WP Engine vs Bluehost Differences

There are many web hosting companies out there but WP Engine and Bluehost are both popular and leading WordPress hosting providers. We brought you this detailed WP Engine vs Bluehost tutorial, pointing out the differences in terms of pricing, server locations, performance, features, and much more. Read this WP Engine vs Bluehost comparison article to decide which hosting company is best for your site.

WP Engine vs Bluehost: What are they?

What is WP Engine?

WP Engine is a WordPress specific web hosting provider that just offers managed plans, which are fully optimized for WordPress sites. WP Engine is known to offer remarkable performance with exceptional speed and uptime, and of course, comes on an expensive side. However, its robust features and performance capabilities make its pricing worth it. Some of its WordPress specific features are-

• A free SSL certificate
• A lot of performance tracking options
• WordPress staging
• Quick and easy migration

What is Bluehost?

Bluehost was introduced in 2003 in Utah. It is a popular and leading web hosting provider known to offer optimized and budget-friendly plans for every website, regardless of the size and type. As of now, it is powering more than 2 million websites all over the world and is also endorsed by WordPress.org itself. Apart from a full-range web hosting services, Bluehost also offers SEO services, social media marketing, email, domain names, and local business listings to grow traffic. Here’s what you can expect from Bluehost web hosting-

• Reliable uptime
• Above average speed
• Friendly and knowledgeable customer support
• Budget-friendly hosting plans

WP  Engine vs Bluehost: Which one to use and when?

When to use WP Engine?

Go for WP Engine, when you need a premium managed web hosting with plenty of robust features for your WordPress site. They specialize in creating optimized hosting environments for WordPress sites. It will not only help you in optimizing the speed of your site but will also offer a stable and secure site. Therefore, if you can afford to get your WordPress the most optimized managed hosting, then go for WP Engine.

When to use Bluehost?

Go for Bluehost when you need a one-stop-shop for your site at very affordable plans. With Bluehost, you can get a lot more than just web hosting. They also offer a website builder, domain names, and so much more in budget-friendly prices.

WP  Engine vs Bluehost: How to install WordPress on them?

WP Engine installation process

Well, good news, you don’t have to install WordPress on WP Engine, as it comes pre-installed. Therefore, just login, enter your WordPress site and it is ready to work.

Bluehost WordPress installation process

You need to perform a couple of easy steps to move your WordPress local site to remote on Bluehost. Follow the following instructions-

• Step one is to go to the homepage of Bluehost and click on that giant green-colored Get Started button.
• Then, if you don’t already have a domain name, get one or proceed with your existing domain name.
• After that, select the plan you want for your site.
• Now the easiest part, install WordPress using a one-click installer offered by the intuitive cPanel of Bluehost.
• Once it is installed, you can now add add-ons like Google analytics, SEO tools, security add-ons etc.

Now you have successfully setup Bluehost’s hosting services for your WordPress site.

WP Engine vs Bluehost: How do their useful features compare?

WP Engine vs Bluehost Server locations

From every aspect, WP Engine is committed to offer impeccable managed WordPress hosting service. Therefore, it has established strategic relationships with AWS (Amazon Web Services) and GCP (Google Cloud Platform) to deliver highly optimized service to their customers.

There is no information available on the data center locations of Bluehost, however, its main data center is in Utah, US. apart from that, it is owned by EIG, which means you have nothing to worry about when it comes to performance, because EIG group certainly has more data centers than any other web hosting company out there.

WP Engine vs Bluehost Control Panel

WP Engine offers a WP Engine Client Portal as a control panel to control various activities on their hosting. It offers 1-click installations, staging, production environments, etc. However, one might take some time to become familiar with their unique hosting panel.

On the other hand, Bluehost offers a partial custom industry standard cPanel as a control panel. Customers can get access to site builder, one-click WordPress installer, WordPress themes, website managers, and other tools easily via cPanel. It is pretty easy to use and highly intuitive.

WP Engine vs Bluehost Speed

WP Engine is a managed WordPress hosting solution, which is committed to offer optimized speeds to WordPress sites. It uses various techniques to improve speed and performance of your site including SSDs, Global CDN integration etc. nonetheless, once you subscribe to WP Engine’s hosting services, you will never have to worry about the performance and speed of your site. There are various website speed test tools to check site speed.

