HostGator vs BlueHost

[cdnbigd]

Hey Guys,

I'm a complete newb to domaining and only have just purchased my first domain. I'm planning on getting into either flipping or niche sites, either way, I'll slowly collect more domains.

Which host would you pick? I narrowed down dozens to these two: HostGator or BlueHost. They are both affordable at around $6/mo or $8/mo and both seem to have identical features. I think BlueHost requires you to be with them for min of 1yr vs I can do month by month with HostGator.

Thanks!

 

[ezcoms]

I had a Hostgator reseller account for 2 years. Until recently, their service was very good. Their support declined and they wouldn't move me into a VPS and only would let me move to a dedicated server which I knew I didn't need. I am with Digital Ocean now and I love it... Check it out.

 

[joshny]

I am talking about Plans with Unlimited hosted Domains as domainers would rarely host just one domain, so here it is
I personally preffered BlueHost over HostGator , now I know that both of them are EIG Brands, but even then there was a difference of service, Hostgator service was excellent a couple of years back , but it's deteriorated over time and that has been the case for BH too but I had less number of issues with BH,
I also had a VPS with godaddy, which was also not bad, and the pricing of Godaddy was the best with lots of 50-65% coupons always available.

I would recommend going for a mid sized recommended hosting company, but only use it if you really trust it.
Other wise go for Godaddy shared/dedicated hosting (if you have lots of traffic & data) if you are really concerned about price.
Bluehost is a go if you are concerned about quality, but let me warn you , recently lots of customers have started having the up-time issue, since sites are down, on both HG and BH

Hope it helps

 

[euro-space]

Yes currently my websites are hosted with Zettahost.com, and Waxspace.com
They both are really good

Your websites are on completely different provider as I see... but anyway, actually I was asking RobertFrench, or are you both same person here?

 

[carob]

Godaddy hosting disables the mailing function in php so your contact forms do not work.

 

[euro-space]

Godaddy hosting disables the mailing function in php so your contact forms do not work.

That could be crucial for most websites.. But I guess you can use smtp instead, or not?

 

[dadiehost]

I would suggest Hostgator.com

 

[RU]

I like Hostgator. The best support ever. Realy fast hosting provider.
Currently i use Godaddy for my hosting (ultimate plan), but 43 port blocked (need for whois service)

BTW, how about DigitalOcean - $5/mo (512MBMemory, 1 CoreProcessor, 20GBSSD Disk, 1TBTransfer)

 

[enlytend]

I like Hostgator. The best support ever.

Seriously????? Have you used their support lately? Because my latest experience was with an idiot tech who BROKE a bunch of MY sites, while cluelessly attempting to fix an error caused by THEM not recreating a setting when they moved my sites to a different IP/server.

The problem was very OBVIOUSLY a permission issue related to getting data from a remote server.. To be exact, my pages had PHP code which invokes curl to display product listings from (Rakuten) Popshops. This is standard Popshops code and had been working like clockwork for YEARS until it suddenly stopped working. I verified that it was working fine on a site hosted elsewhere, so definitely a Hostgator issue.

When something "breaks" suddenly, the first thing you should always ask is "what changed?" And Hostgator had recently moved my sites...

So I opened a ticket carefully explaining the whole issue. What does support-drone do? Removes a bunch of my .htaccess files! Because ...??? Broke a bunch of rewrites and redirects. Nice. Now on top of the missing products, I had entire URL's returning 404s. WTG.

Finally got Popshops talking to them - sure enough, problem with a setting on Hostgator's end.

Oh - and they didn't copy my .htaccess files back after their little "experiment". Left that to me.

If that support-drone were working for me I'd fire their a** for playing a guessing game with the client's account instead of escalating to someone with half a clue.

I still have an account with them (I have accounts at several hosts, some good, some not so much ... they're OK-ish if you don't need support), but they definitely went down the tubes since EIG took over. I can't imagine Bluehost is any better.

 

[RU]

Seriously????? Have you used their support lately? Because my latest experience was with an idiot tech who BROKE a bunch of MY sites, while cluelessly attempting to fix an error caused by THEM not recreating a setting when they moved my sites to a different IP/server.

