Last Updated on
Ante Rados
BlueHost and HostPapa are two big names in the hosting industry. An already demanding task of choosing the right hosting provider becomes even harder when we compare these two. It is easy to choose if you need a cloud or dedicated hosting because BlueHost is the only one of the two that provides those services. But, what about the other types of hosting?
They both offer shared, WordPress, and VPS hosting at similar prices. BlueHost doesn’t have reseller hosting or a website builder, but they make up for it by outsourcing those services.
Read on and find out the finer details that set these two hosting providers apart.
HostPapa is the better hosting provider for shared and VPS hosting because their plans have better features while the pricing is similar. BlueHost, on the other hand, offers more options overall. That makes it a better hosting provider between the two.
BlueHost vs HostPapa hosting comparison
For this review, I rated each of the services the two hosting providers have individually. Use the toggle button to switch between BlueHost and HostPapa. Now, let’s compare HostPapa and BlueHost:
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HostPapa or BlueHost for shared hosting?
HostPapa
☆☆☆☆☆ 4/5
BlueHost
☆☆☆☆☆ 4/5
HostPapa’s shared hosting plans come with plenty of features. Here is the overview of the most important features:
Starter: $7.99/month
- 2 websites
- 2 domains
- 100 GB SSD storage
- 100 email accounts
- 100 email forwarding accounts
- 500 MB storage per mailbox
- 5 GB overall mailbox storage
Business $12.99/month
- Unlimited number of websites
- Unlimited number of domains
- Unlimited storage
- Unlimited email accounts
- Unlimited email forwarding accounts
- 500 MB storage per mailbox
- 5 GB overall mailbox storage
- Unlimited MySQL databases
Business Pro $19.99/month
- All features from the Business plan
- 1 GB storage per mailbox
- 10 GB overall mailbox storage
- Automated website backup
With both hosting providers, you will get SSD storage, but HostPapa’s cheapest plan comes with 50 GB more storage space. HostPapa also comes on top when we compare the number of websites you can create with their cheapest plan.
HostPapa’s shared hosting has more features across all their plans. You will get a 1-click setup for WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, and a variety of content management systems.
Starter and Business plans come with a starter edition of HostPapa’s website builder. The Business Pro plan comes with access to the Business edition of the HostPapa website builder. I will let you know what the difference between those two is later in this review.
If you want to create an eCommerce website, you will be happy to know that all HostPapa plans are PayPal merchant compatible. Additionally, you will get one-click installs for plenty of eCommerce tools.
As you can notice, HostPapa and BlueHost have similar pricing for their shared hosting plans. Let’s check out BlueHost features to see who offers better shared hosting plans:
Basic: $7.99/month
- 1 website
- 5 email accounts
- 100 MB email storage
- 50 GB website space
- 1 domain included
- 25 subdomains
- 20 MySQL databases
Plus: $10.99/month
- Unlimited websites
- Unlimited email accounts
- Unlimited email storage
- Unmetered website space
- Unlimited domains, parked domains, and subdomains
- Unlimited MySQL domains
- Spam Experts for 1 domain
Choice Plus: $14.99/month
- Everything from the Plus plan
- Spam Experts on
- Domain privacy and protection
- Automated backups
Pro: $23.99/month
- Everything from the Choice Plus plan
- Dedicated IP
- Premium SSL certificate
- Spam Experts for 2 domains
- CodeGuard basic automated backups
Both providers use SSD storage on their servers and let you register 1 domain for free.
All BlueHost plans come with $100 Microsoft advertising and $100 Google Ads credits. You will be able to use those after you spend $25 on a new Microsoft or Google account. Starting with the Plus plans, you get 30 days free Office 365 Mailbox with all the plans, but you will have to pay a regular subscription fee after those 30 days are over.
Overall, HostPapa wins this by a margin. They have similar pricing, but HostPapa comes with better features.
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Regularly
$6.95/mo
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- Free 1 Year Domain Registration on Select Plans
- FREE SSL Certificate
- Drag-and-drop Website Builder
- E-commerce Ready
- 1-Click WordPress Installation
HostPapa vs BlueHost for WordPress hosting
HostPapa
☆☆☆☆☆ 4/5
BlueHost
☆☆☆☆☆ 4.5/5
HostPapa’s WordPress hosting plans are similar to their shared hosting plans. You will get the same number of websites, email accounts, amount of storage, etc. Let’s check out in what way are they different:
WP Starter: $8.99/month
- 2 WordPress websites
- Free WordPress installation
- Free WordPress migration
- 100+ free WordPress themes
WP Business: $13.99/month
- All features from the WP Starter plan
- Unlimited WordPress websites
- Unlimited addon domains
- Unlimited parked domains
WP Business Pro: $21.99/month
- All features from the
- WP Business plan
- SEO optimized
- WordPress plugin
- Free WordPress backup
- Daily automated backup
- 30-day archive
- Automated spam filtering
With all HostPapa plans, you will be able to use CDN for images (Content Delivery Network) but with the WP Business Pro plan, you can also use CDN to upload videos.