On the other hand, Bluehost is serving more than 2 million sites all over the world, which means they must be doing something right. According to experts, even though they are serving an exceptionally large client-base, their speed and performance is still up to mark. Moreover, they also offer Cloudflare CDN services integration and SSDs to offer optimized speeds. Therefore, there is no doubt that Bluehost wins this round.

WP Engine vs Bluehost Uptime

WP Engine offers an uptime guarantee of 99.9% and it managed to keep its promise for a long time. There isn’t any downtime recorded recently by WP Engine. It is sufficent to say that it offers a reliable uptime with its 3 reliable data centres, integration with AWS and GCP, and Global CDN integration.

Alternatively, Bluehost doesn’t offer any uptime guarantee. However, that doesn’t mean their services or server uptime is compromised in any way. No, they actually offer 99.99% uptime which is way above than any other web hosting company out there. The only downfall is there is no uptime guarantee, which means in case if you ever experience any downtime, you can’t really expect any compensation in return, like other companies offer. However, they have never experienced any downtime in the past, maybe that’s why they don’t offer such claims because you might never need it in the first place.

WP Engine vs Bluehost Customer Support

Both WP Engine and Bluehost offer an outstanding knowledge base full of tutorials, guides, articles, FAQs, and so much more. They are in-depth and almost cover every topic you can ever need help with. WP Engine offers direct customer support via phone calls, ticket-based support, and live chat. Moreover, their support staff is said to be highly capable, knowledgeable, and friendly that guides you through any issue you may face, patiently.

Similarly, Bluehost also has great customer support, which is knowledgeable and friendly. They also offer multiple means of support via phone calls, live chat, and ticket-based system. Moreover, Bluehost also has an online community, which is highly active and responsive.

What are some pros and cons in WP Engine vs Bluehost?

Pros of WP Engine

• Managed and well-optimized services for wordPress sites
• Provides solid, consistent performance
• Impressive uptime of 99.9%
• Quick and easy site migration to move WordPress to a new host
• Plenty of options for performance optimization and tracking
• Great customer support

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Cons of WP Engine

• Only managed services (no dedicated or shared services available)
• Won’t fit everyone’s budget

Pros of Bluehost

• Reliable uptime and outstanding performance
• Great web hosting services like shared, dedicated, cloud-based, VPS, and managed.
• Intuitive cPanel with one-click WordPress installer
• Cloudflare CDN integration
• 30-days money back guarantee
• Security options like SSL certificate, SiteLock protection, unique IP address, etc.
• Impeccable customer support
• Affordable hosting plans

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Cons of Bluehost

• Only Linux-based hosting, windows hosting is not available
• Manual daily backups
• Charges a fee for site migration

What is WP Engine vs Bluehost Pricing?

WP Engine pricing

Since, WP Engine only offers managed plans, its pricing is pretty easy to understand. It mainly offers 4 plans as follows-

1. StartUp: It is available at just $30 a month for 1 website, 10 GB storage, and 50 GB bandwidth. Moreover, you get an SSL certificate, access to a global CDN, and other additional features. It is suitable if you have 25000 monthly visitors.
2. Growth: It is available at $115 a month for 10 websites, unlimited storage, and unmetered bandwidth. Moreover, you get access to a global CDN and dedicated 24/7 phone support. It is suitable if you have 100000 monthly visitors.
3. Scale:  It is available at $290 a month for with identical resources as the previous plan, however, it bumps up your site capacity to 30 websites. It is suitable if you have 400000 monthly visitors.
4. Premium and Enterprise: You need to connect to their customer support for its pricing as it is a custom plan for every customer according to their requirements. It is suitable if you have millions of monthly visitors.

Bluehost Pricing

Bluehost offers shared hosting packages suitable for entry-level websites. Their shared hosting is available in 3 main packages-

1. Basic: It is available at just $2.95 a month. Nonetheless, this package offers one domain, 25 sub-domains, 5 email accounts, 50 GB storage, etc.
2. Plus: It is available at just $5.45 a month , which includes unlimited web space, bandwidth, and email accounts. Moreover, it offers standardized performance and prioritized customer support.
3. Prime: It is available at just $5.45 a month but its renewal pricing is higher than Plus plan. You get all the feature that Plus plan offers, along with domain privacy and SiteBackup Pro as extras.

WP Engine vs Bluehost Comparison Table (2020)

Still not clear about the differences? Read the below comparison to learn what the differences are in brief-