Bluehost vs. HostGator: Differences, pros and cons in 2024

When it comes to shared hosting services, consumers have plenty of options. Two of the top choices in the market are Bluehost and HostGator — each of which provides its own share of features, benefits, pros and cons.

In this Bluehost vs HostGator review, we’ll take a look at the similarities and differences between these services when it comes to factors like pricing, performance uptime, ease of use, add-ons and customer support.

Bluehost vs. HostGator: Quick overview

Pricing and value

Verdict: Bluehost

With four different pricing options, each with similar or more features, Bluehost provides a little more bang for your buck when it comes to value. It also offers an Online Store plan with a wide range of e-commerce features to help build out sales offerings on your websites, as well as more flexibility when it comes to storage and the maximum number of websites.

Bluehost pricing and value

Bluehost offers four different pricing plans for shared hosting:

• Basic: $11.99 per month — Provides sharing for one website with 10 GB of SSD storage. This plan also offers a free SSL certificate and domain for the first year.
• Choice Plus: $21.99 per month — Provides sharing for three websites with 40 GB of SSD storage. Offers a free domain for the first year and a free SSL, as well as daily website backups and domain privacy for the first year.
• Online Store: $26.99 per month — This plan offers everything available in the Choice Plus plan but also includes a wide range of e-commerce options, including analytics, an exclusive store theme and online payments.
• Pro: $28.99 per month — Provides sharing for five websites with 100 GB of SSD storage, plus a free SSL certificate and a free domain, daily website backups and domain privacy for one year.

Bluehost also offers significant discounts in pricing if you choose to pay for one year or three years at a time.

HostGator pricing and value

HostGator offers three different pricing plans to meet various shared hosting needs:

• Hatchling: $17.99 per month — Provides shared hosting for one website with 10 GB of SSD storage plus a free SSL certificate, one year of domain registration and unmetered bandwidth.
• Baby: $21.99 per month — Provides shared hosting for two websites with 20 GB of SSD storage plus a free SSL certificate, one year of domain registration, unmetered bandwidth and access to Cloudflare’s Content Delivery Network (CDN).
• Business: $27.99 per month — Provides shared hosting for three websites with 40 GB of SSD storage plus a free SSL certificate, one year of domain registration, unmetered bandwidth, access to Cloudflare’s CDN and an available website transfer.

Like Bluehost, HostGator also offers discounted, introductory rates with its pricing plans.

Performance and uptime

Verdict: HostGator

Both Bluehost and HostGator promise unlimited bandwidth and fast internet speeds, but only HostGator is specific with its performance uptime guarantee — promising 99.9% uptime. That feature alone gives it a slight edge over Bluehost in this category. 

Bluehost performance and uptime

Bluehost doesn’t promise a performance uptime guarantee, though it does say most downtime issues are resolved within 15 minutes.

The company offers unlimited bandwidth and says it gives 75% faster response times, with better load times for SEO, higher traffic volume, and improved website speed and UX. In terms of speed comparison with other competitors, Bluehost doesn’t perform as well — though it is faster than HostGator.

HostGator performance and uptime

HostGator’s plans come with a 99.9% performance uptime guarantee — an excellent feature for users who want to make sure their website doesn’t go down for extended periods of time. In terms of page load time, HostGator had similar results to Bluehost. The company does offer many resources on its website to help improve website speed.

Ease of use

Verdict: Bluehost

Both Bluehost and HostGator offer thorough, nearly identical online knowledge bases that provide plenty of information about their shared hosting services. Bluehost stands out here, however, because of its feature-rich website-building tool, the Wondersuite.

Bluehost ease of use

Bluehost offers a range of online resources to help set up your account, purchase or transfer domains, learn its website builder, create a professional email account, take advantage of security features and back up your website. 

The company also offers Wondersuite — a website builder with a thorough amount of features that allow you to build a customized, branded website or online store.

HostGator ease of use

Like Bluehost, HostGator offers an extensive knowledge base that can answer practically any question you might have about the platform.

