Bluehost vs. WordPress VIP

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Bluehost
Score 5.4 out of 10
N/A
Bluehost, headquartered in Orem, Utah, offers website hosting. Bluehost also offers managed WordPress hosting, with optional SEO and marketing tools for WordPress plans.
$19.95
per month for 36 month term
WordPress VIP
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Wordpress VIP, from a team at Automattic, is enterprise WordPress hosting with customer or digital experience features for enterprises.N/A
Pricing
BluehostWordPress VIP
Editions & Modules
Shared WordPress Hosting
$3.95-$16.99
per month
Shared Web Hosting
$3.95-$26.99
per month for 36 month term
eCommerce - WooCommerce Hosting
$15.95-$49.95
per month, 1 month to 36 month terms available
Managed WordPress (beta)
$19.95
per month for 36 month term
VPS Hosting
$19.99 - $119.99
per month
Blue Sky Live WordPress Support
$29.00-$149.00
per month
Dedicated Hosting
$79.99-$209.99
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BluehostWordPress VIP
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BluehostWordPress VIP
Considered Both Products
Bluehost
Chose Bluehost
Bluehost stacks up against them by providing a variety of plans which gives decision-making power to the customers. Also, it has a built-in website builder.
Chose Bluehost
I enjoy DreamHost Over Bluehost, but our business already had many settings set up through Bluehost.
Chose Bluehost
Bluehost is better - easier to use, more reliable, have better customer service and offer more for the price you pay.
Chose Bluehost
Bluehost is somewhat similar in terms of their tech stack and somewhat similar in terms of pricing. I think for websites that want to remain small and operate on the lowest budget possible, Bluehost is sufficient. For websites that are interested in scaling, or need top-tier, …
Chose Bluehost
Bluehost did not stack up against HostGator; in fact, HostGator was where we ended up migrating after we realized Bluehost was not for us. Bluehost is not geared toward businesses, especially ones like ours that have a very customized site. HostGator allowed us the …
Chose Bluehost
Bluehost is more expensive, but they offer a more complete set of tools and seem far better equipped to handle WordPress sites. We wanted the ability to grow our site if necessary and felt Bluehost offered more potential than GoDaddy for long-term support.
Chose Bluehost
GoDaddy & Network Solutions are both priced similarly. I recommend Bluehost over both of these because of its support and upgrade cycles. NS hasn't been updated in what seems like a decade. GoDaddy, on top of its shady advertising and predatory behavior, has terrible support.
Chose Bluehost
Prior to moving over to Bluehost, I was using GoDaddy for 3 years which initially suited me but as I wanted more features and planned on selling products online I noticed the add-ons started adding up. For example, I had to find a free SSL certificate outside of Godaddy as they …
Chose Bluehost
I originally started in Bluehost when I took on a portfolio of existing business websites to manage. In an effort to consolidate my client base into one hosting service, I opted to move hosting and domains to GoDaddy, who is my preferred hosting service. When I started the …
Chose Bluehost
I found WordPress installation to be easier with Bluehost. 1&1 offers a monthly payment plan whereas you have to pay for the entire year with Bluehost.
Chose Bluehost
Bluehost was much better at customer support, and easy of use and initial setup compared to Site5. We were much happier when switching to Bluehost.
Chose Bluehost
I found that Bluehost had a better UX and better prices. It was easier to navigate, easy to update key settings and the 1 touch Wordpress install and automatic Wordpress updates (at the time) made Bluehost a better choice. Also, GoDaddy was having issues with uptime at that …
Chose Bluehost
We now use WP Engine exclusively. We have found the hosting platform and customer service to be well worth the extra money.
Chose Bluehost
We have used other hosting systems such as HostGator and GoDaddy. We had security problems with GoDaddy and HostGator had performance difficulties. With Bluehost we were able to get a solid, secure hosting service overcome our security and performance concerns. While GoDaddy …
Chose Bluehost
Bluehost's VPS offering gives me full control over my container which I don't get with Dreamhost. The size of the container is much more desirable for hosting multiple products, over and above DigitalOcean, and the control panel for Bluehost is far more intuitive than AWS'.
