If you are searching for a reliable web hosting service with great features for business as well as personal websites, then you have come to the right place! In this evaluation blog, we compare two of the most prominent and widely used web hosts – HostGator vs Bluehost, to see which one offers the best value for your money.
Selecting a web hosting company can be a complicated and confusing task because of the sheer number of web hosting services available right now. With so many to choose from and so much to compare, find the right hosting service can be tough.
The confusion about the right service arises when the different yet similar features and claims are compared. For many people, it can be tough to discern between the information, and they end up making the wrong decision.
An assessment of the claims from popular web hosts shows that all of them promise the highest uptime, top quality customer support, and high availability of server resources. Additionally, nearly all of them offer freebies to lure new clients into choosing them.
Our team has taken upon itself to see-through the exaggerated claims and the free stuff to bring you an in-depth, unbiased comparison. We suggest that before making your decision, you should also opt for the free trails, which most web hosting services offer to get a feel of the services.
Our comparative analysis of the features, history, pricing, and customer services offered by Bluehost and HostGator, aims to assist you in making a knowledgeable decision.
About HostGator and Its History
HostGator is a Houston-based web hosting service provider, founded by Brent Oxley in 2002. Its popularity grew in a short time, and now it is one of the most trusted web hosts, that is hosting by millions of websites all over the world. Endurance International Group also owns HostGator.
In contrast to Bluehost, Oxley was studying at Florida Atlantic University when he created HostGator. Therefore it lacks experience of Bluehost, although, it has been running successfully for the last 17 years.
Why Should You Get HostGator?
- Extraordinary uptime – up to 99.99%
- Longer money-back guarantee – 45 days
- Free website migration service
- Free SEO consultation
- Excellent customer support
Why Shouldn’t You Get HostGator?
- No free domain name
- Fewer discount offers
- No Windows-based VPN hosting
Features
- It supports 1-click WordPress installation, which makes installation very simple with just a few clicks. There are over 75 applications to pick from.
- If you choose the WordPress Starter Plan, you are going to receive a plethora of wonderful features like a more straightforward control panel, WordPress apps and plugins, speed optimization, and increased security.
- HostGator provides a number of hosting plans. Shared hosting, dedicated servers, VPS hosting, cloud hosting, and WordPress hosting solutions are all available.
- Choose the Business plan if you wish to establish an online store because it includes a free dedicated IP address plus a dedicated SSL certificate free of charge. It is compatible with a variety of shopping carts and allows you to collect payments through various online payment gateways.
- It safeguards your website against DDoS attacks.
If you desire to host a WordPress blog, HostGator is a fantastic alternative. HostGator has such a diverse choice of hosting plans and types that you will discover something to meet your demands and budget.
Take a look at the web hosting benefits you will receive when you sign up for Hostgator.
Other variables that contribute to Hostgator’s success include:
- It is an outstanding and industry-recognized hosting service, managing over 12,000 servers.
- HostGator has over 400,000 customers and offers innovative goods and services to supplement their existing enterprises.
- In over 200 countries, HostGator services customers ranging from individual freelancers to Fortune 500 corporations.
- According to a customer satisfaction survey, about 90% of HostGator customers are satisfied with the company and its services.
- HostGator’s management team is made up of web hosting plus technology veterans who work together to guarantee that HostGator continues to offer the high-quality web hosting services for which it is known.
About Bluehost and Its History
Founded by Matt Heaton, Blue Host started offering its web hosting service in 2003 from Provo, Utah. Today, it hosts over 2 million websites and is considered as one of the top web hosts. It also has the superiority of being the top-recommended hosting service by WordPress. Endurance International Group owns Bluehost. It offers a comprehensive range of hosting and domain services.
The Bluehost founder runs web-hosting service since 1996, which gives Bluehost a significant lead in terms of the experience that expands over 23 years.
Why Should You Get Bluehost?
- Wide-spread brand trust and better brand reputation
- Easy to use, especially for beginners
- Better discount and package offers on a regular basis
- Dependable customer support
- Cost-efficient
Why Shouldn’t You Get Bluehost?
