Both Bluehost and Hostgator belong to the group of largest global hosting providers, boasting multi-mullion client bases and lucrative pricing made possible by the huge scale of their businesses. The differences are less obvious, yet there are some that may shift your choice in favor of one or the other.
Hostgator and Bluehost in Brief
With over 9 million hosted domains that make for about 1% of the entire global Internet traffic, Hostgator is one of the largest providers in the world. From its modest beginnings is 2002, when it had only three servers, the company grew to become a serious driving force in the industry, with over 12000 servers. The most popular products, apart from the classic hosting, are shared, reseller, virtual private server, and dedicated server hosting. Visit Hostgator official website »
Bluehost’s history dates back to 1996, which makes it one of the most experienced providers in the top 10. Its client base is considerably smaller compared to Hostgator and includes ca 2 million domains. However, what’s really special about Bluehost is its attention to details, which is dictated by its Apple-like business model: everything is made in-house to ensure the high service standards are constantly maintained. The support staff is not sourced from outside the US but rather work in the company’s Utah office; the company builds its own servers and entire data centers which use its proprietary customized software. Visit Bluehost official website »
Here’s how the two hosting providers look if compared:
| Criterion | Hostgator | Bluehost |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting Plan(s) | 3 | 1 |
| Free Domain |  |
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| Domains per account | Unlimited (Baby & Business plan) | Unlimited |
| Monthly price (1 yr subscription) | $7.96 | $6.95 |
| Disc Space | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| 24×7 Support | Phone, Chat, Email | Phone, Chat, Email |
| Money back | 45-Day | 30-Day |
| Uptime | 99.90% | 99.90% |
| Bonuses | $100 Google AdWords Offer | $100 Google AdWords Offer |
| PHP | |
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| CGI/Perl | |
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| Ruby on Rails | |
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| SSI | |
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| ASP.Net | |
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| MySQL | |
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| PostgreSQL | |
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| Microsoft SQL | |
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| Cron Tasks | |
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| Control Panel(s) | cPanel / WHM | cPanel / WHM |
| Click to visit official website |  |
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Same, But Different
It’s easy to notice that the technical parameters of both companies are very similar. Both offer high-quality 24/7 support and claim to guarantee 99.9% uptime, which means that in any case your website will be up and running without hiccups. But if that’s not enough, both offer free Google advertising coupon packages worth $100 with each new hosting plan (for new AdWords users). The main differentiating factors are as follows:
Hostgator offers three hosting plans (Hatchling, Baby, and Business) distinguished by the number of domain slots and technical add-ons while Bluehost has a single plan for everyone.
Bluehost offers a free domain with a one-year hosting subscription.
Bluehost subscription is also slightly more economical than Hostgator’s comparable plan (Baby).
Hostgator has a longer money-back guarantee period (45 days vs 30 days).
Choose Wisely
To sum up, Hostgator is the provider of choice for those who want more flexibility in choosing their pricing and level of technical features (especially websites expecting medium or high traffic in the future), while Bluehost can be recommended for those who want a single headache-free solution with attractive value-for-money offering and a free domain for the taking.