WordPress VIP
Chose WordPress VIP
I was not involved in the selection process of this product as that decision was made at a higher level. Though, as previously stated, security and scalability were definitely some of the top factors from the limited amount of interactions I had with those making the decision.
Chose WordPress VIP
Since I have been in my position at Chive Media Group, we have not evaluated alternatives.
Chose WordPress VIP
Used custom websites served through AWS. Those are more complicated to manage and require a series of well built scripts and maintenance. They have their purpose but using WordPress makes it easier for other non-technical stakeholders.
Chose WordPress VIP
VIP can be a better option for sites with much higher volumes of traffic and more complex security requirements.
Chose WordPress VIP
It would be fair to say that both are superb products that follow through on promises and have very strong marketing and teams behind them. For truly enterprise organisations though, one would be tempted to recommend WordPress VIP at this moment in time, but one to keep an eye …
Chose WordPress VIP
We use DigitalOcean for smaller-scale sites, and the level of support, reliability and seamless scalability is nowhere near the same level as WordPress VIP.
Chose WordPress VIP
Wordpress VIP is optimized for sites developed in Wordpress, making everything smooth and easy compared to other options
Chose WordPress VIP
In the competition noted WordPress VIP is the only true enterprise dedicated to WordPress hosting. Their hosting framework is 100% geared up for providing enterprise organizations with the infrastructure needed.
Chose WordPress VIP
For our usage, I would say they are all about the same. The support offered by VIP put it over the top.
Chose WordPress VIP
Our team manages 4 different brands' websites and before WordPress VIP we were using multiple different hosts including Dreamhost and AWS. These were convoluted and didn't offer the enterprise features for our organization that WP VIP was capable of. We also considered …
Features
BluehostWordPress VIP
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Bluehost
-
Ratings
WordPress VIP
7.3
Ratings
10% below category average
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Bluehost
-
Ratings
WordPress VIP
7.3
Ratings
4% below category average
API00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language00 Ratings5.50 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Bluehost
-
Ratings
WordPress VIP
8.2
Ratings
6% above category average
WYSIWYG editor00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness00 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Admin section00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Page templates00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Publishing workflow00 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Bluehost
-
Ratings
WordPress VIP
8.0
Ratings
8% above category average
Content taxonomy00 Ratings7.30 Ratings
SEO support00 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Bulk management00 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Community / comment management00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BluehostWordPress VIP
Small Businesses
SiteGround
SiteGround
Score 9.8 out of 10
ManageWP
ManageWP
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
WP Engine
WP Engine
Score 8.9 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
AccuWebHosting.Com
AccuWebHosting.Com
Score 9.9 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BluehostWordPress VIP
Likelihood to Recommend
4.9
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Availability
4.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(0 ratings)
8.3
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
3.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BluehostWordPress VIP
Likelihood to Recommend
Bluehost is a decent all-around choice for web hosting with professional web development and domain management features that are particularly ideal for WordPress websites and blogs. They have a good reputation within the industry as a company that invests heavily in new technology and platform innovation. Bluehost has made a lot of improvements to customize their back-end administration (AMP & control panel) by working to improve the usability and design of the browser interface. Bluehost is primarily focused on customers who use WordPress and we would recommend either their hybrid cloud or managed WordPress platform, which provides everything that you need to build and maintain a popular website. All in all, Bluehost is a well-established brand that continually improves its hosting products, regularly upgrades their data center hardware, and is generally considered a leader in the development of new cloud hosting platform services.
