Bluehost vs DigitalOcean

Bluehost may be more well-known than DigitalOcean, but it offers far less advanced hosting options. Bluehost's VPS options are much more expensive than DigitalOcean's Droplets, but they come with fewer features and performance is at most poor.

DigitalOcean, on the other hand, offers low-cost cloud hosting with a variety of add-on services. The sole disadvantage is that its Droplets are little.

You can also purchase DigitalOcean Droplets through Cloudways' managed cloud hosting. Cloudways provides the same performance, stability, and scalability as DigitalOcean, but it also handles server setup and maintenance. To see DigitalOcean's best deals, click here, or keep reading to see why I don't recommend Bluehost.

1. Plans and Pricing

DigitalOcean Is Cheaper and More Flexible Than Bluehost

DigitalOcean focuses entirely on cloud hosting, whereas Bluehost has shared, VPS, and dedicated server hosting. To keep the comparison fair, I’ve matched DigitalOcean’s Droplets (self-managed cloud servers) against Bluehost’s VPS solutions (also self-managed).

With Bluehost, there are only three VPS setups to choose from. For example, the entry-level Standard plan includes 2 vCPU, 2GB of RAM, 30GB of storage, and 1TB of bandwidth. It’s not a bad configuration, but you can get the same with DigitalOcean at a much lower cost.

Bluehost VPS Hosting

Plan NameStorageBandwidthCPURAMPriceStandard30 GB1 TB2 cores2 GB$19.99More detailsEnhanced60 GB2 TB2 cores4 GB$29.99More detailsUltimate120 GB3 TB4 cores8 GB$59.99More details

A Free Domain is included when purchasing any hosting service from Bluehost

DigitalOcean Cloud Hosting

Remember that Bluehost's headline prices are only available for the first term, and only if you pay for multiple years of service in advance. For the identical configuration, Bluehost will cost about twice as much as DigitalOcean after renewal.

You pay on an hourly basis with DigitalOcean, and just for the resources, you utilize. There are no upsells, no expensive renewals, and no upfront commitments.

It's also worth noting that, in comparison to Bluehost, DigitalOcean offers hundreds of cloud variants. For example, Bluehost only allows you to add up to 4 vCPUs and 8GB of RAM per Droplet (on the Ultimate plan), whereas DigitalOcean allows you to add up to 40 vCPUs and 256GB of RAM per Droplet.

2. Features

DigitalOcean Has Plenty of Add-Ons – Bluehost Barely Covers the Basics

Bluehost's VPS offerings include very few added features. If you buy at least one year of hosting, you get a free domain name for a year, but security isn't included by default, and there aren't many tools to assist you set up your VM aside from an improved version of cPanel (which you must use).

In this regard, DigitalOcean's VPS hosting is far superior. For starters, it includes a one-click installer for Docker, LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP), cPanel, Plesk, WordPress, and other essential tools for setting up a virtual machine.

The dashboard also includes a consumption monitor, making it easy to keep track of your resources. A cloud firewall, team management tools, automated backups, load balancers, floating IPs, block storage, and other helpful services can be added to this.

Here's a comparison of the most important features of Bluehost and DigitalOcean:

Feature	Bluehost	DigitalOcean
Hosting type	Shared, VPS, dedicated servers	Cloud VPS
Free domain?	✔	✘
Free SSL certificate?	✘	✘
CPU cores	2 – 4	1 – 40
RAM	2GB – 8GB	1GB – 256GB
Disk space	30GB – 120GB	25GB – 7TB
Bandwidth	1TB – 3TB	1TB – 10TB
Automatic backups	✘	Available for an extra fee
Control panel	enhanced cPanel	cPanel, Plesk, CyberPanel, and more
Free site migration	✘	✘
Money-back guarantee	30 days	No, but there is a free trial

3. Performance

DigitalOcean Is Faster and More Reliable Than Bluehost

Both hosts provide SSD storage, which can significantly enhance speed. But that's where the resemblances end.

You're entitled to reimbursement for every hour of downtime since DigitalOcean has a 99.99 percent uptime guarantee supported by an SLA (service-level agreement). Meanwhile, Bluehost gives no guarantees about uptime, which is a major flaw.

Furthermore, Bluehost has failed to reveal the specific location of its data center, making it impossible to determine where your website or app is physically housed. DigitalOcean has data centers in the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, India, Singapore, and other countries.

You're in charge of server caching and optimizations with both DigitalOcean's Droplets and Bluehost's VPS plans because they're self-managed. You can, however, hire Cloudways to manage your DigitalOcean Droplets. Cloudways installs a pre-configured caching stack for you, allowing you to speed up your website or app with little effort.

