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Bluehost vs. Hostinger – who is a better web host in 2020 and beyond? If you are planning to create a blog, a business website, or an online store, one of the most challenging decisions would be to select a hosting service provider. Try searching for one online and you are sure to come across several names that you might not really have heard in the past.
For instance, have you heard the name Hostinger? Probably not! How about Bluehost? Maybe yes? If you do spend a lot of time online, you might definitely have come across advertisements of Bluehost. Owned by EIG, it is one of the most popular web hosts and is known to power more than 2 million domains on the internet.
Bluehost vs. Hostinger Comparison 2020
Now, Bluehost vs Hostinger – who actually is a better web host between these two? The best way to find out is through a detailed comparison. So, let’s check out Bluehost vs. Hostinger – who offers better hosting services.
1. Hosting Infrastructure
Bluehost was founded in 2003 as an independent hosting service provider before EIG (Endurance International Group) acquired it in 2010. Currently, Bluehost has its data centers located in the USA, UK, and Asia. Its hosting servers have SSD storage which is known to offer better speed and reliability as compared to traditionally used HDDs. For improved speed and security, Bluehost also supports Cloudflare CDN.
Talking about Hostinger, their official website does not really provide a lot of information about their data centers. However, it mentions that the company has its data centers in the USA, Europe, and Asia just like Bluehost. Hostinger also uses SSD storage and offers support for Cloudflare CDN in all of its hosting plans. So, while Bluehost is more transparent about its data centers, Hostinger only offers limited details.
Nevertheless, both the web hosts seem to have almost similar hosting infrastructure which is equipped to offer fast and secure hosting services.
2. Hosting Services
It is now easier to find a hosting service that meets the exact requirements of your website as most of the hosting providers now offer many different types of hosting services. For instance, Bluehost offers Shared Hosting, Dedicated Hosting, VPS Hosting, WordPress Hosting, eCommerce Hosting, and Reseller Hosting. It also offers managed WordPress Hosting which is known as WP Pro.
The hosting options from Hostinger are fairly limited as it only offers Shared Hosting, Cloud Hosting, WordPress Hosting, and VPS Hosting. However, Hostinger is also a domain registrar and is more popular for domain registration as compared to its hosting services. While Bluehost also offers domain registration services, it is more popular for its hosting.
3. Hostinger vs Bluehost Pricing
This point is very important in this Bluehost vs Hostinger comparison. While you might not have heard about Hostinger if this is the first time that you are creating a website, it has a decent reputation in the hosting and web designing circles. The biggest reason for its popularity is its cheap pricing. The cheapest Bluehost plan is its Basic plan which costs $2.95/month for the initial term.
Must Check: Which Bluehost Plan is Best for You?
However, Hostinger’s cheapest plan is its Single Shared Hosting plan which only costs $0.99/month. While Hostinger is definitely a highly affordable option, dig deeper and you will see that the cheap plans from the company are pretty much limited. For instance, the cheapest plan from Bluehost comes with 50GB SSD storage, unmetered monthly visitors, unlimited data transfer, a free domain name for a year, free SSL, 5 parked domains, and 25 sub-domains for 1 website.
But the cheapest plan from Hostinger only has 10GB SSD storage, 100GB bandwidth, 2 parked domains and 2 subdomains for a single website. In comparison, Bluehost offers more storage, free domain, free SSL, and significantly higher parked and sub-domains. So, while Hostinger can be an option if you have a highly limited budget, Bluehost offers better value for money.
4. Uptime and Speed
As per the most recent Bluehost reviews, the cheapest shared hosting plan from the company is able to deliver an average speed of 450ms and an uptime of 99.99%. While this is not really the fastest, it definitely is one of the best in the hosting industry. More importantly, unlike many other hosting providers whose hosting speeds fluctuate significantly on a regular basis, Bluehost is mostly able to deliver consistent performance.
The same for Hostinger is in the range of 580ms-600ms with an uptime of 99.96% which is lower than Bluehost. Also, the speed is highly inconsistent with Hostinger and can range between 450ms and 800ms often within very short intervals. So, with regards to hosting performance, Bluehost is definitely a better option.
5. Security
The next point in this Bluehost vs Hostinger comparison is the level of security. As Bluehost is a full-fledged hosting provider, it offers a number of free and paid security tools. For instance, it offers SSL, Cloudflare CDN, and SpamExpert for free in every plan. There are also many paid tools such as web application firewall, CDN caching, and more.
