Are you looking for an honest web hosting comparison of Hostinger vs. Bluehost?
These are two of the most affordable hosting companies on the market. However, beginners are often not sure which company to choose for their websites.
In this guide, we will compare Hostinger vs. Bluehost with their pros and cons so that you can make the right decision.
Comparison of Hostinger vs. Bluehost
If you are looking for low-price hosting to control your website costs, then Hostinger and Bluehost are two of the most affordable hosting companies on the market.
Bluehost is an official WordPress.org recommended hosting provider, and Hostinger’s plans start at an even more affordable price point. At WPBeginner, we recommend them as two of the top WordPress hosting services for all kinds of users.
In this comparison, we will take a closer look into the pros and cons of Hostinger vs. Bluehost in detail so you can see which is better for your needs and make an informed choice.
Are you wondering which is the best platform for your WordPress site? Here is a quick summary:
| Hostinger | Bluehost | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | From $1.99/month | From $2.75/month |
| Free Domain | Yes, with $2.69 plan | Yes |
| Free SSL | Yes | Yes |
| Page Load Time | 181 ms | 1,480 ms |
| Avg Response Time | 235 ms | 156 ms |
| Support | Live Chat / Knowledge Base | Live Chat / Email / Phone |
| Rating | A | A- |
| Verdict | Best for Small Business | Best Cheap Hosting |
| Visit Hostinger | Visit Bluehost |
With that being said, let’s compare both services and see how they compare.
Hostinger Comparison
Hostinger is a popular web hosting provider with a reliable and user-friendly platform to launch websites. They offer affordable shared hosting plans with great customer support, a free domain name with most plans, a free SSL certificate, and more.
Their shared hosting prices are more affordable than most of their competitors. This makes them a good choice for beginners and small businesses looking for budget web hosting.
Pros of Hostinger
Hostinger has the lowest price hosting on the market, but what are some of their pros and cons? Let’s start with some of the benefits of using Hostinger as your hosting service:
- Affordable Plans – They offer very low-cost hosting plans, making Hostinger a great option for people who just want to test out an idea or launch a small website.
- Excellent Performance – Considering Hostinger’s low price point, their performance and speed are impressive.
- Excellent Customer Support – They offer great customer support for all of their hosting plans, making them a great choice for beginners.
Cons of Hostinger
Are there any disadvantages to using Hostinger? Here are some of the downsides that you may want to know:
- Plan Limitations – So that their low-cost hosting remains viable, Hostinger places limits on entry-level and low-level hosting plans. However, as your website grows, you can always remove those limitations by upgrading to more expensive cloud or VPS plans.
- No Daily Backups – Hostinger’s single and premium plans provide weekly backups instead of daily backups. While this is a downside, we always recommend that users set up their own backup solution to be on the safe side.
Hostinger Review
Hostinger has a 5-star rating on WPBeginner based on over 800 user reviews. In our detailed Hostinger review, you can also see the results of our performance and stress tests on Hostinger servers.
If you would like a free domain name, then you won’t get one with Hostinger’s cheapest plan. However, their second-tier plan includes a free domain and is still a little more affordable than Bluehost’s cheapest plan. All Hostinger plans include a free SSL certificate.
We found their customer support team to be very responsive, with almost immediate response times over live chat. Plus, Hostinger has a detailed knowledge base with step-by-step tutorials that answer the most common customer questions.
Bluehost Comparison
Bluehost is an officially recommended WordPress host and one of the biggest web hosting companies in the world. Their hosting is designed for WordPress websites, and they provide great performance with fast servers.
Their hosting prices are lower than most other hosting companies, though their plans cost a little more than Hostinger’s. All the same, they are a good choice for beginners and small businesses with limited budgets.
Pros of Bluehost
Bluehost offers great value at low prices, but you might be wondering what their pros and cons are. We will start with some of the advantages of picking Bluehost as your hosting service:
- Low Costs – Bluehost’s most affordable plan allows you to get started with your website for a low price. Overall, it’s excellent value for new small businesses, bloggers, portfolios, and other WordPress websites.
- Ease of Use – Bluehost has one of the most user-friendly hosting control panels, which makes it easy to install WordPress with one click and manage your website with ease.
