SiteGround vs Bluehost (2023) – Which One is Better?

If you subscribe to a service from a link on this page, Reeves and Sons Limited may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

That, I’ve got to admit, is seemingly one of the most common questions when it comes to reviewing hosting providers. We’ve received several emails on this issue, and it remains to be a particularly prominent discussion in our comments section. Now, we can agree that both SiteGround and Bluehost are very popular hosting providers, and understandably so. They have built their reputations as two of the most reliable solutions, because they offer top-of-the-range resources at reasonable pricing.

Then get this. Even WordPress itself recognizes SiteGround and Bluehost as powerful providers, and it features both of them in its very exclusive list of recommended WordPress hosting services. Well, come to think of it, that’s almost equivalent to featuring in the hosting providers’ hall of fame.

As a result, SiteGround and Bluehost have both managed to attract a solid following of loyalists. SiteGround is now reportedly hosting over 1.8 million domains, while Bluehost, along with its sister companies, are collectively powering more than 2 million domains.

So, of course, it’s safe to conclude that SiteGround and Bluehost are both doing well for themselves.

But, here’s the thing. That doesn’t mean much to ecommerce merchants. I bet you’re more concerned about their distinct qualities of service. In other words, which of the two should you entrust your business site with – SiteGround or Bluehost?

Certainly difficult to decide. But, guess what? We’ve taken the time to try them out separately, analyze their individual features, plus run all the critical performance tests. As a result, you’ll now be able to use this ultimate unbiased review of SiteGround vs Bluehost to make an informed decision.

👉 For detailed insights, we’ve taken a holistic approach to compare Bluehost vs SiteGround based on their:

  • Company Overview
  • Ease of Use
  • WordPress Hosting Capabilities
  • Performance Features
  • Server Speed Tests
  • Uptime Tests
  • Customer Support
  • Pricing

So, let’s cut to the chase…

SiteGround vs Bluehost – Overview

SiteGround and Bluehost both have a lot of benefits to offer the average business owner. Bluehost currently powers over 2 million websites worldwide, making it one of the more popular hosting companies on the market. SiteGround is also very popular. The companies both offer endless benefits, including a range of plugin choices, and a free domain name in some cases.

Currently, if you were to examine both tools by their popularity on Google, you would find that Bluehost is a lot more popular than SiteGround in that way. However, both tools are very appealing to the modern business owner.

What is SiteGround?

The story of SiteGround begins in 2004 when it was founded by a group of college friends. In retrospect, however, the web was not big at that time. But, SiteGround still soldiered on, and it gradually grew its domain base as it continued to refine its solutions with each passing year.

By 2015, SiteGround had already established itself as a powerhouse in the web hosting space. It boasted of serving about half a million or so websites, a considerable fraction of which were online stores.

While that’s a fairly solid domain base, it’s nothing compared to what SiteGround managed to achieve in the three subsequent years. The biggest break, as a matter of fact, came in 2016 when WordPress gave SiteGround a thumbs up.

It was featured in WordPress’ list of recommended web hosts and boom! They say the rest is history. In just three years, the size of SiteGround’s user base quadrupled- pushing its total number of hosted domains to well over 2 million.

Now, going by the fact that approximately 80% of SiteGround’s sites are reportedly WordPress-based, we can agree that it remains to be one of the prime WordPress hosting solutions on the market.

And speaking of which, SiteGround fundamentally offers the service as managed WordPress hosting. Then WordPress-based online stores, on the other hand, get a specialized WooCommerce hosting package. It basically combines managed services with high-performance ecommerce features.

Now that, in short, translates to a well-optimized business ecosystem. But, interestingly, SiteGround doesn’t stop there. It goes above and beyond all that by offering a separate cloud hosting package.

In essence, purchasing a cloud hosting plan allows you to leverage resources from multiple servers at once. And that means advanced performance and dynamic scalability for your online store. In short, therefore, it seems SiteGround targets even mid-sized businesses and enterprises.

Don’t feel left out if your needs are different though. It turns out there’s a versatile web hosting package for all types of websites. At a reasonable price, you can capitalize on its provisions to run applications like PrestaShop, Drupal, and Magento.

Otherwise, it’s possible to also leverage SiteGround for reseller hosting, student hosting, and dedicated servers.

Try SiteGround

What is Bluehost?

Bluehost came earlier than SiteGround by barely a year. Then between 2003 and 2010, it managed to grow exponentially, securing its position as a leader in the affordable shared web hosting segment.

It was at this point that it was acquired by the Endurance International Group, which is also known as EIG. Well, if you haven’t heard about them yet, here’s the gist- EIG is a renowned tech corporation that happens to run an array of hosting sites.

