SiteGround vs BlueHost: Customer Support
As with any service, it’s very important to assess the customer service that each web host provides. Web hosting can be complicated, especially if you’ve never hosted a website before. We’re going to start off by reading what other people have to say about each web host via Twitter…
SiteGround:
SiteGround have a huge following on Twitter, with staff actively posting on a regular basis. Having a web host that’s responsive on social media as well as their website is very reassuring.
Contacting SiteGround’s customer support as a new or existing customer is really simple. Every experience we’ve had has been flawless. One of the features we really like is SiteGround’s ‘recommended support channel’. This provides an indication as to how quickly a member of staff can respond to you depending on how you contact them.
Our experience of SiteGround’s customer service has resulted in a connection with a live chat assistant within just 2 seconds! Their staff seem very knowledgeable, helpful, and most of all they go above and beyond the call of duty.
BlueHost:
BlueHost have some really positive user experience comments on Twitter. They also have a large following on social media with over 20.5k Twitter followers on their support account, and a whopping 145k likes on Facebook.
However, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows for BlueHost, unfortunately. Although users have had some really positive things to say about them, there have also been some notably negative comments too.
When we’ve contacted BlueHost through our test account that we signed up with, we’ve received nothing but helpful and efficient responses. Live chat is answered within seconds, and our queries have usually been resolved within 5 to 10 minutes.
We’ve also had a positive experience by contacting BlueHost over the telephone, with no problems or long wait times. Perhaps at some points during the day or peak hours, BlueHost aren’t able to cope with the high volume of support requests. Since they eliminated their support ticket system, more traffic might be feeding through to their other support services.
And the winner is… SiteGround!
VISIT SITEGROUND.COM (£2.95/MONTH)
SiteGround vs BlueHost: Performance, speed, and reliability
Both hosts provide a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Because of this, we signed up to SiteGround and BlueHost on their basic shared hosting plans to monitor our website’s performance. Using UptimeRobot, we were able to track our website’s uptime and server response time.
For the purpose of testing, both our SiteGround and BlueHost websites were running the latest version of WordPress 4.9.6. We monitored our website’s performance over a 24 hour, 7 day, and 30 day period to provide a true and honest comparison.
SiteGround
As you can see, over the last 24 hour period, we experienced no downtime whatsoever on our website. SiteGround promise a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and we received a solid 100% uptime.
We also monitored our server response time with SiteGround. A server response time calculates the amount of time it takes for a server to receive and respond to browser requests.
For a user to receive all the data from our web hosts server, to their browser, it takes just 783ms (0.7 seconds) to respond. According to Google, your server response time should be under 200ms. However, that’s on the basis that your website has been optimised. Our website has no plugins installed, or optimisations applied.
Monitoring our website over a 30 day period showed 100% uptime throughout. We were really pleased with these results considering we were paying just £2.75 per month with SiteGround.
BlueHost
We monitored our BlueHost website at the same time as SiteGround to keep our results fair. We were ecstatic to see that BlueHost also kept to their promise, providing us with a 100% uptime over a 24 hour period.
Although BlueHost’s server response time resulted in more spikes, the overall average came in at 517ms (0.5 seconds). Again, this result doesn’t achieve Google’s expectations of less than 0.2 seconds, but it does provide a good average considering we hadn’t optimised our website at all.
Our WordPress website hosted with BlueHost achieved the same results as SiteGround. A 100% uptime performance over a 24 hour, 7 day, and 30 day period – a cracking result all round!
And the winner is… Siteground and BlueHost!
SiteGround vs BlueHost: Pricing
It’s not all about price, but there’s no doubt that cost does play a part when choosing a web host. We’ve taken a look at both SiteGround and BlueHost’s shared hosting plans, what they offer, and how much they are. We’re not delving in too deep to their features as we’ll compare these in our next section.
SiteGround
SiteGround offer 3 shared hosting plans; StartUp, GrowBig, and GoGeek. Each plan is tailored to suit different website owner’s needs and gives an overview of how many website visitors they’re suitable for.
All in all, SiteGround offer some very meaty features for a very small cost. Their essential features which are included in all of their shared hosting plans are good enough on their own. SiteGround are well known for providing low cost hosting with high quality features.
BlueHost
BlueHost also offer 3 shared hosting plans; basic, plus, and prime. We looked into each of their plans like we did with SiteGround to provided a basis for our comparison. Note that BlueHost only display their prices in dollars ($), so bare this in mind.
