When I was a kid, my teacher used to say that to become a scientist you’ve to first understand the basic science. It never made sense to me back then. Like – I don’t think those nerdy geeks (no offense) will ever use H2 + O2 is equal to water in their experiments. But…
…what he said was right. And this is true for all things. And therefore to make a good online presence you should start with good basics – hosting and domain.
Today in this post I’ll compare and review two very famous web hosting providers – SiteGround vs Bluehost WordPress hosting and I’ll share all the pros and cons of the two outstanding services.
Before you make your presence online, you should understand which hosting provider will be right for you. There are a lot of hosting providers in the market nowadays and it is a difficult task to choose which one is actually better and suitable. That’s why read this post fully and make a conscious choice for yourself.
Both SiteGround and Bluehost have captured most of the hosting providing market and they’re tough competitors of each other. Let’s jump in and see which one will be better and suitable for you in this Bluehost vs Siteground WordPress web hosting review.
Before we proceed, let me explain the structure of this article. We’ll first discuss SiteGround, then Bluehost and lastly we’ll make a comparison between them and end our post with a final verdict. Cool, eh?
Contents
SiteGround: Behind The Scenes
SiteGround is one of the leading hosting service providers in the world. Started in 2004 in a city in Sofia, in Bulgaria, SiteGround has gained popularity faster than any other hosting service provider. More than 2 million of websites have been hosted on SiteGround. This is one of the largest hosting providers which is registered in countries like USA, UK, Bulgaria and Spain. There data centers are spread around the world. And today it is one of the world’s leading hosting service providers.
Terrific Features of SiteGround
While choosing a hosting provider, the first aspect that comes within our minds is whether the provider is delivering required features or not. Here are some of the features you are going to get with SiteGround Hosting.
- Auto update for WordPress.
- Dynamic caching for faster loading website.
- Free SSL certificate and content delivery network (CDN)
- Free migration plug-in for migration
- Amazing uptime guarantee
- 10-40 GB storage depending on plan
- Customized hosting solutions
- Advanced priority support and money back guarantee
- Easy to use and comes with GIT integration, site staging, WP-CLI integration
- Instant backup and restoration with all plans
SiteGround Hosting Plans
SiteGround hosting comes up with three plans starting with $6.99 and goes upto $14.99 for premium plan. Let’s take a look into each plan thoroughly.
Startup plan
It is the basic plan which costs $6.99 monthly. It includes unlimited sub and parked domains, free email account, 10 GB web storage, hosting for one site, friendly site tools, free CDN with each account, anti hack system with spam protection and daily backup, free SSH and SFTP access and supercacher of level 1 only. You will also get options for customized server setup and HTTP/2 enabled servers.
Like the name suggests, it’s a startup plan. If your business is just launching you can choose this and later upgrade as per your requirements.
GrowBig plan
This plan comes up with a price tag of $9.99 monthly and the most recommended plan for users who are having hard time to decide. Some features of this plan remain the same as the Startup plan like unlimited sub and parked domains, free email account, friendly site tools, free CDN with each account, anti hack system with spam protection and daily backup, free SSH and SFTP access.
What you get more is 20 GB of storage, 25000 monthly visits, unlimited hosted websites, supercacher at all 3 levels, advanced on-demand backup, and staging.
GoGreek Plan
Here comes the last and premium plan offered by SiteGround hosting which costs $14.99 monthly. If you require more traffic and more data i.e. you have an e-commerce inventory or large data infrastructure, this plan is for you. It includes all the features of the Startup plan and GrowBig plan. What it offers more is 40 GB of storage with 10000 monthly visits. It also includes advanced priority support, white-label hosting & client management and pre-installed Git.
Pros & Cons of SiteGround
Pros
- Multiple server locations in the US, Europe and Asia.
- 99% of Uptime Guarantee with great page loading speed.
- Comes with a 30-days money back guarantee
- Google cloud infrastructure.
- Adequate customer support with less response time than other hosting providers
- Offers free web hosting migration
- Free SSL certificate, PHP 7.4 and SSD hosting.
Cons
- Data storage is limited in all plan
- Pricing is quite high as compared to other hosting platforms
- Limited numbers of monthly visits.
Bluehost: Behind The Scenes
Bluehost is yet another web hosting service provider which was started in 2003 in Utah (USA). When it comes to WordPress hosting, WordPress officially recommends Bluehost. And it has been recommending Bluehost since 2005. More than 2 million websites are hosted on Bluehost. And if you are a beginner and don’t have much knowledge about the technical aspects, Bluehost is definitely one of the best hosting providers for you. With just a few clicks one cant get its hosting service and neither it’s UI causes too much of trouble. What’s much?
