For every business that is about to build or expand their website, the most difficult task is picking a Hosting service provider from the huge lot of them that are present. Of them, the two most trusted web hosting service providers providing similar services are Namecheap and Bluehost. Both hosting services have been in existence for a long time, but Namecheap started out as a domain registrar and later ventured into hosting. Bluehost has been into hosting right from the very beginning. This article will give you an insight on which host service provider is the best for domains and hosting.

Namecheap

Namecheap started out as a domain registrar and later slowly ventured into hosting as a secondary service. Namecheap is considered to be the best service provider for domain name registration, SSL certificates and other online services. The company’s easy process makes it one of the best hosts for registering, hosting and managing domains. The affordable price packages are one of the most cost-effective among hosting service providers. Under its several hosting packages are Shared Hosting, WordPress Hosting and Reseller Hosting.

Pros

• The hosting provider is clutter-free and organized. It comes with a highly powerful, industry leading cPanel control panel. It has a simple, easy-to-use interface, with all user options provided neatly in a sidebar.
• The prices of the plans under Namecheap are highly affordable, starting at just $3.95 per month. The customers can also upgrade to better plans if they choose to expand their website.
• It is equipped with CloudLinux which offers a stable software platform. Namecheap also has quality servers with multiple Xeon CPUs and large memory resulting in a 99.9% uptime delivery.
• For beginners, there are a variety of tutorial videos that can help the user complete a task easily.

Cons

• There are only four plans available and the lower-end plans come with very limited features that force customers to opt for the higher-end plans. The basic plan covers only five websites, five hosted domains, 50 subdomains, 25 GB RAID and fifty email accounts.
• The biggest disadvantage of Namecheap is the lack of phone support. The only support available is an online live chat which is not very effective in certain cases. Phone support helps with instant problem redressal.
• The short money back period is another disadvantage of using Namecheap. Most host providers give a minimum 30-day money back guarantee. In the case of Namecheap, it is only 14 days.
• Limited knowledge in the field of hosting means that they lack a lot of features that seasoned hosting services offer as a part of their service.

Bluehost

Bluehost has been providing complete web hosting services right from the start. The company, known for its unbeatable technology, optimized hosting, high-quality customer support and excellent performance, is even endorsed by WordPress as the best hosting service provider. It has been known for its proprietary resource protection that protects users against any threat from abusive users on the same server.

Pros

• There are different kinds of hosting plans that users can choose based on their requirements.
• The service provider is equipped with the best of technologies such as PHP5, SSI, Ruby on Rails, Perl, MySQL 5, etc. It also comes with VPS and dedicated hosting.
• The SimpleScripts 1-click installer allows users to install 100+ scripts which include popular ones like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. It has integrated cPanel control panel for a user-friendly interface.
• Customers can receive their money back within 30 days and receive a prorated sum based on the remainder of the hosting period if they cancel the account at any time.
• Users get unlimited domains, websites, storage, email accounts and MySQL databases. The plans also include freebies like one free domain, $100 Google AdWord credits, $50 Facebook and Twitter ad credits.
• It provides 24/7 customer support through phone, email and chat. There is also an online help center that customers can use to resolve issues.

Cons

• Customer support on Bluehost is not the most efficient. They take a a fair amount of time to resolve your queries.
• If you plan on getting a reseller account, the speed of your websites could be throttled to a large extent.
• Migration of your existing website to Bluehost costs a whopping $99.99, while most other hosting services do this for free.

Namecheap vs Bluehost: Comparison

The following comparison would give a better insight as to which hosting service provider is better than the other.

Ease of Use

Both hosting service providers have an integrated cPanel as the interface to manage the backend of their website. cPanel is known to be one of the most compatible control panels for Linux hosting. Due to the easy navigation and rich features in this panel, it is easy for beginners and seasoned developers to create databases, manage email accounts and view site statistics. Both, Namecheap and Bluehost, provide a 1-click installer which makes installation easier. However, Namecheap makes use of Softaculous, whereas Bluehost uses SimpleScripts which is integrated with the Mojo Marketplace.

Verdict: Bluehost wins with the SimpleScripts 1-click installer which is a lot more convenient to use than Softaculous on Namecheap.

