehost is the most popular web hosting service on the market does not come as much of a surprise, but it makes things a lot easier for you to decide what service is best for your WordPress website when it comes to web hosting. The company is rated highly by WordPress itself, which is quite an accomplishment.
High Uptime: I have a quick reminder for you in case you forget or don’t know what uptime is. Your website’s uptime measures its availability. In the case of your website being offline, people are unable to access it. Essentially, you want to make sure your site is up all the time so that you are confident it’s performing well. With Bluehost, 99.9% of the time people visit your site will be up and running, which means your site will always be available. You don’t want people to have trouble accessing your website, so this is an important factor to consider when looking at web hosting.
With Bluehost, you’ll get near 100% uptime if you upgrade to a VPS hosting plan.
Customer Support: Bluehost offers various ways to contact support when needed. In addition to the ability to submit tickets, Bluehost offers live chat as well as a toll-free telephone number for phone support. If you have questions about account management, sales, or technical support, you can get help 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. As well as providing support via social media, they also offer it through email. If you’re into Twitter, then you should check Bluehost’s Twitter channel when you need assistance.
You can also look through Bluehost’s support library to see if you can find the answer without contacting support directly. The support library contains lots of questions with detailed explanations that can help you through common problems.
Security: Security is not something you want to ignore when it comes to web hosting. If you want people to trust your website as well as you, you should choose a web hosting provider that you can trust. For plans that utilize a shared IP address, BlueHost offers a free shared SSL. It protects all information that your customers or clients put on your website, including their credit card numbers and other personal data.
Bluehost offers an automatic backup service called CodeGuard Basic that runs on higher-level plans, whether you need daily, weekly, or monthly backups. As a precautionary measure, you should always keep a backup of your website. Bluehost offers an in-cPanel interface for updating every plan.
Bluehost doesn’t include malware scanning in its free plans, but you can add on the SiteLock feature for an additional fee. Services provided by this company include:
- Monitoring spam on your site every day to prevent it from appearing. There are also tools like SpamExperts, Spam Hammer, and Apache Spam Assassin available, as well.
- Trust-building through business verification
- Website verification certificate provided to allow your customers to trust your site
- Blacklist monitoring to prevent your site from being blacklisted by Google
- Daily Scans that provides Basic Malware monitoring
Fast: How quickly your site loads is a very important piece of how well your site succeeds. If people have to wait a long time for it to load, they won’t — they will go onto another page. This will do a number on your bounce rate, too. So, if you want to have a website that does well and that serves your clients and customers, you need a hosting service that offers a fast loading speed. The Bluehost web hosting service does just that.
Bluehost’s sites perform much faster than sites recommended by Google to load within 200ms.
Flexible Plans: Bluehost offers a wide range of plans to suit a wide variety of needs.
BlueHost makes it easy to upgrade to something better-suited if you start with a lower-tiered plan and realize it isn’t enough for you. Bluehost offers the plans you need so you don’t have to switch hosts. One of the best things about upgrading or switching plans is that your site won’t experience any downtime.
Free Features: Hosting plans include some free features that may seem like fluff and are of little value to you. There is one exception to this rule, however, namely Bluehost. You need the free features Bluehost offers since they are ones that matter to you. Free CDNs, free SSL certificates, and free domains for an entire year are examples of these things. The following features are essential to your website, and all Bluehost plans include them.
For the first year, the domain is offered free of charge, but you’ll have to pay an annual fee after that. Through the free CDN, the servers are coordinated so that the web is loaded quickly and there is no delay. Your website will remain safe and secure from hackers with the free SSL certificate. The information collected does not only include your own information but also any information entered by visitors to your site (such as credit card numbers, addresses, etc.).
Where Bluehost Fails
No Uptime Guarantee: Bluehost does have excellent uptime (99.9%), but no uptime guarantee is provided. As a consequence, Bluehost will not offer any compensation if your uptime drops below 99.9%. Bluehost does not offer money in the event of downtime with your website, unlike DreamHost. There is a need for an uptime guarantee, which Bluehost doesn’t provide.
Costly Renewal: Bluehost offers one of the most affordable web hosting options when it comes to the initial prices, but the prices go up quite a bit when you renew your subscription. Usually, hosting providers will increase their prices every few years, but keep in mind that Bluehost has made big increases recently.
Expensive Migration: Bluehost charges for moving a website from another hosting provider. You will have to spend quite a bit of money on it. Bluehost charges $149.99 to migrate your website from one hosting service to another. Both the other hosting companies offer free migrations. There is a charge of $300 for this service, which allows you to migrate up to five sites and 20 email accounts.
Where HostGator Conquest
Uptime Guarantee: In addition to uptime, you also need to consider the security of the company you choose. Besides offering a guarantee for uptime, HostGator also offers quick uptime speeds. HostGator will credit you an entire month of services if your uptime drops below 99.9%.
Great cPanel: As far as using a control panel for your hosting is concerned, the HostGator cPanel’s interface and usability blow the competition out of the water.
There are numerous tools typical of a cPanel, including:
- File manager
- FTP with user management
- Backup wizard
- Disk usage
- Domain manager
- DNS
- File upload
- File download
- And much more
The system presents them in a clear and easy-to-understand manner. Your site can be easily managed from a single location with cPanel from HostGator.
