GreenGeeks vs Bluehost: Full Comparison

Before we dive into the individual sections and breakdown, get a quick overview of the two hosting providers side-by-side in our comparison table:

The Winner

Bluehost is easier to use...

Bluehost’s got it all! Get online quickly thanks to its simple signup process, register your domain name, and manage your site easily with Bluehost’s cPanel dashboard.

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The Signup Process

Once you get started, Bluehost will ask you to set up your domain, either by using one you already own or creating a new one (you’ll also have the option to do this later).

Then, you’ll enter account information like your name, your address, and the type of Bluehost plan you want.

The only thing to be wary of during the signup process is that some “package extras” will be automatically added to your total – you can uncheck these whenever you want, but make sure not to scroll past and leave things you don’t want in your basket!

GreenGeeks will also start off by asking for your domain name – however, unlike with Bluehost, you won’t have the option to skip this step and save it for later.

Managing Your Site

Both Bluehost and GreenGeeks use the popular cPanel control panel, which works as a centralized dashboard where you can easily manage your website(s), server functions, and web files.

Bluehost’s cPanel impressed us because it’s so customized for WordPress websites. Bluehost even automatically installs WordPress for you when you activate your account, and it’s an officially recommended hosting provider by WordPress itself – a title that GreenGeeks just can’t claim.

Bluehost also helps you start off on the right foot with an easy-to-follow checklist on your dashboard home page, which we really liked:

In short, while GreenGeeks is by no means difficult to use, Bluehost just goes the extra mile in our eyes!

Additional Tools

Bluehost and GreenGeeks both make life even easier because they don’t just offer hosting – they also act as domain name registrars, meaning you can browse and purchase domain names without the need for a third-party service. This means you can manage your domain registration and hosting services, all from the Bluehost dashboard.

Want to Try Bluehost?

Bluehost’s streamlined sign up process and WordPress-oriented dashboard make it incredibly beginner-friendly and easy to use.

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More Information

• Bluehost Review: Take a closer look at our top hosting provider.
• GreenGeeks Review: Learn everything about this eco-friendly host in our full review.
• WordPress Review: All you need to know about the internet’s most popular content management system.

The Winner

GreenGeeks is the best for features...

Both providers offer strong features and the majority of hosting types, but GreenGeeks secures the victory. It has slightly better tools than Bluehost on its cheapest plan, plus an unbeatable 300% renewable energy match for the eco-conscious.

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It’s a tight race between the two hosting providers when it comes to features, but GreenGeeks just takes the lead with an overall features score of 4.5 out of 5. In comparison, Bluehost, known for its incredibly feature-rich plans, receives a features score of 4.2 out of 5.

As you can see, both providers perform well in this category, so we wouldn’t recommend pinning your decision on this area alone.

Though Bluehost doesn’t win overall, it’s a better option if you’re looking at WordPress-managed hosting or dedicated hosting plans – scoring 4.4 out of 5 for its features across both hosting types.

GreenGeeks, on the other hand, offers the best features for shared hosting, scoring 4.8 out of 5 which helps push the hosting provider into the lead for this category. However, GreenGeeks is let down by its lack of dedicated hosting plans, so it can’t compete with Bluehost in that department.

What Types of Hosting Do They Offer?

Despite just missing out on the better features score, Bluehost beats GreenGeeks by a long shot when it comes to the types of hosting on offer.

With a score of 4.6 out of 5, Bluehost provides shared, WordPress, VPS, and dedicated hosting to its customers. GreenGeeks, however, scores 2.3 out of 5 for only offering shared, WordPress, and VPS hosting.

Bluehost is also the better option for every hosting type overall. And, out of the 13 hosting providers we tested, Bluehost is the top choice for VPS, dedicated, and WordPress hosting, scoring 4.6 out of 5 or above for each type. But what about shared hosting? Don’t worry, Bluehost came second to HostGator in our research, achieving an impressive score of 4.5 out of 5.

Unfortunately for GreenGeeks, it simply can’t compete with the likes of Bluehost when it comes to hosting types. For shared hosting, it scores 3.7 out of 5, and for VPS hosting, it scores 3.6 out of 5. But, its best overall rating is for WordPress hosting, scoring 4.1 out of 5. As you can see though, this falls short of Bluehost’s achievements.

What Features Come Included?

Every hosting provider offers a range of features on each of its paid plans. As we’ve already said, GreenGeeks scores an impressive 4.5 out of 5 in our “features” category, while Bluehost earned a still-impressive 4.2 out of 5.

Firstly, if eco-friendly hosting is important to you, then GreenGeeks is the obvious choice for you. Not only has the hosting provider been recognized by the US Environmental Protection Agency since 2009, but GreenGeeks restores three times the amount of energy it consumes, meaning your website will be carbon-reducing!

GreenGeeks also offers free daily backups, generous email accounts, unlimited bandwidth across its shared hosting plans, and advanced security features.

With Bluehost you get unlimited bandwidth, free domains, and excellent tools optimized for WordPress sites specifically, including improved site speed and a kitted out marketing center.