Hosting Cost

Namecheap provides some of the cheapest plans for hosting. It has four plans and the basic plan starts at prices as low as $3.24 per month. The plans are Value, Professional, Ultimate and Business SSD. Of these, the Professional plan is commonly chosen by users. The Value plans come with limited features and most users are pushed to take up the more expensive plans.

Bluehost has different kinds of plans starting from $2.95 per month. The basic plans would suffice for small businesses, but big businesses still have the option of choosing from larger plans that suits their needs. The plans are Basic, Plus and Prime, of which Prime is mostly recommended and is affordable as well. The cost also involves certain freebies, which includes Google Ads and Facebook Ad credits.

Though Bluehost seems to be a lot more economical than Namecheap, it is still considered expensive since the Basic plan is three times the equivalent of Namecheap. But Bluehost provides unlimited website space and bandwidth under its plus and prime plans, which are the most sought after plans.

Verdict: Although Namecheap might seem like a more economical and feasible option, Bluehost provides more benefits under its affordable price plans.

Features

Namecheap surely provides users with features like hosting multiple domains and subdomains, large databases and a large number of emails in their hosting plans. Bluehost might be restrictive when it comes to the number of domains that a user can manage under a single account, but it comes with the most advanced technologies including PHP5, SSI, Ruby on Rails, Perl, MySQL 5, etc. It is also compatible with platforms like Joomla and is highly endorsed by WordPress.

Verdict: A hosting service provider like Bluehost that is rich in features is definitely preferable over a platform with limitations like Namecheap.

Money Back

Namecheap provides a very short money back period of just 14 days. This can be very difficult for certain customers who do not wish to continue using the hosting service. Bluehost, on the other hand, like most hosting services provides a 30-day money back guarantee and also has the added benefit of a prorated refund based on the remainder in the plan to the user, if they choose to cancel the account at any time.

Verdict: The money back offer by Bluehost is definitely a lot more promising and reliable than the one provided by Namecheap.

Hosting Security

A secure hosting environment is promised by both hosting services. The software and hardware in both hosts are secured by highly advanced firewalls, in-house security and technician monitoring. Also, the RAID-protected servers are backed-up from time to time, so that the user always has a backup in the event of an emergency. The user can also purchase SSL certificates for data protection, but in the case of Bluehost, every user gets a free SSL certificate.

Verdict: Bluehost has a greater advantage over Namecheap thanks to the free SSL certificate it provides to every user as well the resources they invest in to keep their servers secure.

Domain Registration

For .com/.net/.org a user would have to pay an average of $10 a year for a domain registration on Namecheap. In the case of Bluehost, the user does not have to pay for domain registration for the first year, as the cost is included in their hosting plans.

Verdict: Bluehost definitely wins, with its first-year free domain registration. Namecheap’s lack of free domain registration with their hosting plans makes them lose this battle.

Support

The only source of user support that a Namecheap user receives is online chat. Although user queries are quickly attended to in most cases, it still might not provide enough clarity as much as the support through phone would. The Risk Management Support team of Namecheap is not efficient and certain users have had their accounts suspended without prior notice. In such cases, it can be very difficult to reach out to Namecheap to solve the issue immediately.

In the case of Bluehost, the customer receives 24/7 support from multiple channels. Customers can reach out to the host through their hotline, email or chat. The average wait time for phone support is less than a minute, which makes them one of the most responsive support teams in the industry. The staff are handpicked and trained to attend to any query that the user may have and it is done in a timely fashion by providing quick solutions. There is also the added advantage of the online help centre to help resolve issues.

Verdict: Bluehost triumphs over Namecheap once again, with its multi-channel user support facility.

Speed

To improve the speed of their websites, both hosts have adopted strategies like:

• Providing more than the required network capacity to avoid lower speed during traffic spikes.
• Offering more than three data locations to guarantee shortest page load time.
• Use Cloudflare CDN to deliver data to users in any part of the world quickly.

Bluehost has, however, gone a step ahead and protected the hosted websites with resource protection technology to stop other users on the same server slowing down the website. It has also accelerated their database response time with SSDs that help websites hosted on their platform load faster.

