SiteGround vs BlueHost Review 2024 : Which One is Fast and Reliable Web Host?

Are you curious for which one to select when it comes to SiteGround vs BlueHost?

If you just want to start a blog then the basic plan of these providers are well suited to you but the confusion is which one to select. Both are well-known, well-reputed and present in the recommendation list of WordPress.org.

Both companies offer scalable options so that if your blog grows you can easily shift to the resourceful plan.

BlueHost is owned by the EIG which is the largest group in web hosting while SiteGround working as an independent player and runs by tech savvy guys.

Area of Specialty:

SiteGround: They are known for their advanced infrastructure, security initiatives and in-house crafted tools like SuperCacher, NGINX speed server, and backup system.

Allow you to pick a data center around the globe, Account Isolation and SSD enabled servers.

BlueHost: It is considered as the attractive solution for the new websites.

The Company tends to offer bigger discounts frequently.

Quick Summary

BlueHost founded in 2003 and got acquired by EIG in 2010. The company grows so steadily and now have more than 2 million customers. They are also known for their swift services and discounts which make it a good choice for new bloggers.


SiteGround make the entry in 2004 and known for their exceptional infrastructure and care for the customers. They produce various in-house tools to make their services faster and secure. Now the company offer basic to enterprise level hosting and hosted more than 500k domains.

So if you are confused and don’t know which one proves the best hosting provider for your blog then here we reveal the inside story by making head to head comparison.

SiteGround and BlueHost Comparison 2024

Technology

Adopting latest technology shows that company is more committed to serving their customers with greater reliability. SiteGround Developer team always strive to offer something unique to their customers as a result of which they offer SuperCahcer, own backup system, HTTP/2, proactive monitoring, NGNIX server technology and much more.

SiteGround put the security in priorities and frequently introduces different security patches to build a solid firewall. No doubt they put the full efforts to introduce the Anti-hack system to protect you but user also needs to take some precautions from their side. Here read how to secure the WordPress Blog.

On the other side, BlueHost is not a kind tech focus player. They tend to focus more on marketing instead improving their infrastructure. So far they did not introduce any kind of in-house tools and have very limited number of data centers. They seem to target individual hosting needs and small businesses.

SiteGround proudly presents their servers specifications. They are using V3 Intel Xeon E5-2690 CPU’s. These servers also armed with 265GB RAM and solid state drives using RAID 10. The Linux container makes the servers more efficient by enhancing reading & writing speed and 2 times CPU power. While BlueHost did not disclose its server specifications. Even when we talk they simply refused to reveal any server information.

Winner: SiteGround

SSD Drives

You might hear about the Solid State Drives. Unlike to the Spinning drives the SSD’s are faster and efficient in performing the operations (reading and writing). That’s why many companies started using SSD powered servers to deliver high-speed performance.

SiteGround is one of the best SSD hosting providers. The cutting edge solid state drives help them to deliver blazingly fast and reliable web hosting solution than the traditional web host.

While BlueHost depends on their traditional infrastructure and store the data on spinning drives. Even though, they are operating before the SiteGround but still did not make such as necessary changes.

Winner: SiteGround

Uptime

Uptime means when your site is accessible over the internet. Do you imagine to host your site on the server of any hosting provider which is not committed to providing the maximum uptime? Of course not. And downtime means your site is not accessible by the online visitors. So, it means that uptime is much more important than speed of the site and this should be your top priority when choosing the web hosting.

Bluehost

BlueHost is not bad when we compare the uptime of both companies but as you can see below our site which is hosted on the Bluehost servers recently face a downtime and so the uptime of last 24 hour is 99.97%. The downtime remains almost 4 min which means that the customers can’t purchase or browse your website during that 4 minutes.

The Uptimerobot also provide the site response time stats. Below you can see that the average uptime of is quite low which is amazing but you there is a bigger spike which shows that at some point in time the site takes almost 4 to 5 sec to response. Still the results are acceptable because there are only a few occasions when site take some time to response.

