Bluehost vs Hostgator
Overview of Bluehost shared hosting
One of the WordPress.org officially recognized hosting companies, Bluehost offers one click WordPress install. A low starting price-point of $2.75/ month makes Bluehost even more intriguing. With a user friendly back end and cPanel, unlimited disk space cannot be beat. For eCommerce businesses, Bluehost offers multiple free shopping carts along with a free SSL and CDN for every subscriber. Bluehost offer shared hosting plans a three levels, ensuring a option to suit nearly anyone looking for shared hosting.
Pros
- Great disk space
- Top of the line security features
- Easy to use
Cons
- Lowest price is contract locked
- Site migration fee
- Upselling is aggressive
Screenshots
Pricing
Basic
$2.95/ month
Plus
$5.95/ month
Choice Plus
$5.95/ month
Features
| Overall Rating | |
| Speed | |
| Disk Space | |
| Bandwidth | |
| Value for Money | |
| Customer Support |
- Free Domain Name
- WordPress Support
- Free Website Migration
- Free Backup Services
- Free SSL Certificate
- Free CDN
- 24/7 Support
- Marketing Offers
- Cron Jobs
- Shell Access
- FTP Accounts
- E-commerce Ready
Business Information
Customer Support
my.bluehost.com/hosting/help
Location
Bulgaria
Website
www.bluehost.com
Alternative Options
Overview of Hostgator shared hosting plans
When you sign up for web hosting with HostGator, you can migrate any existing site free of charge. Being one of the biggest names in the web hosting industry, HostGator provides rock solid security features such as free SSL certificates, free daily backups and DDOS protection. HostGator is extremely user friendly which makes this service stand out to first time webmasters. On top of that, you can try out the HostGator shared hosting plans with a robust 45 day money back guarantee.
Pros
- Great uptime
- Perfect for beginners
- 45 day money back guarantee
Cons
- Poor user reviews
- No true monthly plan
- Misleading promotional pricing
Screenshots
Pricing
Hatchling Plan
$2.75/ month
Baby Plan
$3.95/ month
Business Plan
$5.95/ month
Features
| Overall Rating | |
| Speed | |
| Disk Space | |
| Bandwidth | |
| Value for Money | |
| Customer Support |
- Free Domain Name
- WordPress Support
- Free Website Migration
- Free Backup Services
- Free SSL Certificate
- Free CDN
- 24/7 Support
- Marketing Offers
- Cron Jobs
- Shell Access
- FTP Accounts
- E-commerce Ready
Business Information
Customer Support
https://support.hostgator.com
Location
USA
Website
www.hostgator.com
Alternative Options
Bluehost vs Hostgator: Hosting features comparison
The importance of a website to your brand in today’s digital world couldn’t be stressed enough. Thus, the choice of a web hosting company becomes essential.
The reliability of a web host affects your brand visibility, essentially making them the key to your success. Downtime, hacks, data loss and corruption rank as the most significant dangers to your business.
Important Hosting Features Comparison
Your host needs to at the very least guarantee the safety of your data and minimal to non-existent downtime.
In your search for a top web host, a comparison of Bluehost vs HostGator will most likely crop up. We will seek to compare the two service providers in a bid to find out who provides the best value for money.
We’ll examine these most important web hosting features: money back guarantee, WordPress hosting, customer service and support, speed and uptime.
Let’s get started.
Website Uptime & Speed
A slow loading website tends to record an above average bounce rate. Users may altogether desist from visiting the site and instead prefer competitors.
Thus, we strongly advice picking a host that guarantees your site loads at optimum speeds on both mobile and desktop.
On average, a HostGator-hosted site loaded 50% faster as compared to a Bluehost hosted site.
Site Speed
Both Bluehost and HostGator strive to see websites experience as minimal downtimes problems as possible. That isn’t to say they offer an identical hosting experience, hence the need to compare their respective uptime rates.
Uptime refers to the times a site is up and running.
Unlike Bluehost, HostGator provides an uptime guarantee to its clients. If HostGator hosts your site on a shared server, and at one moment it experiences an uptime lower than 99.9%, the company may offer a one month refund of your existing subscription.
Overall each of these hosting providers strives to boast 99.9% uptime. Nevertheless, Bluehost-hosted sites have more (over double) offline minutes as compared to HostGator hosted websites.
WordPress Hosting
Taking to account that WordPress powers over 30% of all active websites, you perhaps may want to use this content management system.
In as such, it’s vital to ensure the hosting provider of your choice offers secure hosting for your WordPress blog or site.
Bluehost WordPress Hosting
Notably, Bluehost and WordPress.org have maintained close work relationship for the last 13 years. WordPress formally acknowledged Bluehost as reliable WP hosting provider.
As users of other hosting services agonize over WordPress installation, signing up with Bluehost automatically installs WordPress with a 1-click hassle-free process. The company uses the MOJO Marketplace for all of its installs, allowing you to install WordPress directly from the dashboard of your cPanel.
The managed WordPress hosting of Bluehost might not be as customizable as HostGator’s but comes with a highly responsive and user-friendly interface.