Looking for a Feature-Rich Hosting Provider?

While it’s a close race between the two, GreenGeeks just takes the edge thanks to its strong features and eco-conscious pledge.

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More Information

• Best Green Hosting Providers: It’s no surprise that GreenGeeks is the number one eco-friendly hosting provider.
• Best Web Hosting Providers: If you’re interested in seeing how Bluehost and GreenGeeks perform against other top web hosts.

The Winner

Bluehost is the best value for money...

Bluehost is an incredibly cost-effective hosting provider, offering cheap introductory prices across its shared, VPS, WordPress, and dedicated hosting plans. In fact, you can save up to 73% on certain plans!

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If you’re interested in getting good value for money, Bluehost wins. It scores 4.7 out of 5 for price overall, and it’s especially cost-effective when it comes to VPS, dedicated, and WordPress hosting.

GreenGeeks, however, scores an average 3.2 out of 5 in our pricing research. That being said, it stands equal with Bluehost when it comes to WordPress hosting with both providers receiving a “value for money” score of 3.9 out of 5.

Unfortunately, the value of GreenGeeks’ plans only get worse when looking at other hosting types – for shared hosting, GreenGeeks scores a very low 2.5 out of 5 for price.

So, what do these scores really mean? Since shared hosting is usually the cheapest option, let’s take a look at the 12-month introductory prices for both providers to give you a greater sense of what they have to offer.

• Bluehost: starting from $2.95 per month / renews at $10.99 per month
• GreenGeeks: starting from $2.95 per month / renews at $10.95 per month

Introductory prices are discounted rates that last for the first term of your hosting plan. They’re a pretty standard practice throughout the industry, and they have to be paid for in advance. For example, if a discount lasts for one year at $2.95 per month, such as with Bluehost and GreenGeeks, you’ll have to pay for the whole year up front to get that discount. Renewal prices are the regular rates you’ll be paying for every year after that.

But, if you’re unhappy with your hosting plan, both Bluehost and GreenGeeks offer 30-day money-back guarantees, so you can change your mind without losing money!

Still, we’d say Bluehost is the clear winner in terms of value for money. It offers introductory prices on its VPS plans, while GreenGeeks charges full price from the get-go. Plus, Bluehost’s dedicated plans are better value simply because they… exist.

Looking for Affordable Hosting?

Neither provider will shortchange you, but Bluehost consistently offers reduced introductory rates, and offers more bang for your buck in the long run.

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More Information

• Bluehost Pricing: Our in-depth review breaks down each Bluehost plan in detail.

The Winner

GreenGeeks offers reliable performance...

Of the two hosting providers, GreenGeeks is more reliable when it comes to uptime and overall site performance which is what sets it apart in this category. For security and backups, both GreenGeeks and Bluehost are pretty evenly matched.

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Uptime

While it’s a close call, GreenGeeks is slightly more reliable, offering a better uptime performance than Bluehost. GreenGeeks scores 3.5 out of 5 for performance overall in comparison to Bluehost’s 3 out of 5 – it even beats Bluehost on performance in our shared and VPS hosting research, too.

With an advertised uptime of 99.98%, Bluehost seems great on paper since that amounts to less than two hours of downtime each per. However, it performed poorly in our site speed and server response time tests.

SSL Security

Both Bluehost and GreenGeeks include free SSL certificates on all of their plans. These certificates are available through Let’s Encrypt, a nonprofit certificate authority that makes it possible to encrypt the information that’s shared between your server and your website visitors.

That said, like most hosting providers, Bluehost and GreenGeeks only cover the basics of SSL security for free. The SSL certificate that comes included in your account will be enough security for many websites, like personal blogs or local business pages.

But if you’re selling online – especially if you’re running a larger ecommerce store – you may want to think about taking some extra security measures. This is because you’ll want to make sure customers know their information is safe, especially if they’re going to be entering payment details on your website.

If you’re considering that extra level of security, Bluehost and GreenGeeks both have options at an additional cost. Bluehost’s cheapest route is the PositiveSSL certificate, at $49.99 per year. GreenGeeks only offers the AlphaSSL Wildcard certificate, which costs $99.95 per year.

Backups and Updates

Neither provider has a very good backup policy.

GreenGeeks performs daily backups on your website, which are retained for 24 hours and then replaced with the most recent backup. The catch is that customers don’t usually have access to those backups – they only exist to protect data in the case of hardware or software failure.

If you do need access to a backup, GreenGeeks offers one free restoration per month. After that, you’ll have to pay $25 per restore.

Bluehost creates backups on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, but they’re “not guaranteed in any way” – and Bluehost recommends that customers create and manage their own backups, too. Then again, it’s wise to do this no matter which hosting provider you use!

It’s also worth noting that backups aren’t included on Bluehost’s cheapest shared hosting plan at all, so you’ll need to upgrade to at least the Choice Plus plan to enjoy this feature.

Looking for Dependable Hosting?

