Bluehost vs HostGator: Comparison of Two Shared Hosting Services

Bluehost vs HostGator

Both Bluehost and HostGator are owned by the same group Endurance International Group (EIG).

But both these web hosts have similar pricing plans. Bluehost pricing plans start at $2.95/mo whereas HostGator pricing plans start at $2.75/mo.

So which web host is better? Find out from our honest comparison of both Bluehost Vs HostGator.

In this post, you’ll find the most detailed comparison of Bluehost and HostGator for 2024.

Finding a reliable hosting service is NEVER an easy task. It is especially true when you are completely new to online.

I’ve been blogging for over 10 years now and I have tried various hosting services so I know which are better and which are not. If you are looking for an honest Bluehost vs HostGator review post, this page is for you.

You will discover all the features, benefits along with their pricing in this Bluehost and HostGator comparison post. Also I am going to talk about what I don’t like about both Bluehost and HostGator, so you will know about both of these hosting services without much hassle.

So are you ready to jump into the details? Let’s get started.

Bluehost vs HostGator Review: Which is best?

Bluehost vs HostGator

HostGator review: what’s good and what’s bad in them?

HostGator key features are listed down below.

24/7 technical support: Technical support is the one thing you MUST need when your blog is in trouble. It doesn’t matter whether someone hacks your site or your files go missing, you need support from your hosting provider. HostGator provides you 24 x 7 customer support in case if you get into any hosting related trouble.

45-day money-back guarantee: HostGator offers you 45 days money back guarantee. If in any case you don’t like their service or hosting features, you can ask for a refund and they will give you a full refund if you ask for within 45 days of the hosting purchase.

WordPress integration: HostGator supports WordPress integration and they also have a quick WordPress installation service where you can install WordPress on your new sites within minutes along with the login details.

Unlimited traffic, emails: It doesn’t matter how much traffic you get, HostGator won’t charge you anything extra for it. Although the site loading times become slow when you get massive traffic but it’s a great choice if you are on a limited budget. At the same time, it also offers you to have access to unlimited emails. That means you can create any number of email accounts you want to run your sites that are hosted on HostGator.

99.9% uptime guarantee: Uptime guarantee is a mandatory thing you should check before selecting a hosting service to run your WordPress sites. This will help you find the most reliable hosting source that doesn’t go offline or down when your visitors are reading or browsing your sites. So make sure to find the uptime guarantee of your desired hosting providers.

What about the pricing of HostGator?

HostGator Shared hosting offers 3 pricing plans.

  1. Hatching Plan: Well suited for hosting single domain (costs you $2.75 per month).
  2. Baby Plan: Most recommended if you are interested in hosting multiple domains and highly recommended for all the bloggers (costs $3.98 per month).
  3. Business Plan: All the features from baby plan along with the additional features that you will get will be dedicated IP Address, Private SSL and Toll Free Number (costs $5.98 per month for a limited time).

Here are few core features of HostGator hosting:

  • Unlimited domain names, disk space and bandwidth
  • Free Site Builder
  • 24×7 Support
  • 9 Percent Uptime Guarantee
  • 45 days money back guarantee
  • $100 Google Adwords credits
  • Unlimited Addon, Parked domains and Subdomains
  • Unlimited FTP accounts and MYSQL Databases
  • Fantasico HostGator cpanel and 50 plus additional scripts

What I like about HostGator

Here are few of my personal favorite things about HostGator hosting service.

It’s really cheap: HostGator is really cheap and that’s the reason why there are currently over 1 million sites are hosted on it. If you are on a budget, you should definitely consider HostGator.

It’s easy to manage: HostGator offers control panel where you can install WordPress within minutes and set up and manage your emails & databases without any hassle. That’s the beauty of HostGator’s control panel.

Low upfront hosting charges: This is the #1 thing I like about HostGator. They offer monthly hosting packages starting from just around $10 a month, you can get it for as cheap as just $2.75 per month if you get the 3 years hosting plan with them.

What I don’t like about HostGator

This Bluehost vs HostGator review for 2024 is not completely honest without sharing what I don’t like about HostGator.

Their customer support isn’t good: Good customer support is really needed especially when you have newly launched a WordPress site. You will come across a lot of glitches with your sites and that’s when you require top notch and friendly customer staff who can solve your issues within a day. Sadly, that won’t happen with HostGator, their customer support takes a lot of time to respond to your queries.

They don’t offer regular backups: Backups are really needed if you want to keep your files secured. If in any case, you lose all your files, you need backups to restore all the data but sadly HostGator doesn’t offer whereas Bluehost offers.

Slow loading times: If you are someone who hates slow loading sites, you should think twice before giving a try to HostGator as their servers are slow but not slower. If you are on a budget, I would recommend them but if you can spare few extra dollars, you should go for Bluehost for better website speed.

Security issues: Recently I moved from HostGator to Traffic Planet hosting on one of my sites just because of the security issues. I also heard a lot of people complaining their sites are not safe with HostGator. If you want to try them, make sure to install WordPress security plugins.

Bluehost review 2024: What’s so great about them?

Bluehost vs HostGator

Bluehost incredible key features and benefits are listed below.

Free domain name: You have to buy the domain with HostGator but with Bluehost, you will get the domain name free for 1 year. That’s incredible right? You are saving $10 upfront!

