iPage vs. Bluehost – Which one should you pick?

Hello, what's happening, folks? Can't seem to decide whether to avail the services of iPage or Bluehost? Well, this dilemma is not new to us, and we have passed this stage. Frankly speaking, the Web hosting market is filled to the brim with a lot of hosting companies and therefore selecting the one that best suits your needs may seem like an impossible task at hand.

However, we want you to rest assured as we have taken the trouble of using the services of both iPage and Bluehost. We have invested a lot of time and money on our part testing these services so that you don't have to shell out your hard earned money and precious time. From our time using the services of iPage and Bluehost we have concluded that iPage and Bluehost are both excellent websites hosting companies which deserve not only your attention but also your time and money. To help you decide which Hosting company to choose from among the two, we have made a thorough comparison of the two hosting companies highlighting the services, features, and plans of each company. This comparison will help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of each company so that you can choose the one which best fit your company's needs.

What is Unique about iPage and Bluehost?

These are a few of the unique features which you get to see in iPage and Bluehost. Though the same company might own them, they have different attributes and characteristics which set them apart. Therefore, choosing the correct one for your needs is essential. To help you distinguish between these two companies, we have prepared a comparison of them to help you better understand the workings of these companies.

The Plans

The Plans of Hosting Companies are not same, and they vary across the board. Each company has their hosting and, plans. The Plans of iPage and Bluehost are mentioned below

iPage: iPage offers the following types of hosting

The following are the different types of hosting plans provided by iPage. These plans can cater to a wide variety of needs of the customers.

Bluehost: Bluehost also offers a wide array of plans which are highlighted below

Bluehost has plans for every type of business and website needs, and they also keep the pricing very reasonable which further increases its value.

Now that we are informed of the plans that each hosting company provides let us compare the different plans, its, and features to help find out which company offers the best value.

Shared Hosting Comparison

	iPage			Bluehost
Plans	Basic	Business	Optimum	Standard	Enhanced	Ultimate
Price (monthly)	$24.99	$59.99	$99.99	$19.99	$29.99	59.99
RAM	1 GB	4 GB	8 GB	2 GB	4 GB	8 GB
Storage	40 GB	90 GB	120 GB	30 GB SSD	60 GB SSD	120 GB SSD
Bandwidth	1 TB	3 TB	4 TB	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Uptime Guarantee	99.9%	99.9%	99.9%	99.9%	99.9%	99.9%
CPU Cores	1	2	4	2	2	4

 

When it comes to VPS hosting it is quite evident that Bluehost has an edge concerning pricing and Bandwidth provided. Not only that Bluehost Storage comes in the form of Solid State Drives or SSD. SSD is faster than traditional storage systems. This is possible due to the SSD capable of delivering superfast Input/Output Operations per second. Thus when it comes to VPS hosting, Bluehost offers much more advantages and therefore, Bluehost is highly recommended.

Here are the VPS Hosting features which iPage provides

Bluehost offers a very versatile VPS hosting, and some of the features it provides are

Dedicated Hosting Comparison

	iPage			Bluehost
Plans	Startup	Professional	Enterprise	Standard	Enhanced	Premium
Price (monthly)	$149.99	$189.99	$239.99	$79.99	$99.99	$119.99
RAM	4 GB	8 GB	16 GB	4 GB	8 GB	16 GB
Storage	500 GB	1000 GB	1000 GB	500 GB	1000 GB	1000 GB
Bandwidth	5 TB	10 TB	15 TB	5 TB	10 TB	15 TB
CPU Cores	2	4	4	4	4	4

The plans offered for a dedicated server by both the Hosting companies offer great value. They provide vast amounts of storage, excellent bandwidth speeds and also a speedy performance with multiple CPU cores.  Both iPage and Bluehost appear to offer similar features for the price offered and as such availing the services of any hosting company is beneficial.

Let us take a look at the unique features which iPage Dedicated hosting provides

Now let us see what Bluehost brings to the table with its dedicated hosting

Reliability and Uptime Guarantees

When planning on buying any hosting server, Reliability is something which should not be overlooked. One should be aware of the reliability and uptime guarantees each company provides. Therefore it is essential to determine whether the hosting company is reliable or not. The Reliability of any hosting company can be assessed by reviewing its infrastructure, the experience of the hosting company, its uptime, etc.

