One of the struggles most businesses face before building a website is to find a right Hosting service provider. There are several prominent players in this domain and it is very difficult to choose the most reliable one among them. While zeroing in on a hosting service, business owners and users must look at other factors than just speed, uptime and performance. Most often users end up choosing hosting services they are not completely satisfied with. To help users make this decision easier, two of the most prominent web hosting services – Bluehost and 1and1 have been compared in this article.

Bluehost

Established in 1996, Bluehost is one of the most eminent names in the world of web hosting. Owned by Endurance International Group (which also owns several other hosting service providers), it has gathered sufficient experience over the years to provide customers with the best of its hosting services. It is known for its unbeatable technology, outstanding customer support, excellent performance and optimized hosting. It has also been endorsed by WordPress as a good partnering host.

Pros

Users have an array of plans with server options to choose from based on their requirements.

It comes with the best of technologies, which include SSI, PHP5, Ruby on Rails, Perl, MySQL 5 to name a few.

The cPanel control panel on Bluehost is one of the most user-friendly interfaces.

The SimpleScripts 1-click installer allows users to install over hundred scripts including popular ones like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.

Customers receive a lot of benefits like a free domain, large storage, multiple email accounts, Google AdWords, Facebook and Twitter ad credit.

It has excellent customer support that can be easily reached by phone, email and chat. Additionally, an online help centre is also available.

It provides excellent performance even for users owning multiple sites.

The proprietary resource protection on Bluehost prevents any threat from abusers on the same server.

Cons

Unlike most web hosts that will gladly migrate your website from your old host to your new host for free (one website), Bluehost charges $99.99 for the same!

Being a Linux-based platform, it is not suitable for those looking to operate using Windows OS.

The add-on features can be slightly expensive and usually, Bluehost pushes hard to upsell them.

Although speed is pretty good, it still could be improved. Also, recently, a few cases of downtime have been reported.

1and1

1and1 is known for providing industry-leading security features at incredibly low prices. It provides a wide range of hosting services that are value for money, some of them being VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, shared hosting and cloud hosting. All of their plans have added benefits like Symantec SSL certificates, coverage from the company’s data security and protection protocols.

Pros

The introductory prices are very cheap. The starting price is as low $0.99/month. There is also a 30-day money-back guarantee.

It offers hosting options on both, Windows OS and Linux OS. Therefore, it is useful for Windows OS users who have very few options to choose from.

Making use of geo-redundant networks and data centers, it ensures that customers receive a 99.99% uptime.

Users can customize their resources based on their needs. 1and1 will allocate them as per the requirements of the user.

With SSL certification and DDoS protection, it provides users with very reliable security.

Its products are well integrated so users can get the best out of using its hosting services.

Cons

The plans are offered in annual cycles or longer, which can be a deterrent to some users.

There are caps on certain resources they provide like emails and databases that several other hosting service providers don’t put a cap on.

It has a poor interface and backend which makes it very difficult for beginners and non-technical customers to use.

It is not naturally compatible with WordPress, which several businesses usually opt for.

The customer support is inconsistent. It is usually slow and even if attended to the representatives are mostly not very helpful.

Bluehost vs 1and1: Comparison

Bluehost and 1and1 differ from each other on several parameters. Like every other hosting service provider, they come with their own share of positives and negatives. The following factors would give a comparative understanding of Bluehost and 1and1.

Ease of Use

Both Bluehost and 1and1 offer customers enormous options. Technical choices are almost at par in both cases, but what sets 1and1 behind is that it is very difficult to use. First-time users have great difficulty building a website using the tools on 1and1 due to the complicated back-end features. Bluehost has a very simple clutter-free backend that is very easy for even beginners to use. Every single feature that a user needs is easily accessible.

Verdict: Bluehost is more user-friendly than 1and1. With its complicated technical features and tools, 1and1 is very difficult for users to build and manage their websites.

Control Panel

A control panel is very important for users to handle every aspect of their website. Bluehost makes use of the industry leading cPanel control panel that has an interactive interface. This helps users to get acquainted with the functions much faster. cPanel is also compatible with a lot of open source applications. Portability of websites is another great feature of this panel.

1and1 makes use of a custom proprietary control panel. This control panel is not organized and does not have a very user-friendly interface. The cPanel interface is available only in cloud and VPS hosting plans.

Verdict: cPanel is one of the most convenient interfaces that helps to build and manage websites easily. Since 1and1 has a complicated control panel, Bluehost which comes with cPanel is definitely the best option for hosting.

Customer Support

Bluehost has one of the best customer support among service host providers. It has a highly responsive customer support staff that provides support via email, chat and phone. Customers can get their issues sorted quickly and efficiently, thanks to the well-trained staff. Bluehost also has an online knowledge base and forum for customers to post their queries.

1and1 has a very poor customer support. The tier 1 customer staff does not help users solve their problems at all. Usually a ticket is created and a notification is sent asking users to wait for 24 hours in order to receive a response. This can be frustrating, especially when there is an urgent issue to be resolved.

Verdict: Bluehost has better customer support that quickly attends to customer issues than 1and1, whose inconsistent customer support is not reliable.