BlueHost uptime report details

SiteGround

On the other hand, our test site on SiteGround did not face any downtime. Below statistics shows that it was online during the last 30 days and there is not a single outage. Currently, HostingSprout.com is also hosted on the SiteGround servers. And we are very satisfied because during the last 4 months we did not face any downtime which shows they are pretty consistent in service quality.

If we talk about the SiteGround response time over the period then it’s much more satisfactory than Bluehost. As you can see that our test site just take 282.09ms on average to response. Also, there are smaller spikes in the graph as compared to the BlueHost and the maximum spike approaches to almost 2 sec which is acceptable. So it means Siteground not only perform amazing for uptime but also very good in response time.

siteground uptime statistics

Winner: SiteGround

Speed Test Results

The next most important consideration while selecting the best WordPress hosting company is the speed. Although there are many plugins and services which are helpful in improving the site speed such as W3 Total Cache and CDN etc. But speed heavily depends on the quality of hosting servers. And for that, we did speed tests to measure that which one is a fast hosting provider.

Although, both hosting providers provides pretty fast speed but Siteground gain a little edge in site loading speed. That’s why you should go for Siteground when it comes to speed. Moreover, as the Siteground offers multiple technological advantages for speed like SSD’s, SuperCacher, HTTP/2, and NGINX, etc. so SiteGround is likely to more consistent in speed as well.

BlueHost

BlueHost Pingdom Speed Test

SiteGround

SiteGround Pingdom Speed Test

Winner: SiteGround

LoadImpact Test

Load time becoming the more crucial because it not only affect your position in search engine ranking but also customer’s experience. A survey was taken by Akamai shows that most of the users want a website to load under 2 seconds while 40 percent users not wait more than 3 seconds. Furthermore, they also noted that customers show loyalty to those sites having quick load loading. So, it means load time is one of the keys to success.

BlueHost LoadImpact Test

When we send the virtual users on our testing site hosted by Bluehost we are pleased to see the results. Because their servers gradually perform better as there are more users on the site. It only takes time at the start and then there is also consistency and time remains under 1-sec in most of the time.

BH LoadImpact Test

SiteGround LoadImpact Test

And if we see the SiteGround statistics there not a single spike when their server takes time like BlueHost take 2 sec at the start. The SiteGround load time remains under the second even when there are more virtual users on the site. Both are very close when compare the load bearing stats. Because SiteGround provides pretty consistent experience and there is no spike so they are the winner of this round.

SG Hosting LoadImpact Test

Winner: SiteGround

Support Service

So an issue comes to your gate at the mid of the night and you don’t have the idea that how to solve it? The best way is to contact your hosting provider. Because they better handle the situation. But what if they are not available at that time? That’s why it is very necessary to check that if they are available 24/7.

If we talk about SiteGround they are surely available 24/7. You need help open a live chat, phone call or submit a ticket. Whenever we need help we contact them via live chat and within 1 minute a person appears for assistance. The staff is knowledgeable and response very quickly. Furthermore, their chat interface looks gentle.

Also, you have the access to video tutorials and knowledgebase which is full of guides and informative articles. Moreover, for the user’s easiness, they categorize the tutorials as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and Magento etc.

BlueHost is also known for their fast support services and available 24/7 for their customer’s assistance. But when there is a SiteGround vs BlueHost competition then undoubtedly we can say SiteGround is faster. Just contact them over the chat before buying the hosting plan, you will see a major difference.

When you open live chat, BlueHost take almost 6-10 minutes to get connected. This is not a long duration but lower duration is good because no one has the enough time to wait till the person on the other end got time to assist the seeker. You can also contact the Bluehost customer support team through Email, phone and by submitting the ticket. Moreover, you can search the how-tos and guides from the knowledge base.

Although, both are performing to serve customers at their utmost but SiteGround doing a better job than BlueHost.

Winner: SiteGround

SiteGround vs Bluehost Hosting Features Comparison

Storage Space

Storage space is the place where you are going to store images, web pages contents, audios, and videos. So how much storage you need? It depends on the type of website you want to host.

Well if you want to host a website where you just publish the articles then you don’t need much storage because 10GB storage is sufficient for years. But if you are posting too many videos, images, and graphical posts then consider more space.

