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When you run a website and aim to monetize it, you cannot take chances with your web hosting service. You need to find a reliable, trustworthy web host that provides high-quality performance and smooth functioning. Considering all the aspects of your website, you want an affordable and reliable hosting provider combined with the excellent service that supports your website’s growth.
While selecting a cheap web host is economical, it is also very risky. Some of these hosting providers charge hidden fees, and you may end up losing more than you intended to with a more expensive hosting site. Namecheap and BlueHost are two of the best web hosts that provide cheap hosting services. Both of these are recommended for beginners, but we shall compare the services offered by them and conclude which one offers better performance.
An Overview of Namecheap
Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Namecheap is a domain registrar that offers web hosting services, hosting over 10 million domains and 1.5 million websites. They provide managed WordPress hosting, dedicated hosting, VPS, reseller hosting, and professional email hosting, all of which are available at cheap rates starting at $2.88 per month. You can also get their services for just $1.44 per month using the 50% discount available for one year. This means effectively; you can host a website for only $40 per year, undoubtedly an irresistible offer.
With Namecheap, you get a website builder, free CDN, SSL certificates, and easy single click installation for WordPress and other content management systems. Other features include a free business card maker, logo maker, and domain market place. You can also use the domain search tools offered by Namecheap to get great deals on TLDs. They also provide above-average customer service through email, live chat, a knowledge base, and a ticketing system.
An Overview of BlueHost
BlueHost is a popular option among beginners and perfect if your site does not have much traffic. It is easy to use and affordable, but not recommended for a professional website. It is best suited for those who are starting a new website or trying out different web hosts at a low cost. BlueHost offers WordPress hosting, dedicated server hosting, shared hosting, and VPS hosting.
They provide excellent speed and performance, and other features such as free SSL certification, single-click WordPress installation, and unrestricted traffic and bandwidth. You can also have a free domain name when you host with BlueHost for one year. Hosting plans with BlueHost start at $2.95 and comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. The only area where BlueHost lags is with its customer support. User reviews mainly focus on their below-par customer service through live chat, phone, knowledge base, and a ticket system.
Pros Of Namecheap
- User-friendly Interface
Namecheap has an organized, simple user interface that is not cluttered with options. They are easy to find and categorized so that you are not overwhelmed while also enabling you to access them easily.
- Tutorial Videos
It will be challenging for someone who is a beginner to web development and the associated technicalities to work your way by operating many of the functions and solving the problems. With Namecheap, you do not have to worry as they have tutorials that can guide you towards completing backend tasks for your website.
- Uptime Guarantee
Namecheap provides an uptime guarantee of 99.9% for its servers.
- Affordable Price
Price is an essential factor when it comes to choosing a web host, and it is even more critical for a beginner as you may want to keep your overhead expenses low without wanting to compromise on features. Namecheap offers many features in an excellent package for very cheap rates.
Cons of Namecheap
The only setback for Namecheap is the lack of customer support via phone. However, they do offer support through live chat, which means there is someone available at all times to help you solve issues.
Pros of BlueHost
- Wide Range Of Hosting Plans
BlueHost is known for the variety of hosting plans they offer. You can select a plan that is optimized to your needs and best for scaling your website. They offer shared hosting, dedicated hosting, cloud hosting, and VPS hosting.
- Refund Policy
BlueHost has an excellent refund policy. You get a full refund by canceling your subscription within 30 days. If you wish to cancel after that, you will be eligible for a pro-rated refund for the period left in the hosting plan.
- Customer Support
BlueHost has a customer support team available 24/7 through their hotline, live chat, or ticket system. They also have resources that you may use to help yourself and take care of problems by yourself.
Cons of BlueHost
- No Uptime Guarantee
Uptime is an absolute essential for your website. As a site owner, you want to keep the downtime as low as possible to ensure that you do not lose any traffic. BlueHost does not have a guaranteed uptime, and it does not provide you a refund for periods of downtime, unlike other web hosting service providers. This leaves you at a disadvantage when there is unexpected downtime.
- Website Migration is Charged
While there are web hosting services that offer free site migrations, BlueHost is not one of them. They charge additional fees for transferring your site or any cPanel accounts.
Bonus features Offered By Namecheap and BlueHost
Namecheap provides its users with Attracta SEO tools to help develop their site for better search engine rankings.
BlueHost provides all clients with $100 worth credit in Google Advertising and $50 worth credits in Facebook ads. They also offer tools for search engine submission and free Yellowpages Listing.
Summary – Namecheap
Namecheap offers features and services that aim at making the process of starting and running a website more comfortable for people of all skill sets. This includes simplifying intermediate processes like domain registration, hosting, and managing. They offer different hosting services such as WordPress hosting, Shared Hosting, and Reseller hosting, among many others.
Namecheap also offers features and tools such as Domain name search, New TLDs, and transfers, all of which aim to provide the users with a hassle-free experience with their service.
Summary – BlueHost
BlueHost is well known for its easy user interface and cheap services. They make your job easy with their single-click app installations using SimpleScripts. They provide WordPress hosting, dedicated hosting, VPS hosting, and shared hosting. They stand out with their proprietary resource protection solution for users of shared hosting services. This ensures that you are not affected by other abusive or problematic users sharing your server, a significant concern for shared hosting users.
Conclusion
BlueHost is a popular, well-established web host that has been around for a long time. It is one of the most recommended options by bloggers and website owners. They have servers in different parts of the world to enhance and expand their customer base. BlueHost also offers features that help your site grow and develop, and supports scalability. Their cheap and affordable services make them a good option if you try a hand at running a website.
However, BlueHost does fall behind with its customer service according to popular opinion. While it is recommended to beginners due to its friendly user interface, the fact that you may not receive enough technical support is a drawback. Another area where BlueHost does not catch up is with its uptime guarantee. They do not offer any refunds for their downtime, leaving you at a loss.
Namecheap is a famous domain name registrar and is lesser known as a web hosting provider when compared to BlueHost. While BlueHost has a more grounded brand name, Namecheap offers excellent hosting services fit to cater to all types of websites and easy scalability.
BlueHost is undoubtedly the winner here as it offers cheap and affordable service and useful features and tools. They are better known for their excellent performance, high speed, and fast support system. They have servers powered by HTTP/2 and PHP7, and NGINX caching that optimize the performance of your site. Being official partners with WordPress.org, BlueHost certainly has the edge over Namecheap and provides customers with a sense of credibility. They also have a 30-day money-back guarantee and pro-rated refunds that attract newbies and beginners to their services. The free domain name for an year with even the most basic plans is another attraction, along with their new and enhanced control panel Bluerock.