Hostinger vs Bluehost: Which is Better?

The success of any website depends on the right choice of a website hosting company. Whether you are setting a new site yet or aren’t satisfied with your current website host, this article will serve you. We are going to conduct an in-depth comparison between two giant hosting companies – Hostinger and Bluehost. The former one is a perfect option for those users who have a strictly limited budget and are interested in cloud hosting plans without caring about too much downtime, while the latter is grandiose for WordPress users searching for awesome WordPress hosting with dedicated hosting plans and quick-responsive customer support. Let’s get into the business.

Hostinger vs Bluehost: General Comparison

Both Bluehost and Hostinger are worthwhile website hosting companies with the former being more popular since it’s older and better established. Bluehost mostly concentrates on WordPress and business features. Hostinger, meanwhile, catches the eye with its low pricing and excellent performance. Bluehost is definitely not as performance-driven as Hostinger.

Apparently, these two web hosts have more differences than similarities. For instance, the pricing for Hostinger plans starts at $1.99/month, while that of Bluehost is $2.95/month. The uptime of Hostinger is 100% with 511ms response time, while Bluehost offers 99.99% uptime and 361ms response time. When Hostinger offers its users its brand hPanel control panel, Bluehost incorporates the functional cPanel dashboard. Both site builders ensure SSLs and server monitoring but Hostinger adds weekly or daily backups to its security plan. This is a brief overview of both site builders. To get a full review, take your time to read the whole article.

Pros and Cons

Like every website hosting or building company, Hostinger and Bluehost have certain advantages and downsides. Here we have separated the major ones of each of them. Let’s start with Hostinger.

Comparison of Features

Both website hosting providers stand out for their amazing array of features. Hostinger is especially feature-rich in the cheapest plans. Moreover, beginners, who make up the main users of cheaper plans, may not even need all those tools that Hostinger readily supplies.

Bluehost, on the other hand, provides only those features that are necessary for every user depending on the pricing tier they choose.

Types of Hosting

The difference between Hostinger and Bluehost in terms of hosting types provided is that Honstinger doesn’t provide dedicated hosting unlike Bluehost, which, in its turn, doesn’t provide cloud hosting. When Hostinger offers Windows VPS hosting, Bluehost provides Linux. The latter is more popular and widespread among users. Let’s compare the features by types of hosting both companies provide.

Shared Hosting Features

VPS Hosting Features

Shared WordPress Hosting Features

Those were the primary features distributed per hosting type and plan. However, Hostinger and Bluehost have some perks they are especially proud to introduce to their users.

What Bluehost stands out for is the feature of managing websites. It provides marketing management and site staging right off the control panel. This feature enables the user to set up an exact copy of their website when making changes to it. You can view it as a private area not visible to any visitor. Then, once you are satisfied with what you have applied to your site, you can seamlessly draw them into the actual website.

Another perk of Bluehost is integrating such marketing tools as Google Ads simplified ad manager and Google My Business. You can incorporate them straight from the dashboard. Generally, Bluehost allows users to manage all crucial marketing aspects from one place, which is especially convenient for beginner business owners.

On the other hand, Hostinger can boast of its account sharing feature. The latter allows adding team members to the same account through login credentials. The level of privileges every member gets is on the admin’s charge. For instance, you can provide your team members access to purchase services, billing details, etc. If you have more than one website hosted by Hostinger, which site to give your team access to is your choice.

If the user isn’t inclined to use WordPress, Bluehost suggests another great option via the Weebly website builder. Meanwhile, Hostinger’s proprietary website builder Zyro requires a different plan since it’s not included in any hosting plan.

As for backups, Bluehost provides daily backups in higher-tier plans, while Basic and Plus plan owners have to pay an extra fee for the feature. On the other hand, Hostinger includes backups in all its plans, including the introductory Single Shared plan. However, the lowest two plans provide only weekly backups.

Generally, Hostinger is not as extensive for extra functionalities as Bluehost since the latter is more concentrated on providing premium web development and marketing to businesses of various niches and sizes, from small to enterprise-level. With Bluehost, you can add and configure FTP Accounts, manage SSH keys and MySQL databases, and other features.