Apart from Bluehost, some of their principal hosting brands are HostNine, JustHost, iPage, HostMonster, and HostGator.

Now, with such a solid reputation, you’d presume that EIG was able to use its experience to propel Bluehost’s growth to the next level. But, interestingly, things turned out differently. Bluehost’s immense growth rate only lasted until 2013, and then it slowed down after disaster struck.

You see, the problem with big companies is that if they make a mistake, it ends up being one huge mess up because everyone notices. And EIG was no different. The company took more than 24 hours to resolve a network glitch that had brought down Bluehost’s domains.

You can be the consequences were costly for Bluehost. Not only did it receive numerous bad reviews, but the subsequent ripple might still be in effect today.

Come to think of it, that could possibly be the reason why Bluehost is yet to hit 2 million users.

Don’t get me wrong though. Going by how Bluehost has improved its features in recent years, the 2013 situation now seems like barely a rough patch. The hosting provider has recovered quite substantially, regaining even its prominence in the ecommerce space.

At the moment, therefore, it goes without saying that Bluehost is one of the most dominant hosting providers on the web. Although featuring in the WordPress list of recommended hosts has a lot to do with that, Bluehost’s success is also attributed to its persistence when it comes to service optimization.

bluehost homepage

Bluehost’s WordPress shared hosting, for instance, features both regular and managed service packages. And since online stores can be pretty demanding in terms of resource usage, there’s a specialized package for WooCommerce users.

But, if you happen to run your site on other platforms, the standard shared hosting package is capable of serving you. It accommodates a range of applications like Magento and PrestaShop.

Mid-sized businesses, on the other hand, can settle for Bluehost’s Virtual Private Server hosting. This is the level where you get your own server resource allocations.

However, its provisions can’t match up to the privileges you get via dedicated hosting, which happens to be the most superior service on Bluehost. This is what enterprises go for when they need their own servers.

Try Bluehost

Verdict

From their individual company reviews, SiteGround and Bluehost might seem like twins. They were founded around the same period, and they’ve since grown to offer almost identical hosting packages.

SiteGround and Bluehost, for starters, provide managed WordPress hosting along with specialized hosting for WooCommerce sites. And since WordPress recommends both, each of them has managed to attract a considerable number of WordPress users.

Thankfully, however, SiteGround and Bluehost don’t specialize in WordPress alone. Their regular shared hosting solutions are very flexible and can handle a wide range of ecommerce applications.

Beyond that, they both take things a notch higher with cloud hosting for SiteGround, and VPS hosting Bluehost. Although each of these packages provides salable resources and increased performance, their distinct architectures are quite different. SiteGround’s cloud hosting utilizes resources from multiple servers, while Bluehost’s VPS hosting is restricted to one server.

It’s also worth noting that both SiteGround and Bluehost come with reseller hosting as well as dedicated hosting capabilities.

Well, with all these similarities between the two providers, it’s now understandable why comparing SiteGround vs Bluehost can be pretty confusing at first. You have to go beyond the basics and dive deep into the nitty-gritty if you intend to identify the better option.

👉 So, what should you expect from Bluehost vs SiteGround when it comes to hosting features?

SiteGround vs Bluehost – Main Features

Both SiteGround and Bluehost have a range of features, from cloud hosting, to VPS and shared hosting.

Here’s a quick insight into some of the features that you get from SiteGround:

  • Unlimited data transfer, databases and emails
  • Free website setup and migration
  • SSD storage
  • Fully managed WordPress hosting
  • Free SSL certificate
  • DDoS protection and firewall
  • Anti–bot AI
  • Free automatic and website backup
  • 99.9% uptime and money-back guarantee
  • 24/7 technical support
  • Independently operated and owned
  • Free automatic backup and restore

Bluehost also offers a range of solutions, from VPS and dedicated servers, to WordPress and cloud hosting.

All of the shared hosting plans offered by Bluehost come with features like:

  • Free Cloudflare CDN
  • One year of free domain name use
  • Drag and drop website builder
  • Unlimited bandwidth and disk space
  • WordPress staging
  • Free SSL certificate
  • 30-day money back guarantee
  • Access to shell HTAccess
  • 1 click installation

Both SiteGround and Bluehost offer plenty of features to help you run a successful website online. Making the choice between both comes down to personal preference. There’s a good chance you’ll want to examine everything from ease of use to load time, which is why we’re going to delve a little deeper into the features here.

SiteGround vs Bluehost: Ease of Use

One of the most common things that people need to consider when they’re looking at hosting companies, is which tool is more straightforward. Bluehost, for instance, offers a range of cPanel solutions with common features like file managers and email accounts. Alternatively, SiteGround has a more powerful and intuitive custom panel.