Speed is a very critical aspect that simply cannot be ignored. In a test done by down.com, Bluehost’s average page speed was 3.05 seconds. Its fastest was 0.30 seconds and slowest was 9.17 seconds. Namecheap was behind with an average speed of 3.15 seconds, with its fastest at 2.09 seconds and slowest at the worst speed of 72.71 seconds.

Verdict: Bluehost is a clear winner, providing faster page load times than NameCheap, whose servers aren’t able to match up to the speed of Bluehost servers.

Uptime

An uptime confirms how accessible the website is to its users. As per the test by down.com, both Bluehost and Namecheap had an average of 99.94%, with both having a best of 100% and worst of 84.93% and 92.92% respectively. Despite the chances of low uptimes with Bluehost, it is still definitely more reliable than Namecheap that continues to have outages from time to time.

Verdict: Despite its rare chances of low uptimes, Bluehost is highly reliable as a host when compared to Namecheap. Namecheap has continuous outages that are not reliable.

Overall Performance

With Bluehost offering a much more technologically advanced and efficient service, they clearly offer a much better performance than Namecheap. With SSD storage, more number of servers across the world and better reliability, Bluehost delivers the best performance across various metrics. Although Namecheap does better in the case of uptime, there are still issues with the page speed at which the websites load. This can turn away a lot of visitors from the website, especially when there have been instances of web pages registering a load time of 72 seconds.

Verdict: Bluehost is clearly a better host in terms of performance. A combination of good uptime and page speed is necessary in order to enhance the experience of the website visitors.

Registering domains is definitely far easier on Namecheap, but the hosting service provided – despite being an domain registering expert – is still not the better option of the two. Bluehost has been a brand to be reckoned with in the industry right from the time of its inception. The brand has gone on to become one of the best hosting services backed with advanced technologies and excellent page speed and uptime. For those looking to find a host to build their website, Bluehost’s affordable, feature-rich, reliable service is definitely the right choice.

Namecheap vs Bluehost: Which Is Better for Domains and Hosting

For every business that is about to build or expand their website, the most difficult task is picking a hosting service provider from the huge lot of them that are present. Of them, the two most trusted web hosting service providers providing similar services are Namecheap and Bluehost. Both hosting services have been in existence for a long time, but Namecheap started out as a domain registrar and later ventured into hosting. Bluehost has been into hosting right from the very beginning. This article will give you an insight on which host service provider is the best for domains and hosting.

Namecheap

Namecheap started out as a domain registrar and later slowly ventured into hosting as a secondary service. Namecheap is considered to be the best service provider for domain name registration, SSL certificates and other online services. The company’s easy process makes it one of the best hosts for registering, hosting and managing domains. The affordable price packages are one of the most cost-effective among hosting service providers. Under its several hosting packages are Shared Hosting, WordPress Hosting and Reseller Hosting.

Pros

• The hosting provider is clutter-free and organized. It comes with a highly powerful, industry leading cPanel control panel. It has a simple, easy-to-use interface, with all user options provided neatly in a sidebar.
• The prices of the plans under Namecheap are highly affordable, starting at just $3.95 per month. The customers can also upgrade to better plans if they choose to expand their website.
• It is equipped with CloudLinux which offers a stable software platform. Namecheap also has quality servers with multiple Xeon CPUs and large memory resulting in a 99.9% uptime delivery.
• For beginners, there are a variety of tutorial videos that can help the user complete a task easily.

Cons

• There are only four plans available and the lower-end plans come with very limited features that force customers to opt for the higher-end plans. The basic plan covers only five websites, five hosted domains, 50 subdomains, 25 GB RAID and fifty email accounts.
• The biggest disadvantage of Namecheap is the lack of phone support. The only support available is an online live chat which is not very effective in certain cases. Phone support helps with instant problem redressal.
• The short money back period is another disadvantage of using Namecheap. Most host providers give a minimum 30-day money back guarantee. In the case of Namecheap, it is only 14 days.
• Limited knowledge in the field of hosting means that they lack a lot of features that seasoned hosting services offer as a part of their service.

