SiteGround vs Bluehost (2019) Real Tests to Help You Choose

Struggling to make your choice between SiteGround vs Bluehost for hosting? In this post, well offer a data-backed comparison of these two popular hosts.Beyond a general comparison of each hosts functionality and pricing, well also share performance tests that weve run, as well as data about each hosts support quality based on our WordPress hosting survey, where we asked over 800 WordPress users about their hosting experiences.By the end, you should have all the information that you need to make your choice between SiteGround vs Bluehost. SiteGround featuresAutomatic updates for WordPress core software.Free SSL certificate via Lets 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 PH P 7.2 (which is recommended by WordPress.org).Easy staging sites (only on the GrowBig plan, though).To access most of your features, youll use the standard cPanel dashboard, which looks like this:Bluehost featuresCustom 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 Lets 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.While there are a lot of feature similarities, one area where Bluehost excels is the aforementioned custom hosting dashboard. It offers a much more beginner-friendly interface to manage important aspects of your site:Both hosts make it easy to create a new WordPre ss 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 processWith SiteGround youll 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.SiteGround also recently released its own SiteGround Migrator plugin which makes it easy for even non-technical users to migrate unlimited WordPress sites to SiteGround. On higher tier plans, SiteGround will also professionally migrate one website for you.Bluehost setup processBluehost also offers a super simple tool to help you create a new W ordPress site:Unfortunately, Bluehost does not offer a free migration service.So while Bluehost makes it very easy to create a new site, youll need to manually migrate your website if youre 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)Weve written individual reviews for both SiteGround and Bluehost, which means weve 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.Heres a summary of the data. All these tests were conducted via Pingdom from different testing locations.SiteGround:Melbourne: 1.563 secondsNew York: 0.645 secondsStockholm: 1.390 secondsBluehost:Washington D.C.: 2.75 secondsSan Francisco: 2.86 secondsLondon: 3.43 secondsSydney: 3.73 secondsTokyo: 2.87 secondsBeyond page load times, its also important that your site is reliably available to visitors. We monitor uptime for both SiteGround and Bluehost to see how often each host experiences outages.Here, both hosts perform great, with neither experiencing any significant downtime:While the screenshot above only shows the past 7 days, you can view historical data at our uptime monitor page.SiteGround offers better support based on our survey dataBoth 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 qualityWordPress-specific support qualityHeres how the two hosts stacked up:Type of SupportSiteGroundBluehostOverall Support Rating4.73.2WordPress-Specific Support Rating4.53.5Each rating is out of 5.Based on our data, users are clearly happier with SiteGrounds support.Bluehost is a litt le bit cheaper and offers a free domain nameWhen it comes to SiteGround vs Bluehost pricing, Bluehost comes out to be a little cheaper.Lets 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, youll lock in this price for the first year):PlanSiteGroundBluehostBudget Tier$3.95$2.95Middle Tier$5.95$5.95Highest Tier$11.95$5.95After your first billing cycle, youll need to pay full price. Heres how the monthly full prices stack up:PlanSiteGroundBluehostBudget Tier$11.95$7.99Middle Tier$19.95$10.99Highest Tier$34.95$14.99Each host requires that you pay for a minimum of 12 months at a time.Bluehost also offers a free domain name, while SiteGround does not.SiteGround vs Bluehost which host should you choose?Ok, so in the end, who should you choose between SiteGround vs Bluehost?Well, it depends on what you value the most.Lets recap†¦When to pick BluehostBoth hosts do a great job o ffering helpful functionality that you wont get with many other cheap shared hosts. For example, each offers staging sites, built-in caching, and a really easy setup wizard that helps you create a new website.With that being said, Bluehosts dashboard is a little more user-friendly. So if youre looking for the most beginner-friendly experience, Bluehost will be a better fit.Additionally, Bluehosts plans are a little cheaper and come with a free domain name. So if youre on a tight budget, Bluehost will cost you less money.Overall, if you want the most beginner-friendly experience and the most affordable price, Bluehost is the winner.When to pick SiteGroundOn the other hand, SiteGround excels when it comes to performance and support.SiteGround offered better performance than Bluehost in our page load tests, which is important because page load times have a big effect on your visitors experiences.SiteGround also had much higher support ratings based on our WordPress hosting survey, whic h suggests that youll get better support from SiteGround.Overall, if you want the best performance and best support, SiteGround is the clear winner there.Are there any other questions you have about SiteGround vs Bluehost that would help you make your decision? Let us know in the comments! @SiteGround vs @Bluehost - which #hosting should you choose? Here's how to decide