SiteGround is a little clearer and easier to use in general. Bluehost’s backend may be very easy to use and straightforward, but it’s also a custom version of cpanel, which means that there’s a lot more to get used to.

SiteGround Ease of Use

As a hosting provider, one of the basic things you’d expect from SiteGround is domain registration. Well, SiteGround gives you the freedom to enter your own domain name, accompanied by any of the standard prefixes.

Sadly, this service doesn’t come free. While you sign up, you’ll notice SiteGround applies domain registration charges over and above your selected plan’s pricing.

Luckily, however, it’s not all bad news for everyone. If you happen to own a website already, you might be able to move it for free. SiteGround is generous enough to offer free site migration on its GrowBig and GoGeek plans. That should pretty much cover all its ecommerce users.

Now, once you’re done with that part, SiteGround grants you access to its specially-developed cPanel dashboard. The layout here is neat, minimalistic, and easy to use. So, users who’ve worked with cPanel before should be able to understand everything right off the bat.

siteground cpanel

When it comes to setting up a website, SiteGround simplifies the whole process by availing CMS auto-installers. You can, for instance, install WordPress with a single click, before proceeding to build your site.

Speaking of which, SiteGround has partnered with Weebly to offer you a decent drag and drop website builder for quick visual editing. The range of tools here allows you to design and customize a fully-functional ecommerce store without touching a line of code.

Don’t be in a rush though. Take your time to try out different layout architectures. Besides, if things fail to work out, you can always request a refund within 30 days. SiteGround will subsequently credit your account regardless of the payment method you used initially.

Bluehost Ease of Use

Just like SiteGround, Bluehost is pleasantly straightforward for both beginners and experienced users.

In fact, domain registration here is completely free of charge. And in case you haven’t made up your mind while you sign up, Bluehost applies the free registration credit to your account. Consequently, you can proceed to enter your preferred domain name at a more convenient time.

Unfortunately, you might not be that lucky if you’re planning to migrate an existing site to Bluehost. It turns out Bluehost charges a fee of $149.99 to transfer sites through its web migrator.

That sounds like a fairly high amount for a typical small business. Although it comes with an allowance of 5 sites and 20 corresponding email accounts, let’s face it. Those are far too many websites for a standard user.

Well, all things considered, it’s possible to avoid that charge by handling the migration manually. But, here’s the kicker. You need a technically skilled developer to seamlessly transfer everything onto Bluehost’s servers.

That said, Bluehost’s management interface looks a lot like SiteGround’s. It’s based on the cPanel, with all the traditional server and site controls arranged systematically on a simple layout.

bluehost cpanel

Setting up CMS applications like WordPress at this level is fairly easy, thanks to Bluehost’s one-click installers. Then to top it off, Bluehost avails a Weebly site builder with a drag-and-drop interface. It comes in handy when you need to create your own custom site without any coding skills.

SiteGround vs Bluehost Ease of Use: Verdict

Again, SiteGround and Bluehost seem to be almost identical. Registrations on both platforms are fairly straightforward, and beginners should be able to get started in no time. And since their site management interfaces are built on the cPanel, you can expect a smooth experience throughout.

Another commendable feature on both SiteGround and Bluehost is CMS one-click installation. On your panel, therefore, you can launch WordPress by simply clicking on the default application icon.

Then when it comes to site building, it just so happens that SiteGround and Bluehost have both partnered with Weebly. So, of course, you can take advantage of the resultant drag and drop editor to create plus customize your own ecommerce website.

Now, the most outstanding difference between the two hosting providers applies to their respective domain registration and site migration framework. Domain registration is free on Bluehost, while site migration comes at a price. And the vice versa applies to SiteGround- site migration is free while domain registration will cost you money.

All in all, therefore, we can agree that the SiteGround vs Bluehost ease of use round ends in a tie. They both offer a user-friendly management system.

SiteGround vs Bluehost: WordPress Hosting

Most business owners choose WordPress as their standard CMS. Having servers optimized for WordPress as well as tools that enhance productivity can be an excellent thing for business leaders. Both hosting companies offer an easy–to-install solution for WordPress. However, SiteGround comes with automatic system updates and plugin updates, as well as an in-house caching system and staging area.

Alternatively, Bluehost comes without the added Extras of WordPress hosting like staging areas, but it’s still very easy to instance. If you’re looking for something with a bunch of advanced WordPress features to make your life a little easier, then SiteGround is likely to be the best choice.

SiteGround WordPress Hosting

Although SiteGround is a multifaceted hosting provider, WordPress Hosting is the company’s principal focus. Consequently, one thing you can expect to find on SiteGround is a set of services specifically optimized for WordPress.

Now, to begin with, SiteGround is a renowned Managed WordPress Hosting solution. That means in addition to server resources, you get technical maintenance services for your WordPress site.

