Editor’s note: Siteground and Bluehost are among the top two hosting providers for Magento stores, but the question is which one to go with. Sam talks about the two hosting companies in detail, shedding light on every aspect. Read on. And for those of you who have little time on your hands, leave it to a good Magento website agency to do it all. The fact that they do it everyday, no one can assist you better in setting up your store.
As more and more entrepreneurs begin to move their stores online they’re looking for tools that allow them to properly display and sell their products.
Magento has emerged as a popular ecommerce platform to help fill this void, thanks to its reach, ease of use, and low overhead costs.
But finding the right host to connect with Magento can be a difficult decision.
After all, the right hosting service can make or break a small ecommerce business.
Fortunately, companies like Siteground and Bluehost have emerged to help make life easier for entrepreneurs.
Each of these companies integrates with a variety of platforms, but today we’re going to look at how they work alongside Magento specifically.
Magento is an open-source platform originally developed by Varien Inc and first made available on March 31, 2008.
It’s become a popular option for dropshippers thanks to its reach, ease of use, and low overhead costs.
Web hosts like these make it easy to get started with Magento.
They include features like one-click Magento installation, PayPal integration, shopping carts, PayPal integration, various shipping options, and much more.
First, let’s see which company has an edge when it comes to Magento hosting.
Let’s get started with our Bluehost vs Siteground review.
Overview
SiteGround
The web hosting company SiteGround opened its doors in 2004.
The business was started by a group of university friends.
Since then, it has grown to the point where it serves more than 1,900,000 domains worldwide and has more than 400 employees, according to the company’s website.
SiteGround now has data centers in four countries and has heavily integrated itself into the various open source.
Communities including Joomla, Wordpress and, of course, Magento.
Trusted by over 2M domains worldwide, Siteground's powerful hosting services make sites faster, safer and easier to manage. High-speed cutting-edge platform, ultra-fast PHP, security-first approach & more.
Bluehost
Bluehost was founded in 2003 by serial entrepreneur Matt Heaton, though he first conceived of the company in 1996.
Before starting Bluehost, he created two other web hosting companies, 50megs.com and 0catch.com
The company was acquired by Endurance International group in 2010.
The following year Heaton stepped down as CEO to focus on the company’s design and technical structure.
The company now hosts well over 2 million domains when combined with its sister companies HostMonster, FastDomain and iPage.
The company’s servers run out of Provo, Utah, where the company also employs more than 700 people.
Magento Integration
But enough history. Let’s get down to business.
SiteGround has received a lot of praise around the internet for Siteground Magento hosting.
The fact that SiteGround uses SSD-based shared hosting is what makes it a reliable and hearty hosting service.
Essentially, SSD has replaced HDD as the gold standard of hosting thanks to its ability to transfer data quickly and its reliable storage methods.
Indeed, SiteGround is largely seen as the way to go if you’re looking to reduce or eliminate any issues with speed.
That’s because, in addition to the SSD storage, plans include SiteGround’s proprietary SuperCacher speed technology.
You can choose to run Magento in a variety of ways.
Whether it’s on shared plans, a dedicated server, or a VPS, Magento runs fine on all of them.
You just need to find the right one for the size of your shop.
Trusted by over 2M domains worldwide, Siteground's powerful hosting services make sites faster, safer and easier to manage. High-speed cutting-edge platform, ultra-fast PHP, security-first approach & more.
SiteGround also benefits from the plethora of data centers we mentioned earlier because you can choose whichever server location you like.
Indeed, the company’s server selection play an important role in SiteGround’s business.
They have facilities located in the United States, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Singapore.
This gives SiteGround a truly global reach.
The integration with Magento is bolstered by the fact that users can set it up with just one click.
If you run into any problems, SiteGround has an expert available to help you install the software.
In case you run into any issues or there’s something you just don’t understand.
In the event that you were using a different host previously.
That same professional can also help you transfer and files and DB’s over to SiteGround for free.
An added bonus: If you purchase Magento through SiteGround you get a free domain.
Bluehost vs Siteground : Pricing & Features
SiteGround
SiteGround offers a variety of pricing options that will each offer their own benefits depending on what level of business you’re conduction.
To begin with, SiteGround’s basic startup plan features a single domain and 10 GB of disk space.
The company charges $6.99 per month, even if you sign up for the full year.
The Grow Big plan was designed with the vision of growing your Magento store in mind.
The monthly $9.99 price tag comes with multiple domains, 300 GB of web space, and a host of special features.
The Go Geek tier is $14.99 a month and is built for users with a lot of traffic.
It’s also suitable for users who really want to dig into what Magento is capable of.
The aspect of SiteGround that makes it truly distinct and able to stand above the crowd is its customer service.
The company’s chat and ticketing system is by far the best in the industry.
Time and again, we have seen positive reviews online citing SiteGround’s support system.
That points to satisfied and happy customers, which is a good sign all around.
Additionally, SiteGround has built customer solutions into its system.
These are designed to make life easier for clients.
Take for example the chat system: it helps users solve any issues they may have, and also allows them to rate the support they received.
This helps to ensure that, not only do the customers receive the help they need, but also SiteGround is able to refine and improve its overall support system with time.
Additionally, SiteGround offers backup and caching services. This means that your data is available in case something goes wrong.
