Siteground vs Bluehost: Web Hosting Comparison

Nowadays, it is not difficult to run a website. The web hosting market is filled with options to suit anyone who needs or budget. Whether you are looking to start an e-commerce website or you need a company website for your business, there is no shortage of competing providers for those hosting privileges.

SiteGround and Bluehost have sought to stand out in a flooded market. Both providers offer solid service and a variety of hosting packages. They allow you to use the latest and best hosting technology while continuing to grow with the changing needs of webmasters, bloggers, and businesses. The two companies spent years building a positive reputation to become the choice for many website owners.

Before you begin, it is essential to consider everything that the hosting provider must offer. Your website’s success depends on the performance, security, and reliability that your server can provide. Although SiteGround and Bluehost are both severe competitors in this industry, their service is not the same.

Fortunately, we have done all the hard work for you. With this tutorial, we aim to find a way to compare Bluehost and SiteGround. Both vendors have served millions of customers well, so we already know that the services they provide are good. We will go a little deeper to present you with all the information you need to make a decision and finally answer the question: Which web hosting should you choose between SiteGround and Bluehost?

What is Siteground?

SiteGround is one of the leading hosting companies on the market today. Founded in 2004, they are headquartered in Bulgaria but offer hosting worldwide. SiteGround aims to be a high-quality and user-friendly hosting company. They are proud of their ability to bring a list of different services to customers, from Shared Linux Hosting (a cheap and versatile shared hosting that is widely used by websites) to Cloud and Dedicated Server Solution for lots of websites. They are one of the fastest-growing independent companies (not a subsidiary of any large corporation or corporation) today.

Thanks to data centers located in Chicago, IL, Amsterdam, and Singapore, SiteGround is a great choice for people in most areas of the world. All hosting packages of the company have usage traffic along with unlimited databases and free email addresses. The lowest price service pack comes with a free domain name, but only one website allowed; Therefore, it is somewhat more limited than most hosting services today.

SiteGround has an interesting feature that will tell you the total amount of usage that each hosting package of the company can withstand. While it’s an estimate, it’s useful for newcomers to help them decide what they need and when to upgrade. In short, SiteGround is a good hosting company with many features that help them stand out from the rest of the competition.

What is Bluehost?

According to User Experience - UX, Bluehost is rated as one of the best online hosting sites. Founded in 1996 by Matt Heaton, Bluehost is officially a free hosting company called 0catch.com. They were renamed to Bluehost in 2003 and have grown rapidly to become one of the most popular, reliable, and affordable hosting service providers worldwide.

In 2010, Bluehost was acquired by International Endurance Corporation (EIG), the same company that owns HostGator and many other web servers in the industry. Mike Olson was appointed CEO in 2015. Bluehost now has a team of over 750 employees - and hosts more than 2 million websites worldwide.

Bluehost offers various web hosting solutions designed to help you create your website or e-commerce store easily - from web hosting to website building software. Moreover, their hosting packages have the best uptime, free CDN, unlimited additional domains, free backups, high download speeds, and reliable security.

Siteground vs Bluehost: Ultimate comparison

Ease of use

Many people are always looking for ease of use, and also many people underestimate its importance. Even if you know a lot about hosting, an easy-to-use server can save you a lot of time and energy. It may also reduce some controls that a user may use.

SiteGround and Bluehost are both names mentioned when talking about their ease of use. Even for beginners, they can use effortlessly and make the most of these two providers bring. However, when compared carefully, SiteGround offers a little more ease of use. That’s why in terms of the ease of use, SiteGround is the winner.

For those of you who may not be familiar with web hosting, there are two aspects of the user interface terminology, when it comes to your hosting account.

Your first interface with a web server account is a much broader view of the services you use. The other panel is the control panel that handles the functionality of your web hosting package.

The second one is more important because that is where you will spend most of your time and effort. Both SiteGround and Bluehost provide cPanel, although there’s a bit of skin to make it look more unique.

cPanel is a great option because it offers users an extremely user-friendly way to manage their website. This is also a very popular interface, which means that if you need help, it’s just a stone tossed away.

Although Bluehost offers what they call the Enhanced Version of cPanel, honestly I feel that it is like a simplified version. This is good for first-time web server buyers, but in the long run, I feel more flexibility in providing SiteGround titles.

Feel your way around the development of a website; it doesn’t take long. As you continue, you will find that access to more functions is a very good thing, especially because you do not regularly contact your customer service staff.

Hosting features

There are many features you may want to consider when looking for a web hosting provider. However, in my opinion, indeed hosting features will be of most interest.

Storage limitation

This is a problem that everyone needs to be concerned about. It’s highly recommended that you choose an appropriate plan with enough or a little more storage for your projects. Below is a picture of the respective plans and storages provided by BlueHost and SiteGround.