As Hostinger is mostly a budget hosting provider, it only offers basic security tools. Apart from Cloudflare CDN and SpamAssassin, there is nothing much available for free. Even free SSL is only included in its more expensive Business Shared Hosting plan which costs $4.09/month. However, it does offer a few paid security tools like BitNinja, anti-scamming tools, and more.
Also check: Bluehost vs Hostgator – Whose Hosting is Better?
6. Daily Backups
Bluehost does not offer any free website backup service in its cheapest plan. There is a 3rd party add-on tool known as CodeGuard which you can purchase for creating backups of your website. The basic CodeGuard plan costs an additional $3/month if you go for the annual plan. Once purchased, you can then create backups of your website on demand and restore the same anytime you like. However, this add-on tool is available for free in their Choice Plus ($5.45/month) and Pro ($13.95/month) plans.
Hostinger offers weekly backup service for free on all of its plans. There is also daily backup service but it is only available in the Business Shared Hosting plan. So, with regards to backups, Hostinger has an upper hand as it offers free weekly backups even in its cheapest plan.
7. Domain Registration
As mentioned above, Hostinger is more popular as a domain registrar. However, it does not offer a free domain for a year like Bluehost and many other popular hosting service providers. If you don’t have a domain name, you can purchase one from Hostinger. It offers an extensive range of TLDs and is known to be one of the most affordable domain providers. A standard .com domain from Hostinger costs $8.99/year.
Once your initial period of free domain name expires with Bluehost, you can renew the same from their website. Even if you don’t want to purchase a hosting plan from Bluehost, you can still purchase a domain name from them. A basic .com domain from Bluehost costs $11.99/year.
8. Hostinger vs Bluehost Customer Support
Customer support is an important consideration in this Bluehost vs Hostinger comparison. Bluehost is known to have one of the best customer support services in the hosting industry. While some customers do face a delay in receiving replies at times, the majority of them have mentioned that Bluehost’s support team is quick and knowledgeable. They offer 24×7 support through live chat, phone, ticketing system, and email.
Their website also has an extensive knowledge base with hundreds of blogs, articles, tutorials, and more. If you look for Hostinger reviews online, you are sure to come across people talking about how Hostinger does not provide live chat or phone support. However, this is not really true. The thing is you can only get in touch with their live chat and phone support if you are already logged in to your Hostinger account.
While this definitely makes things a little confusing for a lot of people, Hostinger actually does offer 24×7 support through live chat, phone, email, and ticketing system. Hostinger also has a knowledgebase with some great posts on many different topics.
9. User-Friendliness
Talking about the ease of using both the hosting providers, they both are fairly simple to use. From purchasing a hosting plan, renewing it, to migrating your existing website to their hosting platform, everything is fairly simple. Both the hosting providers also offer website building tools to help you quickly build a website from scratch.
Bluehost uses cPanel for account management while Hostinger has its own control panel. If customer reviews are to be believed, the custom control panel of Hostinger is not as easy to use as cPanel which is now a standard in the hosting industry. But overall, both Bluehost and Hostinger are excellent with regards to their user-friendliness.
10. Additional Features and Benefits
Both the hosting providers offer a 30-days money-back guarantee on all of their plans. Apart from hosting and domain registration, Bluehost offers a few additional marketing services like PPC, SEO, and more. There are some other services such as Blue Sky which provides live access to a WP professional to help you build a WordPress website.
Similarly, Hostinger offers a few services like website designing. There are some additional services such as 99 Cent Domains, Domain Transfer, and Domain Checker offered by Hostinger. Moreover, if you are a student and want to purchase a hosting plan from Hostinger, you can get a 15% discount.
Bluehost vs Hostinger – Who is Better?
So, Bluehost vs. Hostinger – who offers better hosting services? As you can see from this Bluehost vs. Hostinger comparison, the later is a decent hosting provider for someone looking for cheap hosting. But Bluehost is considerably better than Hostinger with regards to the hosting performance, types of services available, security, and customer support.
Not to forget the fact that the hosting plans from Bluehost are not very expensive as compared to that of Hostinger and also come with better resources and features. So, if you are looking for a reliable hosting provider that offers excellent value for your money, Bluehost is the way to go.