Choosing the best web hosting for your site is a tough task, especially when it is based on WordPress. The main issue is that there are different plans available — the WordPress-oriented ones and the common hosting plans. It needs to be noted that the common hosting plans also offer a good level of support for WordPress-powered sites/blogs. In that confusion, we have the Bluehost vs WP Engine duel, a quite-discussed duo. In this article, we would do a comparison between Bluehost and WP Engine, discussing the different aspects. In the end, for sure, you can pick the right one.
About Bluehost and WP Engine
Talking of Bluehost, it’s a quite popular web hosting provider that offers different hosting packages. You get a wider variety, including shared hosting, VPS Hosting, dedicated server hosting, WordPress hosting and reseller hosting. Or, we can say that Bluehost is an all-in-one stop for hosting needs. Noted for affordable rates, best-in-class support and power of reliability, Bluehost has been extending its services for a wider variety of professionals. Especially, newbies in the field were attracted to this renowned web host.
As opposed to the case of the former, WP Engine offers dedicated hosting solutions for WordPress. It doesn’t matter whether you have a blog, site or web app based on WordPress, WP Engine will have an appropriate plan for you. The web host includes in its catalog a variety of infrastructure, ranging from basic shared servers to fully-fledged heavy built servers. WP Engine has been acclaimed by common users and experts for its unparalleled speed, expert support for WordPress and high-class reliability.
Bluehost vs WP Engine — What They Offer?
As we mentioned earlier, Bluehost is an all-in-one web hosting provider. Quite lately, though, Bluehost has added a big lot of new-gen hosting plans as well, such as cloud hosting and domain names. Apart from that, talking of commoner hosting plans, we have shared web hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, reseller hosting domain names. Also, as in terms of WordPress hosting, you get Bluehost WordPress Hosting, which is a boost of productivity. Altogether, it’s an all-in-one place for different hosting needs.
In case of WP Engine, all the products are WordPress-oriented. Depending on the budget, requirement and nature of server, you can choose one from the plans. As we said, different environments — shared, managed, virtual and fully-fledged — are available in the WP Engine catalog. There’s nothing else available from WP Engine — it’s all about WordPress, for sure. Obviously, you are going to have the perks of being dedicated. That having said, if you need one web host that can serve all the possible web hosting needs, WP Engine’s catalog is unimpressive.
Pricing and Plans
Now, we can have a look at the plans offered by Bluehost and WP Engine. Since both are different, we are taking the common aspect — WordPress hosting plans offered by both.
In Bluehost WordPress Hosting, we have four plans to choose from. The first plan namely Blogger is priced at $12.49 per month and lets you manage up to 100 million visits per month. It also gives storage space of 30 GB and one free domain name. The second plan has a monthly cost of $37.50 and you can manage up to 300 million visits. Likewise, it is possible to go to the higher plans. The most expensive plan of Bluehost WordPress Hosting is priced at $85.00 per month and gives you unlimited monthly visits and 240 GB of storage. In higher plans, you get features such as a CDN, SSL and SiteLock. Don’t forget to use Bluehost coupon codes to avail the discounts.
In the product section of WP Engine, there are three labeled plans — Personal, Professional and Business. In addition to that, there are two other plans you can get from WP Engine, according to your high budget. In the first plan called Personal, you get 25000 monthly visits, 10GB storage and unlimited bandwidth for $29 per month. In Professional, it is possible to host multiple sites and manage 100k visits per month, and you have to pay $99 per month. In the third plan that costs $249, you are going to have 400k visits per month and 30GB of local storage.
Uptime and Performance
As expected, both Bluehost and WP Engine are providing more or less the same uptime. At the least, you can be cent percent sure of the fact that the websites will never be down. In other words, you cannot pick one based on offered uptime. However, as we take the case of average uptime of a particular time-period, WP Engine has an upper hand.
Performance is where WP Engine leads and Bluehost lags. The reason is quite simple — WP Engine has dedicated the entire efforts for creating a WordPress-friendly environment. There are on-time performance boosts, the utilization of high-end server components, best-in-class network infrastructures and the experts behind the stage. In addition, WP Engine also has datacenters spread across the globe, which enhances the speed and performance. So, according to speed tests, performance benchmarks and all, WP Engine servers give better environment for your sites.
Availability of Features
Once again, looking from the WordPress Webmaster’s point of view, WP Engine features make enough sense. When you purchase a plan, you get features such as 24*7 support; in-built CDN network, SSL Ready and Evercache to speed up websites. All these are crafted into the servers with best skills so that you get awesome performance. In the case of Bluehost, the features don’t impress much.
Reliability and Support
As in terms of reliability, there’s no choice. It is so because both Bluehost and WP Engine are quite trustworthy. Not only they keep the website up all the time, the servers used are just the classy ones. However, as we consider tech-support section, WP Engine takes a lead. The support is quite detailed, available 24*7 and gives you opinion and help from a set of WordPress experts. In short, you get a best-in-class support.
Continue Reading: Bluehost Vs. GoDaddy Hosting Services
Bluehost vs WP Engine – Final Verdict
Considering all these points about Bluehost vs WP Engine, it makes sense to go with WP Engine. Although the price is quite high, offered speed, performance and support are worth what you pay. In addition, when you’ve a WordPress-powered site, the expertise is a great matter of advantage. In short, for those who don’t mind spending money for a better performance and speed, WP Engine is the best. Or, if you are just into the affordability factor, Bluehost will do the job.