Bluehost vs WordPress – Why Use Bluehost For WordPress To Build Your Website?

WordPress is one of the most popular platforms for setting up any kind of website. But where should you host it? And why use Bluehost for WordPress instead of setting up on WordPress itself? Here’s our thoughts on using Bluehost vs WordPress to build your website.

Thinking about launching your own website? Maybe you want to build a blog and monetize it, set up a business website, or set up a website to sell your freelance services. Whatever your needs, WordPress is ideal for pretty much everyone. I mean, 455,000,000 users (not a typo) can’t be wrong!

In this blog, we’re going to cover:

• Why a Bluehost WordPress blog is the best choice if you want to monetize it with ads and affiliate programs
• The difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org
• Why you should install WordPress on Bluehost subdomains
• A Bluehost WordPress hosting review

Read more:

• 49 Best Affiliate Marketing Programs For Beginners
• How To Make Money From Your Blog With Ezoic Ads
• How To Make Money From Your Blog With Mediavine Ads

Why Use Bluehost For WordPress?

If you’re planning to build a website, choosing the right platform can be a hard decision – there are a ton of website builders out there competing for your business!

WordPress is by far the most popular option as a website builder, and Bluehost is one of the most popular website hosts – both of these options are perfect for beginners due to their low monthly cost and ease of setup. So even if you don’t have a big budget to build your website, you can still get something awesome up and running fast and start making money from it.

If you’re trying to decide between Bluehost vs WordPress, there are some difference to consider before you sign up for one or the other and start building your site.

Choosing the hosting solution that’s right for your website and your end goals is super important to your success, as it can be difficult to switch hosting further down the track. So it’s best to get it right the first time!

While WordPress is great and you can get started for free, it might not be suitable for the type of website you have in mind. Bluehost WordPress hosting gives you a lot more options – especially if you’re planning to monetize your blog or website at some point with ads or affiliate links

In our Bluehost WordPress review, we’ll be looking at the hosting plans offered by each company, and point out their main differences so you can decide if you should use Bluehost for WordPress.

Read more

• How To Start A WordPress Blog On Bluehost

Is Bluehost WordPress Hosting Worth It?

Bluehost is one of the most popular platforms to host your website – powering over 2 million websites worldwide.

Once you’re signed up, you can launch your new WordPress website easily with a few clicks. It’s one of the cheapest website hosts available, and it has a solid reputation as being user friendly if you’re a beginner at this whole website building thing.

This makes it ideal for freelancers, small business owners, and bloggers who don’t have a lot to invest in their website setup, but need a professional and smart looking website to begin making money.

It’s also worth noting that Bluehost is one of WordPress’s official recommendations if you’re looking for a great hosting provider.

What Is Bluehost And WordPress?

If you’re just starting out into the exciting world of website building, and you’re planning great things for your blog or business site, you might be wonder – what is Bluehost and WordPress exactly? Is Bluehost and WordPress the same thing?

While it might sound like Bluehost and WordPress offer the exact same service (hosting your website) there are plenty of differences between the two platforms, including things like:

• Cost
• Ease of use
• Features
• Flexibility
• Performance
• Storage
• Security

When you’re deciding where to build your new website, things like speed, platform flexibility, security, and reliability can make or break things if you’re planning to grow a business.

But first, let’s look at the two different WordPress options that get everyone confused when they’re starting out!

What’s The Difference Between WordPress.org vs WordPress.com?

When people talk about WordPress, they usually mean WordPress.org (which is self-hosted WordPress software) – and not WordPress.com.

Yep, we know, it’s pretty confusing!

WordPress.org is the home of WordPress software which is free, open-source and non-profit. Absolutely anyone can download this WordPress software and use it to create their website for zero cost. As we mentioned above, over 455 MILLION people are using this free software to power every type of website from one page freelancers sites, to blogs, to multi-million dollar enterprise company websites.

WordPress.com on the other hand, is one of the hosting solutions for the free WordPress.org software.

So when you’re thinking “why use Bluehost for WordPress?” – you need to understand that you will need to find and pay for a hosting provider (like Bluehost) to use your free WordPress.org software.

While this can take some time as you go through all the hundreds of different hosting options available, if you do this work before you start creating your site, you can save yourself a lot of hassle further down the track.

As we mentioned earlier, Bluehost is one of WordPress.org’s official recommendations as a hosting provider – due in part to its affordable pricing plans, support, flexibility, and long-standing reputation as a reliable hosting platform. And we tend to agree!

To summarize: on the WordPress.org site, you can find the free WordPress software you’ll need to build your website in conjunction with a hosting provider (like Bluehost).

And on the WordPress.com site, you’ll find a platform that will host this WordPress software.

So when we compare Bluehost vs WordPress in this blog, we’re referring to WordPress.com not WordPress.org!

Bluehost vs WordPress – What’s The Difference?

