Narrowing down your list and ending up still undecided between the best WordPress web hosting providers is common. Users across the globe find choosing between DreamHost and Bluehost intimidating and confusing.
After looking through their features, the decision gets even harder to make.
Rather than focusing on the features, we have focused on the differences that each of the web hosting providers have, which will make your decision crystal clear.
Choosing a web host depends on the kind of website you own and your purpose.
Keeping every crucial web hosting feature in mind, we have written this detailed comparison of DreamHost vs Bluehost.
We have compared all-important web hosting aspects such as performance & speed, features offered, scalability, pricing, customer support, and so on.
Continue reading further to learn which web hosting provider, DreamHost or Bluehost, is worth a try.
Here’s a quick index to help you navigate this article:
So let’s dive in.
DreamHost Web Hosting Overview
DreamHost is an award-winning web hosting provider that has been in the field for over 18 years now. DreamHost is well known for its secure web hosting that’s easy to use.
This beginner-friendly web hosting provider offers multiple solutions for any kind of website at affordable pricing. Your site runs lightning-fast with the help of their potent and speedy servers.
The reason why DreamHost is the user’s number one choice is:
- You get 24/7 expert solutions to tackle all the possible problems that you might face in your web hosting experience.
- A powerful and user-friendly interface for getting comfortable and quick access to any feature of your website.
- DreamHost offers excellent domain management tools to facilitate easy management of your domain and website.
- 100% uptime guarantee on all plans.
Check out our DreamHost Coupon to get exclusive discounts on DreamHost hosting.
Bluehost Hosting Overview
Bluehost has been a center of attraction for a long time when it comes to web hosting. Bluehost does not miss any chance to top a user’s best web hosting list.
Hosting over millions of websites on their servers, they have overthrown all the various web hosting providers in the market with their excellent speed, customer support, security options, and free domain names.
Let us put a spotlight on some of the features that Bluehost offers.
- BlueHost offers one of the best uptimes and fast servers that boost up your overall performance.
- You get a free domain name on all the plans for a year.
- World’s best support team that is available for you 24/7 any time, any day.
- Free website building tools and marketing credits to help your website reach your audience better.
Check out our Bluehost Coupon to get exclusive discounts on DreamHost hosting plans.
DreamHost vs Bluehost: Features Comparison
As much as the speed affects your website, features hold equal importance in improving or degrading your website’s performance.
Both DreamHost and Bluehost are feature-rich web hosting providers. They both offer some of the best features for your website.
However, the features vary based on the plan, but for this comparison, we are going to focus on the features offered on the shared web hosting plans.
DreamHost
- DreamHost offers a free WordPress website builder on all the plans to make sure you are building your website with ease.
- Rather than taking additional dollars from your pocket, you get unmetered bandwidth on all the plans that you opt for. This feature can save you a lot of money while helping your website flourish at the same time.
- Both the shared web hosting plans offer daily backups to keep your data safe and secure.
- To add more security features, DreamHost also offers automatic WordPress updates with free SSL.
- To make you more professional, DreamHost lets you create unlimited email accounts with your domain name on the shared unlimited plan.
- DreamHost keeps your satisfaction before money, that is why you get a 97 days money-back guarantee on all the plans.
Bluehost
- To make sure that your website looks extraordinary, you can edit and make changes on your site any time with the staging environment, which gives you a front-end look at your website.
- You get unlimited bandwidth on all the plans so that you can focus on making your website better without worrying about exceeding your limit.
- If you are looking to switch from your current host to Bluehost, you can opt for site migration with the experts at $99.99.
- For your satisfaction. Bluehost offers a 30 days money-back guarantee on all the plans.
- Bluehost offers top-notch security options on all the plans and provides you free SSL certification to keep you and your audience safe.
- Your website needs adequate marketing, that is why Bluehost offers you a free $200 credit with Google Adwords.
Bluehost offers some of the premium tools that DreamHost lacks. If you are looking for excellent features, Bluehost is the best choice and a clear winner of this round.
DreamHost vs Bluehost: Speed & Performance
Since the beginning of launching your website, your primary motive has been finding a host that offers reliable web hosting and good speed to keep your site running.
Slow speed can lead to a tremendous loss for your website. Luckily, both DreamHost and Bluehost offer reliable web hosting.
DreamHost
DreamHost delivers strong performance for your website, which is why it is a great web hosting provider for your website. The loading time of DreamHost is excellent.
The average loading time of DreamHost is between 0.73 -2.08 seconds. Your page loads blazing-fast for your audience with their powerful servers and data centers that are spread across the world.