Some other useful features that come with the WP Business Pro plan are SEO preview tools, Google Analytics integration, automated malware scanning, and security fixes, scheduled social media posting and an option to accept PayPal payments.
HostPapa WordPress plans are more expensive than their shared hosting plans, but the features aren’t much better, so I recommend that you choose BlueHost for WordPress hosting.
BlueHost’s plans for shared and regular WordPress hosting aren’t different:
Basic: $7.99/month
- 1 website
- 1 domain included
- 5 parked domains
- 25 subdomains
Plus: $10.99/month
- Unlimited websites
- Unlimited domains, parked domains, and subdomains
- Spam Experts
Choice Plus: $14.99/month
- Unlimited websites
- Unlimited domains, parked domains, and subdomains
- Spam Experts
- Domain privacy and protection
- Site Backup
Alongside regular WordPress hosting plans, BlueHost offers WordPress Pro plans. They are quite expensive, but they are packed with features:
Build: $29.99/month
- Jetpack Site Analytics (Basic)
- Marketing center
- 100+ free WordPress themes
- Daily scheduled backups
- Malware detection and removal
- Domain privacy & protection
Grow: $39.99/month
- All features from the Build plan
- Jetpack (Premium)
- Business review tools
- Bluehost SEO tools
- Jetpack Ads integration
- 10 GB video compression
- Blue Sky ticket support
Scale: $59.99/month
- Jetpack (Pro)
- Unlimited backups & restore
- PayPal integration
- Unlimited video compression
- Elastic search
- Blue Sky chat support
I find BlueHost the better WordPress hosting provider of the two. Their plans are cheaper, and there is an additional option of WordPress Pro for people who want powerful features in their WordPress plans.
Cloud hosting plan comparison
HostPapa
☆☆☆☆☆ 0/5
BlueHost
☆☆☆☆☆ 3/5
HostPapa doesn’t offer cloud hosting.
There isn’t anything to compare here since only one of the providers offers cloud hosting. Nevertheless, here is the overview of BlueHost’s cloud hosting:
Starter: $10.95/month
- 1 website
- 1 domain included
- 100 GB storage
- 2 GB RAM
- 100 email accounts
- 500 MB email storage
Performance: $15.95/month
- Unlimited websites
- 1 domain included
- Unmetered storage
- 4 GB RAM
- Unlimited email accounts
- Unlimited email storage
Business Pro: $20.95/month
- Unlimited websites
- 1 domain included
- Unmetered storage
- 6 GB RAM
- Unlimited email
- accounts
- Unlimited email storage
- Dedicated IP
- Domain privacy
- CodeGuard Basic site backup & restore
BlueHost’s cloud hosting doesn’t come with lots of features, but it is very cheap. Since HostPapa doesn’t offer cloud hosting, BlueHost is your only option between the two.
BlueHost or HostPapa for VPS hosting?
HostPapa
☆☆☆☆☆ 4/5
BlueHost
☆☆☆☆☆ 3.5/5
HostPapa has five VPS hosting plans, so you will be able to easily find one that fits your needs.
Mercury: $29.99/month
- 2 GB RAM
- 4 CPU cores
- 60 GB SSD storage
- 1 TB bandwidth
Venus: $69.99/month
- 4 GB RAM
- 4 CPU cores
- 125 GB SSD storage
- 2 TB bandwidth
Earth: $129.99/month
- 8 GB RAM
- 8 CPU cores
- 250 GB SSD storage
- 2 TB bandwidth
Mars: $179.99/month
- 16 GB RAM
- 8 CPU cores
- 500 GB SSD storage
- 4 TB bandwidth
Jupiter: $269.99/month
- 32 GB RAM
- 12 CPU cores
- 1 TB SSD storage
- 8 TB bandwidth
With HostPapa, you get to choose from among CentOS, Ubuntu and Debian operating systems. The other choice is between a fully managed, managed and unmanaged server. KernelCare and a dedicated team of server admins are available only with fully managed servers.
When we compare HostPapa vs BlueHost for VPS, HostPapa is a better option. You get more plans to choose from, and you get better value for your money.