Well, you can bet SiteGround has a team of dedicated WordPress developers who handle all that. Meanwhile, you, on the other hand, are left to worry about business operations. So, in the end, you can survive comfortably over the long haul without hiring a site developer.

And you know what? Even the process of setting up a WordPress site itself can proceed without a developer. The SiteGround control panel, as we’ve said already, comes with a one-click WordPress installer on all plans. And if you’re on GrowBig or a higher plan, SiteGround further supplements that with free staging capabilities.

bluehost - install wordpress

Speaking of which, the area that SiteGround is particularly generous with free features is security. As you launch your website, for example, the WordPress Hosting package here adorns it with a free SSL certificate. Then to cushion you from a possible data loss disaster, SiteGround conducts daily backups of your WordPress site for free.

If it ever comes to that, the corresponding restoration process is pretty straightforward. But then again, I guess you probably won’t use that at any point since data loss occurrences are hard to come by. SiteGround has a solid team of WordPress security experts who monitor its network, seal potential vulnerabilities, and implement any developing WAF rules as soon as they emerge.

Fairly impressive, I have to say. But, all in all, the one thing that probably got SiteGround that WordPress.org recommendation is its specialized performance features.

All the servers here, for instance, support HTTP/2 and PHP 7. Combine that with SiteGround’s NGINX technology plus its SuperCacher, and you have yourself a heck of a lot of speed.

Then guess what? It’s possible to reduce your WordPress page loading times even further. Simply enable the free Cloudflare CDN option on your SiteGround dashboard, and voila!

Bluehost WordPress Hosting

Considering it’s a WordPress.org favorite too, Bluehost prioritizes on WordPress hosting just like SiteGround. You can choose between Shared WordPress Hosting, Managed WordPress Hosting, and WooCommerce Hosting packages.

The cheapest one, of course, is Shared WordPress Hosting. But, it turns out you won’t be able to launch a fully-featured ecommerce store. So, that leaves you with the costlier WooCommerce Hosting package.

Sadly, however, although it can host a WordPress online store, you won’t get all the tech support you need. The WooCommerce Hosting package is essentially standard shared hosting combined with ecommerce capabilities.

The best, in my opinion, is Managed WordPress Hosting. You’ll be able to take advantage of Bluehost’s experts when it comes to tech maintenance of your WordPress site.

More specifically, you can expect regular scans for vulnerabilities and malware, advanced CDN, plus ManageWP pre-installation, among other neat provisions. The only problem is this- Bluehost’s Managed WordPress Hosting services are comparatively costly. The premium plan here goes for about $60 a month.

If that exceeds your budget, at least you’re guaranteed to get a one-click WordPress installer on all Bluehost plans.

And that’s not all. Another universally free feature is the SSL certificate, which comes in handy for security. The bulk of your WordPress site protection, however, relies on Bluehost’s regular backups, automatic WordPress core updates, SiteLock WAF, and SiteLock Security.

Now, when it comes to performance, Bluehost employs a range of resources to optimize its servers and minimize your WordPress site loading times. The most notable tool here is the free Cloudflare CDN, which substantially expands your global server footprint. Bluehost then tops that off with NGINX as well as PHP 7 support.

WordPress Hosting Verdict

It’s evident that SiteGround and Bluehost are both reliable WordPress hosting solutions. WordPress.org recommends them because in addition to providing Managed WordPress Hosting and specialized WooCommerce Hosting services, they’ve optimized their systems for all-rounded security, as well as increased WordPress performance.

They might seem to be equals at first. But, closer scrutiny of their respective features reveals that SiteGround is slightly ahead of Bluehost. Its Managed WordPress Hosting services, for starters, are cheaper. Plus, it leverages more tools for optimizing your WordPress site performance.

Therefore, despite stiff competition from Bluehost, SiteGround ultimately wins the round of SiteGround vs Bluehost WordPress Hosting.

SiteGround vs Bluehost: Performance Features

In general, SiteGround comes with a lot of performance features than Bluehost.

Uptime is usually the most critical performance metric to consider in the current hosting marketplace. Some shared hosting companies struggle to perform according to the needs of their customers, which doesn’t deliver a very good experience.

SiteGround’s uptime provides some of the best results in the shared hosting industry by far. Bluehost, on the other hand, isn’t nearly as impressive. What’s more, with SiteGround, you get the benefits of knowing that your content is going to be hosted in more than one data center locations, with servers across the UK, the US, Singapore and the Netherlands.

Bluehost, on the other hand, doesn’t have the same beneficial add-on of various extra data centres. In fact, compared to other web hosting services, Bluehost is very cryptic about where they host their data.