Technology

With three dedicated data centres, Bluehost is highly reliable for its technological resources. Bluehost’s CPU segregation technology provides several benefits to its customers, most of it being: protection from other heavy users on the same server, guaranteed CPU, memory and disk I/O resources. Additionally, Bluehost allocates resources very efficiently across all of its users.

1and1 has a hybrid technology with smart SSD. It makes use of geo-redundancy networks and data centres to deliver the best uptime. However, there is no technology that helps allocate resources across its users.

Verdict: Bluehost has better and more stable technology that helps to prevent users from other abusive users and also carefully allocates resources, which is not a strong point in the case of 1and1.

Security

Bluehost provides an array of security services to protect the users from any potential threats. The proprietary resource protection prevents any chance of attacks from abusive users. It has anti-malware tools and options to turn away DDoS attacks. Bluehost also provides a free SSL certificate without any charges to its users, depending upon the kind of hosting.

1and1 also provides some of the best security options, but these options have to be paid for. In certain plans, the user can get an SSL certificate. It also provides Sitelock to secure websites, but all these are available only at a price starting from $4.99 a month.

Verdict: Bluehost is more economical since its security features are mostly free and more importantly, more robust when compared to 1and1, where users have to pay for the same security features.

Pricing

1and1 has the cheapest introductory prices. The plans start at a price of $0.99 per month. The plans they have are Basic, Unlimited Plus and Unlimited Pro. The prices for these plans are $0.99, $4.99 and $8.99 respectively. These prices are, however, applicable only for the first year. The prices are increased from the following year.

Bluehost plans are Basic, Plus and Prime, and these plans could range anywhere between $2.99 to $79.99 per month. Although Bluehost might seem expensive, it offers better dedicated plans.

Verdict: While introductory prices on 1and1 are a lot cheaper, Bluehost provides a composite set of features and services under the price range that it offers. Also, the prices on 1and1’s hosting plans significantly go up after the first year and users should be aware of that before signing up.

Features

Bluehost, as mentioned earlier, has top-notch technology. With its single-click installer, you can install over hundred scripts easily. Data backup and true resource management ensures users do not have difficulty in making use of data and resources. Additionally, Bluehost also offers a free domain, Google Adwords, Facebook and Twitter ad credit. The list of features are endless.

1and1 is on par in terms of technology and features but most of the features are not free. Its top features are its geo-redundancy, content delivery network, Sitelock, DDoS protection and hybrid technology with Smart SSD. However, most of the additional features have to be paid for and are expensive.

Verdict: Bluehost wins, in terms of the features that it provides to its customers. 1and1, despite having good technological features falls back, since customers cannot use the additional features without paying for it.

Speed

Loading speed is very important as most users usually avoid visiting the website if the page takes more than a couple of seconds to load. In this case, Bluehost has a greater edge, by owning its own data centers across the world. The proximity of data centers to people who visit the website has a huge impact on the loading speed. The closer they are, the faster the speed. Hence, the page load speed of Bluehost is fast when compared to others who rent data centres.

1and1 does not have the resources to match the technological prowess of Bluehost. Their servers don’t deliver load times that Bluehost’s servers deliver. This increases the chances of slowing down the loading speed of web pages.

Verdict: Bluehost is a trusted host with great page load time due to its excellent technological infrastructure which 1and1 lacks. 1and1 is not reliable for speed.

Uptime

When it comes to uptime, Bluehost has a greater advantage over other hosts because of its infrastructure. The high-performance web servers backed by UPS backup power, multiple independent cores and diesel generators have managed to maintain the 99.95% uptime that Bluehost provides.

While 1and1 promises a similar uptime of 99.9%, it has been observed that there have been more instances of outages with their servers.

Verdict: Bluehost offers much more consistent uptime than 1and1, which often has chances of outages, which makes them the winner in this battle.

Performance

With incredibly fast page load times and good server uptime, Bluehost certainly provides a good overall performance. Websites hosted by Bluehost rarely have chances of outages and have been consistent in terms of performance. Due to its impeccable performance, many businesses trust its ability to provide the best of services.

1and1 has just above-average performance. With a fair uptime and average speed, the host service provider does not prove to be good for its lower-end plan users. It provides good performance only in its higher-end plans.

Verdict: Bluehost, with great page speed and uptime, is clearly a winner in terms of performance when compared to 1and1.

Operating System

Bluehost is compatible only with Linux platforms. But the company has been specializing exclusively in Linux and has delved deeper into the platform to provide the best services to its users. 1and1 offers its services over both Windows OS and Linux OS.

Verdict: Linux OS users can definitely benefit by using Bluehost, since the company has gathered years of experience in building, developing and maintaining websites for users on this platform. But users that would like to host their websites on Windows OS loaded servers, 1and1 is the better option. 1and1 wins this battle thanks to the choices of operating systems they have on offer.

1and1’s sub-par performance across the various metrics that we have looked at above, make it a no-no for anyone looking for good performance, support, tools and features. If you have an extremely tight budget and are okay with the flaws that come with 1and1’s hosting service, you can consider trying out their service. Then again, you must remember that prices for their hosting plans shoot up significantly after the first year, making 1and1 an unviable option.

Bluehost, with its excellent customer service and easy plan cancellation, is definitely a viable option. For those looking for an easy-to-use hosting service that provides high performance and optimized hosting, Bluehost is the better of the two web hosting services.

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