- A ton of add-on features that may hike the price
- Some packages offer insufficient storage limit
Features
- Bluehost offers three different shared hosting plans. The basic bundle is ideal if you only need to develop one website. If you intend to host many websites, select the “plus” bundle. Choose the Choice Plus option if you require someone who is a guard and site backup pro.
- It provides limitless hosting resources. This implies you can host an endless number of files and consume an unlimited amount of bandwidth.
- Bluehost employs cPanel, which simplifies the management of your hosting account. It has an icon-based interface, a themed layout, and a plethora of functions.
- It runs daily backups of all your site data and saved files.
If you are able to afford it, Bluehost’s WordPress hosting is regarded as outstanding. If you need a dependable web server with a solid reputation, BlueHost is the place to go. BlueHost is, without a doubt, the finest option for hosting personal websites as well as small enterprises.
Despite the fact that we’ve written numerous Bluehost reviews and discount codes, we believe you should go for it only after learning about its advantages.
Other characteristics that set Bluehost distinct from the competition include the following:
- Their courteous and patient support staff provides the highest quality of assistance.
- Veteran hosting staff have all the elements and skills to help your website prosper.
- On average, hold times of around 30 seconds, and 100% in-house on-site employees at our Utah offices.
- Bluehost has its own data center, servers, and nationwide fiber network. Still, most importantly, they have built their own custom Linux kernel so that all of your hosting-related issues can be resolved in one location rather than running around to five different areas.
- Bluehost’s facilities comprise a 50,000-square-foot headquarters as well as two subsidiary data centers totaling more than 20,000 square feet of data center capacity.
- BlueHost is equipped with an uninterruptible power supply, diesel generators, and several 10-gigabit fiber links to places all over the world.
Speed and Uptime
Speed [Winner: HostGator]
To keep website visitors interested and attentive, quick page speeds are critical. According to Google research, over 30% of visitors are more likely to click off a web page if it needs more than 3 seconds to load. The longer the wait, the more prospective customers you will lose, so time is of the essence for retaining traffic.
As we mentioned previously, the improvements in tech infrastructure made by both Bluehost and HostGator have also helped them provide faster speeds to their websites. A few years ago, both services were struggling in this department. Bluehost has an average page speed of 674 ms, compared to the HostGator’s 632 ms average speed. So, HostGator is the winner, but only with a small margin.
Uptime [Winner: Bluehost]
Where uptime is concerned, Bluehost emerges as the clear winner due to its near-perfect uptime. Although Host Gator promises a high uptime percentage of 99.99%, the record shows that the average uptime percentage from the last few months is slightly lower than the claims.
In contrast, Bluehost’s average is an impressive 99.99% with very slight, rare dips in the percentage. It is the better choice as far as uptime is concerned.
LOAD TIME [WINNER: BLUEHOST]
The uptime benchmark set by the industry experts is around 99.91%, so there is little room for errors for the best hosting services to remain among the top contenders. Simply put, services need to score above the benchmark to be good, and a score lower than the average is terrible news.
To get a clear understanding of the load Time scores for both services – Bluehost and HostGator, we are looking at uptime rates for the last six months. Our comparison revealed that Bluehost is the superior service in load times, with an average score of 99.97%. HostGator’s average came in below the benchmark at 9.86%, which is disappointing.
If we look at the historical performance of these two services, we will see that both providers did not offer fantastic uptime performance. However, there has been a recent improvement due to an overhaul of tech infrastructure, resulting in better reliability and higher performance.
Performance And Control Panel
Performance [Winner: Bluehost]
As we mentioned previously, the same organization owns both HostGator and Bluehost. Additionally, they both recently got a significant data center overhaul that had a substantial impact on the performance of the services.
The robust data centers and powerful servers ensure that Bluehost and HostGator can provide its users with high levels of performance with zero to no issues. The main difference between the equipment is that HostGator uses Dual Xeon. Whereas, Bluehost uses AMD power centers and CPU segregation technology to have better control as far as CPU performance and spamming is concerned. Their innovative use of technology gives Bluehost an edge over HostGator.
