Choosing the right web hosting service for your website can be overwhelming. You might wonder if opting for a cheaper option means sacrificing performance, or if a higher-priced service guarantees better security and features.
Today, we’re comparing two popular hosting providers: Bluehost and Cloudways. We’ll look at factors like pricing, user experience, performance, security, and more to help you make an informed decision.
Read on for a detailed comparison between Bluehost and Cloudways to see which one comes out on top.
Bluehost vs. Cloudways
Bluehost and Cloudways are established names in the web hosting industry, each boasting over a decade of experience.
Bluehost, founded in 2003, comes highly recommended by WordPress’s core developers, a rare endorsement that speaks to its reliability and deep integration with the platform. Besides its popular shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting solutions, Bluehost now offers cloud hosting for more scalable and flexible hosting environments.
In contrast, Cloudways, founded in 2012, has carved out a niche in managed cloud hosting. With a focus on simplicity and ease of use, Cloudways offers a platform that allows users to easily set up, manage, and scale their applications.
Both hosting platforms have developed their own unique features to improve their offerings and stay competitive in the market. For instance, Bluehost offers a user-friendly cPanel interface and integrates seamlessly with WordPress, providing automatic installations and updates. Meanwhile, Cloudways offers a choice of five cloud server providers, including AWS and Google Cloud.
Your choice between Bluehost and Cloudways will depend on which provider’s specific features and strengths align best with your business needs and hosting preferences.
Bluehost vs. Cloudways: Plans
Bluehost offers a variety of hosting services. This variety ensures that users of all sizes—from small bloggers to large enterprises—can find a service that matches their needs.
On the other hand, Cloudways focuses entirely on cloud hosting. They provide a platform that works with different cloud providers to give you a hosting setup that you can customize and scale according to your needs.
Let’s look at the comparison table between the two providers.
| Features | Bluehost | Cloudways |
| Hosting services | Shared, Cloud, VPS, Dedicated, Managed WordPress, WooCommerce | Cloud hosting |
| Starting price | $2.95/month | $10/month |
| Free domain name | Yes | No |
| Control panel | cPanel | Customizable console |
| Ease of use | Beginner-friendly | Requires some technical knowledge |
| Money back guarantee | Yes | No |
| Support | Phone, live chat, email, and knowledge base | Live chat, ticket system, and knowledge base |
Bluehost vs. Cloudways: Pricing
When deciding on a hosting provider, it’s important to balance features and support with your budget. While it’s wonderful to have excellent features and support, it’s also smart to stay within your budget and pick a provider that gives you the best value for your money.
Bluehost
Bluehost offers affordable and transparent pricing for several hosting options including shared hosting, cloud hosting, dedicated hosting, VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting, WordPress hosting, and WooCommerce hosting.
| Hosting Type | RAM | Processor | Storage | Bandwidth |
| Shared | Shared | Shared | 50 GB – Unlimited | Unmetered |
| Cloud | 2-10 GB per site | 2-10 vCPUs (up to 110 in bursts) | 10 GB – 225 GB SSD | Unmetered |
| Dedicated | 52 GB – 128 GB DDR5 | 8 – 32 CPUs | 1000 GB – 3000 GB NVMe | Unmetered |
| VPS | 4 GB – 16 GB DDR5 | 2 – 8 vCPUs | 100 GB – 400 GB NVMe | Unmetered |
| WordPress | Shared | Shared | 50 GB – Unlimited | Unmetered |
| WooCommerce | Shared | Shared | 100 GB – Unlimited | Unmetered |
For the most up-to-date pricing and offers, visit Bluehost’s Pricing Page and check out the plan that fits your needs and budget.
Cloudways
Cloudways offers managed hosting solutions by using the infrastructure of various cloud providers such as DigitalOcean, AWS (Amazon Web Services), and Google Cloud.
| Cloud provider | Price (per month) | RAM | Processor | Storage | Bandwidth |
| DigitalOcean | $14 – $487 | 1 – 64 GB | 1 – 15 Core | 25 – 1280 GB | 1 – 9 TB |
| AWS | $38.56 – $ $3569.98 | 2 – 384 GB | 2 – 96 Core | 20 GB | 2 GB |
| Google Cloud | $37.45 – $1593.58 | 1.75 – 64 GB | 1 –64 Core | 20 GB | 2 GB |
Bluehost vs. Cloudways: Features
As you explore different web hosting options, it’s important to understand the variety of features they offer to help you make the best decision. Take a closer look at how Bluehost and Cloudways stack up across key features.
Website builder
Creating a website doesn’t have to be hard anymore. With a website builder, you can easily launch your website without spending a lot of time or effort.