Let us first start off with iPage. iPage took form as a web hosting company in 1998. It is often regarded as one of the oldest hosting service providers, and as such, it is considered a veteran. With up to 20 years of experience in the web hosting world, one can surely expect high-reliability standards from iPage. iPage has currently over millions of active websites running on their servers. This goes to show that it has an established footing in the web hosting industry. When we talk about Uptime guarantee, iPage offers 99.9% of uptime guarantee. To make this guarantee possible, it requires data centres, and excellent support and iPage has all of that figured out. iPage currently has two data centers which are located in Boston, Massachusetts. These two data centers are filled to the brim with thousands of servers and have hundreds of petabytes of storage. Not only that iPage's data centers are protected by 24x7 securities, along with a host of other security measures to ensure that your data is kept safe and running at all times.

Bluehost joined the web hosting space in 2003. Bluehost is among 20 of the largest web hosts in the world. The hosting company hosts over 2 million domains along with its sister hosting companies. Similar to iPage, the uptime guarantee of Bluehost hovers around the 99.99% mark. To deliver such levels of uptime guarantee, Bluehost uses Linux kernel developed by Bluehost and data centers which are managed by them. Bluehost has a single data center which is located in a 50,000 square feet campus in Provo, Utah. The data centers are equipped with four separate fiber lines that connect to the data center through Internet Protocol transit providers. When it comes to the security of the data center in Bluehost, they are also monitored 24x7 using various security protocols. This ensures that the data of the users are in safe and reliable hands and their domains will be kept running without any hiccups or issues.

Speed

When we talk about web hosting companies and services, the topic of speed naturally arises. Getting the highest level of speed is the priority of all domain owners. If the hosting company fails to provide speed to its domains, then the number of visitors will decrease gradually. Therefore to ensure that the website visitors are kept satisfied and to encourage more flow of traffic into your website, having a speedy hosting service is a must. We have done some speed tests of both the sites to pick out which server offers better overall speeds. One thing to keep in mind when talking about speed is the distance and location factor. The closer the test location is to the Data Centre or Server the faster speeds it provides.

iPage Hosting Speed: First of all we performed a server speed test of iPage using the PICKUPHOST tool. With the server location set in the USA, it returned a result of 9 ms which was considered as Turbo speed by the tool. Performing an average server response time speed test using Pingdom Speed Test and PageSpeed Insight gave us a result of 1.23 seconds which is pretty impressive. The average download speeds we got was 3.8 Mbps, and the average upload speeds were 2.3 Mbps. However, these are only average speeds, and the daily speeds may vary according to the location of the server and other multiple factors.

Bluehost Hosting Speed: We performed the same set of tests on Bluehost as well. Using the PICKUPHOST Tool, the server speed test returned a result of 48 ms which was considered as Super Fast with its server location set in the USA. We performed an average server response time speed test using the same set of tools, and it gave us a result of 1.57 seconds. The average download and upload speeds of Bluehost were 3.1 Mbps and 2.0 Mbps respectively.

One thing where Bluehost has a slight advantage over iPage is in the database storage department. Bluehost uses SSD Storage in their server infrastructure, and this will play a huge role in the loading times and overall performance of your websites.

Speed test results: As is seen from the test results above both iPage and Bluehost deliver excellent speeds owing to their state of the art technology which they employ in their data centers. The results from the speed test are from real-world conditions and were not performed in artificial conditions, and they are indicative of real-world performance. Though there is no stark difference in speed between iPage and Bluehost if we must pick a winner here, then the overall winner of the speed test would go to iPage Hosting. iPage performed slightly better in almost all the speed tests we performed. However, their difference was marginal at best. At the end of the no matter which hosting company you choose, both of them will deliver speeds which are very much usable and will provide satisfactory results.

Security and Protection

While choosing a web hosting service, the security and protection which a company offers are of utmost importance. If your hosting company does not have proper security measures to protect their database and servers, then you will fall prey to hackers, viruses, malware and a host of other online attacks. Therefore while choosing a hosting company knowing the security measures and protection it provides is of utmost importance.

