Both Bluehost and iPage are cheap hosting service providers who are well-known for offering feature-rich hosting solution at affordable price. And in below Bluehost vs iPage, we will compare them from features, speeds, reliability, customer support, and pricing to see why iPage is best for personal web site and Bluehost is better for business related site.
Bluehost
Bluehost (www.bluehost.com), one of the best cheap hosting in the industry, has been providing hosting service since 1996. The company very focuses on Linux-based hosting solution and is well-known for their feature-rich, fast, reliable and affordable hosting service. It’s now managing over 3 millions domains, which make it one of the largest web hosts in the world.
Bluehost has 3 datacenters, all of them are located in Provo, UT.
iPage
iPage (www.ipage.com) is a wind-energy hosting provider, who has been hosting various websites for many years. Its hosting solutions comes with good features at very low price. Their customers are mainly individuals.
Both data centers of iPage are located in the Boston, MA area.
iPage vs Bluehost on Features
Both Bluehost and iPage provide “Unlimited” hosting solutoin, but Bluehost provides more advanced features than iPage, such as Shell Access, dual versions of PHP, Python, PostgreSQL, and etc, which will give much more convenience to the webmasters when hosting a site. To know the detail, please see below table:
| Features | Bluehost | iPage |
|---|---|---|
| Free Domain |  |
|
| Domain Hosting | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Scripts | PHP 5.2.x, PHP 5.3.x, CGI-BIN, Perl, Python, RoR | PHP 5.2.x, CGI-BIN, Perl |
| Database | MySQL, PostgreSQL | MySQL |
| Shell Access | |
 |
| Control Panel | cPanel | vDesk |
| Free Advertisement Credit | $100 Google Adword Credit | $100 Google Adword Credit |
| Free CDN Service | |
|
| www.bluehost.com | www.ipage.com |
Bluehost vs iPage on Speed
The server speed of Bluehost is better than iPage. Even those both companies use Tier-4 world-class datacenter, Bluehost deploys more powerful web servers with carefully design on hosting architecture and server configuration.
To gain better security, speed and control more web server, Bluehost enhances existing Centos Linux to
- Improve the efficiency of file writing and back up;
- Optimize the performance of MySQL database;
- Monitor cpu or disk I/O of each account to avoid cpu or disk I/O intensive processes take the system down or slow down other users or more important processes.
Below is the speed testing we have executed in multiple locations, from which we can see that Bluehost is around 20% faster than iPage in most locations.
Bluehost vs iPage on Customer Support
Both companies offer its customers with Online Live Chat, Toll-free Phone Call, Email Tickets, and Online knowledge base. And their customer support engineers are 100% US-based.
But during our testing, we found Bluehost engineers are more skilled and patient. Most of the questions we asked could be solved in one contact with Bluehost, however it takes longer when discussing with ipage.
On the other hand, it’s much easier to connect with iPage engineers. Let’s take Online Live Chat support as an example, in most cases, we can connect with iPage engineers with almost no waiting time, but for Bluehost, normally it will take us 30 seconds.
iPage vs Bluehost on Pricing
The list price of Bluehost is $6.95/mo, and now, through special promotion link offered by Bluehost, people could receive 44% off, after which the price is $3.95/mo only. And for iPage, its list price is $7.95/mo, and now they promote their service with 75% off, which the price could be low to $1.99/mo.
Below is the price comparison chart between these two companies, as you could see, iPage is around 60% cheaper than Bluehost.
| 1 Year Term | 2 Years Term | 3 Years Term | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bluehost | $5.95/mo | $4.95/mo | $3.95/mo |
| iPage | $3.5/mo | $1.99/mo | $1.99/mo |
Money Back Terms:
- Both of companies guarantee “Anytime Money Back”, 30 days full money back.
- Both of them accept credit card and Paypal payment.
Who is Better
Compared with iPage, Bluehost provides its customers with faster hosting and more professional customer service, but iPage is cheaper, and its customer service and quality of the service are also great. So, it’s not easy to choose between Bluehost and iPage, and below is our recommendation.
If you plan to built a personal blog, home web site, or non-business related site, iPage is obviously a better choice for its quality service and unbeatable price.
If your web site is business-related or you plan to make your blog or web site to be business-related in the future, then Bluehost is better than iPage since it’s faster which will bring better experience to the visitors.
To know about both company, please visit www.bluehost.com or www.ipage.com, you could also check out our Bluehost Review and iPage Review.