SiteGround Performance Features

Here’s the thing. If web hosting Olympics were held today, SiteGround would certainly scoop several gold medals. Its servers and overall network architecture are well-optimized to deliver top-of-the-range web performance.

The storage framework itself, to begin with, is built on Solid State Drives (SSD). SiteGround prefers them over typical Hard Disk Drives (HDD) because they are substantially faster,

Now, the data centers that hold these SSDs are located in five different cities, across three continents. As a result, you can proceed to have your website held at SiteGround’s Singapore data center if your traffic is predominantly from the Asia-Pacific region. Europe-based sites, on the other hand, can use either London or Amsterdam data centers. Then merchants targeting customers from the US region can choose between Chicago and Iowa.

bluehost server locations

In the end, therefore, everyone gets to have their site visitors downloading content from conveniently-located servers. And in case you’d like to take this to the next level, SiteGround has partnered with Cloudflare to offer you CDN capabilities for free.

With such a content delivery network, you’ll be able to replicate and spread your site content across a much wider geographical area. Cloudflare’s data footprint is made up of more than 180 well-networked server locations.

So far so good. But, SiteGround doesn’t stop there. In addition to HTTP/2 support and SuperCacher acceleration, it turns out you’ll be able to capitalize on Linux container technology. This is particularly effective when you’re site is suddenly hit with traffic surges.

Bluehost Performance Features

Still, on the Olympics, I guess Bluehost would also win its fair share of medals. Its performance features go above and beyond what you’d get from a standard hosting provider.

Bluehost’s servers, for instance, store content on SSDs as opposed to HDDs. And just like we’ve seen with SiteGround, the result is increased disk performance.

Bluehost then goes ahead and provides a network of about 23 data center locations, spread across Europe, India, China, and the US. Don’t get too excited though. Bluehost doesn’t allow you to choose where you’d like to have your site content. In fact, it doesn’t even reveal the precise data center locations.

But, here’s the thing. Regardless of the location Bluehost eventually selects for your site, at least you get Cloudflare CDN for free. So, you can rest assured that in the end, your website’s content will be on multiple servers around the world.

bluehost servver performanceThat said, it’s worth noting that Bluehost has Tier 3 server certification. And considering the highest attainable level is Tier 4, you can count on the servers to maintain exceptional redundancy plus uptime.

Other than that, Bluehost’s servers offer HTTP/2, NGINX, and quad-processing capabilities. Therefore, all things considered, your site should easily achieve fast loading speeds.

SiteGround vs Bluehost Performance Features: Verdict

SiteGround and Bluehost are both powerful turbo-charged engines when it comes to content delivery. All their servers, as we’ve established, leverage the power of SSDs, HTTP/2, and NGINX. Then to help you position yourself strategically within your principal traffic source areas, both SiteGround and Bluehost have set up data centers in multiple regions across the globe.

Bluehost leads with 23 locations while SiteGround manages only 5. But, interestingly, while SiteGround allows you to choose your preferred data center location, Bluehost is rather restrictive.

That said, you should be able to capitalize on Cloudflare’s expansive CDN network with either SiteGround or Bluehost. And thankfully, this comes free on both hosting providers.

Now, when we dive deep into their respective server architectures, SiteGround manages to outshine Bluehost. Its most notable tech assets include SuperCacher and Linux Containers.

💡 So, in a nutshell, SiteGround takes the pole position when it comes to SiteGround vs Bluehost performance features.

Performance Tests – Speed and Uptime

As mentioned above, SiteGround definitely outperforms BlueHost when it comes to tthings like Speed and downtime. SiteGround benefits from having data centers around the world, and a fantastic uptime of nearly 100%.We need to add a paragraph here.

SiteGround’s Uptime Test

Going by the impressive server features we’ve explored, I guess you’d expect SiteGround to keep your site online for the most part. Otherwise, it would be a shame to experience prolonged downtimes on a web host recommended by WordPress itself.

Well, to address such concerns, SiteGround guarantees its users 99.99% uptime. The principal resources it relies on to achieve this include secure account isolation, anti-bot AI, automatic backup system, pro-active server monitoring, and Linux containers.

Fair enough. But come to think of it, that’s only a guarantee. It can only be verified after a comprehensive uptime test.

And so, I decided to do the honors. My SiteGround uptime test featured four of its shared hosting sites, and I managed to monitor them concurrently using UptimeRobot.

After three months, three of them had registered an uptime rate of 100% while the fourth one lagged slightly behind with 99.99%.

So, in the end, it turns out SiteGround does actually live up to its end of the bargain. That means you can trust it to keep your site running 99.99% of the time.

SiteGround’s Server Speed Test

They say that if you tried transferring your site from a standard hosting provider to SiteGround, one of the things you might notice right of the bat is accelerated page loading speeds.

