What is Website Hosting?
To have your own website, you need two things: a domain, that is, the name of your website, and then space where you will store all the files that make up your website or hosting.
How choose to host?
What is the best hosting for your site?
Welcome to the conflict between two great rivals, which hosted millions of sites around the world.
Choosing a hosting provider is paramount to the success of your site and can be a difficult task, given what they offer.
We will now have a comparative test of the two leaders and competitors in the web hosting industry.
Bluehost and HostGator are currently one of the two largest and most respected hosting companies.
Bluehost is a much larger company and has over 2 million and more websites, while Host Gator has hundreds of thousands of users.
Based on our experience, we have a comparative test of these two leaders.
Let’s start with a comparison
The price
Prices are one of the most important things for a potential buyer.
Moneyback guarantee
Bluehost’s money-back guarantee is 30 days. You should be aware of the fact that this guarantee does not apply to add-on products, such as domain names. If you cancel within 30 days you receive a full refund. If you cancel after 30 days you receive a prorated refund for the remainder of your hosting term.
HostGator offers a 45-day money-back guarantee on hosting plans with them, and as with Bluehost it only applies to hosting (not domain names etc). If you are not completely satisfied with their services within the first 45 days of your service, you will be given a full refund of the contract amount.
Domain name registration
Bluehost gives you a free domain name when you sign up for hosting with them. The domain is registered for a year and the domain will be renewed when you renew your web hosting plan.
HostGator includes a free domain name for the first year. After that, it is renewed at the regular price.
Installing WordPress
Installing WordPress can seem like a daunting task. Bluehost has worked hard to make the process easier by using the MOJO Marketplace for all of its installations. Now you can set up your WordPress website straight from your cPanel dashboard.
WordPress installations are simple with HostGator. They offer the MOJO Marketplace quick install for existing WordPress sites., but you can also use Softaculous. Also, they offer tutorials on their site for easy “how to” install WordPress manually. There is a separate “how to” offered for installing a WordPress Optimized site.
Website transfer or migration
There are two options to move your site. You can either do it yourself for free by manually transferring your files over to Bluehost. Alternatively, you can use the Website Transfer service to migrate up to five sites and 20 email accounts from your former hosting company. This service costs $149.99. Don’t forget; you’ll need to add the FTP option to your hosting package before you can migrate an existing site.
HostGator states their commitment to making transferring your site over to HostGator as easy as possible. HostGator will migrate WordPress/cPanel website files including databases, scripts, and one domain registration transfer for free with each new hosting account within 30 days of sign-up, as well as to newly upgraded accounts.
SSD Drives
Bluehost shared hosting plans come with solid state drives (SSD), and their server infrastructure is powered by enterprise level SSD database storage.
HostGator shared hosting plans do not come with solid state drives (SSD). However, MySQL databases are stored on SSD hardware.
Website Backups
On its higher-level shared plans, Bluehost offers CodeGuard Basic, which provides automatic back-ups. You can schedule these to take place on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. All plans allow you to create your own backup (via cPanel).
HostGator allows you to automatically create weekly backups. You can also make an instant manual backups. There is a paid upgrade called CodeGuard, it creates daily automated website backups for all your web files and databases with a 1-click restore. This is included with WordPress plans.
SSL Certificates
Bluehost provides a free shared SSL that is available to accounts which reside on a shared IP. For Standard and Pro accounts, there is only one Dedicated IP and so only one SSL Certificate. For VPS, dedicated, managed, or reseller accounts, you can purchase multiple Dedicated IP and SSL Certificates since there will be multiple cPanels created within the account.
A free domain-validated SSL certificate comes with all plans. The following types of SSL certificates are also available for purchase through HostGator.
- Company Validated
- Extended Validation
- Wildcard
- Multi-Domain
Response Times
- Support Tickets – no time given
- Chat – instant
- Phone – instant
- Areas of Expertise
There is 24/7-365 dedicated support personnel available for the following areas:
- Account Management
- Sales
- Tech Support
- Chat – instant
- Billing Support – minutes to within one business day
- Forums – varies
- Phone – instant
- Areas of Expertise
HostGator is well-known for having excellent customer support. They have an active community of users that are friendly and helpful in the forums. As well, there are hundreds of helpful videos and tutorials available 24/7.
Who is the winner ?
As we can see by comparing the essential characteristics between these two hosting companies there are differences.
Obviously, for the money you invest, you can get great features for your website.
We give a small advantage to Bluehost, but in any case, HostGator is not far behind.
The choice is yours!
Be sure; whatever you choose, you should still be in good hands!