Free Site Transfer: Your site can be transferred from another provider to HostGator for free if you wish. It can be done quickly and easily. Then you can start the free transfer once you’ve chosen the plan that meets your needs.
Free Features: Freebies are always welcome and HostGator offers a good selection. For all the users and domains hosted on your account, a free SSL certificate is provided when you purchase a hosting plan. Getting an SSL certificate and setting it up on your site can be done on this site, rather than going to a third-party company.
Additionally, HostGator offers a free domain for your first year if you sign up for a shared hosting plan, a WordPress hosting plan, or a cloud hosting plan. Your domain renewal rate will increase after the first year.
Where HostGator Fails
Standard Features: In spite of HostGator’s unique free unlimited features, most of them are standard and don’t stand out much from the competition.
Only Offer Weekly Backups: It is imperative that you have a backup of your website, as we discussed above. To ensure that your website is always backed up in its latest version, always make sure the backup is the latest version. Hosting companies, like HostGator, don’t take that as easy as other providers do. There is only one backup each week offered by HostGator, and restoring the site costs money in case of an emergency.
Customer Service Is Not Quick: HostGator’s customer support is one of the things we like, but it takes some time to get it. Though they provide 24-hour support via phone, chat, and email, they tend to be slow in responding to questions. You know that sitting around waiting for someone to answer your call is not something you would want to do when you have an issue with your site. Customer service support is provided much more quickly by other hosting companies.
Bluehost vs HostGator: The Final Verdict
Bluehost’s hosting plans include a wide range of options depending on your needs and those of your website.
Basic. If you need to run a single, basic site, this plan is perfect for you. The following are the benefits you will receive:
- 1 Website
- 50 GB SSD Storage
- Custom Themes
- 24/7 Customer Support
Additionally, you get:
- Free Domain – 1 year
- Free CDN Included
- Free SSL Certificate
Plus. Those with multiple websites should choose this plan. All the benefits of the Basic plan are included in this plan, plus:
- Unlimited Websites
- Unlimited SSD Storage
- Free Office 365 – 30 days
Choice Plus. Bluehost recommends this plan since it provides you with additional privacy and security features. All of the benefits of the Plus plan are included in the Choice Plus.
- Free Domain Privacy
- Free Automated Backup – 1 year
Pro. In this plan, you get more flexibility and power when it comes to web resources, and you also get:
- Optimized CPU Resources
- Free Dedicated IP
The plans offered by HostGator are some of the best available at a low cost.
Hatchling. Beginners who need some basic information about websites will find this plan useful. The following are the benefits you will receive:
- Single website
- One-click WordPress installs
- Free WordPress/cPanel website transfer
- Unmetered bandwidth
- Free SSL certificate
- Free domain included
Baby. According to HostGator, this is their recommended plan. All the features available in the Hatchling plan are included in this plan, in addition to unlimited websites.
Business. A larger business that operates through its website can benefit greatly from this plan. In addition to everything included in the Baby plan, this plan offers:
- Free upgrade to Positive SSL
- Free dedicated IP
- Free SEO tools
The introductory and overall price on Hostgator is cheaper, but the extra money you spend on Bluehost will get you better features and an easier way to integrate WordPress.
Comparing The Best Web Hosting Services
There are many other hosting companies on the market that offer some great features. Bluehost and HostGator are two of the top providers on the market.
- Bluehost – Best for Beginners
- Hostinger – Best Cheap Plans
- HostGator – Best for Minimal Needs
- DreamHost – Best Month to Month plan at Affordable Price
- GreenGeeks – Best Eco- Friendly
Nexcess – Best for eCommerce Hosting
- Domainracer – Best after-sale services
- Hostwinds – Best Uptime
- MilesWeb – Best Hosting Experience
Contabo – Best for VPS Hosting
- WPX – Best for WordPress Hosting
iPage – Low Entry Cost Hosting
Hostens – Low Entry Cost Hosting
- BigRock – Fast & Reliable shared Hosting
Our research and experience have led us to conclude that Bluehost is a more reliable host than HostGator. The number two position belongs to HostGator.
Bluehost is one of the best options if you need a hosting provider who supports WordPress well and provides great customer service, freebies, and security.
Those who want an uptime guarantee and a hosting control panel that will help manage their website easily may find HostGator to be the best choice.
In choosing one of the hosting providers from that list above, you can rest assured you are getting something reliable, established, and trusted by many people throughout the world.
Conclusion
The reputations of Bluehost and HostGator are well deserved since both are established and reliable hosting providers. Beginners, as well as professionals, will find both to be as affordable and competitive as you would expect. It doesn’t matter how you enter the field, you’re already on the right track.
As a result, Bluehost wins this competition. The fact that it is easy to use for beginners and is integrated with WordPress ranks it higher in this category. Its affordable plans also make it a rational choice regardless of the level of your site.
HostGator’s 99.99% uptime and thorough customer support propelled it into second place.
Based on your needs, the best option for you will depend on pricing, ease of use, and WordPress integration. If those are top priorities, Bluehost stands out as a clear choice. The reliability of HostGator is important to you, so you should consider it.
[…] and Bluehost offer different types of hosting, but the most notable difference is that Bluehost does not offer cloud hosting, while Hostinger […]