Compared to five plans HostPapa offers, BlueHost has only three plans:
Standard: $29.99/month
- 2 cores - 2.2 GHz
- 30 GB SSD storage
- 2 GB RAM
- 1 TB bandwidth
- 1 IP address
Enhanced: $59.99/month
- 2 cores - 2.2 GHz
- 60 GB SSD storage
- 4 GB RAM
- 2 TB bandwidth
- 2 IP address
Ultimate: $119.99/month
- 4 cores - 2.2 GHz
- 120 GB SSD storage
- 8 GB RAM
- 3 TB bandwidth
- 2 IP address
There aren’t many features that come with BlueHost’s VPS hosting. You get free SSL certificates and free registration for one domain for one year. You will get those with HostPapa as well, but you will also get some other features with HostPapa, so HostPapa is the winner in this category.
Dedicated hosting comparison
HostPapa
☆☆☆☆☆ 0/5
BlueHost
☆☆☆☆☆ 3/5
This is another type of hosting that HostPapa doesn’t offer.
Since HostPapa doesn’t offer dedicated hosting, I will just give you a quick overview of BueHost’s dedicated hosting plans:
Standard: $79.99/month
- 4 cores - 2.3 GHz
- 500 GB storage
- 4 GB RAM
- 5 TB bandwidth
- 3 IP address
Enhanced: $99.99/month
- 4 cores - 2.5 GHz
- 1 TB storage
- 8 GB RAM
- 10 TB bandwidth
- 4 IP address
Premium: $119.99/month
- 4 cores – 3.3 GHz
- 1 TB storage
- 16 GB RAM
- 15 TB bandwidth
- 5 IP address
BlueHost’s dedicated hosting plans are mediocre, but HostPapa has no dedicated hosting, so BlueHost wins this round by default.
Compare BlueHost and HostPapa domain registration
HostPapa
☆☆☆☆☆ 4/5
BlueHost
☆☆☆☆☆ 4/5
These are the prices that your domain extension will renew at, NOT the introductory offers (green denotes the cheaper option):
- .com: $10.99/year
- .net: $15.99/year
- .org: $14.99/year
- .site: $2.99/year
- .online: $4.99/year
- .us: $14.99/year
These are the prices that your domain extension will renew at, NOT the introductory offers (green denotes the cheaper option):
- .com: $11.99/year
- .net: $12.99/year
- .org: $8.99/year
- .site: $2.99/year
- .online: $4.99/year
- .us: $8.99/year
BlueHost vs HostPapa website builder
HostPapa
☆☆☆☆☆ 2/5
BlueHost
☆☆☆☆☆ 5/5
It is a bit disappointing that you don’t get all website builder features included in HostPapa’s hosting plans. There are four different HostPapa’s website builder plans in their offer:
Starter: $2.99/month
- Free domain registration
- Up to 2 pages
- Mobile-friendly, responsive design templates
Business: $9.99/month
- All features from the Starter plan
- Up to 1,000 pages
Premium: $19.99/month
- All the features from the Business plan
- HTML & CSS editing
- Header/footer code injection
Enterprise: $39.99/month
- All the features from the Premium plan
- eCommerce
- 45+ payments gateways
- No additional transaction fees
- Digital goods functionality
- Inventory tracking
- Sell on Facebook
HostPapa’s website building experience starts with the choice of a template and several keywords. You can then add widgets to improve your website and use various tools to edit the template.
Although BlueHost doesn’t have a website builder, their option to easily add Weebly website builder is better than HostPapa’s builder.
There is also an option to let HostPapa’s team create a website for you and manage your account. The pricing will depend on what kind of website you want. Don’t expect it to be cheap. For regular websites, pricing starts at $99/month, and for online stores, pricing starts at $199/month with an additional $499 setup fee.
I already mentioned that BlueHost lets you easily add Weebly website builder to your website because there is no BlueHost website builder.
Weebly is one of the most popular drag-and-drop website builders out there. It uses a grid system that makes every element you place snap to a grid and auto-align with other elements. To a beginner, I would always recommend a website builder that uses a grid system.
A grid system doesn’t give you complete freedom, but it also leaves less room for mistakes. Auto-aligning elements will also save you a lot of time you would spend on resizing and finding the right spot for the elements you are placing.
Although BlueHost hosting doesn’t offer its own website builder, you will be completely satisfied. With the option to add Weebly easily, you will get a better website builder than you would with HostPapa.
