For individuals and business owners launching their own websites, one of the first steps is choosing a hosting service like Hostinger and Bluehost. This vital step will affect the speed of the newly created website, how much running the website will cost, and the ease of site management. Two of the top hosting services for low cost, speed, and ease of management are Hostinger and Bluehost, which have similar specifications but there are key differences you should know. 

This guide will break down the pricing of Hostinger vs Bluehost, how well each performs for different sites, and which is better for dedicated hosting and virtual private hosting. Read on for a breakdown of the key pros and cons of Hostinger vs Bluehost or skip down for an analysis of your priority category. 

Pros and Cons: Hostinger vs Bluehost

These are the essential strengths and weaknesses of Hostinger and Bluehost you should know, pulled from each of the following sections. These pros and cons aren’t all you should know about the competing hosting services but they’ll give you a summarized idea of where each service shines or shows room for improvement. 

Read on for the key features of Hostinger and Bluehost you should know. 

Features: Hosting, Email, Site Builders, and Marketing Credits

In addition to hosting services, both Hostinger and Bluehost offer a number of other services which this section will detail. From site builders, to free domains, to email hosting, these are the features you should be aware of, in addition to hosting offerings. 

Hostinger Hosting Offerings

Hostinger’s main claim to fame is affordable premium and business hosting with excellent uptime of 99.9%. While Hostinger doesn’t offer dedicated hosting, which are dedicated servers just for your properties in contrast to shared hosting, it does offer virtual private server (VPS) hosting which mimics dedicated server hosting. 

VPS plans from Hostinger will allow pages to be loaded faster and have higher uptime than shared web hosting. While VPS plans from Hostinger provide these benefits, they’re less beginner friendly and are best if you’re a developer or have one on staff. 

Hostinger also offers inexpensive WordPress hosting which will help you get your blog or new site up even faster and run with increased speed. Each Hostinger plan comes with premium offerings which provide faster load times, more storage, unlimited bandwidth, free domains, and free backups. 

Hostinger Email Hosting and Site Builder

In addition to affordable and fast hosting, Hostinger offers email hosting to allow you to run custom email either through Hostinger or Gmail so that your emails are professional and have a custom domain. Hostinger also offers their in-house website builder, Zyro, a simple solution to building your website which will be detailed in a later section of this guide. 

Bluehost Hosting Offerings

Bluehost is one of WordPress’ recommended hosting services, in addition to DreamHost and SiteGround. This hosting service offers an easy setup with WordPress and is affordable and user friendly. Bluehost’s WordPress Package is great for new site hosters but is more expensive than shared plans. 

Both general website creators and premium clients with higher traffic needs will benefit from Bluehost’s hosting plans. Many of Bluehost’s plans come with perks like unlimited storage, high ram packages of 4gb to 16gb, as well as advanced storage and security. 

Like Hostinger, Bluehost offers VPS plans with varying levels of features for increasing price points. In contrast to Hostinger, Bluehost offers dedicated hosting if you have a premium site and don’t wish to share server space. Of course, this exclusive server will come with a higher price of $79.99 a month minimum with a 36 month deal. 

Bluehost Additional Offerings

Many of Bluehost’s plans come with a free domain for a year as well as hosting for unlimited domains which is a great deal. In addition, some Bluehost premium plans come with $100 worth of Google ad credits which will help you get your website off the ground with advertising to ideal customer types. 

Bluehost also offers an in-house website builder which is powered by Weebly, in addition to easy setup of WordPress sites. For an additional monthly cost, you can also set up email hosting with Bluehost to secure branded emails for your business or site. 

Key Takeaway: Both Hostinger and Bluehost offer premium offerings for hosting as well as additional features. If you’re in the market for free ad credits or dedicated hosting, Bluehost may be the right choice for you. If you want a more affordable VPS or really love the Zyro site builder’s features, Hostinger is for you. 

Pricing: Hostinger vs Bluehost

While performance should be a higher consideration than pricing when choosing a hosting service, cost will inevitably be factored into your decision. This is especially true if you’re considering dedicated hosting for your website instead of cheaper shared web hosting options. 

