Are you looking for web hosting for your Personal or Business website? Struggling to find which web hosting you should select? Let’s look at the comparison between HostGator vs BlueHost to find out which one you should select.
Before diving into the details, lets look at the quick facts about both the companies:
HostGator’s quick facts
- Founded in: 2002
- Business type: Privately help company
- Parent organization: Endurance International Group
- Domains hosted: ~1.6 million*
- Popular in: USA
- Services offered: Shared (cPanel), WordPress, Reseller, VPS, Dedicated
- Hosting storage: HDD & SSD on different plans
- Guarantees: 99.9% uptime, 45 days money back
- Support options: 24×7 Chat, Email, Call
- Free with hosting: Domain, SSL & $200 marketing credit
- Starting price: $2.75/m on 3 years term
BlueHost’s quick facts
- Founded in: 2003
- Business type: Privately help company
- Parent organization: Endurance International Group
- Domains hosted: ~2.3 million*
- Popular in: USA
- Services offered: Shared (cPanel), WordPress, Reseller, VPS, Dedicated
- Hosting storage: HDD & SSD on different plans
- Guarantees: 99.9% uptime, 30 days money back
- Support options: 24×7 Chat, Email, Call
- Free with hosting: Domain, SSL & $200 marketing credit
- Starting price: $3.95/m on 3 years term
* number based on the reverse DNS lookup at the time, may vary in actual.
If you noticed above, both HostGator & BlueHost currently host more than 1 million websites and are owned by same company, Endurance International Group. Endurance International Group acquired BlueHost in 2010 followed by HostGator’s acquisition in 2012. Both these companies operate independently, however the leadership behind the companies work closely.
You might be wondering if the companies are owned by the same group, why will there be a difference in services. There difference is there, cause both these companies still operate as competitors out in the market even after acquisition and have been focusing on specific areas of their expertise while sharing knowledge.
Now let’s take a look at different aspects of services and find the better option between them:
Uptime & Speed (Winner: BlueHost)
Both Hostgator & Bluehost claim to provide 99.9% uptime and they both complete the promise (though there will always be customers complaining about the uptime and that can be due to various reasons including a specific server having hardware issues or there was a network problem etc).
But, what matters more is the speed of your website. Google and other search engines prefer sites with optimized page speed & server response time (chances of ranking better in search results increase if you get your website speed optimized). So which one does better? Bluehost wins here! We tested a WordPress site with vanilla Twenty Eighteen Theme with both companies and the one hosted on Bluehost was loading faster.
The other reason for choosing Bluehost as the winner is that they offer SSD storage on all servers (including lowest shared hosting plans). Keeping in mind that speed has alot of impact on any website’s success, SSD storage is always a recommended (keep in mind that the pricing may be higher for SSD plans vs HDD plans).
Customer Support (Winner: It’s a Draw)
One of the biggest concern upon going with any web hosting provider is the level of customer support available. Both Hostgator & Bluehost offer 24×7 customer support through their live chat, phone and support tickets (email). Live chat is the fastest as you get to connect with the support resource directly and according to an estimate around 30% of the issues (related to configurations / emails) are solved within few minutes on Live Chat.
As we mentioned above that both the companies are owned by same group, they share knowledge / skills together and with in house Linux experts their customer support is equally good – it’s a draw!
Pricing & Money Back Guarantee (Winner: Hostgator)
Web hosting companies generally charge high rates on shorter payment terms like 1 month or 1 year, same goes with Hostgator & BlueHost – we will compare 3 years pricing offered by them (to compare the lowest prices).
Let’s take a look at their starting plans:
Hostgator’s Hatchling plan
- Unmetered disk
- Unmetered bandwidth
- Free domain & SSL
- cPanel control panel
- WordPress supported
- Price: $2.75/m
- 45 days money back guarantee
Bluehost’s Basic Plan
- 50 GB SSD disk
- Unmetered dandwidth
- Free domain & SSL
- cPanel control panel
- WordPress supported
- Price: $3.95/m
- 30 days money back guarantee
Though Bluehost offers SSD storage, we are looking at the plans from ease & cost perspective for beginners. So with Hostgator you will be able to start your website for as low as $2.75/m which comes with 45 days money back guarantee if you don’t like the service – for us Hostgator is the winner here!
WordPress hosting (Winner: Bluehost)
With WordPress being the most popular content management platform in the market and more than 35% of the website on internet using it, we need to talk about who does a better job at hosting WordPress sites!
Bluehost wins this race, why? Bluehost has an estimated 800,000+ WordPress sites hosted with them and is recommended by WordPress.org as the leading WordPress Hosting provider. Even though Hostgator also provides wordpress hosting and does a fair job with it but Bluehost takes a huge lead here.
Hosting Reviews (Winner: It’s a draw)
Both Hostgator & Bluehost have earned reputation in the market over the years and are known for the reliability of their services. You can read reviews for these companies here:
Conclusion
Both Hostgator and Bluehost are reputable names in the worldwide Web Hosting market, but when compared, overall, Bluehost wins the race.
So take away from the results are:
- Bluehost is a great option to host your sites with rich features, SSD storage and decent pricing.
- Hostgator is another great option to host your sites if you need better pricing and can work with HDD storage.