Bluehost vs. HostGator

Bluehost vs. HostGator: Specs

Plans and Pricing

Bluehost’s basic plan starts at $2.95 per month (with a 12-month contract) while HostGator’s basic plan starts at $3.75 per month (with a 36-month contract). Both providers offer shared hosting, dedicated hosting, virtual private server (VPS), and website builder packages.

Bluehost and HostGator are known for affordable rates (especially during the first year of service), free secure sockets layer (SSL) certificates, use of the cPanel control panel (industry standard for managing hosting), easy-to-use website builders, quick uptimes and 30-day money-back guarantees.

Both services are pretty similar in terms of features, so it really does come down to price — and Bluehost is cheaper.

Winner: Bluehost wins by a hair by being slightly cheaper per month.

Features

In terms of features, Bluehost and HostGator are pretty compatible across multiple plan levels. Yes, there is some slight variation in terms of things like bandwidth and storage, but the main selling points are pretty similar. If you’re looking at just hosting features alone, this probably isn’t going to be the category to sway you one way or the other.

However, when we look at overall features offered by both providers, one is the clear winner.

Bluehost goes above and beyond HostGator with its hosting features specifically for ecommerce. This makes it much easier for users to get started selling their product or service since they have all the tools they will need already integrated.

Winner: Bluehost takes things to the next level of hosting with its ecommerce features.

Performance and Uptime

Both Bluehost and HostGator are super dependable, with a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee. While perfect uptime isn’t possible, you’ll never have to worry about your website going down for a significant length of time.

However, regarding actual uptime, HostGator’s is exceptional, with a long-term uptime of over 99.99%. This is unheard of in the industry and gives HostGator a huge advantage over nearly any other hosting service.

Winner: HostGator has the best uptime in the industry and wins hands down.

Security

While neither Bluehost nor HostGator have advanced security features like active malware scanning or removal tools, they both still do a decent job at keeping your website safe from online attacks.

However, they could both use a little work. HostGator’s DDoS protection tool and firewall are decent, and you will get a free SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate. Still, no malware scanning or removal tools exist, and multi-factor authentication isn’t available.

Meanwhile, Bluehost claims to offer full protection for your site, but it provides very little information about its security practices. You will benefit from a free SSL certificate, SiteLock malware scanning and removal, and supposed 24/7 network monitoring, but the company doesn’t say exactly what this entails.

To this end, I’m giving the win to Bluehost.

Winner: Bluehost. As one of the most popular web hosting services in the world, and officially recommended by WordPress, Bluehost’s security is apparent.

Support

For support, Bluehost and HostGator offer 24/7 customer support, but my experience with the support service was significantly better with HostGator. Support was easy to get, and the staff was helpful and responsive. The knowledgebase was also incredibly helpful and well-organized.

Meanwhile, Bluehost was kind of a mess. While Bluehost’s support seemed good initially, the chatbot made it difficult to reach a live person. When I finally got into the queue for a support representative, it took a long time for a support rep to come online to help. In one instance, it took almost an hour over two chat sessions before I could even connect to a support technician. However, once we did get connected, the problem was resolved quickly.

This is an easy win for HostGator.

Winner: HostGator’s support is smooth, responsive, and helpful.

Recent Improvements

Bluehost and HostGator both do a pretty good job keeping on top of bug fixes and adding new features and improvements. Hostgator has recently released a new website builder, making it easier to build your own website. It’s also redesigned the customer portal to make it easier to use and implemented Cloudflare to store user content.

Bluehost, meanwhile, has mostly added partnerships and plugins to their website builders, such as WordPress migration tools and a partnership with Yoast. Bluehost has also made a push into the ecommerce space with hosting plans and features designed specifically for those users selling products and services.

Additionally, I was particularly impressed with some of Bluehost’s recent improvements such as the launch of Bluehost WordPress Academy, a set of online tutorials to help new users get the hang of how to host and build a website on WordPress.

Winner: Bluehost’s ecommerce-feature improvements and the addition of the WordPress Academy make it the clear winner here.

Final Thoughts

When push comes to shove, it was never much of a fight. Bluehost practically takes HostGator to task in every category, only missing out on uptime and support. With Bluehost’s uptime being more than enough, that category appears irrelevant. Of course, HostGator does have superior customer service, but Bluehost continues to try and improve in that area.

This isn’t to say that HostGator is a bad host — far from it. If you’ve gone through this comparison and you still think that HostGator is a better fit for your website, it’s still a great option and may even be the one that suits your needs best.

But for us, at the end of the day, Bluehost won by a knockout.

Should You Get Bluehost or HostGator?

How We Evaluated Bluehost vs. HostGator

I test web hosts based on the following factors:

• Plan value: What plans are available, and do they offer a good value?
• Ease of use: Is the dashboard easy to navigate?
• Support: How fast can you get help when needed, and is support genuinely helpful?
• Features: What features does the host offer, and how do they compare to similar competitors?
• Security: Does the host offer SSL certificates, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack protection, backup services, and scans for viruses and malware?
• Speed and uptime: Does the provider offer a fast, stable environment for your website? How does it perform in tests, and what kind of servers does the hosting company use?
• Recent improvements: What has the host done lately to update its technology and services?

Learn more about our review methodology.