In fact, with only 10GB of storage, you can store most of your projects unless you upload heavy videos or tons of high-quality images.

Needless to say, we all see that Bluehost offers more capacity than SiteGround. In particular, only with Bluehost’s entry-level plan (Basic) package, you have more capacity than when buying SiteGround’s higher plan. Therefore, Bluehost will be the winner if you need a lot of space.

Note: SiteGround and Bluehost use SSD storage. More clearly, SSDs are expensive drives but are faster than traditional hard drives (such as those used by Bluehost). So, you need to answer the question of whether you need speed or more space to make a decision when putting Bluehost and SiteGround on the scale. Similar to when comparing a Ferrari and a bus. A Ferrari can only accommodate 4 to 5 people, but its speed is faster than a bus that can help more people.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth refers to the amount of data transmitted per second. This concept also represents the data transmission speed of a transmission line. The bandwidth limit depends on the service pack you buy from your provider. Accordingly, the higher the Bandwidth limit, the greater the amount of data that can be transferred. In case of out of bandwidth, web access requests will be denied. Therefore, hosting providers try to limit bandwidth to force you to upgrade.

The good news is that Bluehost and SiteGround are not limited in bandwidth. Therefore, you do not need to worry about this issue.

Backup

To prevent data loss or damage, or to keep your peace of mind, a backup will be a feature you need. Luckily, SiteGround gives you this awesome widget. Your website will be backed up daily for the last 30 days. If you want to restore an earlier backup, you can do so in a flash. A (generic) cPanel tool is available that allows you to download secure copies of your website.

In particular, with the GrowBig and GoGeek packages, you will own a great Backup on the Demand System. It helps you quickly back up your entire system (for example, before updating) and restoring it with one click.

However, when it comes to Bluehost, perhaps not having this feature will be a minus for them. You can only get a backup add-on for an additional $ 3 per month if you want to use one of the two lowest plans. For higher packages, this utility will be included for free.

Even it seems that creating backups manually with cPanel feature has been removed by them. This makes them feel like they’re forcing you to buy their premium backup service. Therefore, SiteGround is scored with this feature.

Integration

If you are an individual or a new business looking to create a website, Wordpress will definitely be the brightest candidate that you target.

You can refer to a list that WordPress has pointed out the hosting providers they consider to be the best on the market. They have ranked Bluehost as the top name on this list. BlueHost and Wordpress can be considered as the power couple of the hosting world. Besides, the third name on this list is SiteGround. This makes it a formidable opponent.

If you are running a WordPress site, it’s highly recommended that you should choose a provider with Wordpress integration. It is similar to taking your car wheels and attaching them to your vehicle.

Both BlueHost and SiteGround have a strong focus on Wordpress, free and easy site transfers and migrations, 24/7 expert support, one-click installation, and automatic updates. They are guaranteed to give you the best possible experience. In particular, WordPress users will surely be pleased with the additional benefits of these two providers, such as BlueHost that provides additional features for free or SiteGround with customized security.

Customer support

One of the important things about dealing with web hosts - and I can’t emphasize this enough - is supporting their customers.

Even if you are a casual user and need only some help for a long time, dealing with unresponsive or irresponsible support, staff can be extremely angry.

And trust me, you will probably need their help more often than you expect. From issues like downtime to server connectivity and security, your primary connection to the server is via their support staff. There is nothing more important than a support team that responds quickly and effectively.

So what do the two giants have for us in terms of customer support?

SiteGround’s Customer Service

I’m happy to note that SiteGround runs the full gamut of support, offers 365-day live chat, ticketing system, and even some of you can call for help. SiteGround has a very fast response rate and is ranked No.1 when talking about customer service. When Bluehost usually takes 2-3 minutes to respond to customers, Siteground usually takes about 5-10 seconds.

Bluehost’s customer service

The setup is similar to Bluehost’s customer service, and although I’m not here long, I still feel a bit disappointed in their support. This goes back to the fact that Bluehost is an EIG company, I’ve heard a lot of negative things about it.

However, a critical crisis occurs when the time for the public to consider their services. It is here that we dig deeper behind the scene and find out what is.

As you can see, there are mixed feelings when it comes to Bluehost, which is something to be concerned about. Being unable to provide a steady stream of services to customers is an issue, and it should be noted.

Many times, users have posted on social media to talk about the poor level of customer service for them, along with services:

Pricing

For all those who are experienced entrepreneurs or shop owners, it’s always important to work towards a budget and get the most out of our money. Obviously, you don’t want to throw cash away from the services you don’t need.

Bluehost is a web hosting with a more competitive price when compared to SiteGround. As you can see in the image below, even when choosing the package at low rates, you can enjoy the great perks. This is an ideal choice for customers on a budget because they can still benefit without incurring high costs. However, you need to pay special attention to any add-ons as it may cause you to pay more.

