Hostgator vs Bluehost for Webhosting

There’s no shortage of web hosts to choose from. With so many options, it can get confusing making the right choice. From pricing to uptime, there are a lot of factors to weigh as well. That’s why today we will be comparing two of the most popular webhosts, Hostgator and Bluehost.

Uptime, Speed and Security

Having a secure and fast website is a priority for any webmaster.

Both Hostgator and Bluehost are some of the most reliable web hosts currently available. How do they pair up? Lets take a look.

Hostgator Uptime

Hostgator guarantees a 99.99% uptime and even offers shared or reseller customers 1 free month if servers fall short. As you can see from this screenshot, they have an extremely consistent uptime. You won’t have to worry about your website going down any time soon.

Hostgator Speed

The speed at which your pages load is tied to both the user experience and SEO. Faster load times is known to increase your rankings and make your website more enjoyable.

WPBeginner performed a speed test for Hostgator and found the following results.

Their test site loaded in less than 1 second, that’s blazing fast. This is also faster than 94% of other websites, putting Hostgator in one of the top positions.

Hostgator Security

The last thing anyone wants is their website hacked or compromised. With Hostgator, you can have peace of mind knowing:

Bluehost Uptime

Bluehost boasts an uptime rate of 99.98%. That’s only 0.01% behind Hostgator. While not a huge amount of course, every bit counts when it comes to your website.

Hosting Facts performed an uptime test and concluded that over a 12 month period, there was only one hour of downtime total.

Bluehost Speed

Improving page load speed has been a huge priority for Bluehost in recent years. In the past, their load times were around 1,500ms. At the moment, they clock in at approximately 522ms which beats Hostgator.

If your website fails to load within a few seconds, bounce rates are known to increase by upwards to 70%.

Bluehost Security

Bluehost has some very unique security measures in place to keep your website as safe as possible. The first of which is two-factor authentication. This means that when you log into your account, you’ll also have to enter a special code that is messaged to your phone.

Secondly, when speaking with customer service, a randomly generated token is given to you from the cPanel. This helps prove you are the owner of the account to prevent social engineering from occurring.

Bluehost also offers an SSL certificate with certain plans just like Hostgator. If you plan to run an e-commerce store, you will need one to remain PCI compliant. In general, it keeps websites more safe and your users at ease.

Pricing

Since you’re using your hard earned money to purchase web hosting, it needs to be worth while. Hostgator and Bluehost both have very competitive pricing with some slight differences.

Bluehost Pricing

Shared packages are always the most affordable, no matter which webhost you choose. With Bluehost, their “Basic” shared plan starts at $2.95/month.

Here’s the thing though. You can only get billed annually with Bluehost, not monthly. If you want to just test them out, you’ll get billed for the entire year and then have to make the decision to stay or not afterwards.

Aside from shared hosting, these are the other packages they offer:

Hostgator Pricing

One of the immediate benefits of choosing Hostgator is that you can choose to be billed on a monthly basis. This makes payment, cancelling, and upgrades way more convenient.

Hostgator’s shared plans start as low as $2.75/month as you can see below.

If you want more powerful plans, you can also choose from:

Between the two, Hostgator has cheaper shared, cloud, WordPress, and VPS hosting. Bluehost’s dedicated hosting is much more affordable though.

Customer Support

Being able to get help when you need it is important. Tons of things can go wrong with a website so customer service is a must when considering hosting.

Bluehost and Hostgator have very similar customer service features. You can reach them through phone, email, or livechat which gives you a nice variety.

Their dedicated teams are available 24/7 365 as well. This means that you’ll always have assistance when you require it.

Hostgator vs Bluehost Conclusion

Both hosts have their pros and cons. When it comes to pricing, Hostgator wins. Most of the plans are cheaper than Bluehost. Unless you’re interested in getting dedicated hosting, most will benefit from choosing Hostgator.

Page speed, uptime, and security are essentially on par between the two as well. The features you get with each plan are also identical. When it comes down to it, the deciding factor will mostly be price. With this in mind, consider your budget and choose wisely.