Bluehost

Bluehost has been providing complete web hosting services right from the start. The company, known for its unbeatable technology, optimized hosting, high-quality customer support and excellent performance, is even endorsed by WordPress as the best hosting service provider. It has been known for its proprietary resource protection that protects users against any threat from abusive users on the same server.

Pros

• There are different kinds of hosting plans that users can choose based on their requirements.
• The service provider is equipped with the best of technologies such as PHP5, SSI, Ruby on Rails, Perl, MySQL 5, etc. It also comes with VPS and dedicated hosting.
• The SimpleScripts 1-click installer allows users to install 100+ scripts which include popular ones like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. It has integrated cPanel control panel for a user-friendly interface.
• Customers can receive their money back within 30 days and receive a prorated sum based on the remainder of the hosting period if they cancel the account at any time.
• Users get unlimited domains, websites, storage, email accounts and MySQL databases. The plans also include freebies like one free domain, $100 Google AdWord credits, $50 Facebook and Twitter ad credits.
• It provides 24/7 customer support through phone, email and chat. There is also an online help center that customers can use to resolve issues.

Cons

• Customer support on Bluehost is not the most efficient. They take a a fair amount of time to resolve your queries.
• If you plan on getting a reseller account, the speed of your websites could be throttled to a large extent.
• Migration of your existing website to Bluehost costs a whopping $99.99, while most other hosting services do this for free.

Namecheap vs Bluehost: Comparison

The following comparison would give a better insight as to which hosting service provider is better than the other.

Ease of Use

Both hosting service providers have an integrated cPanel as the interface to manage the backend of their website. cPanel is known to be one of the most compatible control panels for Linux hosting. Due to the easy navigation and rich features in this panel, it is easy for beginners and seasoned developers to create databases, manage email accounts and view site statistics. Both, Namecheap and Bluehost, provide a 1-click installer which makes installation easier. However, Namecheap makes use of Softaculous, whereas Bluehost uses SimpleScripts which is integrated with the Mojo Marketplace.

Verdict: Bluehost wins with the SimpleScripts 1-click installer which is a lot more convenient to use than Softaculous on Namecheap.

Hosting Cost

Namecheap provides some of the cheapest plans for hosting. It has four plans and the basic plan starts at prices as low as $3.24 per month. The plans are Value, Professional, Ultimate and Business SSD. Of these, the Professional plan is commonly chosen by users. The Value plans come with limited features and most users are pushed to take up the more expensive plans.

Bluehost has different kinds of plans starting from $2.95 per month. The basic plans would suffice for small businesses, but big businesses still have the option of choosing from larger plans that suits their needs. The plans are Basic, Plus and Prime, of which Prime is mostly recommended and is affordable as well. The cost also involves certain freebies, which includes Google Ads and Facebook Ad credits.

Though Bluehost seems to be a lot more economical than Namecheap, it is still considered expensive since the Basic plan is three times the equivalent of Namecheap. But Bluehost provides unlimited website space and bandwidth under its plus and prime plans, which are the most sought after plans.

Verdict: Although Namecheap might seem like a more economical and feasible option, Bluehost provides more benefits under its affordable price plans.

Features

Namecheap surely provides users with features like hosting multiple domains and subdomains, large databases and a large number of emails in their hosting plans. Bluehost might be restrictive when it comes to the number of domains that a user can manage under a single account, but it comes with the most advanced technologies including PHP5, SSI, Ruby on Rails, Perl, MySQL 5, etc. It is also compatible with platforms like Joomla and is highly endorsed by WordPress.

Verdict: A hosting service provider like Bluehost that is rich in features is definitely preferable over a platform with limitations like Namecheap.

Money Back

Namecheap provides a very short money back period of just 14 days. This can be very difficult for certain customers who do not wish to continue using the hosting service. Bluehost, on the other hand, like most hosting services provides a 30-day money back guarantee and also has the added benefit of a prorated refund based on the remainder in the plan to the user, if they choose to cancel the account at any time.

Verdict: The money back offer by Bluehost is definitely a lot more promising and reliable than the one provided by Namecheap.