SiteGround is a bit limited and offers 10 GB space in StartUp plan. On the other hand, with BlueHost, you don’t need to care about storage as they offer 50 GB in the basic plan.

Winner: BlueHost

Bandwidth/ Number of Visitors

This refers to the number of people who can visit your site in a month. Many companies in the industry allow unlimited visitors even on basic plans. Unlimited bandwidth keeps your site alive when unexpected traffic spikes happen.

BlueHost provides unmetered bandwidth on all of their plans which mean there is no restrictions on the number of visitors but when you consume too many resources they sends you an email to reduce the usage.

We never face such kind of incident as they offer sufficient level of bandwidth for handling the small level websites. But we recommend when your site grows bigger then try to shift to the higher plan.

SiteGround on the other hand, limit the number of visitors/month. They allow 10,000 visits/mo. So, if you are just going to start a website, this could be sufficient.

Winner: BlueHost

Caching Service

To make blog faster bloggers use cache plugins like W3 total cache. The plugin works great and there is a major difference before and after using this. Similarly, some companies offer their own special tools to make the service faster, smooth and responsive.

SiteGround developer team has done a great job by introducing SuperCacher. It’s an in-house invention which can activate the various option for making site cache. At first, they produce the cache of static contents. The second option is very effective which cache the dynamic contents such as HTML outputs.

The next option is known as Memcached which caches the database quarries. The company also introduce a specific option for Cloud and dedicated hosting plans.

In this SiteGround vs BlueHost competition, the rival BlueHost did not offer any of its own made tools to make their services faster. Although, SiteGround offer only one option of SuperCacher to their StartUp plan users but still it’s worth using.

Winner: SiteGround

Choice of Data Centers

Some web hosting companies put control in customer’s hand to select the datacenter. This factor can play a role in improving your site speed. When you select a datacenter near to your target audience/customers then it makes possible for fast delivery of contents.

Suppose we have US based traffic then choosing a data center located in the US might be a good decision. Normally this option is good if you are starting an e-commerce site because in this type of websites you can better judge your target audience.

SiteGround allows customers to choose the data centers. They offer 5 datacenters which are positioned strategically to serve customer from every part of the world (US, Asia, and Europe). Moreover, they allow data center selection even if you’re purchasing most basic plan (StartUp).

While BlueHost did not permit their clients to select the datacenter. They only have one US based datacenter for shared hosting customers where the company hosts their client’s websites.

Winner: SiteGround

MySQL & PostgreSQL Databases

You might be aware of databases. These are most crucial in web hosting because without a database you can’t run your website. Generally, a database is created per website. Having the excess amount of databases can simplify your work and there are chances that you may need more in your blogging journey.

If you are a newbie then don’t get into confusion as now hosting provides offers much easiness and the databases created automatically. You just focus on your site.

SiteGround offers un unlimited number of MySQL and PostgreSQL on all of their plans and you can manage them via phpMyAdmin and phpPgAdmin respectively. While BlueHost support 20 databases regardless of type.

Winner: SiteGround

.htaccess file

A “.htaccess” gives more control in your hands. With the help of this file, you can protect, permit and block the specific IP addresses. Moreover, it used for creating redirects and error pages, etc. You may need some technical skill before creating and editing this file.

Both hosting providers allow users to upload the .htaccesss file on the server. You can create and edit the .htaccess file freely.

Winner: Tie

Control Panel

Control panel offer by the hosting provider is a place where you can manage domains, sub domains, FTP accounts, backups and emails accounts, etc. Moreover, it also shows different statistics related to storage space, bandwidth, and databases.

Both SiteGround and BlueHost offers cPanel which is super easy to operate and even if you are a newbie, it will not confuse you. SiteGround cPanel is very clean and divided into various sections such as Domains, Auto Installers, databases, and Security etc.