Comparison of Usage

Being catered to both beginners and professional website developers, Hostinger and Bluehost can boast of ease of use and great functionality, yet on different levels. They both feature highly intuitive and easy-to-use dashboards. Bluehost integrates cPanel, while Hostinger integrates its brand control panel – hPanel, which doesn’t yield to cPanel in functionality and is built with beginners in mind.

The hPanel by Hostinger allows managing and performing all the main website tasks. Here you can install additional WordPress, content management systems, domains, and so forth. The same can’t be said about the cPanel by Bluehost which can be used only for advanced management tasks such as phpMyAdmin for databases, file manager, free webmail client management, etc. Bluehost removed the simple task management from its cPanel making it an Advanced tool. Other tasks such as domain management, WordPress installations, etc. are available in the Marketplace of My Sites sections.

Dashboard Comparison

The dashboard a Hostinger user gets is simple yet functional. It gives access to all web creation and management tools. Despite looking clear and neat, it manages quite many tools and much information somehow. After logging in, a user is to set up a hosting account particularly through the dashboard while for later, the dashboard serves for navigation – to reach the control panel or domain management sections.

After accessing your account on Hostinger, all the basic website and hosting management tasks are at your disposal. Particularly from this hPanel, you can install additional WP or other CMS, add domains and subdomains, access file manager, and do other maneuvers. Particularly this is the difference between Hostinger and Bluehost, which uses its cPanel exceptionally for advanced management tasks.

Hostinger’s brand control panel is functional yet clean-looking. It’s inspired by the standard cPanel; hence the overall design and performance look much the same. In addition, it features the same logical categorization of features categorized into Security, Software, etc. Hostinger users can also log into the WP admin panel to manage cashing, switch on the maintenance mode, or even update all the plugins at once.

Bluehost’s dashboard is simple and clear, too. Yet, it appears much more functional. From your dashboard, you get access to setup actions, management tools, and guidelines to help you set up an effective website. It’s so functional that you can manage your website entirely from the dashboard (surely, if you don’t need advanced tools). It makes Bluehost a highly intuitive website hosting platform. The functional dashboard brings an extra score to Bluehost in this Hostinger vs. Bluehost review.

Bluehost’s cPanel, meanwhile, opens a broader spectrum of advanced features such as file manager, free webmail client management, phpMyAdmin for databases, and others. Moreover, Bluehost keeps on augmenting its control panel. For instance, the one-click installations for WP or other apps are no longer available from the cPanel. Instead, you can access them through Marketplace or My Sites.

Just the same way, you have to go to the Domains section to manage domains since the cPanel doesn’t hold it anymore. As you can see, Bluehost has turned its control panel into the Advanced tool. So beginner users, who don’t need any advanced features, won’t even step into this area and get mixed, while professionals will always have the required tools in this section.

Indeed, Hostinger’s dashboard is functional and simple, yet it can’t compete with Bluehost in the level of functionality. Bluehost’s dashboard is not a simple navigation area but a control panel where you can manage all the key things installing SSL, and WordPress, getting hold of the management area of the website, adding domain and subdomains, and entering paid email accounts, etc.

The basic website management actions are performed right from the incredibly intuitive user interface, while the Advanced button opens the cPanel to tweak databases and other premium settings.

Performance Comparison

Our comparison of Hostinger and Bluehost in terms of performance gave us a clear winner – Hostinger. The latter performed faster, scored better uptime, and handled more traffic than Bluehost. And if the performance results of the latter are average, those of Hostinger are some of the best in the niche. Let’s get deeper here.

Uptime and Response Time

There’s no such concept as 100% uptime since the servers need time to be maintained. However, the time period we monitored Hostinger gave us 100% uptime results. So we can conclude that in the long run, it will be around 99% which is quite an impressive score. The response time, meanwhile, was not more than average. It scored 511 ms while the speed was stable. The fully loaded time of a website hosted by Hostinger was 936ms.

During the same test period, Bluehost scored quite praisable 99.99% uptime and not so impressive 361 ms of response time. The speed was not as stable as that of Hostinger, either. Here the fully loaded time was 1.8 seconds.