Bluehost simplifies the website creation process with WonderSuite, an intuitive website builder that is included in all hosting plans. WonderSuite provides a simple interface where you can choose from various templates and customize your site by adding, moving, and editing elements like text and images. It works smoothly with the WordPress editor, which means you can seamlessly transition between WonderSuite and WordPress.
WonderSuite comes with a whole suite of AI tools to help you build and optimize your new website. Simply answer a few questions about your business and experience the power of AI to create a website in a matter of seconds!
Unlike Bluehost, Cloudways doesn’t have its own website builder. However, it supports popular platforms like WordPress, Magento, and Joomla, which come with their own built-in tools for site creation and are compatible with third-party website builders.
eCommerce and marketing
Bluehost offers great eCommerce support, especially with its WooCommerce hosting plans made for WordPress. These plans enhance site security and reliability by including a free SSL certificate and a dedicated IP.
Bluehost also provides various marketing tools to help you connect with your audience. These include SEO tools to enhance your search engine rankings, Google My Business to make it easier for local customers to find you, and email marketing solutions to keep your customers updated.
Cloudways, while not offering direct marketing tools, excels in hosting eCommerce platforms, especially WooCommerce and Magento. They focus more on providing a super-fast and reliable hosting environment, along with integrations for marketing tools and analytics.
Content Delivery Networks (CDN)
If you want to make your website load faster and perform better for people all around the world, using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) can help.
Bluehost offers built-in CDN capabilities through a partnership with Cloudflare. It lets you easily set up a CDN right from your hosting dashboard. This feature is especially beneficial if you want to enhance user experience by speeding up content delivery across different geographical locations.
Similarly, Cloudways offers a CDN service through StackPath (formerly MaxCDN) to enhance loading speeds and site performance globally. Activating this service is easy with the Cloudways control panel. It’s a great option for websites targeting an international audience.
Website migration
Moving your website from one host to another needs careful planning and execution to avoid any negative impact on your site’s performance and search engine ranking.
Both Bluehost and Cloudways offer free site migration plugin along with round-the-clock customer support to ensure that your website transition is seamless.
Free and professional email accounts
Professional email remains a crucial part of the marketing strategy for many small and medium-sized businesses. This is why Bluehost includes free email accounts with its hosting plans, which might be sufficient for your basic needs. For more advanced features, you can upgrade to professional email services powered by Microsoft 365. This upgrade makes email management easier and improves team collaboration capabilities.
Unfortunately, Cloudways doesn’t offer direct email hosting. Instead, they recommend using a third-party provider like Rackspace to handle your email needs. While this means an additional cost, it allows for seamless integration of email services with your hosting setup.
Bluehost vs. Cloudways: Performance
Choosing the right web hosting service is critical as its performance directly impacts your website’s efficiency and speed. High-performing web hosts ensure faster loading times and more reliable access.
Let’s explore how Bluehost and Cloudways compare across two performance indicators.
Load time
Load time is critical as it affects user experience and SEO rankings. Faster websites not only retain visitors better but also tend to rank better in search engine results.
Bluehost uses various technologies to optimize load times, including SSD storage, caching solutions, and a Content Delivery Network (CDN) with their higher-tier plans.
Furthermore, their VPS and Dedicated server is equipped with the latest generation hardware, which includes an ultra-fast NVMe Storage Drives, an AMD EPYC 9534 CPU chips, a PCIe 5.0. Plus, additional dedicated resources are also provided for dedicated servers. This reduces latency, speeds up data processing, and ensures faster data transfer, all of which contribute to enhanced uptime and reliability by minimizing potential hardware-related disruptions.
Meanwhile, Cloudways leverages the infrastructure of major cloud providers which often results in faster load times. Their platform is designed to offer scalable and optimized hosting solutions.
Uptime
Uptime is a measure of reliability, indicating the percentage of time a hosting service keeps websites accessible and running.
While both Bluehost and Cloudways aim to offer high uptime guarantees, Bluehost sets itself apart with its recent introduction of Bluehost Cloud hosting, which comes with a zero-downtime guarantee, ensuring 100% network availability. This means that your site is guaranteed to be online at all times, surpassing Cloudways’ 99.9% uptime guarantee.
Bluehost vs. Cloudways: Ease of use
When comparing web hosting services like Bluehost and Cloudways, ease of use is a critical factor, especially for beginners or those who prefer a more straightforward management experience.
Let’s take a look at how both platforms stack up in terms of user-friendliness, interface design, and the management tools they offer.
User interface
Bluehost offers a user-friendly interface that is ideal for beginners. The control panel is a customized version of the cPanel, known for its intuitive layout and easy navigation. Users have access to comprehensive tools for domain management, email setup, application installation, and back-end website control—all from a single dashboard.