Below are the plan and corresponding pricing for Hostinger and Bluehost, as well as the accompanying offerings for each plan. 

Hostinger Plans and Pricing

One consideration for Hostinger plans is that there are sub-plans for each of these options and your pricing can range depending on whether you want maximal speed and performance. 

Hostinger also offers email server hosting. 

Bluehost Plans and Pricing

Bluehost’s plans and pricing are more straightforward but similarly have different prices for different packages within the three tiers of shared hosting, VPS, and dedicated hosting. 

Key Takeaway: Hostinger’s pricing is cheaper across the board and for similar offerings, is the right choice, unless you have additional needs not provided by Hostinger. If you need dedicated hosting, rather than shared or VPS hosting, you should go with Bluehost. 

Setup: Getting your website live

If you choose the right hosting service, the most time you’ll spend on the hosting site is when you’re initially setting up the hosting and connecting your domain. Both Hostinger and Bluehost offer fairly straightforward setup processes but this section will break down the steps you’ll need to take and how long this will likely take you. 

Hostinger breaks down the setup process for hosting for your new website in their full How to Use Hostinger guide. Some of Hostinger’s plans come with a free domain for a year but if your chosen plan does not, the guide will walk you through how to connect your existing domain with Hostinger’s services and connect your website management system to hosting. 

If you have any questions along the way, you can ask them through Hostinger’s live chat support. If you plan to use WordPress with your new Hostinger hosting, they also explain this process in their WordPress installation guide. The full setup process for Hostinger should take up to a couple hours. 

Bluehost offers a quick setup process, breaking the steps down on their setup page. All of Bluehost’s shared plans come with a free domain for a year but their VPS and Dedicated Hosting plans do not. Despite this, they explain clearly how to purchase a new domain, transfer the name to Bluehost, conduct the WHOIS update and verification, and point name servers to Bluehost. The whole process should take just a couple hours at most. 

Bluehost also makes it exceptionally easy to get started with WordPress once you’ve set up your domain and hosting. The whole process is laid out in their WordPress installation guide. 

Key Takeaway: Hostinger and Bluehost have similar setup processes and make the steps simple with guides and support features to help you get up and running quickly. 

Site Builder: Building your own website with Hostinger vs Bluehost

One of the key services provided by Hostinger and Bluehost beyond hosting is custom website building. Rather than using WordPress or another user-friendly competitor service like Squarespace, Hostinger and Bluehost have built their own user-friendly site builders for customers to design a web property for their business or personal site. 

Bluehost’s site builder is aptly called Builder, which is powered by Weebly, and costs nothing to use once you’ve purchased hosting. Bluehost doesn’t market Builder much, likely because of their close partnership with WordPress and their status as a preferred WordPress hosting service. With Bluehost, you can either set up WordPress.org with one click through Bluehost or use Builder to build your site. 

Bluehost breaks down how to get started using Builder on their get started page and their designer is remarkably easy to use and offers an impressive toolkit of features to design your ideal site. If you had to choose between Builder and WordPress.org, WordPress will likely be the better option because it has more plugins and templates, and is similarly free.

Hostinger’s website builder, Zyro also makes it easy to create a simple website but as a key difference, charges for its services. For personal brands, Zyro costs $1.99 a month with cool features like designer templates and AI-powered SEO copy. For businesses, Zyro costs $3.99 a month with unlimited bandwidth and storage, and a free domain. 

Is Hostinger better than Bluehost?

Hostinger offers slightly faster speeds and lower prices than Bluehost but both hosting services have key strengths that you should consider before making a final decision. 

Zyro is highly user-friendly, uses a drag and drop builder, and comes packed with beautiful templates and free images that will make your website pop. Zyro and Builder are on par with each other, despite the price difference. WordPress.org through either hosting service will likely still be the best choice because of its dominant ecosystem and developed tools. 