Moreover, SiteGround got a little edge here at cPanel by adding the WordPress and Joomla tools where you can manage various aspects of your WordPress and Joomla site like Auto updates, activating SuperCacher and toolkit etc. Here look at the SiteGround cPanel

On the other hand, BlueHost also does a great job and comes with a clean and colorful cPanel. They also added WordPress tools for performing different operations via one place. You can easily access the security, database, programming and website tools. Here look at the snap of BlueHost below.

Winner: Tie

Application Installation

So how you can install web applications like WordPress. Recently we purchased a cloud hosting account from a hosting provider and after purchasing we came to know that it works on the command lines. Just for installing the WordPress we have to write multiple commands. It takes much of our time.

Both companies, SiteGround and BlueHost offer 1-click installer in their control panel (cPanel). SiteGround provides the Softaculous installer which allows 1-click installation for more than 400 scripts like WordPress and Joomla etc.

For installing WordPress with 1-click installer, just click WordPress icon in the cPanel or click on the Softaculous and then select WordPress.

While BlueHost integrates Mojo marketplace in their cPanel for 1-click installation. In the hosting control panel click on the One-click Install and you will see tons of scripts for auto installation such as WordPress, Joomla, and other applications.

Winner: Tie

Email Accounts

When you create a website it is very necessary to create an email address with your brand name. For example, if your site name is bestmotors.com then you can make an email address like [email protected]

Moreover, an email address with your site name (brand name) instead of @Gmail, @Outlook create a sense of trust in the customer’s mind. So, it is a must have feature.

BlueHost offer 5 email accounts and 100MB storage per account. While SiteGround allow their users to create unlimited number of email accounts and there is no limit on the email storage.

Both of them offer webmail integration. Also, both offers POP and IMAP protocols which help the user to read the emails through the application like Outlook.

Winner: SiteGround

Let’s Encrypt

When working online you need to protect your customer’s data. For this, you must implement the SSL protocol. The SSL certificate uses to encrypt the customer’s data such as credit card number, phone and email address etc. Initially, it was important for those who were offering sign up process or operate e-commerce websites.

But now it becomes an essential part for every type of website and Google also give some ranking advantage to those sites who implement SSL. You can get a free SSL via CloudFlare by configuring some settings. So what’s the easy solution to activate the SSL?

Some hosting companies for the easiness of their user offer free SSL which can be activated by just a single click. Both BlueHost and SiteGround offer free Let’s Encrypt SSL feature in their control panel where you just need to hit few clicks and start protecting your site. It requires no configurations.

Winner: Tie

Account Isolation – Improve your Site Security and Protect your Resources

This technology refers to the way in which each account is treated as a separate account. Normally this will happen in the case of expensive hosting services like VPS and Dedicated etc. Due to the shared service, there are chances that if an account got vulnerable then it may affect the others. But SiteGround developed an isolated environment with the help of BaseOS. If somehow an account becomes vulnerable, the intruder cannot access others account.

Moreover, like Google, they also develop the mechanism to check for hack and alert you because when Google see a website with vulnerabilities it will simply tell everyone by marking which cause the decrease in traffic.

Furthermore, SiteGround recently introduces Hackalert that scan your site daily and send you an email about the security issues. They also develop 1H Hawk system to fight against brute force attack. They provide full support in case you are in trouble. All these precautions show that the company taking the security as their priority.

If we talk about the BlueHost, they do not take such precautions and did not launch a single in-house tool for protecting their servers. Yes, they do offer firewall protection and spam filters to fight against hackers. But they keep on promoting the premium tool like SiteLock for site security which cost $95/year.

Winner: SiteGround

Backup

Working online without having the backup is very risky. Because sometimes restoring backup is the only way to make everything right. Many hosting companies offer free daily, weekly or monthly backup service.

When you create backup and at some point in time your site is messed up with the malware and malicious codes then you can easily restore the backup to get the site out of the troubles.

SiteGround make 1 copy of free daily backup but if you want to restore that backup then you have to pay $39.95. So it’s not truly a free service.

On the other Side, with BlueHost, you can create free daily, weekly and monthly backup for securing your site. Moreover, the restoration of backups is totally free.