How true is this though?

Well, to find out, I conducted a server response test because a typical page loading test, in all fairness, would be an inaccurate analysis of SiteGround’s capabilities.

That said, server response times are usually checked by measuring the Time To First Byte (TTFB). And for this test, I ran 3 SiteGround sites through ByteCheck.

Here are the results…

siteground uptime

Each of the tests generated a TTFB of less than 250ms. The precise figures were 211ms, 242ms, and 245ms.

Comparatively, I’d say these are, without doubt, some of the shortest TTFBs we’ve recorded so far.

Bluehost’s Uptime Test

Bluehost’s 99.9% uptime guarantee is a lot like SiteGround’s. The only thing missing is the extra 0.09%.

However, that notwithstanding, 99.9% is still a solid figure. So, of course, I had to verify this the same old way. The test entailed tracking four websites hosted on Bluehost using UptimeRobot, over three months.

Surprisingly, the subsequent results I obtained were mixed. Three of the sites scored an impressive uptime rate of 100%. But the fourth one, interestingly, went below Bluehost’s guarantee. Its average uptime figure was 99.69%.

Not bad when you come to think of it. However, let’s call a spade a spade. An uptime of 99.69% means Bluehost could not fully honor their part of the deal.

Bluehost’s Server Speed Test

To assess Bluehost’s performance capabilities, I conducted ByteCheck TTFB tests on three different websites hosted on its shared servers.

And the results were:

bluehost server speed

The shortest recorded TTFB was 269ms, followed by 562ms, then 618ms. Fairly decent, I have to say. But, let’s be honest here- Bluehost’s servers are seemingly not as responsive as SiteGround’s.

Siteground vs Bluehost: Speed and Uptime Verdict

Both SiteGround and Bluehost promise impressive uptime rates to convince you to sign up. SiteGround quotes 99.99% while Bluehost gives a guarantee of 99.9%. But, interestingly, only SiteGround manages to maintain that during the test period. Three of its sites recorded 100% while one achieved 99.99% uptime.

And when we switch over to Bluehost, it turns out one of its sites fell short of the guaranteed rate. It managed an uptime of 99.69%, which admittedly was not way off the mark.

That said, the difference between SiteGround and Bluehost is more pronounced when it comes to their server response times. From the TTFB tests conducted, SiteGround was able to keep its response times below 250ms on all 3 sites. Then Bluehost, on the other hand, went as far as 618ms.

In conclusion, therefore, SiteGround’s performance is invariably superior compared to Bluehost’s. Your site has better chances of minimizing its loading times with SiteGround as opposed to Bluehost.

SiteGround vs Bluehost – Pricing

There’s more to comparing hosting options than thinking about budget. However, before you begin your website transfer, you need to know how much you’re going to be spending. Features like unlimited storage are great from your hosting provider, but they’re not going to help much if you’re struggling to afford your hosting. We need to add a paragraph here.

SiteGround Pricing

Siteground’s pricing is divided among a range of categories, starting with the Startup plan, and continuing onto the Growbig and GoGeek plan, which are both a little more expensive. We need to add a paragraph here.

Shared Web Hosting

siteground ecommerce hosting - pricing

  • StartUp – For a special beginner’s price of $3.95 then a regular price of $11.95 a month, SiteGround provides all the essentials. They include free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates, free shopping cart install, phone, chat and ticket support, automated daily backup, proactive updates and patches, server monitoring, account isolation, LXC-based stability, SuperCacher, HTTP/2 enabled servers, free CDN, SSD storage, 5 data center locations, unlimited sub and parked domains, unlimited MySQL DB, free drag and drop builder, and unmetered data transfer.

👉 This plan accommodates one website, plus up to 10 GB storage and 10,000 monthly site visits.

  • GrowBig For a special beginner’s price of $5.95 then a regular price of $19.95 a month, SiteGround offers all the StartUp Plan features plus premium provisions like staging, free site transfer, and advanced on-demand backup.

👉 This plan accommodates unlimited websites, plus up to 20 GB storage and 25,000 monthly site visits.

  • GoGeek – For a special beginner’s price of $11.95 then a regular price of $34.95 a month, GoGeek combines GrowBig Plan features with Geeky supplementary provisions like pre-installed Git, PCI compliant servers, and advanced priority support.

👉 This plan accommodates unlimited websites, plus up to 30 GB storage and 100,000 monthly site visits.