Anytime money back guarantee: Bluehost gives you anytime money back guarantee. If you pay them for a 2 year hosting plan and not satisfied with their features after 1 year, you can ask for the remaining 1 years refund and they will do it gladly! That’s what I like about Bluehost.

24/7 technical support: Bluehost offers 24/7 support via emails, live chat and phone. Unlike HostGator, Bluehost support team is fast and really good.

Simple 1 click installation: Bluehost offers a feature called “Quick Installation” where you can install WordPress on their servers with the click of just one button. Within a few minutes, you can start blogging. How cool is that?

Blazing fast servers: The great thing about using Bluehost is their servers as they are really fast and increase your site loading speed to a great extent.

What about the pricing of Bluehost?

Bluehost offers shared hosting, VPS and dedicated hosting. In this Bluehost Vs HostGator review post, we are only covering the Bluehost shared hosting plans.

Bluehost shared hosting offers you 3 pricing plans.

  1. Basic
  2. Plus
  3. Business Pro

1. Basic: This is the basic Bluehost plan which costs you just $2.95 per month. Here are the features you get with Bluehost Basic package.

  • Email Accounts: 100
  • Storage (GB): 100
  • File Count: 50,000
  • Network bandwidth: Unlimited
  • Domain Hosting: 1 site
  • One Free Domain Registration: No
  • Sub Domains: 25
  • One Free Domain Privacy: No
  • Free Dedicated IP: No
  • Free SSL Certificate: No
  • MySQL Databases: 20
  • Database Tables: 1,000

2. Plus: This is a better and highly recommend Bluehost shared hosting plan which costs you $5.45 per month and here are the features you get with Bluehost Plus package.

  • Email Accounts: Unlimited
  • Storage (GB): Unlimited
  • File Count: 50,000
  • Network bandwidth: Unlimited
  • Domain Hosting: Unlimited
  • One Free Domain Registration: Yes (for 1 year)
  • SubDomains: Unlimited
  • One Free Domain Privacy: No
  • Free Dedicated IP: No
  • Free SSL Certificate: No
  • MySQL Databases: Unlimited
  • Database Tables 1,000

3. Business Pro: This is for advanced users which costs you $13.95 per month and here are the features you get with Bluehost Business Pro package.

  • Email Accounts: Unlimited
  • Storage (GB): Unlimited
  • File Count: 300,000
  • Network bandwidth: Unlimited
  • Domain Hosting: Unlimited
  • One Free Domain Registration: Yes (for lifetime)
  • SubDomains: Unlimited
  • One Free Domain Privacy: Yes
  • Free Dedicated IP: Yes
  • Free SSL Certificate: Yes
  • MySQL Databases: Unlimited
  • Database Tables: 3,000

What I like most about the Bluehost hosting?

They are reliable: Bluehost is currently hosting over 2 million websites in the world (more than 1 millions sites than HostGator) and they are in the hosting industry for over 2 decades and they are reliable hosting providers.

Unlimited everything: You can get unlimited domains to host on Bluehost shared hosting, unlimited emails, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited file transfer, unlimited space and unlimited email accounts.

WordPress itself recommends them: As Bluehost is currently serving over 2 million websites and offers the ultimate WordPress platform. Bluehost hosting is finely tuned for WordPress sites and they also offer WordPress-centric dashboards and tools along with 1-click installation, a FREE domain name and a lot more mentioned in this Bluehost review.

Browse More:


What I don’t like about Bluehost?

Again, this Bluehost and HostGator comparison for 2024 won’t be good enough if I don’t share what I don’t like about Bluehost hosting.

No monthly plans: Bluehost doesn’t offer monthly hosting plans like HostGator does. If you are a beginner with a limited budget and want to give a try to it, Bluehost is not right fit for you. You have to pay at least for 1 year in advance to start using Bluehost.

Lots of upselling: Bluehost offers backup service and few more additional features like sitelock, site migration etc but you have to pay extra to avail all these services. There is a lot of upselling while you are trying to buy their hosting. So make sure to uncheck all the boxes on their billing page while buying their hosting except regular backups as they cost around $2 every month and which is extremely important.

No free site migration: There are other hosting companies like Traffic Planet hosting, WP Engine etc offer free site migration when you switch from another hosting services to host sites on their servers.

But Bluehost charges $149.99 to migrate from other hosting service to Bluehost. It’s really cost but you can be assured that your site will safely migrated by their experts who will transfer all your emails along with the site files. They actually transfer up to five websites and 20 email accounts, including all associated files and databases from one of your old hosting accounts to Bluehost.

What Others are Reading:

Conclusion about Bluehost vs HostGator review 2024

Choosing one hosting service from Bluehost and HostGator is not hard if you know your blogging needs.

So make sure to go through all the features and buy accordingly. If you want me to pick one service among the both, I’d go for Bluehost because you are not going to get a reliable, faster and secured hosting but you will also get a free domain name.

But if you are not ready to put a lot of money at once (at least yearly) and interested in getting a monthly hosting plan, then HostGator should be your choice.

So what do you think? Did you like the review of Bluehost and HostGator comparison? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Avatar of Anil Agarwal
About Author
Anil Agarwal is a full-time blogger and SEO expert with over 17 years of experience. Here's the founder of HostingMonks.com and India's leading digital marketing blog BloggersPassion.com. Anil has been featured on major websites like Forbes, Semrush, Hostinger, Bluehost, CloudWays, Kinsta, WPX, DreamHost, etc.
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