Winner: BlueHost

FTP Accounts

Did your hosting company offer FTP accounts? Both SiteGround and Bluehost offer unlimited FTP accounts. FTP account is used to transfer the bigger or smaller files between computer and the servers. So you can use the FTP (file transfer protocol) to transfer files such as backup on your computer and then upload again whenever you need.

It can also help you in manual site transfer like download the site content on your computer and then upload them on the other server. So, that a good option.

Winner: Tie

Parked Domains

Parked domain denotes the way in which you point a domain name to the existing domain. For example, your primary domain is mydomain.com and then you park the mydomains.com on your primary domain. Now if the visitors visit mydomains.com then they will automatically redirect to your primary domain and view the contents.

The facility of parking the domains is very imperative when you thought that people may misspell your primary (actual) domain name or may miswrite the domain extension. It also proves a good feature for you when someone wants to steal your site traffic by using a similar domain.

In the basic plan of BlueHost, you can park only 5 domains. But SiteGround gives a free hand to their users by allowing unlimited numbers of parked domains even on the basic plan (StartUp).

Winner: SiteGround

Sub-Domains

By using a subdomain you can create a whole new site. But a subdomain includes the name of the main domain. For example, if hostingsprout.com is the main domain then you can create a subdomain like blog.hostingsprout.com.

Subdomains are useful if you want to create new domain without buying a new domain and hosting account. Also, it is good if you want to separate the certain part of your site. You can easily create subdomains through the cPanel under domain section.

With BlueHost, you can create up to 25 subdomains while SiteGround allows unlimited sub domains. 25 is the handsome amount but having unlimited feels great.

Winner: SiteGround

CloudFlare CDN

CDN is a network of data centers which are located all around the world. The service can decrease your site’s load time by caching the site contents and distribute it among various datacenters. When a visitor opens your site then it will deliver the site contents from the nearest center and thus load your site quickly.

Moreover, CloudFlare also strengthens the site security by filtering malicious traffic. It also protects your site from DDoS attacks. SiteGround offer free CDN account with hosting account which can be integrated with your site.

BlueHost also provide CloudFlare option in their control panel and with a few clicks, you can activate this great service. Visit CloudFlare if you want to learn more.

Winner: Tie

Site Transfer

If you are not satisfied with your existing hosting provider and want to transfer your site, then this feature is very handy for you. In this new hosting company (where you want to migrate) handle all the matters and shift your site contents from existing hosting provider to the new one.

SiteGround offer free site transfer. You just need to provide some access to them like login details of the previous hosting company and let them all the matters. Moreover, there is no downtime while transferring your site.

But you will surprise to see that BlueHost bill $149.99 for migration. The site transfer is not a too much complex process that BlueHost charge such a high price. So SiteGround doing a great job here for their users.

Winner: SiteGround

Developing Languages

This might not be a useful feature for everyone because supporting various developing languages are the important consideration for programmers when selecting a web hosting company.

Both SiteGround and BlueHost support Perl and Python in all of their plans. But here note that SiteGround does not include “Ruby on Rails” in their shared hosting plans while BlueHost support Ruby.

Winner: BlueHost

Staging

Staging is a very important feature but unfortunately, BlueHost did not includes such a nice feature in any of its plan. By using this option you can create a copy of your original site. Now you can test your new codes and plugin on the cloned site instead of directly testing on the original site. Because testing new plugins and codes directly on the live site is risky and it can compromise your security, site layout, and contents.

This type of option is very suitable for developers and for those who are doing changes to their sites frequently. After making changes when you are sure that everything is fine then it requires few clicks to go live. It also creates a copy before the changes which is useful in case if you want to shift to the previous version.

SiteGround did not offer staging feature in their basic plan for this you need to subscribe their GoGeek plan. So, if you are going to host a small level website then you are good to go. But if you are going to start a website for developing purposes then having such a feature is very handy.

As Bluehost did not include staging in any of their plans whilst Siteground offer this in a higher plan but still as they offer that’s why SiteGround is the winner of this round.

Winner: SiteGround

Site Builder

You have a website design in your mind want to construct it on your own. Don’t worry if you don’t know the coding because drag and drop builder makes it easy for you where you just have to pick an item and drop it where you want to place it.

