If you narrowed down your choices to these two options, it can be difficult to make the final decision. Bluehost and HostGator are the two most popular companies currently in the web hosting industry. Choosing between these two providers can be challenging since they both offer great features for very reasonable prices. The two providers appear very similar in the terms and conditions they offer. They both have excellent score ratings and host millions of websites across the globe. So it will take an in-depth research to see which is actually the better option.
This article will provide you with a head-to-head comparison of these two hosting companies to help you choose the perfect fit for your website. You can consider it as a short HostGator review as well as Bluehost review. But, no matter which one you decide to go with we
are sure you will be in good hands.
HostGator
HostGator was founded in 2002 and very fast became one of the biggest hosting providers in the world. Their main headquarters are located in Houston, Texas, and they host over 10 million domains. They offer different kinds of hosting services like shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated servers, and managed WordPress hosting plans. HostGator offers reliable hosting services with guaranteed uptime of 99.99%. If by any chance you experience downtime below that, then will give you back one-month credit on your account. HostGator has a very fast average loading speed of only 1.03 seconds and average response time of 143.4 ms.
HostGator offers three shared hosting plan options to choose from. The basic one comes with 1 website, unlimited bandwidth, storage, and email accounts at a starting price of just $2.75/month and renewal price of $6.95/month. The second plan offers unlimited websites, bandwidth, storage, email accounts plus unlimited Addon Domains with a starting price of $3.50/month and renewal price of $9.95/month. And the Business Plan priced at $5.25/month includes unlimited websites, bandwidth, storage, email accounts plus dedicated IP, free positive SSL upgrade and free SEO tools.
The WordPress hosting plans start at $5.95 per month, the dedicated hosting plans at $89.98 per month, the VPS plans at $23.95 per month and the reseller plans at $19.95 per month. They also offer a 45-day money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied with their services. HostGator offers great protection, free SSL certificate and extra security features like SiteLock and SpamAssassin. They offer site migrations where they can help you move your site files, databases, scripts, and even your domain name.
The HostGator interface is very user-friendly and great for beginners with extra features to help set up your site without having to hire other people to design, build, or manage everything. They also offer tutorials on their site where you learn on your own. Hostgator has plenty of customizable templates with a drag and drop feature and a cPanel control panel. HostGator also offers more than 190 free one-click application installations and paid add-ons. They offer 24/6/365 customer support via phone, email, live chat and a knowledge base. Their response time is instant.
Bluehost
Bluehost is also a giant in the web hosting industry with over two million websites globally. It has been in the industry since 2003 mostly promoting its WordPress hosting services however it also offers lots of other hosting options like shared hosting, VPS hosting, managed hosting, dedicated Server Hosting and WooCommerce.
Bluehost offers everything you need from a host. Bluehost has multiple data centers with a main datacenter in Provo, Utah. It has excellent performance with an average uptime of 99.982% and average downtime of 1.6 hours per year. The average loading speed on Bluehost is 638 ms and their average response time is approximately .65 seconds.
The interface is easy to use with its own website builder with extra user-friendly features like drag and drop editing, automatic updates, live editing, mobile editing, and stock image repository. It has custom themes, a free domain for the first year, a full WordPress access, and custom CSS. Bluehost in its mouthy plans includes analytics and SEO tools to help you track how well your website is ranking and optimizes your site to get the best rankings possible.
It has great 24/7 customer service support available through phone, live chats and support tickets. The security on Bluehost is one of the best on the market with automatic back-ups, free shared SSL, Malware Scans and DDOS protection. Bluehost offers hosting services for small business to enterprise level business. Bluehost cheapest Shared hosting plan goes for $2.75 per month, and their PRO plan goes for $13.95/month but it also offers a lot of deals and discounts from which you can choose. The standard dedicated plan is $99.99/month and the premium is $139.99/month. Their online store plan is $12.95/month and their VPS ranges from $23.99/month to $83.99/month. You can test-drive their web hosting services with a risk-free 30-day trial run and get a full money-back guarantee.
Conclusion
From comparing these two hosting providers we can conclude that HostGator is easier to use and more beginner-friendly, it has a more generous refund policy and it has slightly better uptime. Both companies offer similar features when it comes to customer support. Bluehost has slightly better security than HostGator. Although, Bluehost’s page loading speed is twice as fast as HostGator. And also Bluehost is one of only 3 officially recommended hosting providers by WordPress.org. It offers better, more secure storage with Bluehost in the form of solid-state drives.
Krishan Jangir