So how are Bluehost and WordPress.com different? In short, these are the main differences between Bluehost vs WordPress:

Bluehost is a website hosting provider that you can host a variety of content management systems (CMS) on – including the WordPress.org software. With Bluehost you’ll need to install the WordPress.org software to build your website – but this only takes one click, so it’s pretty simple!

WordPress is a website builder that hosts WordPress.org software on its platform. This means you can sign up and start your blog or website on the WordPress.com platform directly. However, it’s more expensive and doesn’t offer as much flexibility as Bluehost.

Both Bluehost and WordPress allow you to create and manage a fast, reliable website or blog – but they offer different services to help you do so.

We’re going to take a look at the major feature difference between both of these hosting providers so you can decide which one is the best for your needs and budget.

Bluehost And WordPress Comparison

Themes And Plugins

WordPress is one of the world’s most popular platforms for creating blogs and websites due to its extensive amount of extensions, including plugins and themes.

Plugins add extra functionality to your website. This includes simple things like adding social sharing buttons or an email contact form to your blog posts – or major things like installing protection against hackingm or adding an ecommerce store to your website.

Themes control what your website looks like to visitors. For example, this website is built with a theme from Restored 316 which is great for personal blogs. You can also find amazing themes for your WordPress website (either free or paid) at ThemeForest and GeneratePress.

Let’s go a little deeper on Bluehost vs WordPress in terms of the themes and plugins they both offer.

WordPress Themes

Whichever theme you choose will define not only how your website looks, but how visitors perceive your brand and the quality of your services, content, or products.

You can transform the free WordPress theme provided with any other free or paid theme that takes your fancy – and turn a basic website into something unforgettable, no matter if you’re just intending to use it as a blog, or build a million dollar business out of it.

The advantage of using Bluehost with WordPress is that you can use absolutely any WordPress theme you choose. But you’ll need to find these outside of the Bluehost platform, as they don’t offer any native themes – they’re just a hosting provider. However, it’s easy enough to find hundreds of free themes to try out and install from inside your WordPress dashboard once you’ve set up on Bluehost.

If you’re hosting your WordPress software with WordPress.com – all of their plans give you access to around a hundred free themes to play around with. And if you choose their Premium plan, you’ll also get access to their premium theme library. If you were to buy the premium themes separately, they can cost over $100 – which makes signing up for a slightly higher priced plan very worthwhile!

Unlike with Bluehost, though, you can only upload your own choice of themes on the Business or eCommerce WordPress.com plans, which start at $25-a-month and $45-a-month respectively.

If you don’t want to pay for the Business or eCommerce plans to get the ability to upload your own choice of theme, then it’s vital you check out the themes available on the WordPress.com Free, Personal and Premium plans to see if there’s an option that works for your website.

The winner = Bluehost

Although you get access to basic free themes on the lower tiers of plan from WordPress, you’ll need to pay more per month if you want a premium theme.

With Bluehost, you can upload and install literally any theme you want to on all of the Bluehost plans.

WordPress Plugins

Plugins are essentially a way of supercharging a basic WordPress website. You can easily search for and install thousands of plugins from your WordPress dashboard to help you with creating content, selling products, and growing an online business.

You can use plugins to add contact forms, email sign up forms, run backups, compress images – and just about anything else you can think of.

There are literally thousands of plugins out there for every use case – and they range from free to plugins that you’ll pay monthly for.

If you’re hosting on Bluehost, you can install any WordPress plugin you want to – for no extra cost.

But if you’re hosting your website with WordPress, you’ll nee to be on the Business or eCommerce plans, which means you have to spend $25-45 each month for hosting. On the free and personal personal plans you won’t be able to add any extra features or fun stuff in the form of plugins.

The winner by a mile = Bluehost

Bluehost obviously wins when it comes to plugins – as you can use any plugins you choose on any of their plans – even the $2.95 a month basic plan. This makes it by far the cheapest and most flexible option to give your website increased power and functionality – and it will let you build your website the way YOU want to – without restricting your imagination and creativity.

WordPress prevents you installing plugins unless you want to shell out for expensive hosting every month – and even then there are some plugins that you’re banned from using when you use their hosting services. This places huge limitations on your website before you’ve even begun.

Ease Of Use

This is super important for every user – but is especially important if you’re a beginner. You don’t want to be paying people to help set things up – you just want to be able to set up and get going!

WordPress makes it slightly easier to get set up with your WordPress software – because when you sign up for an account, your website software is already installed and ready to go so you can start building. But remember – there’s not as much flexibility and room for growth with this option.

While Bluehost requires more setup, it’s only a one-click installation to get WordPress up and running during your sign up process – and this is something even non-tech users can handle. Bluehost walks you through every step with their setup wizard, then you’re ready to start building your site and publishing blogs.

As WordPress obviously only hosts its own WordPress websites, it’s ideal for beginners OR people that don’t plan to make money from their websites. This makes it ideal for one-page brochure sites, or very basic blogs.