Besides, all Bluehost’s WordPress packages come with built in native caching, Free CDN, SiteLock security, and automated data backups.
HostGator WordPress Hosting
Unlike Bluehost, HostGator doesn’t enjoy WordPress’ recommendation. However, similar to Bluehost, HostGator offers its clients enhanced cPanel control which enables them to install their existing WordPress websites quickly and effortlessly with one click to allow for eased management of their sites.
Besides, HostGator have tutorials which you can rely on for step by step manual WordPress installation guidance.
The new HostGator managed WordPress platform features multiple caching tool layers, cloud services plus a free CDN for optimized WordPress website performance.
Both hosting companies offer comparable shared WordPress hosting packages
Website Services
Bluehost
Domain Registration
Bluehost affords users a free domain name if you happen to subscribe to any of their web hosting plans. The user owns the domain for the first year but must renew annually henceforth.
Website Transfer
Bluehost charge about $150 for the transfer of up to five websites.
HostGator
Domain Registration
HostGator do not offer free domain registration. The registration of a new “.com” domain will cost around $12.99/ year.
Website Transfer
You can transfer one domain to HostGator for a free, a value of$7.95. With this transfer, HostGator will add an additional 1 year of domain registration on top of your remaining registration.
Customer Support
Ensuring your web hosting company has a friendly and quickly responsive support team will help you have a smooth experience with your website.
Bluehost Support Options
BlueHost has dedicated toll-free numbers through which subscribers reach out to them in case you need website hosting, tech support or WordPress support.
You can also contact their support team through around the clock live chat or ticketing system depending on urgency. The live chat or phone call guarantees an immediate response.
HostGator Support Options
Like Bluehost, HostGator offer email, live chat, and phone support to attend to their clients’ urgent problems.
Alternatively, you can check out the informative forums to seek help from an active user community.
Additionally, HostGator have lots of useful videos and tutorials accessible at all times.
Bluehost vs HostGator Plan Features
| HostGator | HostGator | HostGator | Bluehost | Bluehost | Bluehost | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plan | Hatchling Plan | Baby Plan | Business Plan | Basic | Plus | Choice Plus |
| Price | $3.49/ mo | $4.99 mo | $6.99/ mo | $2.95/ mo | $5.95/ mo | $5.95/ mo |
| Disk Space | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | 50GB | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Site Visitors per Month | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Websites Hosted | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Sub Domains | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | 25 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Parked Domains | 0 | Unlimited | Unlimited | 5 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Money back guarantee | 45 days | 45 days | 45 days | 30 days | 30 days | 30 days |
| Marketing Offers | $200 | $200 | $200 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Free Domain | ||||||
| One Click CMS Install | ||||||
| WordPress Support | ||||||
| Email Accounts | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | 5 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| cPanel | ||||||
| Free Website Migration | ||||||
| Choose server location | ||||||
| SSD Drives | ||||||
| HTTP/2 Servers | ||||||
| Free CDN | ||||||
| Custom Server Setup | ||||||
| Native Caching | ||||||
| Free SSL certificate | ||||||
| Free Backup Services | ||||||
| Free Restore from Backup | ||||||
| Server Monitoring | ||||||
| Free Shopping Cart | ||||||
| 24/7 Support | ||||||
| Phone | ||||||
| Chat | ||||||
| Ticketing System | ||||||
| Priority Support | ||||||
| Website Staging | ||||||
| SSH and SFTP Access | ||||||
| FTP Accounts | ||||||
| MySQL and PostgreSQL Databases | ||||||
| Perl and Python Support | ||||||
| Cron Jobs | ||||||
| Shell Access | ||||||
| Web File Manager | ||||||
| Get Hatchling | Get Baby | Get Business | Get Basic | Get Plus | Get Choice Plus |
Money Back Guarantee
At times you purchase a product or service only to discover later it wasn’t suited to our needs or fell short of our expectations. Naturally, you’d seek a refund for monies spent. For persons venturing into running a website for the first time and with little knowledge on hosting services, we suggest they find services from a provider offering the money back guarantee option.
Bluehost
Bluehost offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. However, add-on products like domain names are exempt from this guarantee.
Subscribers get a full refund for cancellation of their subscription within the first thirty days upon paying.
Also, customers may cancel their subscription after the lapse of the first 30 days but subject to a prorated refund for the remaining hosting period.
HostGator
HostGator offer a 45-day money-back guarantee period for their web hosting packages. Similar to Bluehost, HostGator affords the guarantee for only the hosting services; thus excludes domain names.
The service provider makes a full refund for money paid for hosting services should you notify them of your dissatisfaction with the service.
A money back guarantee allows you to see which service is a good fit!
Company Info
Bluehost
Bluehost hosts over 2 million websites world wide. In the industry since 1996, Bluehost boasts longevity and experience offering quality web hosting plans.
HostGator
Founded in a college dorm room in 2002, HostGator has since grown into the giant it is today in the hosting industry. Based in Houston, TX, HostGator has since expanded operations to many countries throughout the world.