BlueHost vs HostPapa speed, uptime, and reliability
HostPapa
☆☆☆☆☆ 5/5
BlueHost
☆☆☆☆☆ 5/5
Based on the data from pingdom.com both hosting providers performed great over the past 12 months. Here is the data for HostGator:
April 2020
Uptime 99.94%
Response time: 589 ms
March 2020
Uptime 99.96%
Response time: 666 ms
February 2020
Uptime 100%
Response time: 522 ms
January 2020
Uptime 99.99%
Response time: 529 ms
December 2019
Uptime: 100%
Response time: 508 ms
November 2019
Uptime 99.88%
Response time: 570 ms
October 2019
Uptime 99.70%
Response time: 554 ms
September 2019
Uptime 100%
Response time: 537 ms
August 2019
Uptime 99.94%
Response time: 531 ms
July 2019
Uptime 100%
Response time: 624 ms
June 2019
Uptime 99.98%
Response time: 421 ms
May 2019
Uptime 100%
Response time: 433 ms
When we compare HostPapa’s and BlueHost’s speed and uptime, we can see that they are performing equally good:
April 2020
Uptime 99.99%
Response time: 626 ms
March 2020
Uptime 99.98%
Response time: 584 ms
February 2020
Uptime 100%
Response time: 421 ms
January 2020
Uptime 100%
Response time: 404 ms
December 2019
Uptime: 100%
Response time: 566 ms
November 2019
Uptime 100%
Response time: 365 ms
October 2019
Uptime 99.96%
Response time: 478 ms
September 2019
Uptime 99.99%
Response time: 385 ms
August 2019
Uptime 99.99%
Response time: 351 ms
July 2019
Uptime 100%
Response time: 386 ms
June 2019
Uptime 99.98%
Response time: 415 ms
May 2019
Uptime 100%
Response time: 384 ms
Reseller hosting comparison
HostPapa
☆☆☆☆☆ 4/5
BlueHost
☆☆☆☆☆ 4.5/5
Getting a reseller hosting plan is an easy way to start your own web hosting business. There is five HostPapa's reseller hosting plans you can choose from:
Bronze: $29.99/month
- 2 GB RAM
- 4 CPU cores
- 50 GB SSD storage
- 500 GB bandwidth
- 20 cPanel accounts
Silver: $39.99/month
- 4 GB RAM
- 4 CPU cores
- 100 GB SSD storage
- 1 TB bandwidth
- 40 cPanel accounts
Gold: $64.99/month
- 8 GB RAM
- 8 CPU cores
- 150 GB SSD storage
- 1.5 TB bandwidth
- 60 cPanel accounts
Platinum: $89.99/month
- 16 GB RAM
- 8 CPU cores
- 200 GB SSD storage
- 2 TB bandwidth
- 100 cPanel accounts
Titanium: $119.99/month
- 32 GB RAM
- 8 CPU cores
- 250 GB SSD storage
- 2.5 TB bandwidth
- 150 cPanel accounts
HostPapa doesn’t have bad reseller hosting plans, but you will see that ResellerClub (the company BlueHost recommends) gives you better value for your money.
Some extras you get with HostPapa’s higher-tier plans are WAF (web application firewall), advanced malware detection and one instance of manual malware removal assistance per account per month. Automated malware removal is limited to up to 5 domains with the Gold Plan. With the Platinum or Titanium plans, the limit is increased to 10 domains.
With the Gold plan and higher, you will also get to choose between free WHMCS and Client Exec billing and automation suites.
BlueHost doesn’t offer reseller hosting, but this is another category where BlueHost outperforms HostPapa by outsourcing their services. BlueHost team recommends ResellerClub for reseller hosting to their clients, and offer a promo code for a 35% discount on ResellerClub plans:
R1: $18.99/month
- Unlimited websites
- 40 GB storage
- 800 GB bandwidth
- Unlimited cPanel accounts
R2: $20.99/month
- 50 GB storage
- 1 TB bandwidth
- Free WHMCS
R3: $27.99/month
- 100 GB storage
- 2 TB bandwidth
- Free WHMCS
R4: $42.49/month
- 200 GB storage
- 4 TB bandwidth
- Free WHMCS
Both ResellerClub and HostPapa plans come with free SSL certificates, unlimited email accounts, and unlimited cPanel accounts.
The benefit of ResellerClub is that you get more resources for less money.
HostPapa vs BlueHost pricing comparison
HostPapa
☆☆☆☆☆ 4/5
BlueHost
☆☆☆☆☆ 4/5
Based on 3-year subscriptions (green denotes the cheaper option):
- Shared: $7.99/month
- Cloud: N/A
- WordPress: $8.99/month
- Reseller: $29.99/month
- VPS:Standard: $29.99/month
- Dedicated: N/A
Based on 3-year subscriptions (green denotes the cheaper option):
- Shared: $7.99/month
- Cloud: $10.95/month
- WordPress: $7.99/month
- Reseller: $18.99/month
- VPS: Standard: $29.99/month
- Dedicated: $79.99/month
HostPapa hosting vs BlueHost hosting conclusion
The winner is BlueHost!
Both hosting providers have similar pricing. HostPapa shared and VPS hosting plans come with better features, so I recommend HostPapa for those two types of hosting. However, BlueHost offers a more versatile set of services. They also beat HostPapa’s website builder and reseller hosting by outsourcing those services.
HostPapa versus BlueHost final score
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