Both providers offer free SSL certificates and daily backups, but GreenGeeks offers a more reliable uptime and server response time.

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The Winner

It's a tie...

Both GreenGeeks and Bluehost offer free migration services for websites and domains. Bluehost also provides an impressive paid service if you’d rather let the experts handle the process for you.

If you already have a website and are thinking of switching to either Bluehost or GreenGeeks, this section is for you.

Migrating to GreenGeeks

GreenGeeks offers free website migration for every new customer. Once you’ve signed up for a GreenGeeks account, all you have to do is provide the details of your current hosting account (i.e. the account you want to switch from).

You can do this by logging into your GreenGeeks account and submitting a migration request, using the Account Manager part of your dashboard. Just go to Account Manager > Support > Migration Request Form. 

Migrating to Bluehost

Bluehost offers free website migrations for most WordPress sites within 30 days of sign up. You’ll also get to review the site before it goes live.

Once you give Bluehost the credentials of your previous hosting account, the transfer will take about 2-3 days. 

Your site won’t qualify for a free Bluehost migration if:

• It runs on WordPress.com instead of WordPress.org
• It runs a WordPress version older than 4.7
• It runs a PHP version older than 7.0
• The file size is larger than 2GB
• The database is larger than 40MB

In that case, you can either pay Bluehost to migrate your site for you, or transfer your own hosting manually without assistance.

Bluehost’s paid migration option costs $149.99. For that price, the Bluehost team will move up to five websites and 20 email accounts for you. Bluehost guarantees no downtime during this process, and there’s no work involved on your part – so some people may find it worth the investment. Just note that this migration service is not available for VPS or dedicated plans.

What About Migrating Domains?

Migration isn’t just about websites – you’ll also want to transfer your domain name to the new hosting provider that you choose, and this process is actually separate from website migration. Luckily, both GreenGeeks and Bluehost make domain transfer pretty simple.

GreenGeeks offers a free domain name transfer, which is separate from its site migration service. All you have to do is prepare your domain name for transfer, and then submit the request to GreenGeeks. Once you’ve completed the request, GreenGeeks will transfer your domain from its current registrar to the GreenGeeks registrar.

If you’re switching to Bluehost, you can transfer domains with the following extensions: com, net, org, us, co, info, and biz.

If you want to transfer a domain with one of these extensions, then all you have to do is prepare the domain and initiate the transfer from your Bluehost dashboard.

The Winner

Bluehost has better help and support...

Not only does Bluehost offer high-quality WordPress support, but its customer team are ready to lend a helping hand 24/7 via live chat, phone, or email.

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From our recent hosting research, Bluehost is the better option for help and support, scoring 3.5 out of 5. Its customer team is very responsive, offering 24/7 live chat, 24/7 phone, and email support. And, thanks to its positive relationship with WordPress, Bluehost scores an impressive 4.6 out of 5 for WordPress hosting support as well.

Bluehost also provides users with a detailed knowledge base full of helpful guides and advice.

GreenGeeks, on the other hand, scores a measly 2.2 out of 5 for help and support overall. It really falls short in comparison to other hosting providers, like Bluehost, which puts it at a disadvantage from the get-go.

GreenGeeks does offer 24/7 live chat support, but its phone service is limited to Monday-Sunday from 9AM to 12AM EST. Alternatively, you can email the web host and log a ticket, but GreenGeeks warns a response will likely take 15-20 minutes. If you’re looking for immediate support, you’d be better off with Bluehost.

Need Dependable Hosting Support?

Bluehost makes it easy for customers to get in contact with them, and it has a helpful knowledge base to browse as a first step. Bluehost also offers 24/7 phone support which GreenGeeks doesn’t!

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Now that we’ve looked closely at GreenGeeks and Bluehost in all of the most important categories, we can definitively say that Bluehost is a better overall hosting provider than GreenGeeks.

Not only is Bluehost our top web host out of all of the hosting providers we tested, scoring 4.8 out of 5, but its incredible WordPress hosting features, 24/7 support, easy migration tools, and cost-effective plans really set Bluehost apart from GreenGeeks.

GreenGeeks will be the right host for some, especially if you’re looking for an eco-conscious hosting solution, but its lack of dedicated hosting and weak help and support really let it down, resulting in its overall score of 3.5 out of 5.

That said, just because Bluehost is the better provider in general, that doesn’t automatically mean it’s the better provider for you.

You Should Use Bluehost If:

• You’re running a WordPress site
• You want an easy setup process
• You want a really responsive support team

Want to Try Bluehost?

Bluehost is the best overall hosting provider thanks to its cost-effective and feature-rich plans. And, if you’re looking at WordPress hosting, it’s been officially endorsed by WordPress too!

Go to Bluehost

You Should Use GreenGeeks If:

• You want eco-friendly hosting
• You need a lot of email accounts for your site
• You prefer live chat support over email support

Want to Try GreenGeeks?

GreenGeeks is the leading eco-friendly hosting provider in the industry. If you want to minimize your website’s impact on the environment, GreenGeeks can’t be beat!

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