DreamHost guarantees 100% uptime, irrespective of the traffic that your website is encountering. For every hour that your website is down, DreamHost adds credit for a day.
However, there are several terms and conditions to avail yourself of this credit, which make the credit receiving process inconvenient.
Bluehost
Bluehost guarantees an uptime of 99.9%, which has proven to remain constant even when the site receives a sudden spike in traffic.
If they fail to present you with excellent uptime, you can cancel your membership without incurring any fees. Moreover, you will receive the remaining refund of the plan that is left for your website.
Bluehost offers a reliable web hosting speed. The average page loading time with their server is 1.66 – 2.25 seconds, which is a bit more than the page loading time that DreamHost provides.
The US-based web hosting provider has its data centers across the globe that work hard to offer you fast uptime and speed.
Both DreamHost and Bluehost offer fast and reliable web hosting services. Although Bluehost provides an average page loading time, DreamHost wins the battle by giving impressive web page loading and uptime guarantees.
DreamHost vs Bluehost: Scalability
Every beginner needs to change their plans according to the changes that your website goes through.
Similarly, every advanced user also needs to choose a web hosting provider that lets them quickly downgrade their plan if things take a wrong turn.
It is crucial that the web host that you decide to go with offers various scalability options for your website. Let us look at the scalability options of DreamHost and Bluehost.
DreamHost
DreamHost offers various hosting plans that fit your website’s size and niche. You can easily upgrade and downgrade your plans with DreamHost.
DreamHost offers WordPress hosting, Website builder, shared hosting, dedicated hosting, and virtual private servers (VPS).
If you are using a shared web hosting plan and looking forward to upgrading your project, you can easily upgrade by paying the difference of the amount between your current policy and the upgrade plan.
Bluehost
Bluehost also offers various hosting plans according to the size and requirements of the users. Bluehost provides multiple solutions such as shared web hosting, WordPress hosting, dedicated hosting, and VPS hosting.
There is no contract to lock you in with a specific web hosting plan, so you can upgrade your plan any time easily. To upgrade, you need not be charged above the pro-rata cost.
Both DreamHost and Bluehost offer an easy upgrade and plenty of scalability options. To decide a winner of this battle is difficult, and that is why the round calls for a tie between DreamHost and Bluehost.
DreamHost or Bluehost: Beginner-friendliness
Choosing a beginner friendly web hosting provider that offers an easy to use interface makes managing your website hassle-free.
An easy to use interface will allow you to set up your site quickly and manage and access any tools that you need at a click of the button.
Beginner-friendliness is a crucial aspect, as it ensures that your website is functioning well and providing maximum capacity.
On the bright side, DreamHost and Bluehost offer an easy to use cPanel and dashboard. Let us walk through the details of the user experience below.
DreamHost
Getting started with DreamHost is extremely easy. With a one-click WordPress installation, your website is all set to go.
The startup wizard walks you through the website building process by helping you choose a theme, create a new page, and a lot more.
It offers a quick sign up process, after which you can easily access your control panel. The control panel is designed to the industry standards that deliver the best performance that your website needs.
The cPanel is extremely easy to use. Even if you are just starting, it will take only a few seconds to understand the working of this panel.
You can easily access various tools right from the dashboard. It provides you all the access to your account and displays all the details regarding the hosting plan, domain name, and other relevant information.
Additionally, you can also create a new website, add more database and files, and a lot more at just a click of a button. Moreover, it also lets you build your website from scratch right from your dashboard.
Bluehost
Bluehost offers a sleek and clean interface design that helps with navigating various tools quickly and faster than DreamHost.
Comparatively, the user interface of Bluehost is more transparent and easily accessible. The dashboard is designed with minimal yet essential details that your website needs.
The dashboard displays all the required options on the left that give you immediate access to various parts of your website. With one-click WordPress installation, Bluehost automatically sets up your WordPress website.
After the installation of WordPress, Bluehost also installs the Bluehost menu, which comes in handy for beginners who find the installation of WordPress confusing.
You can create several pages, access any file, manage lists, install plugins and various themes, create a staging area, and a lot more from this menu.
Overall, Bluehost offers a better and more comfortable user experience compared to DreamHost.
DreamHost vs Bluehost: Pricing Comparison
The web hosting provider must offer a budget pricing plan. Too expensive pricing plans and too cheap pricing plans leave you questioning the web host. Therefore, the web host must provide programs that provide value for money.