The problem was very OBVIOUSLY a permission issue related to getting data from a remote server.. To be exact, my pages had PHP code which invokes curl to display product listings from (Rakuten) Popshops. This is standard Popshops code and had been working like clockwork for YEARS until it suddenly stopped working. I verified that it was working fine on a site hosted elsewhere, so definitely a Hostgator issue.

When something "breaks" suddenly, the first thing you should always ask is "what changed?" And Hostgator had recently moved my sites...

So I opened a ticket carefully explaining the whole issue. What does support-drone do? Removes a bunch of my .htaccess files! Because ...??? Broke a bunch of rewrites and redirects. Nice. Now on top of the missing products, I had entire URL's returning 404s. WTG.

Finally got Popshops talking to them - sure enough, problem with a setting on Hostgator's end.

Oh - and they didn't copy my .htaccess files back after their little "experiment". Left that to me.

If that support-drone were working for me I'd fire their a** for playing a guessing game with the client's account instead of escalating to someone with half a clue.

I still have an account with them (I have accounts at several hosts, some good, some not so much ... they're OK-ish if you don't need support), but they definitely went down the tubes since EIG took over. I can't imagine Bluehost is any better.

Sorry to hear that. My Hostgator experience was two years ago in 2012 and i had no problem with them.

 

[Hostingsource]

Do not go to the sites that say top 10 hosting or anything of the likes because those are affiliate sites and for them the best host will be the one that pays them the most for passing you on to them.

 

[euro-space]

It's easy to recognize affiliated sites or paid posts on forums, as they usually starting thread about particular hosting company(ies) describing their services as best and asking others about their opinion

 

[dompro]

any sharing hosting will suck when:
a) your usage goes over what they believe is reasonable for unlimited hosting and they will ask you to stop using it or upgrade OR
b) when they add so many accounts on one server making it so slow you would want to look elsewhere yourself
with that said, I would go with HostGator as more mature host

 

[euro-space]

Adding to above, it's better in most cases to get reliable VPS hosting, of course you may need to have some knowledge in servers, or, your provider should help you in setting up and run your VPS, so does the reputable hosting company you can rely on.

 

[packet3]

Hostgator and Bluehost seem to have a lot of issues nowadays so I would be careful, and look for reviews, Best of luck with choosing your new host

 

[Jiligite]

Do not go to the sites that say top 10 hosting or anything of the likes because those are affiliate sites and for them the best host will be the one that pays them the most for passing you on to them.

 

[Scattered]

There is always a trade-off. At least for me. There's no way I can afford to put all my sites on my "ideal" web hosts. For sites that are not so critical, I am willing to pay a cheaper price at the cost of a little more "down" time and inconvenience than my more important sites.

 

[kambone]

HostGator and BlueHost are the same company, sharing the same support staff and the same infrastructure in EIG's Utah DataCenter.
So whoever of these two you pick it will suck equally
There are much better providers out there, like MDD, KnownHost, LiquidWeb, HawkHost, etc.

 

[JB Lions]

Hostgator have had for a long time, generally good. Have stood up to traffic of 100,000+ in a day a few times.

Bluehost sucks, I'm experiencing how much they suck right now. Stay away from them. 14 hours and counting with all sites down.

My next hosting will be an non EIG company.

 

[dna]

I would avoid HostGator. They changed servers on my websites and infected all my websites with viruses. When I complained they said that I had infected their server and threatened to charge me to clean the viruses from my websites and said my websites were a threat to their server. I thing is, I hadn't uploaded any changes to my websites in over 2 years, so I couldn't have infected their server. I would never use Hostgator again.

 

[euro-space]

I would avoid HostGator. They changed servers on my websites and infected all my websites with viruses. When I complained they said that I had infected their server and threatened to charge me to clean the viruses from my websites and said my websites were a threat to their server. I thing is, I hadn't uploaded any changes to my websites in over 2 years, so I couldn't have infected their server. I would never use Hostgator again.

Most probably your websites were really infected, as you said, two years are very long time to keep scripts without changes and security updates, so if there were some hacking attempts your scripts were most probably vulnerable.
However, it is the last thing a reputable hosting provider would accuse their customer to be a reason of their trouble, but they must perform security patches and server hardening instead of hanging trouble to a client.