Bluehost and HostGator are two of the biggest contenders in web hosting when it comes to low-cost shared plans and dedicated web server hosting.

If you looking for hosting for your business website or blog for an affordable price per year – both services offer excellent deals on yearly contracts:

BlueHost starts at $3.95 – Comes with free 1-year registration of a domain name and a 30-day Money-back guarantee

HostGator starts at $3.46 – Domain registration starts at $12.99 for a “com” and a 45-day Money-back guarantee

Selecting the Best Hosting Plan for Your Website

If you are a business just starting out with hosting – meaning you only manage one or two sites – we would recommend using BlueHost or HostGator.

Both hosting providers have their own unique advantages and as a webmaster/web development company that uses both for our clients, you won’t lose no matter who you decide to sign up with.

As two of the most well-known companies in hosting, next to more pricey GoDaddy, both HostGator and BlueHost have great advantages including up-time, paid speed and best-in-class pricing.

As a website management and webmaster, our experience with both BlueHost or HostGatortechnical support teams has been phenomenal with fast service.

Both hosting providers have many security extras.

Bluehost and HostGator both offer free basic SSL through Let’s Encrypt which is now essential for all WordPress and other CMS sites.

When you want to get your business online, the first thing you need to do is register your domain name.

The best route is usually to register your domain with your hosting plan provider for easier DNS routing and management.

Registering domain names with the hosting provider usually makes things easier with the tracking and maintenance of your registered domain names.

However, you can always register the domain name with whomever you like and simply point your DNS settings to your hosting server IP address.

If you’re going for the best value option, you should opt for the BlueHost Shared Plus plan or HostGator WordPress start plan because both plans offer lots of features and options for CMS (Content Management System) sites like WordPress and Joomla.

WordPress and CMS Installation

BlueHost is a provider that is recommended by WordPress.org. Customer that need to move a WordPress website would appreciate HostGator‘s free migration service.

Both providers have an easy to navigate account control panel with cPanel access and a one-click setup wizard application for the installation of WordPress and other CMS platforms.

Security

With BlueHost, you can host multiple WordPress sites at no extra cost with cPanel access, a free SSL certificate, and unlimited bandwidth and storage.

While HostGator offers one website hosting and paid SSL certificate plans, along with offering free migration services for existing websites.

If you are moving an existing website, the HostGator migration service could be extremely valuable to save you time and eliminate the complexity of migrating files and databases yourself.

Both plans included and custom-designed control panel for the easiest WordPress installation to manage backups, database, etc.

BlueHost has CloudFalr CDN built directly into the hosting account along with SiteLock Security / WAF, Advanced CDN, and a pre-installation of ManageWP to scan for malware and vulnerabilities.

It’s fairly easy to back up a website with the cPanel in BlueHost and the instant manual backups on servers in HostGator.

HostGator has a paid upgrade called CodeGuard that creates daily automated backups of all web files and database with a 1-click restore option.

SiteLock Security is also included free with the managed WP hosting plans with a HackAlert daily monitoring system to notify you if your website has been hacked or is injected with malicious code.

SSL Certificates

With their monthly plans starting so low, keep in mind the largest discounts are usually for new accounts under yearly plans.

The largest contender is GoDaddy and we use them for dedicated hosting, advanced SSL certificate plans and more complex websites with multiple domains.

Bluehost offers an affordable option for customers who need the free basic required SSL and do not need to pay the extra $79+ per year for an advanced SSL certificate.

Keep in mind you will always need two certificate slots for the yourdomain.com and www.yourdomain.com variations. HostGator now offers free SSL certificates and has lower pricing than GoDaddy for other higher encryption certificate options.

Reliability and Up-Time

We have compared the reliability, performance, and features of both hosting providers using the most popular WordPress themes Divi by Elegant Themes and Elementor.

These two themes are my recommended website builder platforms for getting started with WordPress whether you use advanced web design services from Betty of Boston, or you’re thinking about doing it yourself.

HostGator up-time testing shows that both managed to deliver an up-time of average 99.98% according to Pingdom and both have very fast long loading speeds.

HostGator seems to have an edge with up-time and load speed according to some articles with reports from Pingdom and GMetrics.

BlueHost Tier 3 certified servers projected up-time stands at 99.982% with an average downtime of 1.6 hours per year while HostGator boasts a 99.9% up-time with a service guarantee for their Linux container technology.

Hosting Plans

The great thing about the entry-level shared hosting plans with Bluehost is that you can have multiple websites with unlimited storage and bandwidth.

The HostGator starter pack you can host one website with unlimited storage and average site traffic of about 100,000 visits – but it does offer the extra security services.

According to Pingdom, BlueHost is a top-five shared hosting provider in the US with excellent support and extra free features and HostGator has superb services like site migrations backups, fast customer service, and a website builder.

Our number one pick would be BlueHost and if you are looking into managing multiple sites with SSL and HostGator for a single site because it has great tools for migrations, website security and you can back up your website seamlessly with CodeGuard.

If you are looking for more robust hosting management, you should look into the highly-rated managed WordPress services like SiteGround and FlyWheel.

Managed WordPress services offer a full-service approach with website maintenance, security, and management.

Contact Us for more insight into web hosting and server management plans.

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