Both hosting providers include free Weebly site builder in their plans which is enough for fun. Because free site builder has some restrictions like limited number of pages, Ads, and limited functionality etc. So, this might be a good for fun or for websites having limited pages.

Winner: Tie

Money Back Guarantee

What if you are not satisfied with your hosting provider service quality? Simply get your money back if you didn’t get for which you pay. Both companies offer No Question refund within their described period.

SiteGround and BlueHost offer 30 days for money back guarantee. So if they did not meet your expectations then feel free to ask for the refund within 30 days. Here remember, if you purchase the domain along with hosting account then they only refund the money use for purchasing the hosting account. The domain name remains in your ownership.

Winner: Tie

BlueHost vs SiteGround Pricing Comparison

In this era of competition, it is very difficult for a company to charge high without delivering the money value. Both BlueHost and SiteGround offer competitive pricing.

Free Domain Name

Having a free domain for the first year might save some of your funds. But in the very next year, you have to pay the price if you want to keep that domain name.

BlueHost offer free domain name for the first year when you purchase the hosting account from them. And after first year you will have to pay $15.99 for renewal. It’s not too much because most of the companies demand near $16 upon domain renewal.

SiteGround does not offer free domain name. They offer domain name in just $14.95 and in the next year you have to pay the same amount for renewing purpose. So with SiteGround, you can save near a dollar on each renewal. But also keep in mind you pay $14.95 at the start where BlueHost charges nothing.

Winner: BlueHost

You should visit best domain registrar list if you don’t like SiteGround and BlueHost domain pricing.

BlueHost and SiteGround Hosting Prices 

Both of the companies offer 3, 3 hosting plans. On BlueHost basic plan you can host 1 domain while there is no limit on the number of visitors. BlueHost practicing the same strategy as most of the companies in the hosting industry i.e. higher the duration of subscription the lower the cost.

So with BlueHost, you can grab the basic plan in $3.95/mo. only if you subscribed their services for at least 3 years. This is hilarious because when the refund period is over then you stuck with them. And for short period like 1-year the hosting plan becomes costly.

Bluehost pricing table

On the other hand, SiteGround is not practicing such kind of tactics. They offer their basic plan (StartUp) in $3.95/mo. even if you subscribed for a year. This is good and you will never stick with them for a longer period. So, it means they are cheaper than the BlueHost.

Also, unlike the BlueHost Siteground offers an unlimited number of email accounts, subdomain, and parked domains.

SiteGround plans costs

Winner: SiteGround

Conclusion

From the above SiteGround vs BlueHost comparison, it looks clear that SiteGround is the winner. The few things that may hinder the customers to select SiteGround is the Storage space and the number of visits/mo. But truly it’s not a problem for a content based websites.

For a new website, their StartUp is well suited. We have another content based blog for more than 3 years still consume not more than 800 MBs. And the bandwidth is also sufficient for a newly establish websites.

Besides these, they are amazing like 99.99% Uptime, Blazing fast customer support and low load time etc. Moreover, many other users review shows a positive response at BBB.

SiteGround is Our Top Recommendation

Why do we recommend SiteGround over BlueHost?

  • Amazing support services, rock solid uptime and load time
  • SiteGround takes many initiatives to make their services faster such as SSD’s, NGINX, HTTP/2 and in- house cache plugin.
  • Provide Account isolation and high-level security against the hacks and vulnerabilities.
  • They provide cutting edge technology in the industry like Linux Container method, servers with 256GB RAM, Intel Xeon E5-2690v3, etc.
  • They also develop an own fast backup system and in-house proactive server monitoring.

BlueHost is not a bad choice but SiteGround is more appropriate option in future if your site requirements increases then you can easily shift to the higher plan and enjoy their non-stop services.

Wayne Robinson
 

Wayne is an enthusiast web hosting and server management expert with over 8 years of experience dealing with different kinds of hosting companies. He is also familiar with web hosting technical stuff and server optimizations and shares thorough, well-tested reviews and guides on the same domain.

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