Bluehost and Wix are the two platforms that are shaping the web building industry although in a bit different way. Our today’s rivals have certainly something to offer.
Use ultimate all-in-one solution to build, host, and manage your site or benefit from a more flexible platform. The most popular web hosting delivers maximum speed, performance, and security.
Want to build a new website but don’t know where to start? That’s why we compared Bluehost vs. Wix, so you can find out which of the two is the perfect fit for your project.
Your first order of business is to look for a good hosting provider (Either you’ll go with Wix or Bluehost, they are both great choices, so you can jump to the next step already), and then try to figure out what CMS (Content Management System) you want to use to build your website.
With hosting providers like Wix, you don’t have to think too much about the second part because the company only allows you to work with its own website builder. Meanwhile, providers such as Bluehost are more flexible in that regard and give you more options to work with, but, you will need to figure out how to use the third-party CMS on your own.
So is it better to have more flexibility or is an all-in-one package a preferable option? That’s one of the many questions I plan on answering in this article and the best way of doing that is by comparing Bluehost and Wix in-depth.
A quick snapshot
Bluehost
Bluehost– is one of the 20 biggest hosting providers across the globe powering more than 2,000 000 domains. The company offers a variety of server solutions for various needs as well as WordPress-optimized hosting that leverages the complexity of using traditional CMS platforms. It boasts great performance, stability, integration speed, and ease of use.
Wix
Wix is the most popular website builder that comes as a ready-to-use web instrument to create, deploy, and manage online projects from scratch. The system has almost 3.5 million of live sites in addition to 154 million of subscribers. Wix has a growing community of users and offers top-notch website building technologies and AI-based tools to ensure the hassle-free process for users of any level.
Bluehost vs. Wix: Beginner Friendliness
Building a solid website from the ground up takes a lot of time and effort, especially if you plan to constantly update it with fresh new content, which you should. That’s why when choosing between Wix vs. Bluehost you should aim to sign up with a hosting provider that has an intuitive and simple to use CMS.
Unfortunately, Wix doesn’t offer you the luxury of working with any CMS you want and the company doesn’t have a traditional cPanel either like Bluehost has. Instead, Wix uses a custom control panel designed for the management of web services rather than the actual website. You can add new content and edit pages but that’s about it.
Bluehost is objectively better than Wix when it comes to ease of use. First off, you do get access to a cPanel here, which is a big advantage and makes everything easier right off the bat.
You can use the cPanel to manage not just your hosting services but also your website and email client. Basically, you have access to pretty much everything you need via a simple and user-friendly interface.
It seems like the people in our Facebook group mostly (over 90%) agree with us that Bluehost is better than Wix for Beginners.
But even though the cPanel is very useful, you also have access to even better tools for managing your website and content. As mentioned, Bluehost allows you to work with any CMS, including WordPress, Magento, and Joomla. Bluehost has fantastic integration with WordPress and is actually the company’s number 1 recommended hosting provider.
WordPress is great for building and managing a wide variety of websites but if you want to create something a bit more specialized like an eCommerce platform, for example, you can also go with a different CMS like Magento, thing that you are unable to do with Wix.
Bluehost vs. Wix: Scalability
Web hosting, either you go with Wix or Bluehost, is pretty cheap nowadays but that doesn’t mean you should go for a high tier plan right off the bat unless you actually need the extra resources.
If your website is still in its infancy, you can get away with a basic hosting plan until you are able to generate more traffic. That way, you can make sure you’re not paying more than you need to and you can upgrade gradually to the higher tiers when the time comes.
Scalability is one of Bluehost’s strong suits because the company’s entry point is one of the lowest out there and you have plenty of options to choose from if you want to upgrade.
Generally speaking, you probably want to start with shared hosting and slowly make your way through the tiers until you need to switch to a VPS or dedicated server (services that Wix is not offering at all while Bluehost is well known for them).
Bluehost makes the transition seamless because there isn’t a huge price difference between the various tiers so you’re not taking a huge monetary hit whenever you upgrade. There is a noticeable price hike between the third and fourth-tiers of shared hosting but that’s only because Bluehost has a special offer for the third tier, which is very cheap considering how much you get in return. More on that a bit later.
Wix isn’t doing too badly in the scalability department either, through its entry point is higher compared to Bluehost’s. You can expect relatively small price differences between the four tiers of shared hosting but there’s no VPS or dedicated hosting here.
In other words, you’ll reach the point where it’s not possible to upgrade further much sooner than you would with Bluehost. Wix does offer a set of Business & eCommerce packages, however, these were designed to include more features and don’t feature a lot of extra resources.
Bluehost vs. Wix: Pricing
Price is one of the main things you’ll want to consider before you sign up with a hosting provider. Going with the absolute cheapest plan is not always a great idea unless you’re just starting out, however, you definitely don’t want to spend a whole lot of money right off the bat either.
It’s important to take into account the resources and features you’re going to need in order to figure out what sort of package you should go for.