DreamHost and Bluehost offer cheap web hosting plans. Keep in mind, the price depends on the plan you go for. In this comparison, we are going to compare their cheapest web hosting plans that you can get started with.
DreamHost
- Shared starter – $2.59/month: This low-tier plan is the best choice to enter DreamHost with the cheapest pricing. The plan is perfect for startups, as it lets you host one website along with providing you with key features, such as a free domain, unlimited traffic, SSD storage, and more.
- Shared unlimited – $4.95/month: This plan offers the best value for money. With affordable pricing, you get some of the key features in the package, such as hosting of unlimited websites, creation of unlimited email with your free domain name, unlimited traffic, and more so that your website runs perfectly with DreamHost.
The pricing plan differs based on the plan that you opt for. The pricing plan mentioned above is for three years.
However, DreamHost offers the freedom to choose from annual plans, 3-year plans, and monthly plans.
Here is a rough breakdown of the plans and pricing.
- Monthly – $10.95/month.
- Annually – $5.95/month
- Three years – $4.95/month
BlueHost
- Basic – $2.95/month: The basic plan is the cheapest plan to enter Bluehost. The plan gives you 50GB storage, hosting of one website, unmetered bandwidth, free SSL certificate, and more.
- Plus – $5.45/month: The plus plan offers unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, and a free SSL certificate at affordable pricing. With this plan, you also receive tight security features known as spam Experts and office 365 Microsoft.
- Choice plus – $5.45/month: The choice plus plan offers the best value for money. You get all the features of the original, and Bluehost recommends it. You get unlimited resources with this plan and better performance than basic plan and plus plans, along with top-notch security.
- Pro – $13.95/month: This plan is the best for large enterprises/website owners. Out of all the other plans, this plan delivers the highest performance. The key takeaway of this plan is that you get a dedicated IP with this plan along with two Spam Experts.
Related Content: Secure A WordPress Website
As stated for DreamHost, the pricing depends on the period of plan that you opt for; Bluehost follows the same approach.
You have the liberty to choose the period of your hosting, and the charges vary accordingly.
Here is an overview of the other pricing options.
- One year: $7.45/month
- 24 months -$6.95/moth
- 26 months -$5.45/month.
Both DreamHost and Bluehost attract their audience with their low pricing plans, and later the plans renew for a higher amount. Both web hosting providers offer the same pricing plans.
DreamHost vs Bluehost: Customer Support Options
Any great web hosting provider offers top-notch customer support. The primary aim for any web hosting provider should be customer satisfaction and meeting their requirements.
The same ideology goes for DreamHost and Bluehost. Let us have a look into what the customer support options are that you will be given once you start hosting with them.
DreamHost
DreamHost offers 24/7 customer support around the clock through live chat, phone, and email. However, live chat is only accessible when there are not enough people to handle ticketing queries.
DreamHost charges a ‘call back fee,’ which gives you 24/7 access to live chat support.
DreamHost is packed with documentation support through various means. You can access their web hosting manual, which contains multiple how-to articles, guides, troubleshooting guides, hacks and tricks, and more.
Once you start organizing your website or blog with DreamHost, they will walk you through all the processes without any hassle. You can also head straight to their twitter to solve your queries.
Bluehost
Bluehost offers one of the best customer supports. You can reach the team 24/7 through email, live chat, and telephone, and through members-only forums.
Bluehost also allows you to raise tickets to solve your queries according to your preference.
There are hundreds of tutorials and guides offered by Bluehost to make the setting up and managing processes easier.
Bluehost’s knowledge base contains several helpful articles for users who like to solve problems on their own. There are several FAQs available to clear up your issues on their official website.
Both DreamHost and Bluehost offer excellent customer support. However, Bluehost’s customer support is much better, as they provide multiple options on all kinds of plans.
Final Verdict on DreamHost vs Bluehost
Based on the above comparison of Bluehost vs DreamHost, you must have an idea regarding which web hosting provider fits all the needs of your website.
Based on the features and other aspects that both of them offer, Bluehost has more advantages than DreamHost.
Bluehost is an excellent choice, especially with its cleaner interface, 24/7 outstanding support team, scalability options, backups, and, most importantly, their cheap web hosting plans that cover all your needs.
Similarly, you can go for DreamHost if you are looking for better security options and a more extended money-back guarantee from your web hosting provider, but only if you are ready to compromise various aspects that your website will lack with DreamHost.
What fits for one person does not work for another. In the end, you need to choose the web hosting provider that covers your requirements.
We hope our DreamHost vs Bluehost review comes in handy for you, and you can decide your web hosting provider.
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