The company also offers an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop website builder plus a one-click installation feature for WordPress sites. Professional reviewers also praise HostGator’s easy-to-use cPanel — a central hub that allows you to manage your website, emails and billing all in one place.

Add-ons and extra services

Verdict: Tie

Bluehost and HostGator offer a similar amount of add-ons and extra services to supplement their platforms’ main features.

Bluehost add-ons and extra services

Bluehost offers a long list of potential add-ons that come with an added cost. Examples include CodeGuard ($3.99 monthly per domain), a feature that monitors your website for changes and updates you on daily backups. 

It also offers a dedicated IP address option for $5.99 per month and domain privacy for $14.88 annually, in addition to optional premium SSL certificates, SEO tools and spam experts email filtering. As a bonus, some of these features are included free for the first year. 

HostGator add-ons and extra services

HostGator also offers a wide range of optional add-ons and services. Users can purchase a dedicated IP address for $4 per month, and cPanel installation is also available for $10 per month.

The company offers 1 GB of additional storage for $10 per month, as well as an additional 250 GB hard drive for $35 per month. Other options include domain transfers and installation, as well as SSL installation.

Customer support

Verdict: HostGator

Bluehost and HostGator’s customer support options are very similar — each offers chat only with their lowest-tier plan but provide both chat and phone support with their other plan options. That said, HostGator provides 24/7 phone support, while Bluehost is more limited. HostGator also offers email support, while Bluehost does not.

Bluehost customer support

Bluehost provides chat support 24/7 for all four of its pricing plans, while phone support is offered from 7 a.m. to 12 a.m. ET if you purchase the company’s Choice Plus, Online Store or Pro plans. Bluehost also offers an additional service for users who want expert help building their website. 

HostGator customer support

Like Bluehost, HostGator also provides chat-only support for its lowest-tier plan. If you purchase the company’s Baby or Business plans, you’ll also receive phone support.

HostGator also provides a thorough online knowledge base to help users research its product and get quick answers to any problems. All of HostGator’s plans include courtesy website backups and 24/7 hosting server monitoring. 

Final verdict

Winner: Bluehost

While both Bluehost and HostGator took two categories, each with one tie, we’re giving Bluehost the slight edge overall because of the importance of ease of use and pricing when it comes to choosing a hosting service.

HostGator’s 99.9% uptime performance guarantee, as well as its slightly more accessible customer support, make it an excellent option as well. Both companies offer similar add-ons and services with their platform.

But overall, we think Bluehost is a slightly better value than HostGator.

Who is Bluehost best for?

Because of its ease of use, Bluehost is an excellent option for users who are just getting started with their website and understanding hosting services. It also offers a variety of reasonable pricing options with added features for each pricing tier.

Who is HostGator best for?

HostGator is an excellent choice for users who want guaranteed performance uptime, as it promises 99.9% uptime. The company also provides consistently available customer support through live chat and phone, making this an attractive option if you think you’ll need frequent assistance.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Which is better, Bluehost or HostGator?

In our opinion, Bluehost offers slightly more value than HostGator. Its affordability and ease of use make it a great option as a shared hosting service. Though HostGator offers a performance uptime guarantee of 99.9% and solid customer support, we give Bluehost the edge overall.

Are Bluehost and HostGator owned by the same company?

Yes. Both Bluehost and HostGator are owned by the Newfold Digital Group. Both companies were founded in the early 2000s and host millions of domains and websites.

What are the disadvantages of Bluehost?

While not necessarily a major drawback to its services, Bluehost’s customer service is somewhat limited — its lowest-tier plan offers chat-only support and the higher-tier plans offer phone support that isn’t 24/7. In addition, Bluehost has a strong performance uptime but doesn’t provide a specific guarantee like HostGator.

What are the disadvantages of HostGator?

HostGator’s pricing plans are a little more expensive and limited than competitors, with only three options. The company’s platform is also not as easy to use as those of other providers, such as Bluehost.