Read full review
WordPress VIP really changed the game when it comes to WordPress CMS and Content Management. A one-stop shop for all our client's business needs. We are focusing on Content Management instead of technicalities. The big advantage is the security features covering all recent vulnerabilities that any WordPress developer/user wastes lots of precious time fixing/updating. Performance-wise, WordPress VIP is definitely up there. We’ve been doing lots of optimization work over the last few years. Every client wants to score 100. With WordPress VIP we decreased the time spent on optimization significantly and now feel confident with taking more performance optimisation work than we did before. Lastly, maybe the most important for every business is the support quality. WordPress VIP runs a superb support team with phenomenal knowledge and expertise. Quick to respond and solves issues here and now. It is definitely recommended.
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Pros
  • Bluehost provides a cost-effective website hosting bundle for WordPress.
  • Transferring a domain name was super easy and saved me money on the domain name and domain privacy renewal.
  • Provides a basic free SSL certificate for all websites and offers unlimited websites on the pro plan.
Read full review
  • Email support is more than enough! They are quick and always responsive even when there are urgent problems.
  • Manages our WordPress codebase for security patches and updates rather well.
  • Their partnership with our development team has helped us be hands-off with confidence when it comes to fixing any bugs.
Read full review
Cons
  • Sometimes the login page does not function properly.
  • You have to purchase hosting for the whole year instead of being able to pay monthly.
  • It doesn't have the option to transfer hosting to another account. My customers have to sign up on their own.
Read full review
  • Too many different dashboard formats
  • Everything should have the same look and feel.
  • The admin portal looks different than the user content portal
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
It's true enterprise ready hosting framework providing unparalleled hosting infrastructure for WordPress. Where an organisation has high load needs, but with stability and scale VIP delivers. It provides complete peace of mind that the hosting, security and scalability are taken care of and organisations can focus on developing out their website strategies
Read full review
Usability
I use Wordpress for my website on Bluehost, so I already know how it works and happy with it. I gave it this rating as I love the fact that If you do plan on creating multiple websites on Bluehost you'll be able to create specific login access for each website sites making it less likely to enter into the wrong website accounts. Which makes it even easier to manage client websites if you plan to create and host websites on behalf of your clients.
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There is documentation for everything you might need.
Read full review
Support Rating
When we decided to migrate away from Bluehost, a quick call to their tech-support solved most of our problems, and we immediately got our money back. They did — to their credit — try to accommodate us, but they realize that we needed something else that they couldn’t accommodate. And once that realization set in, customer service immediately refunded us our money.
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There wasn't a single problem that wouldn't be solved by the WordPress VIP support team, and I had quite a few questions during the process. They were always available and provided in-depth expertise on topics I was interested in. I not only consulted problems with them but also advised on future actions - in general, I'd highly recommend getting in touch.
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Alternatives Considered
Bluehost is somewhat similar in terms of their tech stack and somewhat similar in terms of pricing. I think for websites that want to remain small and operate on the lowest budget possible, Bluehost is sufficient. For websites that are interested in scaling, or need top-tier, USA-based tech support 24/7 at their fingertips, then other hosting providers may be better.
Read full review
It would be fair to say that both are superb products that follow through on promises and have very strong marketing and teams behind them. For truly enterprise organisations though, one would be tempted to recommend WordPress VIP at this moment in time, but one to keep an eye on, Engine, is extremely capable.
Read full review
Scalability
The website is slow. The speed is not reliable. Sometimes, sites would go down without warning. You would have to get a VPS to get consistent speed. If you have small website as a hobby, then Bluehost will be sufficient. Otherwise, I recommend looking for something more fast. Storage is good, but speed is lacking
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • Because of their level of service and support, we were able to create our web presence in-house without the need to hire an external firm or consultant. Consequently, Bluehost has more than paid for itself.
  • The efficiency of the all-in-one solution means our web person doesn't have to spend time logging into different sites and managing different accounts, and the business office only has to pay one vendor.
Read full review
  • By migrating our mobile applications to Wordpress's APIs, we could remove a large portion of our technical infrastructure, which was hosted on Google Cloud, along with an additional database and a lot of business logic used to support data transformation and ingestion.
Read full review
ScreenShots