Besides, SiteGround is still a good choice because its price is much more transparent than competitors (including Bluehost) when it comes to additional costs. For example, the StartUp package includes 2 additional utilities: SiteScanner and free website transfer will need an additional $ 20 to be publicly disclosed on the payment page for customers. Furthermore, you can uncheck it if you think it is unnecessary or do not want to spend more money. However, if you are a lower-end customer, there will be less advantage when choosing SiteGround instead of Bluehost.

Many new customers can feel secure because both Bluehost and SiteGround are 30-day money-back guarantees if they need it. If you find that either of these providers has not met your requirement, you can leave. Just remember that add-ons such as domain names and additional purchases will not be refunded.

Security

Recently, SiteGround has developed an anti-bot AI to improve its security. This helps SiteGround customers feel safer from brute force attacks (brute force attacks can destroy a site in minutes).

This new bot blocking system has brought amazing results. Statistics show that up to 2 million attacks on client servers are blocked. In particular, in addition to protecting customer websites, the AI ​​system frees up server resources that can now be used by customers. At the same time, it monitors all SiteGround servers and analyzes the data intelligently.

SiteGround also creates another great advantage that they change to Google Cloud data centers. Therefore, you will experience a highly appreciated security model. This is one of the best products to secure products like Google search, Gmail, Youtube, etc. SiteGround’s security is believed to be the best thing for your website.

For maximum security, BlueHost uses Cloudflare. This helps customers to be protected from DDoS attacks. Also, there are other security features such as password-protected folders, spam protection, and the option to blacklist certain IPs.

Pros and Cons of Siteground and Bluehost

For the best comparison, pros and cons are needed. Here are the advantages and disadvantages of SiteGround and BlueHost to help you choose the right one.

Pros and Cons of Siteground

Pros	Cons
99.98% uptime - the address is hugely reliable	Increase hosting price for the next renewal
Free web migration support for users	No live chat support for technical issues, or billing
Allow you to choose a server location
Recommended by WordPress.org and Drupal.org
Free SSL certificate
SiteGround server is fully equipped with SSD drive
Save 60% on the first payment

Pros of Siteground

• 99.98% uptime - the address is extremely reliable

Uptime of hosting must be almost absolute. It should be the goal of every hosting service provider. Because any time hosting problems, stops working, it can seriously affect your profits (ROI), or traffic.

Imagine, just hosting you use to rest for 5 minutes. Again, 100 customers are accessing the shopping website through Google. We could lose these 100 guests.

SiteGround has impressed when their hosting is always running at 100% for the time being. Many users also agree with that experience.

Basically, no one will need to worry about downtime when using SiteGround.

• Free web migration support for users

Often we will move the website itself, from hosting to hosting, when you want to change hosts. But if you’re not good at technology, like yourself. Some places will count. But their support team will do it all, for free. SiteGround will help move your web site to their server.

• Allow you to choose a server location

SiteGround is a rich child. They invest in worldwide infrastructure systems: USA (Chicago US), Europe (Milan IT, London UK, Amsterdam NL), Asia (Singapore SG). Thanks to this, guaranteed web loads are fast and create a better customer experience. At the same time, this drives the number of people to your website significantly increased.

• Recommended by WordPress.org and Drupal.org

The good news is, if your website is built on WordPress or Drupal, SiteGround is always the right choice, as it is recommended by both WordPress.org and Drupal. With these two platforms, the website is also optimized for users’ performance.

• Free SSL certificate

SSL certificates are not just tied up for a beautiful squad. It also gets Google a little top priority in search rankings. Luckily SiteGround provides it and can be installed for free in cPanel. This saves you 15 minutes of your life, so you don’t have to mess around from the outside.

Like other hosting providers, SiteGround also has a premium, paid certificate. You can buy it if you can afford it. If not, then just installing free is enough.

• SiteGround server is fully equipped with SSD drive

Most servers build on SSD memory, which will directly contribute to the page loading speed. SiteGround builds its caching mechanism to speed up websites on WordPress, Drupal, etc. platforms.

• Save 60% on the first payment

Whichever hosting package you choose, buyers get a 60% discount on their first purchase. But I recommend, the GrowBig package is enough to use.

Cons of Siteground

• Increase the hosting price for the next renewal

In fact, this is not too new. Because other hosting services also often increase prices for the next renewal. Therefore, you should try the first year to experience. Over the next year, you can continue to renew, if you are satisfied. Or else, you can switch to another provider to enjoy the offer.

• No live chat support for technical issues, or billing

Before 2018, SiteGround was rated as a live chat support site that brought the most satisfaction. Unfortunately, they no longer maintain that. You have to contact work via Email, or Ticket, and hugging popcorn waiting for a response.