Both iPage and Bluehost have excellent security and protection features bundled into their servers, which will keep your websites free from online threats and other issues.

iPage Security Measures: iPage offers excellent security measure, and one of the best features of iPage is that it comes with a Security tool known as SiteLock Security. SiteLock security comes with the iPage free of cost, regardless of which plan you are currently on. SiteLock is a security company which is based in Arizona, USA and is a cloud security service which protects millions of domains worldwide. What SiteLock does is that it scans the website files for any forms of malware, spam, viruses and other irregularities. After performing a thorough scan of the entire website, it cleans them professionally. SiteLock also prevents your sites from becoming victims of DDoS attacks. Besides SiteLock, iPage's security also provides SSL certificate. What SSL certificate does is that it keeps your website's sensitive data under proper protection and free from prying eyes. SSL Certificates offers the best security and protection when it comes to cashless transactions and protecting the credentials of your customers.

Bluehost Security Measures: Bluehost also has excellent security measures and features out of the box. It is severe when it comes to providing a high level of security to its customers. They are equipped with a plethora of security-related features which are available across all plans. To help fight e-mail spam, Bluehost has three tools which are SpamAssassin, SpamExperts, and SpamHammer. Another function which they employ is called hotlink protection. What it does is that it prevents parties or individuals from stealing your data and also prevents others from draining your bandwidth. You also can block and unblock specific Internet Protocol Addresses and Ranges, in case you are suspicious. To prevent other people from accessing your Bluehost account, it has a two-factor authentication setup. This effectively stops other parties or individuals from gaining access to your account.

It is quite evident that both iPage and Bluehost offer excellent security features and protection. This goes to show that both these companies are concerned about protecting and guarding the privacy of its customers and they do so by employing the best technology that is available.

Technical Support and Customer Service

Technical support and customer service is something which must not be neglected when searching for any hosting service. No matter which hosting company's service you wish to avail. Having the best technical support and proper customer service can make a huge difference when it comes to user satisfaction. It can either make a company or break a company. Keeping this in mind let us take a look at the Technical support and customer service each hosting company provides.

iPage Technical support and Customer Service: iPage has a solid technical support and customer service system. iPage offers 24x7 support to its customers via phone, live chat, and email. To help first-time customers better understand their support and services they have a handy user guide which customers can read and take necessary steps. They have a very detailed database which contains hundreds of articles to help its customers. The best method which should be used to get in touch with experienced engineers is by contacting them by phone or by e-mail. Using live chat is not recommended in many cases.

Bluehost Technical support and Customer Service: Bluehost also adopts the same method to help customers get in touch with them.  They do this through 24x7 phone, live chat, and email support. The response times of Bluehost range from ten minutes and may go up to two hours. Their response time isn't that impressive comparatively speaking. Bluehost is also equipped with a knowledge database which has an extensive collection of articles and tutorials to help you solve your problems and queries. There is also a members forum which allows members to ask questions and engage in discussions and talks.

We see that both iPage and Bluehost offer outstanding and adequate technical support and customer service to its clients and customers. The quality of customer service that these companies provide ensures that they remain two of the most common site hosting companies.

Conclusion - Which company should you invest in?

Given the fact that the same company owns both iPage and Bluehost, i.e., Endurance International Group, they are similar in many areas. Both offer the same 30 days money back guarantee, virtually the same percentage of uptime and their technical support systems are also very similar. The one distinguishing thing that sets iPage and Bluehost apart is in the type of customers they cater to.

iPage with its Plans and pricing being more affordable is aimed at people who are just starting out in the online world. iPage is for people who do not want to shell out extra money for more advanced services but are satisfied with the essential features. Bluehost, on the other hand, is more expensive than iPage however with the extra cash you get additional features, a better control panel in the form of cPanel and slightly faster-hosting service. So, if your website has heavy traffic and attracts a lot of visitors, you must ensure fast loading speeds for the visitors. Bluehost provides just that. Both companies are competent in their own right, but for overall value for money, Bluehost takes the win.

Resources:

https://www.ipage.com/wordpress-hosting

https://www.bluehost.com/wordpress/managed-hosting