Best Bluehost Alternatives

Bluehost is definitely one of the most powerful web hosting services currently present in the market. However, it does not mean that there aren’t other options to consider before you jump right in and get yourself a subscription.

Why do I say that? Well, you must have noticed how people tend to jump at the slightest and try to get themselves products that are either cheap or happen to have excellent ratings on the internet. The problem with this kind of thinking, and especially when it comes to selecting a web hosting service, is that there isn’t enough hardwork being put in the process. There is a clear lack of research that might come back to bite in the future. Your decision to select a web hosting partner cannot be arbitrary. It has to be based on solid ideas such as your vision and plan. If you do not have a clear idea about what you want your website to be, chances are that it might not ever take off.

There are multiple factors to consider in general as well, such as speed, security, performance, and customer support. All of this must be looked at in consonance with your budget and whether or not you can afford it in a sustainable fashion.

Bluehost is a great web hosting service. There is no doubt about that. It is also endorsed by WordPress, which is the biggest Content Management Site (CMS) in the world. This article is to simply draw your attention to other alternatives that are also available.

Without further ado, here are a few best Bluehost alternative web hosting services.

1.  SiteGround

Ivo Tzenov found SiteGround in 2014. Their team of over 500 brilliant employees, who continuously work hard so that premium hosting services can be provided to over 2 million sites. Isn’t that a crazy figure? Well, SiteGround IS one of the best companies to provide hosting services.

SiteGround offers users across plans, access to one of the best-managed, high power WordPress hosting services. In this regard, they are slightly different from Bluehost. If you cannot compromise on the speed, security, and excellent customer support, SiteGround is the right choice for you. Do not make the mistake of assuming that SiteGround cannot provide all-round support. They assure quality services to not only small individual businesses but also to complex WooCommerce stores and enterprises.

Although their plans are costlier than that of Bluehost’s, you will not mind spending the extra dollar for such great features. With SiteGround, it will only take a few minutes for you to set up your website and start earning. To be honest, SiteGround is better than Bluehost in most departments.

Key Features

  • SiteGround offers multiple plans. These include –
    • Shared Hosting
    • Cloud Hosting
    • Managed WordPress Hosting
    • Reseller Hosting
    • Managed WooCommerce Hosting
    • Enterprise Hosting
    • Dedicated Server Hosting
    • VPS Hosting
  • Users get a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate
  • Users get a free subscription Cloudflare CDN
  • Users have access to fast servers that are powered by Google Cloud Platform
  • Users are provided with an SSD storage
  • Users get to enjoy regular backups that are performed daily
  • Users are offered free professional site transfer
  • Users can enjoy site Staging and Git version control system
  • White-label transfers
  • All websites are provided with a custom Web Application Firewall (WAF)
  • Dynamic caching is provided for
  • Multiple data centers spread across four continents

Hosting Plans

Take a look at the brief details of various SiteGround hosting plans. Each of them targets a separate need and requires a different budget.

  • Web hosting packages are priced between $3.95 and $34.95 per month
  • Managed cloud hosting packages are priced between $80 and $240 a month
  • Enterprise hosting requires you to contact the SiteGround support in order to get a quote.

Pros

  • SiteGround offers automatic WordPress installation
  • SiteGroud provides you with super-fast servers
  • They have great customer support accessible round the clock via telephone or live chat
  • A robust 30-day money-back guarantee
  • A great 99.99% server uptime guarantee
  • Top-notch security

Cons

  • Your data storage is limited according to the hosting plan
  • Monthly billing includes a setup fee of $14.95
  • Penalties on over-using data

Is SiteGround Better Than Bluehost?

SiteGround beats Bluehost in two major areas. Firstly, SiteGround can guarantee better website performance than Bluehost. This is made possible due to the infrastructure on which SiteGround functions. Their website loading speed is dependent on the Google Cloud Platform(GCP), SSD storage, and a built-in Content Delivery Network.

Secondly, SiteGround offers greater security options. You can create a secure environment for your WordPress site easily. It would be remiss if the SiteGround support team is left out of the conversation. Not only are they very good at what they do, but they are also super responsive and very easy to reach out to. Bluehost does lack in the last area as well.