Hosting Security

A secure hosting environment is promised by both hosting services. The software and hardware in both hosts are secured by highly advanced firewalls, in-house security and technician monitoring. Also, the RAID-protected servers are backed-up from time to time, so that the user always has a backup in the event of an emergency. The user can also purchase SSL certificates for data protection, but in the case of Bluehost, every user gets a free SSL certificate.

Verdict: Bluehost has a greater advantage over Namecheap thanks to the free SSL certificate it provides to every user as well the resources they invest in to keep their servers secure.

Domain Registration

For .com/.net/.org a user would have to pay an average of $10 a year for a domain registration on Namecheap. In the case of Bluehost, the user does not have to pay for domain registration for the first year, as the cost is included in their hosting plans.

Verdict: Bluehost definitely wins, with its first-year free domain registration. Namecheap’s lack of free domain registration with their hosting plans makes them lose this battle.

Support

The only source of user support that a Namecheap user receives is online chat. Although user queries are quickly attended to in most cases, it still might not provide enough clarity as much as the support through phone would. The Risk Management Support team of Namecheap is not efficient and certain users have had their accounts suspended without prior notice. In such cases, it can be very difficult to reach out to Namecheap to solve the issue immediately.

In the case of Bluehost, the customer receives 24/7 support from multiple channels. Customers can reach out to the host through their hotline, email or chat. The average wait time for phone support is less than a minute, which makes them one of the most responsive support teams in the industry. The staff are handpicked and trained to attend to any query that the user may have and it is done in a timely fashion by providing quick solutions. There is also the added advantage of the online help centre to help resolve issues.

Verdict: Bluehost triumphs over Namecheap once again, with its multi-channel user support facility.

Speed

To improve the speed of their websites, both hosts have adopted strategies like:

• Providing more than the required network capacity to avoid lower speed during traffic spikes.
• Offering more than three data locations to guarantee shortest page load time.
• Use Cloudflare CDN to deliver data to users in any part of the world quickly.

Bluehost has, however, gone a step ahead and protected the hosted websites with resource protection technology to stop other users on the same server slowing down the website. It has also accelerated their database response time with SSDs that help websites hosted on their platform load faster.

Speed is a very critical aspect that simply cannot be ignored. In a test done by down.com, Bluehost’s average page speed was 3.05 seconds. Its fastest was 0.30 seconds and slowest was 9.17 seconds. Namecheap was behind with an average speed of 3.15 seconds, with its fastest at 2.09 seconds and slowest at the worst speed of 72.71 seconds.

Verdict: Bluehost is a clear winner, providing faster page load times than NameCheap, whose servers aren’t able to match up to the speed of Bluehost servers.

Uptime

An uptime confirms how accessible the website is to its users. As per the test by down.com, both Bluehost and Namecheap had an average of 99.94%, with both having a best of 100% and worst of 84.93% and 92.92% respectively. Despite the chances of low uptimes with Bluehost, it is still definitely more reliable than Namecheap that continues to have outages from time to time.

Verdict: Despite its rare chances of low uptimes, Bluehost is highly reliable as a host when compared to Namecheap. Namecheap has continuous outages that are not reliable.

Overall Performance

With Bluehost offering a much more technologically advanced and efficient service, they clearly offer a much better performance than Namecheap. With SSD storage, more number of servers across the world and better reliability, Bluehost delivers the best performance across various metrics. Although Namecheap does better in the case of uptime, there are still issues with the page speed at which the websites load. This can turn away a lot of visitors from the website, especially when there have been instances of web pages registering a load time of 72 seconds.

Verdict: Bluehost is clearly a better host in terms of performance. A combination of good uptime and page speed is necessary in order to enhance the experience of the website visitors.

Registering domains is definitely far easier on Namecheap, but the hosting service provided – despite being an domain registering expert – is still not the better option of the two. Bluehost has been a brand to be reckoned with in the industry right from the time of its inception. The brand has gone on to become one of the best hosting services backed with advanced technologies and excellent page speed and uptime. For those looking to find a host to build their website, Bluehost’s affordable, feature-rich, reliable service is definitely the right choice.

The post Namecheap vs Bluehost: Which Is Better for Domains and Hosting appeared first on CleverLeverage.com.