Cloudways, on the other hand, uses a proprietary control panel designed to manage cloud servers. While it might not be as familiar to new users as cPanel, it provides powerful tools tailored for managing a cloud hosting environment efficiently. This includes easy scaling of resources, setting up advanced caching solutions, and server monitoring. However, there might be a steeper learning curve compared to traditional shared hosting options.
Setup process
Setting up a hosting account and launching a website can be daunting for beginners. Bluehost simplifies this process significantly by offering user-friendly tools. When you sign up, you have access to a website builder that makes it easy to design your site without any technical skills. Bluehost also provides a one-click WordPress installation, which allows you to quickly set up and start using one of the most popular website platforms with minimal effort.
Cloudways offers a more hands-on setup experience that might appeal more to tech-savvy users. While it does provide a straightforward application installation via a one-click installer for popular CMSs like WordPress, the initial server setup and application management require a more detailed understanding of cloud environments.
Management tools
Both platforms offer a range of tools to help manage websites, but their approaches differ. Bluehost provides integrated access to numerous site management tools and scripts that can automate complex tasks. These include backups, security management, and performance checks, which are accessible directly from the hosting dashboard.
Cloudways excels with its advanced management tools that provide more control over the hosting environment. These tools include automated backups, real-time monitoring, and the ability to tweak server settings directly from the dashboard. The platform’s emphasis on performance and scalability also means that users have better control over site optimization through caching and other technical settings.
Bluehost vs. Cloudways: Customer support
While many hosting companies advertise 24/7 support, the quality and accessibility of this support can vary significantly. Often, what is promised as round-the-clock help may only be basic email support or automated phone systems that provide limited assistance.
With Bluehost Cloud, you can expect a more robust support system. They provide 24/7 access not just via email, but also through live chat and phone support, which means you can speak to a WordPress expert for help at any time. This is particularly beneficial if you’re dealing with urgent issues that require immediate attention. Also, Bluehost provides various articles, video tutorials, and step-by-step guides that can help you solve common issues without having to wait for a response.
Cloudways offers a different kind of support structure. They provide 24/7 support through live chat, phone, and a ticketing system. For those who need more detailed technical help, Cloudways has a premium support option that offers quicker responses and access to more experienced support engineers. This service is particularly useful for handling complex issues that can arise with cloud hosting platforms.
Who’s the best web hosting provider? Bluehost vs. Cloudways
While both Bluehost and Cloudways offer robust hosting solutions, Bluehost stands out as the preferable choice for those who value simplicity, affordability, and comprehensive support. Its platform is easy to use, with a clear integration with popular website platforms such as WordPress.
Bluehost provides a range of hosting plans to suit different needs and budgets, from shared hosting suitable for smaller websites to dedicated hosting for larger sites with more traffic. This range ensures that whether you’re starting a new blog or managing an online store, there’s a plan that meets your needs.
If you prioritize an easy-to-use interface, straightforward application setup, and excellent support at a reasonable price, Bluehost is the best choice for you.
Bluehost vs. Cloudways FAQs
Which hosting service is better for WordPress websites, Bluehost or Cloudways?
For WordPress websites, Bluehost is particularly strong due to its deep integration with WordPress, offering specialized hosting that includes automatic WordPress installation, updates, and expert support.
While Cloudways also supports WordPress well, Bluehost’s tailored WordPress plans, inclusive of features like one-click staging and the inclusion of a free domain, make it a superior choice for users looking for a seamless WordPress experience.
What are the main differences between a hosting server provided by Bluehost and Cloudways?
The main difference between Bluehost and Cloudways lies in the nature of the hosting infrastructure each offers. Bluehost provides a range of hosting options, including shared, VPS, dedicated servers, and now cloud hosting as well. This variety ensures that Bluehost can cater to everyone from beginners needing simple, affordable options to large enterprises requiring dedicated resources.
In contrast, Cloudways focuses only on managed cloud hosting. Users can choose from major cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud, and Digital Ocean.
Can Bluehost and Cloudways handle e-commerce websites effectively?
Both platforms are capable, but Bluehost particularly excels with its WooCommerce hosting solutions. These plans are specifically optimized for eCommerce, including features that enhance security, improve load times, and streamline the shopping experience.
Cloudways also supports eCommerce applications effectively. However, Bluehost’s integration with additional marketing tools, exclusive YITH plugins, and dedicated WooCommerce expertise provide an edge for online store owners.
What are the advantages of using Bluehost for WordPress hosting compared to other providers?
Bluehost is officially recommended by WordPress.org, which is a testament to its optimized WordPress hosting capabilities. Advantages include a user-friendly dashboard, scalability options that grow with your needs, comprehensive security measures, and a suite of WordPress-centric tools.
Additionally, Bluehost’s customer support is tailored to WordPress, offering specialized assistance that can be a major benefit for users ranging from beginners to advanced developers.