Control Panel [Winner: HostGator]
Again, the control panels of both HostGator and Bluehost are similar in terms of user-friendliness and straightforward interface that is easy to understand for new users. Both hosting firms offer one-click installation for a wide variety of programs and platforms Softaculous, WordPress, Magento Drupal, and Fantastico.
HostGator offers additional control-panel customization options, which allows users to switch up certain aspects as they please. Furthermore, to make things even easier for beginners, HostGator provides many helpful tutorial videos.
The security, applications, website builder, and scripts and application features are also similar and excellent.
Pricing [Winner: Bluehost]
Pricing acts as a major deciding factor for many, especially if you are starting your website. On the first look, you may think that HostGator offers overall better price packages than Bluehost. However, once you give the pricing plans a closer look, you will find that Bluehost offers better pricing plans with a better list of features.
Bluehost offers a free domain with hosting plans. On the other hand, you do not get any free areas with HostGator. When it comes to free backup, Bluehost again takes the lead! As HostGator charges an extra amount for providing an automatic backup facility.
If we talk about shared hosting – both Bluehost and HostGator offer shared hosting. Bluehost and HostGator also offer simple domain names, cloud hosting, VPS – virtual private servers, and dedicated servers.
Let’s give a bird’s eye view to the pricing packages of both HostGator and Bluehost:
HostGator
| Packages | 12-Month Subscription | 24-Month Subscription | 36-Month Subscription |
| Hatchling | $5.95 per month | $3.58 per month | $2.75 per month |
| Baby | $8.95 per month | $6.95 per month | $3.95 per month |
| Business | $8.95 per month | $6.95 per month | $5.95 per month |
Bluehost
| Packages | 12-Month Subscription | 24-Month Subscription | 36-Month Subscription |
| Basic | $4.95 per month | $3.95 per month | $2.95 per month |
| Plus | $7.45 per month | $6.95 per month | $5.45 per month |
| Choice Plus | $7.45 per month | $6.95 per month | $5.45 per month |
| Pro | $18.95 per month | $15.95 per month | $13.95 per month |
You may have noticed that both Plus and Choice Plus Packages are similarly priced. Both the packages offer the same features except the two additional features in Choice Plus, including Domain Privacy + Protection and Site Backup – CodeGuard Basic.
After looking at the pricing on HostGator’s website, you may assume that HostGator is more affordable than Bluehost. However, once you go into the details, the price differs depending on a 12-month, 24-month, and 36-month subscription. All in all, Bluehost offers better value for money, especially if you want to start with a 12-month subscription package.
Features [Winner: Bluehost]
We are now fully aware of the different 12-month, 24-month, and 36-month price plans of both HostGator and Bluehost. Now, let’s compare what features you get for your money.
HostGator
| Features | Hatchling | Baby | Business |
| Domains allowed | One | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Disk space | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| 24/7/365 support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 99% uptime guarantee | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free dedicated IP | No | No | Yes |
| Free positive SSL upgrade | No | No | Yes |
| Free SSL certificate | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Instant backups | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| WordPress hosting | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Bluehost
Features | Basic | Plus | Choice Plus | Pro |
Websites | 1 Website | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| SSD Storage | 50 GB | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Performance | Standard | Standard | Standard | High |
| Domains allowed | One | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Parked Domains | 5 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Sub Domains | 25 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Spam Experts | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Domain Privacy | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Site Backup – CodeGuard Basic | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Dedicated IP | No | No | No | Yes |
| 1 Office 365 Mailbox – Free 30 Days | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Money-Back Guarantee [Winner: HostGator]
If you want to select the best hosting provider on the bases of the duration of the money-back guarantee, HostGator most definitely takes the lead as it provides a 45-day money-back guarantee. Comparatively, Bluehost offers a 30-day money-back guarantee period.
However, HostGator doesn’t offer a money-back guarantee contract. Therefore, if you require a contract, then I recommend you to opt for Bluehost.
