This head-to-head DigitalOcean vs Bluehost cloud hosting comparison takes a look at how features, performance, prices, pros and cons, etc stack up to help you choose between these two web hosting companies that offer cloud hosting options.
DigitalOcean is a provider of powerful cloud hosting services. They offer various tiers to suit your needs, from basic shared resources up to large-scale compute clusters that can be made available to you in seconds on demand.
Bluehost is a popular beginner-friendly web hosting company that provides shared, virtual private servers and dedicated hosting.
| Bluehost | Ninja Column 7 | |
|---|---|---|
Bluehost | DigitalOcean | |
| About: | Bluehost provides hosting services with unlimited bandwidth, hosting space, and email accounts. It has a reputation of robust performance, excellent customer support and competitive pricing. | DigitalOcean is a very popular cloud hosting service which provides reasonably priced and flexible cloud hosting services. They are known for their high benchmarks and a guarantee of 99% uptime. |
| Founded in: | 1996 | 2011 |
| BBB Rating: | A+ | A+ |
| Address: | Bluehost Inc. 560 Timpanogos Pkwy Orem, UT 84097 | 101 6th Ave, New York, NY 10013 |
| Phone Number: | (888) 401-4678 | (347) 903-7918 |
| Email Address: | Not Listed | Not Listed |
| Types of Support: | Phone, Live Support, Chat, Ticket | Phone, Live Support, Chat, Ticket |
| Data Center / Server Location: | Provo, Utah | London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, San Francisco, Toronto, and Singapore. |
| Monthly Price: | From $2.95 per month | From $5.00 per month |
| Unlimited Data Transfer: | Yes | No (From 1TB) |
| Unlimited Data Storage: | Yes | No (From 25GB) |
| Unlimited Emails: | Yes | No |
| Host Multiple Domains: | Yes | Yes |
| Hosting Controlpanel / Interface: | cPanel | DigitalOcean interface |
| Server Uptime Guarantee: | No | 99.99% |
| Money-Back Guarantee: | 30 Days | 30 Days |
| Dedicated Hosting Available: | Yes | No (only Cloud available) |
| Bonuses & Extras: | Search Engine Submission Tools. $100 Google Advertising Credit. $50 Facebook Ad Credit. Free Yellowpages Listing. | Cheapest cloud hosting starts at $5 per month. $5 Droplet include 1GB of RAM, 1GB RAM and 25GB SSD storage Active developer community and forum. |
| The Good: | Variety of Hosting Plans: Bluehost offers shared, VPS, dedicated and cloud hosting as well as options like managed WordPress hosting, giving you the flexibility to easily scale your site to your changing hosting needs. 24/7 Support: In addition to some of the best self-help resources of any host, Bluehost has a veritable army of fast-acting experts ready to assist you 24/7 via support ticket, hotline, or live chat. Good Refund Policy: Bluehost will give you a full refund if you cancel within 30 days, and pro-rated refunds if you cancel beyond that period. Bluehost pricing starts at $2.95 per month. | Quick setup: Because of the solid state drives they have, it takes approximately 55 seconds for your server to spin up. High Benchmark Scores: DigitalOceans disk benchmark scores are very high compared to other companies. Free Static IP: Some cloud hosting sites offer static IP for an additional price, but at DigitalOcean, they come for free. SSD only servers. |
| The Bad: | No Uptime Guarantee: Bluehost doesn't offer you compensation for any prolonged or unexpected downtime. Website Migration Fees: Unlike some of its competitors, Bluehost charges additional fees if you want to migrate pre-existing websites or cPanel accounts. For more options, consider these Bluehost alternatives. | Cloud hosting is not ideal for absolute beginners. |
| Summary: | Bluehost (review here) is also known for its proprietary resource protection solution set up for the protection of shared hosting users from other probable abusive users on the same server. Clients and users can install application using SimpleScripts 1 click installs. Also available are VPS and Dedicated Hosting. | DigitalOcean users can spin up a Droplet and gain root access to a computer instance about 55 seconds. This is the first and only all-SSD cloud host with an intuitive and simple API allowing for large-scale production workloads. Highly available storage up to 16 TB can be attached as needed and a lightning fast network is also provided. Load balancing is also provided as a service along with monitoring and alerting with pre-built open source apps. |
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DigitalOcean vs Bluehost – The Bottom Line
DigitalOcean and Bluehost are usually compared to one another in the world of web hosting due to their common features and distinctive characteristics that add value to the industry. To get to the bottom of things and to give you the best choice for your web hosting needs, this comparison looks at the various parameters that need to be considered.
These are the pricing plans, key features, support, security, and performance. On the surface, Bluehost is more popular than DigitalOcean. However, it has more features and value-added services than Bluehost.
Rating their customer support, both Bluehost and DigitalOcean are not quite at best here. DigitalOcean is cheaper with freebies including the free Cloud Firewall for greater security. It is also faster than BlueHost. It has more value-added services. With all these, DigitalOcean beats Bluehost.