Factor | SiteGround | Bluehost |
---|---|---|
Speed (Page Load Times) | 0.645s (New York) | 2.75s (Washington D.C.) |
Support Quality | Overall: 4.7, WordPress-Specific: 4.5 | Overall: 3.2, WordPress-Specific: 3.5 |
Pricing | Budget Tier: $2.99/$14.99, Middle Tier: $4.99/$24.99, Highest Tier: $7.99/$39.99 | Budget Tier: $2.75/$7.99, Middle Tier: $4.95/$10.99, Highest Tier: $9.95/$14.99 |
Automatic WordPress Updates | Yes | Yes |
Free SSL Certificate | Yes | Yes |
Built-in Caching System | Yes | Yes |
Hosting Multiple Sites | Most plans (except StartUp) | Most plans (except Basic) |
Storage | 10-30 GB | Unlimited (50 GB on Basic plan) |
Modern Technologies | HTTP/2, PHP 7.2 | PHP 7.0 |
Staging Sites | Yes (only on GrowBig plan) | Yes |
Both hosts offer a range of value-added features
Both SiteGround and Bluehost offer more functionality than your average WordPress host, including plenty of value-added features to make your life easier. Overall, they’re pretty even on this feature front, though Bluehost gives you a slightly simpler dashboard to use those features, which gives it a slight edge.SiteGround features
- Automatic updates for WordPress core software.
- Free SSL certificate via Let’s Encrypt, which helps make your site more secure with HTTPS.
- Built-in caching system to make your site load faster.
- Host unlimited sites on most plans (only one site on the cheapest StartUp plan, though).
- 10-30 GB website storage depending on your plan.
- Easy Cloudflare CDN integration for faster global page load times.
- Modern technologies, including HTTP/2 and PHP 7.2 (which is recommended by WordPress.org).
- Easy staging sites (only on the GrowBig plan, though).
Bluehost features
- Custom hosting dashboard (though you can still access cPanel if needed).
- Unlimited storage and bandwidth on most plans (the Basic plan has a 50 GB storage limit, though).
- Automatic WordPress updates.
- Built-in caching system to speed up your site.
- Host unlimited sites on most plans (only one site on the cheapest Basic plan, though).
- Free SSL certificate via Let’s Encrypt, just like SiteGround.
- Easy WordPress staging sites for testing.
- Modern technologies, though it only supports PHP 7.0, whereas SiteGround supports PHP 7.2.
Both hosts make it easy to create a new WordPress site (but SiteGround makes migrations easier)
Beyond the functionality that you saw above, both SiteGround and Bluehost make it very easy to create a new WordPress site. Rather than just offering a generic autoinstaller to help you install WordPress, both hosts will give you a user-friendly wizard tool that pops up on your first visit, which makes the process much more beginner-friendly.SiteGround setup process
With SiteGround you’ll get a tool which helps you:- Install WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, or Weebly. You can even have SiteGround install WooCommerce for you if you want to create an eCommerce store with WordPress.
- Transfer an existing website.
Bluehost setup process
Bluehost also offers a super simple tool to help you create a new WordPress site: Unfortunately, Bluehost does not offer a free migration service. So while Bluehost makes it very easy to create a new site, you’ll need to manually migrate your website if you’re looking to move an existing site to Bluehost. Bluehost also offers a premium migration service which will move up to 5 websites for $149.99SiteGround offers better performance based on our tests (but both hosts have great uptime)
We’ve written individual reviews for both SiteGround and Bluehost, which means we’ve had a chance to run our own performance tests with each host. Based on our real performance tests, SiteGround offers faster page load times than Bluehost. Here’s a summary of the data. All these tests were conducted via Pingdom from different testing locations.- Melbourne: 1.563 seconds
- New York: 0.645 seconds
- Stockholm: 1.390 seconds
- Washington D.C.: 2.75 seconds
- San Francisco: 2.86 seconds
- London: 3.43 seconds
- Sydney: 3.73 seconds
- Tokyo: 2.87 seconds
SiteGround offers better support based on our survey data
Both SiteGround and Bluehost offer 24/7 support via phone, live chat, or ticket/email. With that being said, there does seem to be a large difference between SiteGround vs Bluehost when it comes to support quality. In our survey of over 800 WordPress users, we asked them to rate both:- Overall support quality
- WordPress-specific support quality
Type of Support | SiteGround | Bluehost |
Overall Support Rating | 4.7 | 3.2 |
WordPress-Specific Support Rating | 4.5 | 3.5 |
Bluehost is a little bit cheaper and offers a free domain name
When it comes to SiteGround vs Bluehost pricing, Bluehost comes out to be a little cheaper. Let’s start with the monthly promotional pricing. This is the starting pricing that applies to your first billing cycle (for example, if you pay for a year upfront, you’ll lock in this price for the first year):Plan | SiteGround | Bluehost |
Budget Tier | $2.99 | $2.75 |
Middle Tier | $4.99 | $4.95 |
Highest Tier | $7.99 | $9.95 |
Plan | SiteGround | Bluehost |
Budget Tier | $17.99 | $7.99 |
Middle Tier | $29.99 | $10.99 |
Highest Tier | $44.99 | $14.99 |
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