But also quickly, somewhere around 12 o’clock to return, you will receive a reply. But note, the problem of buying can still be live chat.

Pros and Cons of BlueHost

Pros	Cons
Excellent server performance: Average storage time above 99.95%	Price increase during extension
Bluehost’s speed meets expectations	Bluehost’s unlimited hosting is limited by different usage policies
Recommended by WordPress.org	Only data centers based in the United States
Comprehensive self-help documentation and video tutorials
Provide lots of room for you to grow

Pros of BlueHost

• Excellent server performance: Average storage time above 99.95%

Except for the two major network outages that occurred in 2013, Bluehost has been very stable. Overall, a blogger’s website hosted at Bluehost saves over 99.98% of the time in 2016-2019 - They rarely stop working for more than 10 minutes.

He tracks the uptime of Bluehost using the Uptime Robot and a self-built system called HostScore. The image below is the result taken over the past 5 years. That is the latest result of Bluehost’s performance in the beautiful chart.

• Bluehost’s speed meets expectations

BlueHost really has an extremely fast server speed. With the first time average (TTFB) below 200ms - 600ms on WebpageTest, BlueHost is rated as one of the best tests. Here is the detailed image.

When tested on BlueHost’s Bitcatcha speed, the number is even more surprising. Bluehost takes 49 and 34 milliseconds to respond to US test nodes on the West Coast and East Coast. The web server is rated A+ when compared to Bitcatcha’s benchmark.

• Recommended by WordPress.org

With over 20 years of operation, Bluehost has a track record in the hosting industry and is quite famous among experienced bloggers and website owners. This is reinforced by the fact that WordPress.org officially introduces them as one of their platform’s preferred web hosts.

• Comprehensive self-help documentation and video tutorials

Because there are many tutorials and self-documents available online that make Bluehost much easier to learn and use if you’re a beginner. I was able to solve some problems simply by just reading their posts or watching video tutorials in the past.

• Provide lots of room for you to grow

If your website becomes bigger, BlueHost will give users a lot of space to develop with the ability to upgrade to different hosting packages at a reasonable price. You can upgrade your shared hosting packages to VPS and dedicated hosting.

Cons of BlueHost

• Price increase during extension

Although this has been the standard for cheap hosting deals, it is worth noting that Bluehost charges a high price when refreshing your plan. The basic plan alone jumps from $ 2.95/mo to $7.99/mo when you renew.

• Bluehost’s unlimited hosting is limited by different usage policies

Another downside is that their unlimited hosting is not really “unlimited”. Reading about their policies, you will realize that there are certain notices about their unlimited storage, such as their failure to provide unlimited space for online storage. All this ends up making their “unlimited storage” quite limited.

• Only data centers based in the United States

Unfortunately, Bluehost only operates servers in data centers based in the United States. While this may be good for websites that target traffic in that area, it, unfortunately, causes others to be at a disadvantage. This is especially true for websites that expect traffic to the Asian region because that region is truly global.

Who should use Siteground?

You should use Siteground if:

• You want to experience web hosting services among the top in the world and a super caring customer service team.

• You have a precise orientation in your career and make sure that you go a long way in your business or writing blog.

• You are a professional blogger and own not only one but many different blogs.

• Your blog will favor images/videos (visual), movies, graphic design, etc. in general, motion effects.

With Siteground’s shared hosting package, we believe it would be great if you are an individual or a small business. Because at the highest level, you are still limited by hard drive capacity (30GB) and monthly access (~ 100,000).

Check SiteGround Pricing + Features

Who should use Bluehost?

You should use BlueHost if:

• The current financial capability does not allow much investment in your business.

• You prefer web hosting that gives you a beginner-friendly experience.

• You are oriented towards professional blogging but still not 100% sure whether you can pursue a long-term blogging career. This is also the reason many people encounter (in the travel blogger world). These bloggers do not have a broad vision of their career but rush to invest too much, resulting in a loss when the investment is not small.

• You define your blog will only include text + images (like Make Money Blog) and do not need other “super” effects, Bluehost is enough.

I think BlueHost is a great choice for small businesses and website owners looking for a budget hosting solution.

Conclusion

SiteGround and Bluehost are some of the most reliable names in the web hosting market. Because there are many similar features, SiteGround and Bluehost are quite close. Both are superior when it comes to performance, security, and reliability.

With all that said, Bluehost is a little better in many key areas. The provider provides faster loading times, but the company also has slightly better data centers and technologies. Ultimately, performance and reliability are what counts most. Bluehost, numerous backup features, and backup systems give it one of the most prominent points in the business.

The main area where SiteGround wins is customer support. SiteGround has clearly put in work to make the members happy, so it’s worth mentioning. However, vendor card prices are higher, and the restriction is where it lacks. In those areas, Bluehost continues to be the winner of this competition.