Terrific Features of Bluehost
- #1 hosting provider for WordPress sites.
- Unlimited data storage ( not in basic plan)
- Dashboards can be customized accordingly.
- Automatic updates for WordPress
- Free SSL certificate and CDN
- 99.9% uptime guarantee
- Very reasonable price compared to other providers
- Free domain for first year (after, it is paid)
- Microsoft 365 mailbox for 30 days.
- Automatic backup creation
- Google app integration and money back guarantee
Bluehost Hosting Plans
Bluehost comes up with three plans which are much cheaper than SiteGround. Imagine you are getting a hosting plan at $2.95 monthly. How would you react? That’s why Bluehost is considered to be one of the cheapest hosting service providers.
But hey do remember, these cheap prices are for first year only after that you’ll have to pay in full. This is the case with the majority of hosting providers including the ones being discussed here.
Basic plan
Basic plan of Bluehost is priced at $2.95 monthly which is even cheaper than a cup of coffee. Since the basic plan doesn’t allow so many features but you still get one website, SSL certificate, 50 GB storage, free domain, 5 parked domains and 25 sub domains. And this many features are appreciable at such an affordable price. If you are a beginner with a single website then this plan is surely for you.
Plus plan
This plan of Bluehost costs $5.95 monthly and packed up with premium features. It includes unlimited hosting websites, SSL certificate, unlimited data storage, unlimited free and parked domains. It indicates clearly that there is no restriction at all on storage. What makes it even more better is $200 in marketing offer and global CDN. It is mostly recommended for the bloggers. Site transfers are not free. Some add-ons like DDoS and SiteLock are offered in this plan.
Choice Plus plan
This is the last plan for WordPress by Bluehost. You can get it by paying $5.45 monthly. This allows some benefits like unlimited hosting websites, SSL certificate, unlimited data storage, unlimited free and parked Domain. You also get codeguard basic backup feature followed by 1 microsoft 365 mailbox ( free for 30 days)
Note- Apart from above features all the plans come with automatic wordpress installation and update, secure and safe login credentials.
Bluehost Pros and Cons
Pros
- Outstanding Uptime that is 99.99%
- Loading speed is around 3-5 seconds.
- Free domain for one year band free SSL certificate
- Affordable and worth going with.
- No restriction on data storage
- Recommended for new bloggers as it is quite easy to set up and use.
- Beginner friendly and come with 30 days money back guarantee.
Cons
- Website transfer is payable and expensive.
- Tries to upsell when you visit their website.
- Customer service support is not upto mark ( as reviewed by some customers).
Note- All the above mentioned plans for both Bluehost and SiteGround are for the first year only. After one year renewal plans may be higher ( differ from plan to plan)
SiteGround vs Bluehost WordPress Hosting: Which is right for you?
I’ll be honest with you. It’s hard to tell which one is better because both rank as to hosting providers and differ very little. But it’s not hard to choose if you know your preferences.
Before you choose which one to go with let do a one on one comparison of Bluehost vs SiteGround for WordPress hosting. Things will be clear after this comparison table.
| Tests | SiteGround | Bluehost |
| For Beginners | Yes | Yes |
| Site transfer | Free | Paid |
| Free SSL certificate and CDN | Yes | Yes |
| Uptime | 99.99% | 99.98% |
| Security | Best in class | Third-party security |
| Loading Speed | 1-2 seconds | 2-5 seconds |
| Renewal Pricing | Up to 3 times | Affordable |
| Malware scans | SiteGround’s “HackAlert” is free of cost. | For $1.99 a month and you can use Bluehost’s “SiteLock” |
| Pricing | Little Expensive | Very Affordable |
| Customer Support | Excellent | Average |
| HTTP/2-enabled | Yes | Yes |
| Money-back guarantee | 30 Days | 30 Days |
| Control Panel | cPanel | cPanel |
| Disk Space | Limited | Unlimited |
| Overall Rating(out of 10) | 8 | 7 |
Final Verdict
As per above comparison, SiteGround is the winner with a minute difference. But if you are planning to buy hosting, it is recommended that you should try both at least for some days. As both the hosting providers offer 30 days money back guarantee, there is no harm in trying both. Then you can decide which one to go with but if you have lack of time and want to go with one of the hosting providers, I would recommend you to go with SiteGround as the above comparison clearly indicates it is not going to disappoint you.
There are some cases where Bluehost is a win, like if you are looking to start a blog or you own a small business, Bluehost is recommended but if you want to host a large website like any e-commerce business then definitely prefer SiteGround.
I hope all your doubts have been cleared but if you still have some questions to ask, just put it down in the comment section below. I’ll be happy to help you.
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