Nevertheless, both hosts appeared quite dependable which is highly important for an online business.

Security Comparison

As far as you are concerned about security matters, both Bluehost and Hostinger offer basic but reliable security features (free SSL certificates) in their plans with any extra feature to be purchased. Bluehost comes with integrated W3 caching, a CDN, and SiteLock security all available for WordPress packages. The provider also ensured automated data backups and resources.

Hostinger, on the other hand, doesn’t include any cashing tools or automated updates. Instead, it involves server security from BitNinja and SpamAssassin email protection.

Both providers monitor online threats regularly to detect any side attacks. However, Bluehost turns out to be much more upfront with backup data protection, automatic security updates, and credible malware detection.

Updates and Backups

Both website hosting providers run backups for users entirely for free. And still, it will definitely be more expedient to carry out your own backups. This way you will always have peace of mind when a design mishap or a security breach occurs.

However, WordPress users, whether they are clients of Hostinger or Bluehost, don’t need to worry about WordPress software updates. WordPress plans hosted by either of them come with automatic updates with Hostinger a step further thanks to automated plugin updates.

Site and Domain Migration Comparison

Here we get a draw. From one side Bluehost conducts easier WordPress migration compared to Hostinger. On the other hand, the latter provides easier migration of non-WordPress sites. Besides, this web host allows for easier domain transfer when Bluehost shows an already active domain for a new site easier than Hostinger. So, if you already have a working website with quite a good domain name, you’d better get deeper into the site migration of both companies to make a more thoughtful final decision.

Domain Migration

When it comes to Bluehost, this is a super simple platform to point out your domain registered anywhere upon the signup. Once you are to register at Bluehost, just enter your domain instead of choosing a new one, thus connecting it to the new Bluehost account straight away.

Mind, that you must still assign the domain from the dashboard of your control panel. To migrate a domain name to Bluehost, however, it will take you a bit longer. But don’t get disappointed since Bluehost features superb customer support ready to guide you through the entire process.

Hostinger, on the contrary, doesn’t include domain registration in the signup form like Bluehost. Instead, the transfer of an already existing domain name to Hostinger is quite easy – it’s done in 4 easy steps from the special domain transfer page.

Site Migration

Bluehost provides its new users with a completely free WordPress migration. All that you are supposed to do is to complete the free migration from the dashboard of your account. The rest is on the Bluehost team. They will approve your site and migrate it themselves. Your new site will be assessed on the particular version of WordPress you’re currently using, the present plugins in use, the website, and database size to see how the site will perform on the new host. When the matter concerns non-WordPress sites, however, Bluehost users have to use a guide to walk through the process. Alternatively, the company’s professional site transfer tool (priced $149.99) can migrate 20 email accounts and 5 non-WordPress sites for you.

Hostinger is not a competitor to Bluehost in this regard. It just provides users with an instruction to guide its users through all available site migration options. The automatic migration tool is by far the quickest and easiest option.

Website Builder Comparison

Bluehost offers its users the simplicity of the drag-and-drop feature and the goMobi mobile site builder. Thanks to it, launching a new personal site, an online brand, a blog, or a store from scratch is relatively easier even for beginners. To assist new users in launching a new site, Bluehost provides an array of freebies such as email hosting, free domain and domain hosting, unlimited storage database, and bandwidth. Bluehost also offers to choose from the most famous content blogging and management CMS software (WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla) if you don’t feel that comfortable with “what you see is what you get” web creating system. Here are the overall features by Bluehost builder:

• Automatic backups (daily, weekly, monthly);
• goMobi or Weebly site builder;
• Optional professional assistance in designing, building, and marketing;
• Free domain name;
• $200 in ad credits;
• custom CSS;
• Stock images;
• Live editing;
• Unlimited uploads;
• Quick-start smart templates;
• Custom fonts.