If you’re looking to sign up with Bluehost, it will only set you back $2.95 per month for the Basic shared hosting plan. The next two tiers are both priced at $5.45 per month while the final one will set you back $13.95/mo.
So are the two tiers that are priced the same (Plus and Choice Plus) any different? They are indeed, with Choice Plus offering a few more useful features than its counterpart. The identical prices are only available for your first term, which can last as much as 3 years at Bluehost. After that, Choice Plus will be more expensive.
If you’re thinking long-term, I strongly suggest going with Choice Plus because it’s a fantastic deal.
Wix’s entry point is somewhat more expensive, with its shared hosting plan setting you back $4.50 per month. If you’re looking to go with a more expensive package, you can expect to fork out as much as $24.50 per month, which is quite a bit more compared to what Bluehost charges for its Pro tier.
However, that’s not all, because Wix also offers a set of packages for businesses and online stores. These plans are even pricier, with the most expensive one going for a whopping $35 per month.
Wix’s basic plan is extremely hard to recommend due to the fact that it only comes with 1 GB of bandwidth, a measly 500 MB of storage, and forces you to display Wix brand ads on your website, which cannot be removed. You’ll need to purchase at least the $8.50/tier in order to enjoy an ad-free experience and if you want unlimited bandwidth, you’ll need to go for the $12.50/mo plan.
Meanwhile, the low amount of storage space is a recurring issue that you’ll need to deal with regardless of which package you choose. At most, you can get 50 GB of storage with the $35/mo plan, which is honestly not that much in the grand scheme of things.
By comparison, Bluehost offers 50 GB of storage with its cheapest package and the company only uses fast SSD drives. You won’t have to worry about storage at all if you go with any of the other shared hosting plans because you’ll get an unlimited amount of it, along with unlimited bandwidth and support for an unlimited number of sites.
As far as some of the other features are concerned, Wix offers a free SSL certificate with all plans and a free domain name for 1 year with all packages except for the basic one. Starting with the $8.50/mo tier, Wix throws in ad vouchers and allows you to upload videos on your site.
However, you’ll need to go with one of the more expensive plans if you want to upload videos longer than 30 minutes. If you’re willing to pay for one of the higher tiers, you’ll also get access to premium apps, professional logos, priority response, and VIP support. Strangely enough, you’ll need to go for one of the Business & eCommerce packages if you want to gain access to Google Analytics.
If you sign up with Bluehost there’s no need to worry about that because you can connect Google Analytics for free to your site, along with a huge variety of other apps and services. Bluehost also offers free SSL certificates and free domain names for the first year, which are available with all plans, including the cheapest one.
All plans except the first one come with spam experts and a free month trial for Office 365 Mailbox. Meanwhile, the two most expensive plans also include a website backup tool and domain privacy while the very last tier includes a free dedicated IP as well.
Bluehost vs. Wix: SEO
These days it’s more important than ever to focus on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) if you want to attract visitors to your website.
Learning good SEO practices can take a lot of time so it’s nice when your hosting provider can give you a helping hand with that. Most companies don’t offer a lot of SEO tools but if your provider allows you to use third-party tools, you’re already in a good position.
Wix offers built-in SEO tools with its hosting plans, however, they are mainly aimed at optimizing websites as a whole rather than individual articles. These tools are great if you own a business and want your front page to rank higher in search results but they’re not very helpful if you own a news website, for example, that constantly churns out new content.
Wix’s SEO tools can get the job done but some people will find them more useful than others.
Bluehost also offers its own SEO tools, though they are only available as an optional service that costs $2 per month. However, the company allows you to use any CMS and third-party apps you want in conjunction with your hosting so I recommend just going for a WordPress site instead.
With WordPress, you can get a wide variety of SEO plugins for free, most of which will help you improve not just your website as a whole but also each individual piece of content.
Bluehost vs. Wix: Performance and Reliability
Nobody likes a website that takes ages to load or crashes just when you need it the most. If you’re going with a provider like Bluehost there are quite a few things you can do to improve your site’s performance and uptime.
Wix, on the other hand, doesn’t really offer you a lot of tools to work with in this area. Wix is automatically at a disadvantage because of that but let’s take a closer look at some stats in order to figure out how much Bluehost and Wix differ in terms of performance and reliability.
Speed
Bluehost absolutely shines at the moment when it comes to page loading speed, especially when compared to Wix. Websites hosted here tend to load at an average speed of around 406 ms.
Given that Bluehost offers multiple types of hosting, you may see better results on some sites than others. For example, a website that uses a shared hosting plan is likely to be slower than one that uses a dedicated server. Still, an average of 406 ms across the board is definitely very respectable.
Companies that offer all-in-one packages like Wix are always a bit slower when compared to versatile providers like Bluehost. In this particular case, the difference is pretty significant. You can expect a Wix-hosted website to load anywhere between 1.13 and 1.31 seconds, which isn’t a great result.
A little over 1 second may not seem like a big deal at first glance but consider that slow speeds are not just an inconvenience for the user, they also affect other areas like SEO.