4. Security

DigitalOcean Has a Free Cloud Firewall, While Bluehost Makes You Pay Extra

You must secure your own VM with both DigitalOcean and Bluehost, but DigitalOcean makes it easier. You get a customized cloud firewall for basic malware protection regardless of the configuration you choose. It's simple to activate the firewall because it's embedded into your dashboard.

Bluehost's VPS services do not offer any complementary security tools. The SiteLock virus screening and eradication add-on are accessible, but it comes at a cost. If you register your domain with Bluehost, you may also add domain privacy and protection, although this will increase the overall cost.

While DigitalOcean's security is superior to Bluehosts', Cloudways offers even greater protection that is fully managed.

5. Support

Neither Bluehost nor DigitalOcean Have Decent Customer Support

Bluehost offers 24/7 customer support through live chat, tickets, and phone, but agents are not always available and communication is slow, to say the least. For instance, when I wanted to know whether there was a way to open live chat straight from the dashboard, I had to sit through this interaction:

Bluehost - customer support — Bluehost’s “experts” couldn’t give me any useful answers

Unfortunately, DigitalOcean’s support isn’t much better. In fact, it’s probably worse. There’s no live chat or phone option, so you can only get in touch through tickets – if the platform works. In my case, it didn’t, so I couldn’t even send my question:

DigitalOcean - customer support — Digital Ocean’s customer support is practically nonexistent

That said, DigitalOcean has an extensive knowledge base with useful DIY guides, which is more than I can say about Bluehost. If the idea of being left without support troubles you, then opting for Cloudways managed cloud hosting would be a better choice.

Cloudways support for DigitalOcean droplets — I was grateful for Cloudways’ specialized support for DigitalOcean droplets

DigitalOcean Is Better Than Bluehost, but There’s a Third Option

DigitalOcean owns a comfortable lead in pricing, features, performance, and security, which makes it the clear winner of this matchup. In terms of VPS hosting, Bluehost is more expensive, less reliable, and not as flexible as DigitalOcean.

That said, neither Bluehost nor DigitalOcean made our list of the best web hosting services.

DigitalOcean has its flaws. Customer support is terrible, and setting up a Droplet can be difficult if you’re unfamiliar with the command line. If you want to take advantage of DigitalOcean’s high-performance cloud infrastructure, but you don’t want to manage it yourself, you’re better off buying a Droplet through Cloudways.

Not yet decided? Here’s a quick summary of Bluehost vs DigitalOcean:

Bluehost

DigitalOcean

Cloudways

Plans and pricing

Expensive VPS plans with fairly limited CPU and RAM allocations

Cheap cloud hosting in the form of Droplets, more CPU and RAM for a lower price

More expensive than getting droplets from DigitalOcean direct – but it’s worth it for the managed features

Features

Free domain name for the first year

One-click installer, lots of add-on cloud services

Fully managed service with automatic backups, free SSL certificates and more

Performance

A single data center, SSD storage, no uptime guarantee

Eight data centers around the world, SSD storage, load balancers, 99.99% uptime guarantee

Uses DigitalOcean’s infrastructure so benefits from the same performance

Security

SiteLock for an extra fee

Free cloud firewall

Dedicated firewalls and automatic security patching

Support

24/7 support via live chat, tickets, and phone

Support is only available through tickets (and can be difficult to access)

24/7 support via live chat and tickets, with advanced support add-ons available

Which is better, Bluehost or DigitalOcean?If you’re looking for an advanced hosting solution, DigitalOcean’s Droplets are cheaper and more generous than Bluehost’s VPS plans. Customer support is almost nonexistent for DigitalOcean, but you can buy Droplets through Cloudways if you need help setting everything up.DigitalOcean doesn’t offer any entry-level shared hosting plans, so I wouldn’t recommend it for a simple website. That said, I’ve tested Bluehost’s shared hosting and the results were mediocre at best. If you want a faster and more reliable low-cost provider, check out our list of the best web hosting services.Does DigitalOcean offer managed WordPress hosting?No. DigitalOcean’s Droplets are entirely self-managed. You can run WordPress on them, and there’s even a one-click installer for WordPress, but no other features are included. If you want automatic updates and backups, built-in caching, and other optimizations.Is Bluehost reliable?Since Bluehost was acquired by EIG, lots of customers have complained about unreliable performance and support, so I wouldn’t trust it with my website. There’s no uptime guarantee either, which means that the best you can do is cross your fingers and hope your site stays online.We also tested Bluehost’s entry-level plan and the results were disappointing. You can read more about this experience in our in-depth Bluehost review. There are much better – cheaper, faster, and more reliable – hosts that we recommend, such as Hostinger and A2 Hosting.Does DigitalOcean have cPanel?Not by default. You can install cPanel on a DigitalOcean Droplet, but you have to buy a license to use it. Alternatively, you can buy a Droplet through Cloudways, and a proprietary control panel will be installed for you. This will let you manage your domains and websites without having to use the Linux command-line interface.

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