Bluehost and iPage are both well-known web hosting companies, owned by Endurance International Group (EIG), which is a large technology corporation. iPage is suitable for users who use multiple low traffic sites, and its essential plans are very basic. On the other hand, Bluehost is for the advanced user as it includes more features in their shared hosting plans.
Here are some important points on the basis of which we can compare both the hosting companies. Since they both provide different features and run on distinct plans, it’s tough to compare between these two. Here are some critical factors on the basis of which, we can make a choice between these two web hosting companies.
Note: “Do check the plan pricing as they are subject to change.”
Bluehost v/s iPage | comparison and review
Speed of the server
iPage guarantees an up time of 99.9%, and it can be availed on all plans. However, they do not give any information regarding the credit they provide, in case of a failure of the commitment. While, on the other hand, Bluehost doesn’t provide any information regarding the up time they provide. Anyhow, on the basis of the test we have conducted, they both work well and provide an up time of 99.9%, which is exactly the same.
Up time of the services
For a website, up time and site speed are an essential feature. Since there are hundreds of websites, the user may never visit your site again, once they find that it is experiencing lags or downtime.
For the two websites, server response time, site up time and page upload time are similar, and they both tie in these departments. Although Bluehost also isn’t particularly good at handling high-performance websites with the sizable traffic, it is a little better than iPage. The maximum server response time of Bluehost is a bit lower than that of iPage.
Performance review
Both the webs hosts are equally good and perform equally well when compared on the basis of performance. iPage narrowly defeated Bluehost in Time to First Byte (TTFB) test, a measurement for how fast a server sends back the first byte of data after it receives a request from a browser. Both of have nearly equal server response time.
The site speed already isn’t commendable in Bluehost which may take as long as 3.65 seconds to load a website for the first time. It takes more than 2 seconds to load the website for the second time. We have also noted that the site uptime in Bluehost is 99.96% with three outages per day. This could be a deal-breaker for their platform.
If you have a small website, then choosing either one won’t make a difference as their performance is more or less along the same line. However, we would like to suggest you look at other options as well.
Customer support of the services
Every platform can go through some problems and users may find some issues in understanding or navigating through a platform. However, a good customer support team can help the users get rid of all these problems. Bad reviews also play an important role in deciding the best hosting service for a website.
Bluehost is one of these websites. It has received several hundred bad reviews online because of its delayed and unhelpful customer support system. In fact, if you face any issues with their services in the morning or afternoon, you could have to wait for as long as 4 minutes. At night, it happens within a minute. Compared to this, other service providers provide help within a few seconds only.
As per the EIG’s Investor’s Day report, they have an impressive Net Promoter Score (NPS).
NPS is a measure by which you can know, how much your customers recommend you to others.
According to the customer service, NPS, and money are correlated to each other. We can say both iPage and Bluehost treat customer services as an investment that results in both more sales and upsells opportunities to them.
If you are working on iPage and you want premium support, you have to pay a small fee for which you get faster attention when you need it. While in Bluehost, you just need to join the member’s forum, and you’ll get support from their staff. Don’t expect instant replies though.
Money-back guarantee
30-day money back guarantee is also included in the beginning. You have to pay a certain amount to keep your domain name when migrating from another server. You get an “anytime” pro-rate money back guarantee, even if you want to cancel your subscription after the first 30 days. You’ll get an instant refund for your hosting fee, but still, you have to pay for the domain. On the other hand, Bluehost also offers a 30-day money back guarantee on hosting. Your refund will only be for the portion of your unused hosting fee but not for the domain names, admin fees or anything else.
Overall Hosting plan comparison
In the shared and WordPress hosting spaces, Bluehost is favourite among both. It follows modern standards for hardware and provides good customer support. It shares dynamic server options which change according to the needs of the customers. However, it exceeded in the VPS and dedicated hosting slot if you outgrow the traffic allowances of shared web hosting. While, iPage, starting at around $2 a month, offers excellent performance.
It offers special plans for users who are new to web hosting and need a simple site. iPage also helps your site to grow with their support, thanks to their virtually unlimited services. For the first-time site owners, iPage puts together a set of superb features like custom site builder created by their team (Website Builder) and a mobile-specific builder (goMobi).
Bluehost is a solid, reputable choice for those who are looking for an affordable cost. Bluehost becomes such a valuable provider as it provides a low cost coupled with supremacy in the shared hosting arena. There are many good reasons for which its name is listed at the top of many review categories. At a price point that’s generally lower than the competition, it offers excellent hardware configurations, a generous list of extras and fantastic support and reliability.
Whether you’re a first-time website owner or a web veteran, iPage becomes one of the best values in web hosting as it provides excellent hosting services and a commendable list of extras.
Shared hosting plans of iPage offer great deal with unlimited disk space, bandwidth, and emails. They offer very good plans, which focus on web hosting necessities like security, marketing, and support.
VPS hosting plan comparison
Bluehost is the best option for you if you want to scale your business while looking for the flexibility and reliability of a VPS when compared to the other service.
iPage also offers great offers, when you are looking for a low-cost VPS hosting and cPanel support. It is ideal for those experienced users, who need VPS hosting and don’t have time and ability to mess with a self-driven system. Services support managed by VPS will help in the installation and common issues related to popular add-ins like Apache, MySQL, Email, DNS, and many other programs
Dedicated hosting review
At such an incredibly cheap price, Bluehost offers a flexible and reliable dedicated hosting option. It is built on OpenStack technology and have minimum four cores per server. What Bluehost lacks in cheap hosting, it provides dedicated hosting. It has some of the most amazing, powerful and quickest servers that will provide agility as well as security to your websites.
Bluehost uses the latest technologies on their dedicated servers to design and maintain customized solutions for its customers. The most recent upgradations they made are- 1 TB of RAID storage, moved all CPUs to four cores, and between four and 16 gigs of available RAM. Each server can be commanded instantly, and in just a few clicks of the mouse, it gets upgraded at any time.
iPage offers a valid and reliable option if you need a fast and flexible dedicated server. iPage provides you the best option when you have outgrown your previous host. It offers more services to you without costing much too your pocket.
It is built on the cloud because of which the server resources it provides operate easily and get moved smoothly. You can start with a VPS option and easily scale up to a dedicated hosting plan, especially if you are not sure if you want a dedicated server. iPage is better than all when compared to the other available options because it doesn’t charge any extra fees if you upgrade your plan.
WordPress Hosting review
Bluehost’s WordPress hosting packages are a great option for personal bloggers and first-time users. When shared plans are compared, it comes out to be a bit costly. But the WordPress optimization and included services are seen, it comes out to be bit more costly.
iPage is the best option for those who are looking for a cheap and simple host to navigate for their WordPress website. It provides you not only numerous perks but also a great substitute for shared hosting.
Conclusion – Bluehost vs iPage
They both are good at different benchmarks and perform similarly across several metrics. However, our tests suggest that iPage is often a better option. While Bluehost poses as a cheap hosting provider, it excels only at dedicated hosting and VPS hosting, both of which are very costly.
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