Uptime
If you’ve been researching web hosting providers you probably noticed that most of the big ones (including Bluehost and HostGator, it’s sister-host) offer a ’99.99% uptime guarantee’. That number may differ slightly from company to company but basically, every provider claims that your site will be up and running pretty much 24/7. But the truth is that all providers experience occasional downtimes so this claim is a bit exaggerated in most cases. However, in the case of Bluehost, it’s actually true.
Bluehost’s 99.99% uptime guarantee holds up based on our data, with the company being extremely reliable in this department throughout 2019. Meanwhile, Wix offers the same guarantee but out stats show that its actual uptime is closer to 99.95%.
Again, this may seem like a small difference, however, every little bit counts in this highly competitive market. It’s enough for your site to experience just a few minutes of downtime every week to begin noticing a gradual decrease in user engagement.
Bluehost vs. Wix: Customer Support
Signing up with a provider that offers solid customer support is important for any webmaster, particularly if you’re new to web hosting. If you’re a newcomer, chances are that you don’t know how to fix the issue that may occasionally affect your website so you’ll have to rely pretty much entirely on the help provided by support agents.
You can count on both Bluehost and Wix for professional technical assistance, however, one of these companies is once again a bit more reliable than the other.
Wix offers 24/7 ticket support along with 24/7 phone support but only for English speaking customers. Phone support is also available in other languages but only during certain days of the week. If you don’t feel like waiting in line, you can get priority support by subscribing to the $24.50/mo VIP or $35/mo Business VIP hosting plans.
Doing so will allow you to benefit from priority response times on all your submitted tickets and call center requests. Wix is one of the few Bluehost alternatives that charges for priority support.
Bluehost offers 24/7 customer support via phone, tickets, and even live chat. Having the live chat option is always a huge benefit because not all customers are comfortable speaking on the phone and tickets can sometimes take a long time to get resolved.
The company also offers priority support with some of its hosting plans, including a couple of the Managed WordPress packages. For the most part, though, you don’t have to worry about priority support because Bluehost is very responsive and helpful with all its customers.
Bluehost vs. Wix: Main Differences
Wix hosts your site and has its proprietary site-builder which you have to use to add new content, edit pages, and so on.
Bluehost hosts your site, and you can use any number of different content builders, including WordPress.
Also, not that there’s anything to suggest this is going to happen, but if Wix were to close up shop someday, you’d be SOL. With Bluehost on the other hand, you can take your WordPress installation files to any other popular host out there and carry on as usual. There are tons of web hosts that you can switch to from Bluehost if you ever need to, whereas with Wix you’re locked on to their platform and if you want to change, you’ll more or less have to start over from scratch.
As far as pricing is concerned, you get a lot more for your money with Bluehost.
In this case, the point goes to Bluehost because it’s just a more wide-open platform. You can do a lot more with it, and you have a lot more control, and your website is a lot more futureproof. Also, Bluehost works very closely with WordPress and even has full-time employees working on WordPress itself, showing a strong dedication and commitment to this platform.
If you don’t understand some of the more technical stuff, that’s fine, because both hosts can help you out as far as that goes. In either case, hopefully, we’ve done an excellent job illustrating the differences between Wix and Bluehost in this overview, now let’s dig in a little bit deeper to other aspects of both hosts that are important to consider.
Watch this video to learn more about the differences between wix and bluehost.
Bluehost vs. Wix: Our Pick
People familiar with both Bluehost and Wix probably already knew how this comparison would go down. Bluehost outshines most other hosting providers out there so a company like Wix that focuses on simplicity rather than performance and versatility can’t really compete at the same level.
Still, I wanted to give Wix a fair shot regardless because the company does have certain redeeming qualities that some users will no doubt find very appealing.
Wix is a platform designed for newcomers and people who aren’t particularly tech-savvy or who simply don’t to bother with all aspects of hosting and website building. You can sign up with Wix and create a decent website in just a few minutes without having to get into the nitty-gritty of things.
You get a domain name, site builder, web hosting, and a few nice features all in one package, so what’s not to love? Well, when you break things down, it’s clear that this system has plenty of disadvantages as well.
Bluehost is comparatively a lot cheaper than Wix and outperforms it at every turn. Bluehost can make it just as easy to build a new website, particularly if you’re working with WordPress, and also offers plenty of options for advanced users.
If you need a VPS or dedicated server Bluehost is the only choice here and its shared hosting plans can give all other companies a run for their money, including Wix.
Both Wix and BlueHost are solid hosters and are trusted by all kinds of site owners across the US and beyond. They’re both rather similar and it makes them hard to compare, but BlueHost, since it has a big selection of hosting solutions and is backed by a reliable support team, is probably the best of the two.
BlueHost is also much cheaper when it comes to hosting and their packages offer greater memory, bandwidth, and overall performance. If you’re thinking of picking either of these providers, BlueHost is the winner in this face-off, since it can provide greater hosting options at a lower price than Wix.
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