Basic ($2.95 /mo):
- 1 website
- 50GB web space
- 5 email accounts
- Free SSL
- Standard performance
Plus ($5.45 /mo):
- Unlimited websites
- Unmetered web space
- Unlimited email accounts
- Free SSL
- Standard performance
- $200 marketing offers
- SpamExperts
Prime ($5.45 /mo):
- Unlimited websites
- Unmetered web space
- Unlimited email accounts
- Free SSL
- Standard performance
- $200 marketing offers
- SpamExperts, 1 Domain privacy, SiteBackup Pro
When you consider the difference in price between BlueHost’s basic and prime plans, it’s definitely worth the extra few dollars to upgrade. At $5.45 per month, you’re getting unlimited ‘everything’ and some added bonuses thrown in for free.
And the winner is… BlueHost!
VISIT BLUEHOST.COM (£2.25/MONTH)
SiteGround vs BlueHost: Features
Because we wouldn’t ever base our decision on price alone, we’ve dug deeper into each hosts features. It’s important to look at the whole picture, because more often than not you’ll find yourself using those handy features that you didn’t even know about!
Both web hosts offer a lot of features, so we’ve picked some of the most important ones to cover. You should definitely take a look at SiteGround and BlueHost’s website before deciding, as you may find more features that we haven’t mentioned.
SiteGround
In comparison to BlueHost, SiteGround don’t offer as much web space as you might expect. A maximum of 30GB may seem slim when stood up against BlueHost’s unlimited plans. However, we must first remember that the average web page is 3MB in size. Your website would need an awful lot of images and videos to reach 5GB, let alone 10GB.
Secondly, SiteGround certainly don’t scrimp on their features. In fact, they offer some of the best features we’ve ever seen from a web host. We’re going to take a look at these features in more detail.
SiteGround use cPanel, which is one of the most well known control panels available. It’s easy to use, has tonnes of support, and gives you all you need to know about your web hosting in one place.
SiteGround WordPress experts have developed their own WordPress plugin, SiteGround Supercacher. This awesome features comes included as standard on all SiteGround plans. SuperCacher offers 4 different types of caching options, enabling your website to be up to 4 times faster.
SiteGround’s first tier plan comes with a wealth of handy features. This includes a free site transfer, SSL, and Cloudflare CDN. Other web hosts tend to charge for these features, so the fact that SiteGround include them as standard is pretty impressive.
Possibly one of our favourite things about SiteGround is that they allow you to choose your data center. Offering a selection from 3 continents, you can ensure that your website loading times focus on your target audience’s area.
BlueHost
Although BlueHost are slightly cheaper than SiteGround, their basic package doesn’t really compare to SiteGround’s StartUp plan. However, once you look at the Plus and Prime packages, you start to realise that BlueHost do in fact offer some decent features.
Plus and Prime are currently charged at the same price, so it’s worth upgrading to the Prime package simply for the added features and marketing credits. You’ll also receive unmetered bandwidth, domains, and email accounts for paying a little extra.
They may not make use of cPanel as you know it, but BlueHost’s own overlay is powerful in it’s own right. Once you discover it’s advanced features button, you’ll be able to access all of your favourite cPanel features.
Having the ability to manage multiple servers at once from one place is a breath of fresh air. You can also control access to each account using BlueHost’s access control.
BlueHost offer their Plus and Prime customers access to free marketing credits. If you’re running an eCommerce website or simply want to embrace some marketing to grow your business, you can make use of this handy feature. The best part? If you’re not happy, you’ll receive a refund within 30 days of signing up.
And the winner is… SiteGround!
SiteGround vs BlueHost: Conclusion
They both pack a punch in their own individual ways. However, as with most web hosts, one will always be slightly better than the other depending on what your needs are.
If you’re looking to keep the costs down whilst receiving great support and a variety of helpful features, BlueHost will cater for your needs without a doubt. Their a solid web host with years of experience, so they’ve really nailed down what they have to offer.
On the other hand, if you’re willing to pay just a little bit extra, and we mean little bit, SiteGround will not disappoint. They may not offer as much web space on the surface, but they will surprise you with their features and the customer is impressive!
For me, SiteGround wins hands down. I personally use SiteGround for all my sites (including this site). They are simply the best and most reliable host that you can buy. Read my full review for further performance tests and data.