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It’s 2022 and the hosting providers are battling it out to get your attention.
Now more than ever, you see providers like Bluehost going up against providers like Cloudways.
Bluehost is a very popular hosting provider, especially among beginners and small bloggers.
But does that make Bluehost better?
Well, you’ll be surprised to find that it actually doesn’t.
Although it is a bit less known, Cloudways is actually a way better hosting provider than Bluehost.
And in this article, I will go through all of the features that make Cloudways stand out from Bluehost and also show you why it is a better choice for you.
What is Cloudways?
Cloudways is a managed Cloud hosting provider.
If you know anything about cloud hosting, then you know that this is one of the most reliable types of hosting that you can get, next to having your own server in your very own server room.
With cloud hosting, there is less likely for there to be any downtime, and there is a lower percentage of risk for security problems.
Not only is it very reliable, but Cloudways is a platform that allows you to work with many different server providers.
Including Google Cloud, AWS, and Digital Ocean.
It gives you the possibility to completely control your own server and your server size. You can even add your own websites and applications as you wish.
All this while helping you manage your cloud server, taking care of your updates, and taking care of your backups and staging.
If you are looking for shared hosting, then Cloudways is not for you. However, if you’re looking for a reliable, safe, and fast cloud hosting provider, then Cloudways is a perfect choice.
What is Bluehost?
Bluehost has been an Internet giant for years.
Bluehost provides services like cloud hosting and virtual private servers. However, it is more well known for its shared hosting plans.
Shared hosting is the practice of sharing a server with other websites. It’s like sharing an apartment building with different tenants. You each have your own apartment, but you all live in the same building.
The reason why shared hosting is so popular, especially amongst beginners, is that it is usually the cheapest form of web hosting available.
With Bluehost, the pricing starts as low as $2.95 per month.
You will find that thousands of bloggers and small business owners rave about Bluehost and how wonderful it is.
I was one of them.
I even wrote a couple of reviews talking about the hosting that I got with Bluehost.
To this day, I still think that Bluehost is an amazing provider and it did help me start off my blogs on a good foot.
This is because their shared hosting plan really gives you everything that you need to start your website. It makes it quick, fast, and easy to get set up.
However, you’ll soon find out that cheaper is not always better.
Cloudways vs Bluehost: Comparing the 5 Major Factors of Each Hosting Provider
Now that you have a better idea of how both of these hosting providers work, let’s compare five of the major factors of each hosting provider to give you a better idea of which one is better.
1. Beginner Friendly?
When it comes to being a beginner-friendly and easy platform, Bluehost really takes the win on this one.
Providers like Bluehost, Hostinger, and DreamHost are some of the most beginner-friendly providers that you can work with.
Bluehost provides you with an SLL certificate along with other security features completely for free when you sign up for their web hosting service.
One of the perks of using Bluehost is that you have a very straightforward and easy cPanel. This is where you’ll be able to look at your server, look at your traffic, and even get access to other things like themes and SEO tools.
However, that does not mean that Cloudways isn’t easy to use. Cloudways actually migrates your entire site for you and even has an easy plugin tool that you can download to migrate your site as well.
The dashboard is very straightforward and adding and removing websites and servers is also very easy.
It just requires a few more steps than Bluehost. And for more advanced sites, you will have to have a bit more advanced knowledge. This is why Bluehost wins in this category.
2. Performance
When it comes to performance, this is where Cloudways really shines through and becomes the clear winner.
If you choose a shared hosting plan, you can start off at around $3 per month with Bluehost. However, it is shared hosting, meaning you do have more of a higher risk for downtime and for slow speeds.
Whereas with Cloudways, you have a 99.99% guarantee of no downtime and you have full control over your own server.
That you don’t share with anyone.
This mean that there is lower risk for any interference.
With Cloudways, you can also choose how many gigabytes of storage you want, how many terabytes of bandwidth you need, and how much CPU space you need to use.
This makes everything way more transparent and far more customizable to each individual website. Cloudways is very transparent with the systems that they use for their caching, meaning you can have more control over how your site will perform.
I can tell you from personal experience that I’ve gone from sight speeds of 74 and 80 on Google Page Speed, to the high 90s when I switched to Cloudways.
As well as a higher overall health score from my Ahrefs and SemRush reports.
3. Pricing
Pricing is where it can become a bit of a challenge.
