Both Bluehost and HostGator are not strangers to most hosting shoppers. They both are recommended as Top 10 Web Hosting providers focusing on providing quality hosting services and being highly rated among webmasters. Choosing between the two web hosts is not easy, especially for many newbies. It’s easy to understand why we make a comparison of Bluehost vs. HostGator. We are going to dig deep and figure out whether Bluehost or HostGator is a better solution to host website with.
About Bluehost and HostGator
Bluehost (www.bluehost.com) is a well-known cloud-based web host offering shared hosting, VPS, and dedicated hosting solutions. From servers to the internal tools to the scripts, Bluehost has built on open source thus becoming the world’s leading solutions for open source implementations and development. Up to now, the web host has successfully helped create or host over 2 million websites of different sizes and for different purposes.
HostGator (www.hostgator.com), as well, is a big brand that came into being in early 21th century. The web host has developed reliable Windows hosting service in addition to popular Linux hosting plans. Highlights of HostGator hosting are reliable performance and reasonable pricing.
Bluehost vs. HostGator on Plans & Pricing
Both Bluehost and HostGator have a complete Linux hosting product structure, while the latter also offers multiple Windows hosting programs for meeting specific requirements from another group of customers.
Bluehost hosting costs at $7.99/mo originally. Now with the latest Bluehost Coupon, customers can save up to 56% off to make the price low to $3.49/mo. Along with the promotional price are free domain privacy valued $11.88 and free site backup valued $35.88.
While at the other side, HostGator hosting is billed at $10.95/mo. The web host now is promoting its hosting service by offering time-limited 52% discount off. That is, customers just need to pay with $3.30/mo after discounting when using the coupon code rsosaveas1.
Bluehost vs. HostGator on Main Features
To get started, let’s have a quick check on the main features offered within the prime plan of Bluehost and HostGator shared hosting.
| Features | Bluehost Basic | HostGator Hatchling |
| Disk Space | 50GB | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Email Accounts | 5 | Unlimited |
| Domains Allowed | 1 | 1 |
| Free Domain |  |
 |
| Shared SSL | |
|
| SSH Access | |
|
It is easily to find that HostGator is a little bit richer featured than Bluehost hosting in terms of basic offerings. In other words, people with HostGator shared hosting are allowed to allocate more hosting resources.
Bluehost vs. HostGator on Technical Features
Technical features a web hosting provider offers play an important role in building professional websites and simplifying the creating process.
Control Panel
For helping customers easily configure and manage their hosting accounts, including editing files, taking backups, installing software, and more, Bluehost and HostGator both offer their Linux-based clients the latest version of cPanel control panel. For Windows hosting customers, HostGator gives them the widely used Parallels Plesk Panel.
Database
Databases rank among the most significant structural elements on the web for offering a quick and automated way to store, manage, delete, or retrieve website/application information. Bluehost hosting platform is built with MySQL 5.5 and PostgreSQL 8 database, while HostGator offers unlimited MySQL databases within its Linux hosting plans, and offers unlimited MySQL & MSSQL databases within its Windows hosting plans.
Automatic Installer
Manually installing a software or theme is not familiar with a group of webmaster. Even sometimes, it is a big challenge that stops people going on with a hosting solution. Fortunately, both Bluehost and HostGator allow their customers to install any popular scripts using the 1-click installer.
Bluehost vs. HostGator on Uptime and Performance
No matter which web host people decide to go with, either Bluehost or HostGator, they can fully trust their fast speed and 99.9% average uptime.
Unlike most hosting providers relying on third-party facilities, Bluehost operates its own data center, and monitors it 24/7 with its on-site professional admin team. Coupled with its fully-customized Linux Kernel, the web host takes control of every aspect of its hardware and software. For instance, it makes use of 16-core AMD Opteron servers, and equips them with 256GB RAM, enterprise level SSD database storage, CentOS 6, Apache Web Server, and cPanel 11.42x.
Instead of owning a data center itself, HostGator chooses to make use of two state-of-the-art ones located at the CyrusOne Houston West facility and the Ace Data Centers facility respectively. Besides, the web host operates a high performance fully redundant network using the latest technologies, such as top tier gear from Arista Networks, Brocade, Arbor Networks, CISCO, and Juniper, and a wide array of network carriers including nLayer, Cogent Communications, Comcast, Hurricane Electric, and Level 3.
Bluehost vs. HostGator on Customer Support
Being able to provide quality customer support is a significant criterion in considering whether a web host is good or not.
Technical Support
Both Bluehost and HostGator customers are supported 24/7 through live chat, phone, and email ticketing system. They also have experienced support representatives to offer efficient and effective help when there is any problem customers encounter with. Apart from that, their knowledgebase contain hundreds of articles and tutorials that customers can make full use.
Money Back Guarantee
Customer satisfaction is the top priority of Bluehost, that’s why it offers Anytime Money Back Guarantee. According to the guarantee, customers can have full refund if they cancel their service within the first 30 days; after the 30-day period, they still can get prorated refund for the remainder of the hosting term. For HostGator customers, they can get benefit from a 45 Day Money Back Guarantee.
Conclusion: Bluehost or HostGator
As you could see based on the above comparison, both Bluehost and HostGator are quite reliable hosting providers. They have very close features, customer service and pricing. The only little difference between the two companies is, Bluehost gives better user experience by offering faster speed, while HostGator does good in keeping good reliability. So, if you care much about website performance, Bluehost is an ideal option. Otherwise, if you are Windows-based user and require a reliable platform to host websites with, HostGator can suit your needs.
For more details of Bluehost and HostGator, you can visit www.bluehost.com and www.hostgator.com to check out.