2.   HostGator

HostGator is another well-known web hosting company that is owned by the Endurance International Group (EIG). HostGator was born out of a dorm room in the Florida Atlantic University in the year 2002, all due to the hard work of Brent Oxley. Since then, HostGator has become a leading name amongst companies that offer web hosting services.

They have two great plans to offer, namely cloud hosting and managed WordPress Hosting. Hostgator’s hosting plans are cheap. They are at par with Bluehost, when it comes to performance. The cloud hosting package offers premium performance and top-notch security features.

Do not underestimate HostGator’s entry level plans. If you are looking to host basic websites that do not require heavy resources to run on, these are the plans to go for. For example, if you wish to host a personal blog, their beginner hosting plans will do the job for you. As and when your website grows, you can easily scale your project. VPS hosting and dedicated hosting are two of the plans that can help you achieve new heights.

Bigger projects can be easily catered to with HostGator’s managed WordPress hosting as well.

Key Features

  • HostGator offers a free SSL Certificate to each one of their customers
  • Hostgators provides a free domain name to all their subscribers
  • WordPress installations are super easy
  • Free website transfers
  • Subscribers have access to a robust website builder
  • Uptime guarantee of 99.99%
  • HostGators provide credits for Google AdWords and Bing Ads
  • Unmetered bandwidth and round the clock technical support

Hosting Plans

Take a look at the pricing plans that HostGator has to offer. The brief outlines will give you a good idea of what is to be expected. There is something up for grabs for all kinds of business:

  • The HostGator entry plans begin at $2.75 per month
  • If you want to create an e-commerce friendly website, make use of the website builder plan at $3.84 per month
  • HostGator offers WordPress hosting from $5.95 per month
  • The HostGator dedicated server hosting is priced at $89.98 per month
  • You can purchase the HostGator VPS hosting plan at just $1.95 p34 month

Most of these plans are special introductory offers. Regular prices and renewal rates are higher, but do not exploit individuals.

Pros

Take a look at the good bits of HostGator:

  • A great 45-day money-back guarantee helps you test out the service without risk
  • Extremely easy WordPress installations
  • HostGator provides access to custom firewalls so that DDoS attacks can be prevented
  • You are eligible for the regular and daily backup
  • If you are on the cloud or the WordPress plan, you are eligible for free malware removal

Cons

  • The best speed and performance is available only in the cloud and the managed WordPress plans
  • Multiple advertisements and upsells
  • The domain names offered are very expensive

Is HostGator better than Bluehost

HostGator and Bluehost are both owned by the Endurance International Group(EIG). The plans offered by both companies carry prices that are in the same range. Costing plans then become a minor factor to help you make your choice.

You get to enjoy a 45-day money-back guarantee with HostGator. It is 15 days longer than what Bluehost has to offer. This shows that they have plenty of confidence in their services. You can also see that HostGator has slightly better features in their plans than Bluehost.

3.  Hostinger

 

Hostinger started out as a small time business going by the name of ‘Hosting Media’ out of Kaunas, Lithuania in 2004. I took them 6 years to reach 1 million users and realize their dreams of becoming one of the biggest web hosting service providers in the world. With 40 offices spread across the world and an extremely competent staff working in the back end, Hostinger provides serious competition to all the big brand names in the market.

Hostinger has not stopped the pursuit of excellence, they are constantly making leaps giant in terms of progress. Currently, they have their base in 39 countries, with 6 great data centers spread all across the globe. As of now, they are providing premium services to more than 29 million users. The numbers keep on growing.

At the core of Hostinger, lies the desire to make everyone comfortable with hosting practices. They wish to help their users grow into big names and change the state of affairs by providing them excellent services at mind-boggling prices.

Hostinger has multiple hosting plans to offer-

  • Shared Hosting
  • Cloud Hosting
  • Email Hosting
  • VPS Hosting
  • Windows Hosting
  • Minecraft Hosting

Minecraft Hosting offers good gaming servers for you to share your experiences with other people on the internet. Along with these plans, you get access to a wonderful website builder that allows you to quickly put up a wonderful website. Zero-ad web hosting will be provided for by 000webhost.

