Compare web hosting Bluehost and HostGator

If you want to launch a new website or move your current website to a new provider, you'll see two familiar names everywhere:

1. Bluehost
2. HostGator

These are two of the largest web hosting providers (web hosting services) in the world. Bluehost and HostGator provide backend for tens of millions of websites.

But which one should you use? The decision depends a lot on the service you need. So today's article will compare Bluehost and HostGator, then draw conclusions: Where is the best web hosting service provider for you.

Easy to use

As more and more people try to create their own websites, the ease of use of the service is an increasingly important feature and needs careful consideration. Beginners need to access their website online with as little annoyance as possible.

Both Bluehost and HostGator use cPanel. cPanel is a widely used Linux-based platform, offering a wide range of administration tools through a graphical interface. Although HostGator's cPanel screen is quite standard, Bluehost has moved some menus around to customize its version.

These two web hosting companies both provide access to the MOJO Marketplace. You can use marketplace (an e-commerce model) to install WordPress, Weebly, Joomla, Drupal and many other website building tools.

Bluehost and HostGator also provide site migration services. Using their migration service means you don't need to move manually with FTP and apply other complicated web hosting. These services save you a lot of time. HostGator is free if you move the site within the first 30 days, Bluehost charges quite high of $ 149.

Server uptime

If you have run a successful website, one of the most important things to study about your new server is its uptime statistics. Downtime leads to loss of business opportunity and revenue.

Do not believe it? A good example is that every five minutes Amazon stops working, this site will cost $ 330,000. Your website may not be the same size as Amazon, but uptime is definitely a problem.

HostGator's service level agreement (SLA) shows you 99.99% uptime each year. Bluehost has an estimated operating time of 99.982% per year; equivalent to 'death' time of about 1.6 hours per year.

At the time of writing, the most recent uptime reports (until July 2018) show HostGator has 99.98% uptime (with a total downtime of 8 minutes). Bluehost has 99.97% uptime and 13 minutes of inactivity.

Remember, these are average numbers. Operation time will vary by service package. More expensive packages often provide more reliable uptime.

Website speed

Sticking with uptime is your website speed. As with uptime, slow sites can cause visitors to click the back button before they have a chance to see what you're offering.

A recent study showed that HostGator has a maximum response time of 3.2 seconds and a minimum response time of 258.07 milliseconds. In contrast, Bluehost has a maximum response time of 2.6 seconds and a minimum time of 915.53 milliseconds.

Although Bluehost's maximum response time is lower, the results show that Bluehost's response time increases as traffic increases. HostGator has no such correlation. Worryingly, with only 10 users at the same time, the response time on Bluehost is up to 3500ms. With 20 users, this number increased to 1060ms.

HostGator servers also return the first data byte faster than Bluehost, which takes 0.377 seconds compared to Bluehost's 0.401 seconds. The speed required to download the first data byte is not affected by other things, which can cause the page to load slowly (like plugins and media files). This result is completely determined by the company's servers.

Security features

HostGator and Bluehost provide some basic security features to protect you against hackers and cyber criminals. Protection is very similar.

Regardless of which web hosting service provider you choose, you will receive a free SSL certificate. HostGator also provides weekly free offsite backups for all your content.

Both companies provide access to SiteLock. It will check spam, validate your business information, track search engine blacklists to avoid unexpected quarantine and malware checks.

Both of these services include built-in DDoS protection. Bluehost does not go into details for its protection measures, but HostGator uses custom firewalls and modern security rules to protect users. Each individual data center can also enable local protection if an attack is suspected.

Service packages and costs

Now, compare Bluehost and HostGator in terms of cost. As you would expect, both companies offer a wide range of service packages, suitable for everyone, from individuals to large organizations.

If you are looking for a basic web hosting package, Bluehost and HostGator will provide you with three options. Packages will cost less if you sign up for months.

If you are not interested in registering discounts (both companies regularly offer these offers, sometimes up to 50% or more), the cheapest Bluehost package is $ 7.99 / month and HostGator package. The cheapest is $ 6.95 / month.

At that price, HostGator offers you unlimited storage and unlimited email space, while Bluehost only provides 50GB of SSD storage and 100MB of email storage per account. Both of these basic packages only allow one domain.

Next, the average shared web hosting packages on Bluehost and HostGator are priced at $ 10.99 and $ 9.95 / month respectively. The top shared hosting packages are $ 14.99 and $ 14.95.

HostGator dedicated hosting package has a fee of $ 289.99 / month. This package will give you 8GB of RAM, four-core CPU, 240GB of disk space and 3TB of bandwidth.

Bluehost's competitive products cost $ 209.99 / month. You will get a four core CPU, eight threads, 3.3GHz, 1TB of storage and 15TB of bandwidth.

Customer support

Everything will sometimes have problems. That is one of the inevitable things when running a website. And when a problem occurs, you need someone to fix them as soon as possible.

Therefore, the support level provided by your web hosting company is very important.

The good news is that both Bluehost and HostGator have excellent customer support policies. There is little difference between them. Each company provides 24/7 support in the form of live chat, by email and directly by phone.

Bluehost's support service seems a bit more intuitive and therefore easier to use.

Between Bluehost and HostGator, who is the winner?

There is very little difference between these two platforms. Honestly, both Bluehost and HostGator are great options, if you are looking for a professional quality web hosting service provider.

But if we have to choose the winner between Bluehost and HostGator, the answer is HostGator. Its servers are a bit faster, it has a little less downtime and its packages, at least on a basic level, a little cheaper.

However, Bluehost's support service is better organized by HostGator. Bluehost's user interface is also clearer and more professional. WordPress also recommends users to use Bluehost.

See more:

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2. Web Hosting - Services to rent website hosting servers on the Internet
3. How to use Firedrop multi-platform cloud storage service