Say, for example, you want to try a new feature. While attempting to implement it, you make an error and your site goes down.
Thanks to SiteGround’s system, you can restore your store to its former glory and none of your customers will be none the wiser.
Additionally, SiteGround offers free SSL, email, and CN to help you get your ecommerce store up and running in as little time as possible.
Trusted by over 2M domains worldwide, Siteground's powerful hosting services make sites faster, safer and easier to manage. High-speed cutting-edge platform, ultra-fast PHP, security-first approach & more.
Bluehost
To be fair, not everyone is looking for speed and quality support when it comes to their Magento store.
Many entrepreneurs just want to have a simple, functioning site that doesn’t require much upkeep or time investment.
If you’re looking for a way to keep costs low and find a budget hosting plan, Bluehost Magento might be a choice.
For the most part, Bluehost has staked its claim on open source sites like WordPress.
Indeed, there is very little mention of Bluehost Magento hosting anywhere on the company’s site.
Bluehost has received some criticism online for being slightly opaque when it comes to their prices.
The company is known for trying to push you to sign up for longer periods of time including plans that start with an annual rate and go as high as three years.
If you sign up for the two year or three year plans you will receive discounts, but that could be seen as an extravagant investment. Especially for entrepreneurs just getting into the ecommerce field.
Overall, Bluehost is the cheaper option if you’re going for the most basic plan. Still, with that you only receive one website and 50 GBs of space.
A small step up from the basic option gets you unlimited websites, unmetered website space and bandwidth, free SSL, and one domain.
As pictured, the company sometimes promotes sales on its upper-tiered offering.
So if you come at the right time you can pick it up for the same price as the middle tier option.
This price point offers two important distinctions: domain privacy and site backup.
As we discussed earlier, backup is an important thing to consider when conducting business online.
A simple misstep could potentially cause you to lose valuable data and time.
It’s important to note that each tier comes with a free domain name.
This is a great asset if you’re just getting started as an online marketer or other ecommerce business.
Bluehost has received mixed reports throughout online circles for its customer support.
The company can be reached 24 hours a day by phone or through webchat.
Still, many people cite slow response time and the fact that, even when the company is supposed to be helping you troubleshoot a problem, they will try to upsell you.
However, there are nearly as many conflicting reports that claim the company was fast and responsive with inquiries.
That they were able to help solve issues, resolve problems, and offered satisfactory responses.
Other users have criticised the expertise of Bluehost’s support workers.
Essentially, their workers were often seen as unable to solve high-end issues promptly.
They have also been seen to transfer smaller issues from the live chat service to a ticketing system, creating additional delays for their users.
When it comes to security, Bluehost’s features put some weight behind the service’s punch.
The features include three different anti-spam tools – Apache Spam Assassin, Spam Experts, and Spam Happer – in addition to hotlink protection.
You also have the ability to create filters on email accounts and users.
You can put password protection on directories, create IP address blacklists, and manage your own digital certificates.
Bluehost also offers a number of tutorials to help you set up these security provisions.
They will ensure that even beginner users are able to keep their sites secure and safe from attack.
Speed & Reliability: SiteGround vs Bluehost
Effectively measuring the speed and reliability of hosting providers can be difficult.
But the overall consensus is that SiteGround benefits from its robust, varied, and efficient servers.
Trusted by over 2M domains worldwide, Siteground's powerful hosting services make sites faster, safer and easier to manage. High-speed cutting-edge platform, ultra-fast PHP, security-first approach & more.
The company also uses its a combination of features including Varnish caching, CloudFlare Railgun, Memcache, and SuperCacher to improve the speed of your website greatly.
When it comes to Bluehost, besides the previously mentioned servers in Utah, some people believe they have facilities in Mumbai and/or Shanghai.
Regardless of where there servers are located, they don’t seem to help Bluehost catch up to SiteGround when it comes to speed.
SiteGround outperforms Bluehost in nearly every speed metric, as evidenced by the outpouring of support from online reviewers.
It seems that, once again, SiteGround is benefiting from its robust server ecosystem.
Who Is the Winner – Siteground vs Bluehost For Magento Hosting
Before declaring who wins it, Siteground or Bluehost, let’s take a moment to talk about each of the companies.
SiteGround allows you to choose which server you want to use.
Bluehost doesn’t even publicly reveal where their servers are located.
And the most glaring omission, especially in terms of this analysis, is that Bluehost doesn’t mention Magento integration on its site.
When you combine these issues it seems as though Bluehost isn’t very interested in helping its clients do business through Magento .
It would prefer to rely on its WordPress business. It can appear as though Magento stores are an afterthought.
At the end of the day, SiteGround beats out Bluehost on just about every front.
Trusted by over 2M domains worldwide, Siteground's powerful hosting services make sites faster, safer and easier to manage. High-speed cutting-edge platform, ultra-fast PHP, security-first approach & more.
Conclusion: SiteGround vs Bluehost For Magento
So this was our Siteground vs Bluehost comparison.
Wondering which one to go with, Bluehost or Siteground?
For us, Siteground is the clear winner between the two. The offerings are transparent for the users to make a choice.
Bluehost and companies like Bluehost might still be a great choice for Wordpress hosting but Siteground well and truly ticks all the boxes for Magento hosting, be it speed, support or reliability.