Key Features

  • You can host unlimited websites with Hostinger
  • You get access to a range of bandwidth plans from 100 GB to unlimited bandwidth
  • Hostinger provides access to unlimited databases
  • Hostinger provides all users with a free SSL Certificate
  • All users get free domain registrations
  • Hostinger guarantees both daily and weekly backups
  • There is an uptime guarantee of 99.99%
  • There is a pre-included powerful cPanel
  • Easy app installation

Hosting Plans

Hostinger has a lot of hosting plans to offer to their customers at awesome prices:

  • The lowest hosting plan that Hostinger has to offer $0.99 per month
  • Cloud hosting plans begin at $7.45 per month
  • WordPress hosting plans start from $2.15 per month
  • Hostinger has 6 VPS plans to offer. The plans start at $3.95 per month
  • Minecraft hosting is provided by Hostinger $8.95 per month
  • Hostinger offers Windows VPS plans from $26 per month

They also have a vibrant 30-day money-back guarantee that you can put to good use. The idea is to make good use of this opportunity and work on it.

The Pros

Hostinger has many good quality features for their customers. Take a look at the list of pros:

  • They have great servers that offer fast speed to their users
  • Hostinger’s admin dashboard is extremely intuitive to use
  • Hostinger offers great security and privacy mechanism
  • Users have access to a detailed knowledge base
  • Their hosting plans are dirt cheap
  • Users can use the free website builder to quickly design

The Cons

  • Although Hostinger has great features to offer to customers, their customer support has a slow response time. It would be remiss, if I don’t mention that their customer support is very adept at solving problems
  • Their pricing structure is not very clear. It can be confusing for a lot of users
  • SSL certificates on addon domains have to be installed manually by the users

Is Hostinger Better than Bluehost?

One metric where Hostinger beats Bluehost is on the pricing plans. Hostinger offers cheaper prices than Bluehost and has faster page loading speeds. There is also a wide range of options that you can access from Hostinger. The Hostinger support team, although hard to get in touch with, provides great solutions for any and all problems that you might face. With them, you can stop worrying about the issues you might face.

4.  A2-Hosting

A2-Hosting was founded by Bryan Muthig, back in 2001. Initially, it was named Iniquinet. However, the company gained a lot of customers by the end of 2003. It is then that the core group decided to change the company’s name to A2-Hosting. Interestingly, A2 stands for Ann Arbor in Michigan, United States of America. The founders wanted the new name to be representative of the place where the company was born.

A2-Hosting has become one of the leading names in the web hosting industry. They claim that their hosting services are 20 times faster than what any other company provides. While this claim for a 20 times faster might seem unrealistic, A2-Hosting has invested a lot to make it possible. They house NVMe and EPYC servers that guarantee 40 percent faster CPU performance. They also offer exciting discounts and deals round the year to make their services affordable for all. A2 Hosting offers shared WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, Dedicated Server Hosting, as well as Reseller Hosting.

They are also the only web hosting company to have a green initiative. A2-Hosting has partnered with Carbonfund’s FutureServe program to reduce their carbon footprint. A2-Hosting has been completely carbon neutral since 2007.

Key Features

Take a look at A2-Hosting’s major features –

  • They offer unlimited SSD storage space
  • They provide unmetered bandwidth
  • They have free site migration services
  • They provide free SSL certificates to their users
  • Users can enjoy automatic and daily backup provisions

The Pros

If you have been wondering why you should choose A2-Hosting as your service provider, here is a glimpse of the good things –

  • A2-Hosting offers a robust anytime money-back guarantee
  • They guarantee a 99.9% uptime
  • Access their Guru Crew support all round the clock
  • A2-Hosting has turbo servers that increase your website speed by 20 times
  • Have access to top-notch security with features such as HackScan Protection, firewalls, and brute force protection
  • A2-Hosting offer great space for scaling your operations
  • They try to ensure an environment perfect for developer friendly hosting

The Cons

What are the shortcomings of A2-Hosting? Well, let us take a look at few of these –

  • They charge migration fees. If you are moving your data center without choosing a higher plan, you will have to pay $25.
  • Their plan details can be extremely misleading.You only enjoy 20 times faster website speed, if and when you purchase one of the most expensive hosting plans A2-Hosting has to offer.
  • You can only access the live chat feature, if you have an account at A2-Hosting.
  • Namecheap and Hostinger have cheaper domain name prices.

Is A2-Hosting Better than Bluehost?