Key Takeaway: Hostinger’s Zyro and Bluehost’s Builder are roughly comparable in their features and simplicity but WordPress.org powered by either service is likely a better choice. Bluehost does make it easier to install WordPress with just one click. 

Hosting Speed: Hostinger vs Bluehost

One of the vital factors you should pay attention to when choosing a hosting service is hosting speed. For this vital category, numbers were pulled from Bitcatcha’s speed test of both services to help you better make a decision. 3rd-party tested uptime is also included. 

Google’s recommended speed for international hosting is 200ms and Bluehost blew this number out of the water with an average speed of 153 ms (meter per second). Importantly, the western United States clocked in at 23 ms and the eastern United States clocked in at 78 ms. These are great numbers but you should use the chart below when making your final decision based on your location. 

Bluehost boasts an uptime of 99.99% for their basic plan which is excellent and should almost guarantee that your site doesn’t go offline, though Bluehost doesn’t offer an uptime guarantee. 

Hostinger competitively offers an international average speed of 143.1 ms with an interesting reversal of Bluehost’s western and eastern United States’ performance. Hostinger’s west United States’ speed is 69 ms while the east has 28 ms. 

How good is Hostinger?

Hostinger is an excellent hosting service which boasts fast speeds, high uptime of 99.9%, live chat support, and easy setup which will make launching a website a breeze. 

If you’re in the United States this could affect your site’s performance and western Americans would be better going with Bluehost while eastern Americans should choose Hostinger if speed is their top consideration. Overall, Hostinger is 10 meters per second faster, on average. 

Hostinger’s uptime is 99.9%, so slightly lower than Bluehost’s uptime of 99.99%. Despite this, Hostinger offers an uptime guarantee and if your uptime dips below this, you can get 5% of your monthly fee back. 

Key Takeaway: Hostinger offers better speed than Bluehost, on average, but Bluehost has a slightly higher uptime than Hostinger. 

Customer Support: Hostinger vs Bluehost

Hosting services inevitably come with complications, whether it’s uptime issues or trouble with management for a domain. When these issues arise, it’s important to know that your provider will be there to answer your questions directly, ideally with chat or even just email or relevant FAQs. Both Hostinger and Bluehost offer support but there are differences in their approach you should know before making that final decision for your domain. 

Hostinger offers stellar support with email and live chat options to answer your questions 24/7 every day of the year, regardless of your payment tier. This is excellent for website services as many website service providers offer just email and maybe a live agent if you’re the highest premium tier. 

In addition, Hostinger boasts an excellent FAQ center with answered questions for every applicable category from management to sending emails through the platform. 

Bluehost also offers stellar customer support with both live chat and phone support 24/7 every day of the year. You can call Bluehost agents directly or describe your problem via text, whether you’re interested in becoming a customer or are a current customer. 

Bluehost also offers an FAQ center for different issues you might encounter as you use their hosting service. 

Key Takeaway: Bluehost offers superior customer support options with live chat and phone support, though if you prefer email, you may like Hostinger’s offerings of live chat and email support more. 

Final Takeaway: Hostinger vs Bluehost

Both Hostinger and Bluehost shine among competitors as low-cost, simple hosting services which will enable you to create a fast website which serves your readers or customers’ needs. These services both have uptimes of at least 99.9%, offer excellent customer support, and provide site builders as well as the capability to install WordPress.org to create immersive online experiences. 

For both Hostinger and Bluehost, the decision will come down to the minor differences or features that could affect whether the platform is the right fit for you. As detailed in previous sections, Hostinger’s plans are slightly cheaper than comparable Bluehost plans, offer faster speeds, have uptime guarantees, and offer live chat and email support. Bluehost shines by offering dedicated hosting, more dependable 99.99% uptime, the backing of WordPress, and phone support. 

Ultimately, these factors will determine your decision but you would be hard pressed to go wrong with either hosting service, unless you really need dedicated hosting. Choosing a hosting service and setting it up can be challenging at first, but the process will be painless with Hostinger or Bluehost and you’ll soon have a dependable, fast site if you choose either of these hosting services.