WordPress [Winner: BlueHost]
If you are starting to plan to set up a WordPress-based site, your host should be a key consideration since it will affect your website’s performance and functionality. Over 35% of all websites are built on WordPress because of the ease and benefits it offers to developers, so your web host must offer secure, straightforward, and hassle-free options.
In this criteria, BlueHost is the clear winner because WordPress themselves even recommends it, they believe that Bluehost serves as the ultimate WordPress platform, and we agree entirely.
Bluehost maintains a strong relationship with WordPress through services like a one-click setup process and expertly provided in-house WordPress support.
While HostGator hosts WordPress and offers three different price plans and free transfer of an existing WordPress website on the signup, they’re still not as good as Bluehost.
Besides the one-click installation, Bluehost will provide your WordPress site with automated updates and a variety of unique features, making it a clear choice.
Customer Support [DRAW]
Offering inefficient customer support could be a deal-breaker! However, both HostGator and Bluehost’s customer support game is on-point! We cannot complain about either of the two because both the hosting providers offer 24/7/365 customer support.
You can make a phone call, raise a ticket, chat live, or opt for other mediums for giving in contact with customer support. The response is reliable, accurate, informative, and most importantly – speedy!
Advanced Features – For The Tech-Savvy Only
For the tech-savvy, here’s what Bluehost & HostGator provide (or don’t provide).
Malware Scans
This is an additional security element that should be used on a regular basis. Both providers use the SiteLock feature, which runs automatically and informs you if something appears suspicious. This is a subscription service that costs roughly $2 per month.
Databases
Either provider can create SQL databases. With HostGator they are entirely limitless in size and number.
Bluehost allows you to create 20 databases of 3GB each with the basic plan, and you may create an infinite number of 5GB databases from then onwards.
Git Repos
Git, a developer favorite, may be used to take control of distinct website versions. Integration with Bluehost, as well as HostGator, is doable but not without some effort.
Dedicated IPs
Having a dedicated IP allows you to utilize it as your website’s domain address, install unique scripts, and have more control in general. HostGator allows you to do so on all plans except for the entry-level plan.
Bluehost, predictably, offers the option of subscribing to a dedicated IP address.
Winner: In terms of sophisticated features, both could be more outstanding. The following are notable omissions:
- Speed optimization: Server-side caching is a decent approach to boost your website speed – but you can’t do it with either.
- Staging areas: it’s hard to believe neither service allows you to operate on a staging area.
As a result, it’s a tie. If you want more control over complex features, providers such as SiteGround are far superior.
FAQs
Here are a few web hosting-related FAQs you should know before deciding
1. Why should anyone go for HostGator?
HostGator is ideal if you wish to build a WordPress site utilizing monthly plans, as HostGator provides a variety of monthly hosting plans that Bluehost does not offer.
2. What are the advantages of picking Bluehost?
Bluehost is a good hosting option if you value speed and performance. Bluehost provides better customer support and pricing than HostGator.
3. Which is the better hosting service, HostGator or Bluehost?
Bluehost is a good choice if you want economical hosting plans with good site performance and customer service. Still, HostGator is a good alternative if you prefer monthly hosting plans over yearly hosting plans.
4. What if you’re not satisfied with HostGator?
HostGator provides a 45-day money-back guarantee, which means you may get your money back if you are dissatisfied with the hosting they provide.
5. What if you’re not satisfied with Bluehost?
If you are dissatisfied with Bluehost’s hosting services, just contact Bluehost customer service through email or the ticketing system to terminate your hosting plan with them. If you cancel within 30 days, they will return your money.
Who Takes The Crown?
Although it is a very close call and it is a challenge to crown either of them. However, only one can be crowned the best! Bluehost takes the crown! According to team Reviewsed’s experience, Bluehost provides better overall service and features.
| Winner! |
To be specific, Bluehost has the edge over HostGator, especially when it comes to better pricing, smarter CPU control, and automatic backups. Crowning Bluehost the winner of this showdown doesn’t mean that HostGutar has not lived up to our expectations. HostGator is equally as good as Bluehost! However, if we compare Bluehost vs HostGator – Bluehost proves to offer a higher value for money.
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