Well, Bluehost loses the fight on a few grounds. The first one has to be in terms of affordability. Although Bluehost plans are cheaper, when compared with what  A2-Hosting has to offer at a slightly higher rate, the latter seems like a better deal. A2-Hosting also provides more domain extensions than Bluehost. Bluehost in this regard can feel slightly restrictive.

When it comes to comparing A2-Hosting and Bluehost simply in terms of the features that the both of them provide, A2-Hosting emerges as the winner. They have Turbo Servers to boost website speed, all the way upto 20 times. Plus, they have excellent customer support. One that fares way better than Bluehost.

Bluehost

Considering the fact that we have been discussing alternatives to Bluehost, I think it is only appropriate that we look at Bluehost for a little while as well.

Bluehost is easily one of the giants in the web hosting industry. They currently  provide their services to power more than two million websites all around the world. Matt Heaton and Danny Ashworth are the co-founders of this company that was set up in 2003. They have over 750 people on their payroll. Recently, they were acquired by the Endurance International Group (EIG), and thus they are under a powerful conglomerate right now.

Bluehost has a wide range of options to offer to their customers, each suited for different needs. Their services include

  • Shared Hosting
  • Virtual Private Server Hosting
  • Dedicated Hosting
  • Reseller Hosting
  • Managed WordPress Hosting
  • Domain name registration
  • Professional Marketing Services

Bluehost provides a cPanel that makes installing and managing a WordPress site extremely easy. With this brilliant feature, you can build and get customizable websites running within hours.  To ensure fast hosting speeds, they provide free worldwide CDN and SSD-specific servers. For new customers, Bluehost offers one free domain name and a free SSL certificate valid for a year.

Take a look at their wonderful prices –

  • All plans start at $2.95 per month
  • VPS hosting starts at $19.99 per month
  • Bluehost managed WooCommerce hosting starts at $6.95 a month

Take a look at the good and bad qualities of Bluehost.

The Pros of Bluehost

Bluehost has a lot of compelling features and deals that make them a good fit for anyone. Do check a few them out –

  • Cheap Hosting Possibilities – Bluehost has some of the cheapest website hosting plans being offered amongst any big web hosting company
  • Domain Name – On subscribing a Bluehost plan, you are given a free domain name
  • Robust Money Back Guarantee -With this offer, you can cancel your subscription anytime you like within the first 30 days. Once you do so, you get your money back. This allows you to explore Bluehost without you facing any risk
  • Unlimited offers – Although some plans have their site visits and storage capped, most Bluehost plans come with unlimited website access by users as well as unlimited storage space
  • Unlimited Bandwidth – With Bluehost, you do not have to worry about the amount of data you can use in a stipulated period of time
  • Great Uptime – Bluehost has some of the best uptimes being offered in the market

The Cons of Bluehost

There is no service in the world that is absolutely perfect. It is a similar situation with Bluehost as well. Their cons might force you to opt for an alternative.

  • Bad Support response -Bluehost houses one of the worst support staff in the web hosting industry. The support staff does not respond on time and are not cordial either.
  • Website migration charge- Bluehost charges you to move your website from the last host to their own platform. Most services generally provide one free website migration.
  • Shaky Website Backup – Bluehost does not offer proper website backup and restore services. This is a dangerous area to teeter on, considering all websites are prone to cyber attacks. If the data is lost, there will be no way to restore your site.
  • Speed Issues – While they claim to provide great speed for your website, they often seem to perform averagely in a lot of independent speed tests.

Conclusion

Jumping for a web hosting service that ranks well in one review is not a great idea. In fact, my suggestion to you is simple. Spend some time on the internet looking not only at reviews, but also at their individual websites. This will give you a clear idea about the resources and features they have to offer. It will also help you make a decision.

While checking out this alternative list that I prepared, you must have gathered some ideas about what to look for in a web hosting service.

Bluehost is a great web hosting provider when you want to host basic websites and personal blogs that do not see earth shattering traffic. This makes it perfect for those who are starting out their web hosting journey. It is exactly what most people need to start out with, in terms of features and services. If your plan is to set up a high functioning e-commerce website, then I would suggest that you gradually scale up or look for a different alternative from the first minute.

The alternatives listed above are not the only ones available. However, I can guarantee that they are some of the best performers currently present in the market right now.