Hostinger can boast of an easy yet functional website builder tool, too. In fact, you can build a site here in as little as 5 minutes. You can switch the drag-and-drop interface from your hosting account management panel with just one click. The designs and templates at Hostinger website builder might not be as impressive and professional-looking as those of Bluehost, yet they are quite decent, too. Here are the web-building features offered at Hostinger:

• In-built eCommerce widgets and payment processing;
• 99.9% uptime guarantee;
• Drag-and-drop tool;
• Easy switch between widescreen, tablet, desktop, and mobile previews;
• Built-in SEO;
• Stock images;
• A huge array of templates.

So, what we can judge from this website builder review, as well as the tests we have carried out, both Bluehost and Hostinger are powerful tools.

Customer Support Comparison

Here, too, Bluehost is the absolute winner since the customer support of Hostinger doesn’t come close to that of Bluehost. The latter offers different support channels to select from. Here are them:

• Telephone Call – (888) 401-4678
• Email – A form is provided in the Bluehost account
• Live Support – Yes
• Ticket – Yes
• Social Media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest

Bluehost is available round the clock for its clients. It also provides a comprehensive knowledge center but what it stands out for is its immediate answers to whichever contact form you choose.

We can’t say that Hostinger doesn’t offer reliable assistance to its users when they need it. But before you sign up, you can make use of only the knowledge center, which is quite a decent one, and the general inquiries form. You get access to 24/7 live chat only after registering an account. Perhaps the only thing that catches the eye about Hostinger tech support is its multilingual nature.

Here are the customer support contact methods provided by Hostinger:

• Telephone Call – No
• Email – support@hostinger.com
• Live Support – Yes (after signup)
• Ticket – Yes
• Social Media – Facebook, Twitter

Pricing Comparison

Compared to Bluehost, Hostinger is a cheaper web hosting provider starting at $1.99 per month when the shared hosting by Bluehost is $2.95 per month. The scalability options by Hostinger are significantly cheaper, too. For instance, the VPS hosting by Hostinger starts at only $2.99 per month while Bluehost charges $19.99 per month.

However, since most of the clients of both companies are small and medium-sized businesses, shared hosting is what most of them need. Both Bluehost and Hostinger offer free SSL certificates and limit the cheapest plan to 1 website. These are the only similarities, though:

• Bluehost – the Basic shared tier (priced $2.95/month) involves 10GB SSD storage, uncounted email accounts, limitless bandwidth, and 1 domain for 1 year completely for free.
• Hostinger – the Single shared tier ($1.99/month) involves 30GB SSD of storage, 100GB bandwidth for 10 000 visitors, 1 professional email.

Hostinger is quite straightforward about the bandwidth it provides and its plan is cheaper. However, Bluehost doesn’t limit the bandwidth or the number of email accounts. Furthermore, it ensures 1 domain completely for free for a whole year. Otherwise, you would have to pay an extra $10/year for the domain.

Whichever host you are going to choose, we’d recommend you stick with the longest billing term cause this way you will get a palpable discount.

Overall, Hostinger offers 3 tiers in the scope of shared hosting each extending server resource limits and adding extra stuff. The Premium plan, though not the most expensive, is perhaps the most beneficial one. Priced only a dollar higher than the basic plan, it hosts up to 100 sites, offers 100GB storage space, and offers a free domain.

When the matter concerns Bluehost, here again, the Plus tier is worth considering. Actually, $5.45 is definitely not too expensive with the generous suggestion of limitless websites and SSD storage, a free domain, WordPress integration, and additional security. With this said, though Hostinger looks cheaper, in the analysis of the features included in the offer, Bluehost appears more profitable.

Mind that after the initial term, the renewal price for both Bluehost and Hostinger plans will cost higher.

Hostinger vs Bluehost: Conclusion

Now, when all the key differences and similarities between two powerful website hosting providers Hostinger and Bluehost are drawn, we can see which offers better features for the price it demands. Hostinger might appear cheaper at first sight, but the website management tools, instant customer support, and better site migration conditions make Bluehost an absolute winner. So, if you:

• are a beginner and will need a thorough help in every step;
• are a WordPress user in search of premium-quality WordPress hosting;
• want real value for the money you pay;
• need dedicated hosting;
• value performance and reliability over cheap pricing…

then your choice must fall on Bluehost.