If you’re looking for something that is cheaper and more beginner-friendly, then you really can’t beat a shared hosting plan that starts at around $3 per month with Bluehost. With a free SSL certificate and free domain for the first year, it really is hard to beat.
However, I really am a believer in quality over quantity.
With Cloudways, you not only get access to creating your own server and managing your own applications, but you also get better quality, faster site speeds for only $10 with the beginning plan.
Not to mention you get to choose which servers you want to host your website on and you can easily change between these providers at any time.
But I have to say, my absolute favorite feature when it comes to the pricing for Cloudways is the fact that you can pay as you go. Meaning you can choose to pay a certain amount based on how much server space you actually use. Or you can choose to pay every month instead of paying everything upfront, like with Bluehost.
And speaking of Bluehost, those $3 that you pay is only for the first sign-up period.
When it comes time to renew your hosting, You’ll be surprised to see that the price is probably gone up by 65%-75%.
This means you’ll end up paying around $8 to $12 for shared hosting Bluehost.
With Cloudways, the price will always be the same, unless you decide to add on more space or change servers.
$10 a month will give you a great hosting plan from the Digital Ocean servers along with 1 TB of Bandwidth, 25 GB of storage, one CPU, and 1 GB of RAM.
That is more than enough for any blog or website to get started with.
So in this category, Cloudways takes the win.
4. Features
When it comes to features, there are a lot of things that you can do with Bluehost. For example, they do not just provide shared hosting, but they also provide WordPress-managed hosting, virtual private servers and so much more.
However, if you choose anything outside of shared hosting, you’ll find that you may be paying upwards of $32 to $80 a month for those services.
And sometimes way more.
Cloudways gives you the possibility to choose very reliable servers with full transparency on how much space you get and what services they’re on.
Not to mention access to over 65 data centers. Whereas Bluehost only has one data center in Utah.
With Cloudways, you can fully control your applications, your servers, your CPU, your backups, your storage, and your staging.
They also give you a migration tool that you can use to migrate any of your sites onto the platform completely for free.
Both hosting providers give you a free SSL certificate, which is an obvious bonus.
However, Bluehost even throws in a free domain name for the first year and also gives you a free CDN.
So in this category, I would say that they both come around to a tie.
5. Support
Now finally, we’ll take a look at the support and customer service qualities for both platforms.
In this category, Cloudways is a clear winner.
I’ve had to talk with both Bluehost support and Cloudways support. I have found from my own personal experiences that Cloudways support team is way more efficient and a lot faster when it comes to response time.
With Bluehost, although very good and high-quality service, it did take some time for me to get a response back and get help with my issue. It actually took up to two weeks before I got a response back.
With Cloudways, I also had to reach out to their support for a staging issue. I was able to contact them via their live chat and start getting your response in under 2 minutes.
Not only that, but I was able to stay online with them and have constant feedback until my issue was solved.
I only need to contact them once and that was that!
Through my other research online, I found out that I am not the only one to feel like the response time with Bluehost can sometimes take a bit of time.
But with Cloudways, you will not have that issue.
Conclusion: Is Cloudways Better Then Bluehost?
Cloudways is clearly a better provider when you look at most categories.
However, Bluehost does have a lot of positive aspects.
I have to give credit to Bluehost for allowing me to be able to set up my website in the beginning and also become comfortable with the web hosting process. I was able to set up my domain for free and also get my free SSL certificate with Bluehost.
This site was hosted for over a year on the Bluehost platform with shared hosting.
However, the more that my site grew, the more I realized that I outgrew the shared hosting that I had with Bluehost. I was getting very low sight speed scores and a lot of health score issues on my SEO reports.
And countless things to optimize my SEO and site speed and even change my themes, I realized that the issue was my hosting provider and that I simply outgrew the platform.
When I looked into how much it would cost me to upgrade or to get managed WordPress hosting on Bluehost, the price was very high. And I found that with Cloudways I could get almost the same WordPress-managed hosting, but with better features and performance capacities.
And all that at a lower price tag.
So the decision was obvious to me and I’m happy to say that I have been hosting this website on Cloudways for the past four months.
Not only has my sight speed increased, but my health scores have also increased.
I’ve had no downtime since then and it seems as if the optimization with Cloudways has helped my site start to rank higher on Google.
I hope that sharing my experiences with you will help you be able to make the right decision when it comes to choosing the right hosting provider for you.