- Free Domain – Bluehost provides a free domain name, and this saves you extra money on your start-up costs.
- Free CDN + Free SSL – Bluehost provides a free CDN to boost your website performance, and all plans come with a free SSL certificate to improve security.
- Website Speed – We found that Bluehost performed well in our tests, even without performance optimization. You can also add WordPress caching plugins to unlock further speed improvements.
- Staging Sites + Dev Tools – Bluehost plans come with staging site access, automatic WordPress updates, the ability to change PHP versions, secure file transfer protocol (SFTP) access, and more.
Cons of Bluehost
Now, we will take a look at some downsides to using Bluehost. Here are some cons that you may want to know:
- Higher Domain Renewal Price – Their renewal price for the free domain name is higher than average. This won’t have an immediate impact but is worth keeping in mind.
- Upselling Addons – During signup, you will see a lot of upselling. Most beginners won’t need these products right away, so it is safe to skip them and add them later if needed.
Bluehost Review
Bluehost has a 5-star rating on WPBeginner based on over 300 user reviews and the high value they offer at low prices. You can also check out our detailed Bluehost review to see the results of our performance and stress tests on the Bluehost servers.
The best thing about Bluehost is all of their plans include a free domain, unlimited bandwidth and SSD storage on their Plus plan, and great overall value for what you pay.
Additionally, their eCommerce hosting plan for WooCommerce comes with over $1000+ in premium WooCommerce and WordPress extensions, which can save you a lot of money.
Hostinger vs. Bluehost – Which Is Better?
Now that we have compared the different features of Hostinger vs. Bluehost, you may still be wondering which one of them is better. The answer depends on your needs and requirements.
Hostinger and Bluehost offer slightly different services, but they are both great providers that offer hosting plans at affordable prices.
Both companies provide fast response times to visitors all around the world. Hostinger has a slight advantage in Europe, and Bluehost excels in North America.
Which hosting provider should you choose?
We recommend Hostinger to people looking for cheaper website hosting with some limitations. On the other hand, Bluehost is better for users looking for unlimited everything by paying a little extra.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
We have helped thousands of our users choose the best web host for their needs, and we have been asked quite a few questions. Here are some of the answers to the most frequently asked questions about Hostinger vs. Bluehost.
Where are Hostinger and Bluehost located?
Hostinger’s headquarters are located in Kaunas, Lithuania. Their servers are located in several locations, including the USA, Europe, Brazil, Indonesia, and Singapore.
Bluehost has their own in-house data center in Utah, US. It is a huge 50,000-square-foot facility that acts as its primary data center.
How did you test the speeds of Hostinger’s and Bluehost’s web servers?
We started by creating identical test sites on each hosting provider and installed the default WordPress theme. After that, we imported sample content, including images and media.
We then used independent third-party tools like Pingdom to time page load time and Bitcatcha to test response times under load and from different geographical locations.
Can Hostinger and Bluehost handle high traffic?
Yes, in our stress tests, the shared hosting plans of both companies were able to handle 100 virtual users without any slowdown.
These plans can handle reasonable and sudden traffic spikes. However, they are still quite limited in server resources. If you are expecting high traffic, then we recommend you upgrade your hosting plan.
Are there other hosting providers that you haven’t covered in this comparison?
Yes, there are literally thousands of web hosting companies available, including SiteGround, DreamHost, HostGator, WP Engine, GreenGeeks, and more.
This article compares Hostinger and Bluehost because they are two of the most affordable hosting companies on the market.
Do you have any special discounts for Hostinger or Bluehost?
Yes. Because WPBeginner is the largest WordPress resource site, our users can get special discounts on popular hosting providers as well as other WordPress plugins. You can see all 100+ WordPress deals here.
- Our Hostinger coupon will get you up to 81% off their web hosting plans.
- You can use our Bluehost coupon to get over 75% off + a free domain.
We hope this comparison of Hostinger vs. Bluehost helped you decide which hosting platform is better for your new website. You may also want to see our guide on how to choose the best website builder or our expert pick of the best email marketing services for small businesses.
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The post Hostinger vs. Bluehost (Honest Web Hosting Comparison – 2023) first appeared on WPBeginner.