Managed WordPress Hosting/ Managed WooCommerce Hosting

siteground managed wordpress hosting

  • StartUp – For a special beginner’s price of $3.95 then a regular price of $11.95 a month, SiteGround provides all the essential WordPress features. They include WordPress-related support, WordPress advanced security, WordPress auto-update, WordPress Free Install, free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates, free shopping cart install, phone, chat and ticket support, automated daily backup, proactive updates and patches, server monitoring, account isolation, LXC-based stability, SuperCacher, HTTP/2 enabled servers, free CDN, SSD storage, 5 data center locations, unlimited sub and parked domains, unlimited MySQL DB, free drag and drop builder, and unmetered data transfer.

👉 This plan accommodates one website, plus up to 10 GB storage and 10,000 monthly site visits.

  • GrowBig For a special beginner’s price of $5.95 then a regular price of $19.95 a month, SiteGround offers all the StartUp Plan features plus premium WordPress provisions like one-click WordPress staging, WordPress special cache, staging, advanced on-demand backup, and free site transfer.

👉 This plan accommodates unlimited websites, plus up to 20 GB storage and 25,000 monthly site visits.

  • GoGeek – For a special beginner’s price of $11.95 then a regular price of $34.95 a month, GoGeek combines GrowBig Plan features with Geeky WordPress capabilities like SG-Git for WordPress repo creation, pre-installed Git, PCI compliant servers, and advanced priority support.

👉 This plan accommodates unlimited websites, plus up to 30 GB storage and 100,000 monthly site visits.

Bluehost Pricing

Bluehost pricing, on the other hand, is also quite affordable, with access to a range of plans for your shared or WordPress website. You can start off with the Basic plan for $7.99 per month, and upgrade to Plus, or Choice Plus. We need to add a paragraph here.

Shared Web Hosting

  • Basic – For a special beginner’s price of $2.95 then a regular price of $7.99 a month, Bluehost offers 25 sub domains, 5 parked domains, 1 included domain, standard performance, free SSL certificate, unmetered bandwidth, 50 GB SSD storage, plus 1 website.
  • Plus – For a special beginner’s price of $5.45 then a regular price of $10.99 a month, Bluehost offers unlimited sub domains, parked domains, domains, SSD storage, and websites, plus unmetered bandwidth, standard performance, as well as free SSL certificate.
  • Choice Plus – For a special beginner’s price of $5.45 then a regular price of $14.99 a month, Bluehost offers Plus Plan features plus domain privacy.
  • Pro – For a special beginner’s price of $13.95 then a regular price of $23.99 a month, Bluehost offers Choice Plus Plan features plus Dedicated IP, high performance, and CodeGuard Basic site backup.

Shared WordPress Hosting

  • Basic – For a special beginner’s price of $2.95 then a regular price of $7.99 a month, Bluehost offers $200 marketing credit, 25 sub domains, 5 parked domains, 1 included domain, standard performance, free SSL certificate, unmetered bandwidth, 50 GB SSD storage, plus 1 website.
  • Plus – For a special beginner’s price of $5.45 then a regular price of $10.99 a month, Bluehost offers unlimited sub domains, parked domains, domains, SSD storage, and websites, plus unmetered bandwidth as well as $200 marketing credit.
  • Choice Plus – For a special beginner’s price of $5.45 then a regular price of $14.99 a month, Bluehost offers Plus Plan features plus CodeGuard Basic site backup.

Managed WordPress Hosting

  • Build – For a special beginner’s price of $19.95 then a regular price of $29.99 a month, Bluehost provides domain privacy protection, malware detection and removal, daily scheduled backups, 100 free premium themes, plus Jetpack Site Analytics.
  • Grow – For a special beginner’s price of $29.95 then a regular price of $39.99 a month, Bluehost gives you Build Plan features, as well as Blue Sky ticket support, 10GB video compression, Jetpack Ads integration, Bluehost SEO tools, business review tools, plus Jetpack Premium.
  • Scale – For a special beginner’s price of $49.95 then a regular price of $59.99 a month, Bluehost avails Grow Plan features plus Blue Sky Chat Support, Elastic Search, unlimited video compression, PayPal integration, unlimited backups and restore, as well as Jetpack Pro.

WooCommerce Hosting

  • Starter – For a special beginner’s price of $6.95 then a regular price of $13.99 a month, Bluehost offers domain privacy, free SSL, Storefront theme, 100 GB SSD storage, and 1 online store.
  • Plus – For a special beginner’s price of $8.95 then a regular price of $17.99 a month, Bluehost provides Starter Plan features along with CodeGuard Backup Basic, unmetered SSD storage, as well as unlimited online stores.
  • Pro – For a special beginner’s price of $12.95 then a regular price of $31.99 a month, Bluehost comes with Plus Plan features accompanied by Bluehost SEO tools.

SiteGround vs Bluehost – Customer Support

Customer support should always be a crucial consideration when choosing your new hosting provider. SiteGround offers 24-hour support via email, phone, live chat and more. SiteGround’s support has always been a friendly and reliable choice, designed to give you quick answers to all of your questions.

On the other hand, the Bluehost support team isn’t nearly as dedicated. The company is much slower when it comes to dealing with things like migration and guidance. Additionally, you might find that the support team for Bluehost spends a lot of time trying to push upsells.

SiteGround vs Bluehost – Final Verdict

Overall, SiteGround offers a much better experience than Bluehost, with access to everything from free migration, to amazing uptime. SiteGround is clearly the best choice if you’re looking for sensational performance, with fantastic speed and uptime. You should also choose SiteGround if you want a range of backup options, advanced hosting features, and a unique caching system to access when you’re taking advantage of website building and unlimited email hosting too.

Bluehost is also ideal if you need a lot of storage and want to get your domain name included with your website. If you’re looking for something that’s cheaper and easier to access for a small business, then it’s hard to go wrong with Bluehost. However, this company doesn’t deliver the best performance, and it can be problematic in terms of support.

Winner: SiteGround

SiteGround vs Bluehost: Alternatives

So, what if after reading our hosting reviews for both Bluehost and SiteGround, you decide that neither option is right for you. Although there’s a clear winner in this comparison, it’s worth noting that there are a bunch of other alternatives to consider too, including:

Dreamhost

dreamhost homepage

Dreamhost is one of the most compelling alternatives to SiteGround on the market. Over the years, this company has specialized in delivering a wide range of amazing solutions, including dedicated hosting, cloud hosting, and VPN hosting too. Dreamhost is a little bigger than SiteGround, and it hosts more than 1.5 million sites around the world.

WordPress hosting is the biggest thing around for Dreamhost, and it is also one of the few websites that WordPress actually endorses when it comes to hosting. Dreamhost also has a range of pricing options to choose from, with a starter subscription that will only cost a tiny $2.59 per month.

Pros:

  • Detailed knowledge base
  • Free site builder
  • User-friendly interface
  • Security certificates
  • 100% uptime guarantee
  • Compensation offered for downtime

Cons:

  • Not great customer support
  • No direct phone support
  • No free migration for your site

GoDaddy

GoDaddy is another well-known alternative to SiteGround and Bluehost that may be worth considering if neither option works for you. The company hosts websites all over the web, with support for everything from joomla to WordPress.

One of the leading web hosting companies around, GoDaddy provides a ton of options for selling everything online too, including digital products. However, GoDaddy is often considered to be a little more expensive than things like Bluehost. Features like a one-click installer make this hosting service very easy to access. There’s excellent community support, free SSL certificates, and so much more.

Pros:

  • Very reputable company
  • 1 click installer
  • Lots of product support
  • Reliable domain name offers
  • Great for bloggers and ecommerce site owners

Cons:

  • Little expensive in places
  • Not the best customer service

Kinsta

Kinsta is a managed WordPress hosting solution, and a good alternative to SiteGround vs Bluetooth. This hosting solution is fantastic if you’re looking for WordPress hosting that also helps you to optimize your site performance and technical framework too.

Once again, Kinsta can be a lot more expensive than some of the alternative hosting solutions on the market. However, Google powers and maintains a lot of the server resources for Kinsta, which means that you get access to things like isolated containers, auto-scaling, and a lot of amazing web performance too. Kinsta also has dedicated data centers spread across the world too.

Pros:

  • Amazing support from Google cloud platform
  • Great for WordPress
  • Site is regularly backed up and updated
  • Minimal loading times
  • Auto-scaling resources

Cons:

  • Very expensive
  • No email hosting and domain registrations

SiteGround vs Bluehost – Conclusion

To sum it up- while the two providers tie when it comes to their overall user-friendliness, Bluehost loses to SiteGround by a small margin when you compare their WordPress Hosting and performance features.

That said, the one area where SiteGround considerably outshines Bluehost is server performance. From the tests we conducted, it’s evident that SiteGround is two times faster than Bluehost.

Don’t get me wrong though. Bluehost is not a slow hosting provider. The performance-optimization features we’ve explored, along with the accompanying test results, are proof that Bluehost is indeed a powerful hosting solution.

For the most part, therefore, we can agree that SiteGround and Bluehost are both reliable web hosts. You can leverage either of them for your ecommerce site. But, if you need that extra oomph against your competitors, I’d advise you to go for SiteGround.

Your thoughts?

Davis Porter

Davis Porter is a B2B and B2C ecommerce pundit who’s particularly obsessed with digital selling platforms, online marketing, hosting solutions, web design, cloud tech, plus customer relationship management software. When he’s not testing out various applications, you’ll probably find him building a website, or cheering Arsenal F.C. on.

Comments 0 Responses

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Rating *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.