Bluehost also includes cPanel – which hosts your personalized email accounts, and lets you do more complex back end website things like taking care of security, doing backups, and managing files.

Once you’re signed up with either host, the dashboard you’ll be using for your website looks pretty much the same.

Here’s what the WordPress.com dashboard looks like:

And here’s what the Bluehost dashboard looks like:

So as you can see – they’re pretty much the same!

As we mentioned earlier, Bluehost gives you a ton more flexibility in terms of creating your ideal website – which means you’ll get more options in that left hand menu in the dashboard – and as you add more plugins, this will fill out even more. But everything remains easy to navigate with drop downs – so that isn’t too much of a problem, even for beginners.

WordPress hosted sites however, keep things pretty basic in the dashboard, so you don’t get options to access things like cPanel to manage your files etc. So while it’s more simple and easy to use than Bluehost, using WordPress hosting limits your flexibility.

Creating A Website With Bluehost

Read our step by step tutorial on how to start a WordPress website with Bluehost here

Before you can can start your WordPress website with Bluehost, you’ll need to purchase one of their hosting plans. These begin at $2.95 per month – which is ideal if you’re just starting out, or don’t have much budget to get your website going.

The user-friendly sign up process will walk you through everything you need to start your website, step by step, including installing WordPress. It took me about 15 minutes to set my website up with Bluehost from start to finish.

Creating A Website With WordPress.com

All you need to do to set up on WordPress.com is register for an account. That’s it. It’s that simple.

You’ll then be taken to the website creation setup wizard where you can pick a “yourname.wordpress.com” subdomain to use.

Remember you can’t use an infinitely better “yourname.com” website domain if you choose to set up on WordPress.com!

After this, you’ll choose how much you want to pay per month/year for hosting your website. Again – if you want all the features, themes, and plugin options, you’ll need to sign up for the Business or eCommerce plans, which will cost you upwards of $25 a month. If you choose the free plan, you’ll be extremely limited as to what you can do with it.

The winner for ease of use = tie between Bluehost and WordPress

“Ease of use” between both of these hosting providers really depends on your personal website needs. If you want something super simple and basic to create blog content, WordPress is the better bet. But further down the track you may find WordPress.com hosting frustrating for this exact reason – as it won’t let you do what you want with your website. You’ll then have to face the huge operation that is migrating your site to another hosting provider. I’ve been there. It sucks.

Bluehost is still simple to set up, even for beginners, it just has a few more steps during setup, and your dashboard interface will have more settings and controls than the very basic dashboard offered by WordPress. However, once you’re in there and play around with it, you’ll find it’s very straightforward to navigate.

The huge upside is that Bluehost leaves you with a ton of room for growth, and gives you more control and flexibility over what your website can do.

Bluehost vs WordPress Features

Both Bluehost and WordPress have great features to suit your website building endeavours. Let’s take a look at them in detail.

Bluehost features

Bluehost offers a range of user-friendly, affordable shared hosting and dedicated hosting options to suit all needs and budgets. If you’re just starting out, or you only need a basic website, shared hosting is fine – and you can easily upgrade your plan later on if you get a ton of traffic or your website needs a ton of storage space.

On the shared hosting plans with Bluehost, you’ll get the following features:

• Unlimited storage space (all plans except basic)
• Free SSL certificate for security
• Free domain registration for the first 12 months
• 24/7 tech and general support
• One-click WordPress installation
• Email hosting and the ability to create multiple email addresses for your domain
• Automatic updates for WordPress
• The ability to install free and premium WordPress themes

Bluehost offers a whopping 16 types of hosting plans – so you’re sure to the exactly what you’re looking for in terms of features vs budget.

WordPress features

WordPress hosting gives you the option for a free plan with limited features, and 4 paid plans.

There’s less choice of plans and features here as opposed to hosting your website with Bluehost. So you’ll find these plans might be limiting if your goal is to create a mighty moneymaking website!

WordPress features include:

• 3 GB of storage on the free plan – up to 200 GB on the top tier eCommerce plan
• Free SSL certificates
• Jetpack plugin for WordPress
• Free domain name (with top tier plans only)
• Very limited support
• Free WordPress themes – and premium theme options on the top tier plans

The winner = Bluehost

While WordPress offers a free hosting plan with essentials like free SSL certificates and free themes – the storage space and funtionality won’t be enough once your website reaches a certain point. 3GB of storage isn’t a lot once you have a lot of content and images on there.

For this reason, Bluehost is the best option in terms of feature set. The $2.95 a month plan gives you unlimited storage space, and it will take a while for you to outgrow this. Plus, as we mentioned – the world is your oyster for installing whichever plugins and themes you need to build and personalize your website.

Bluehost And WordPress Personalization

You probably have a good idea of what you want your new website or blog to look like. So you’ll need to consider the amount of personalization options your hosting provder gives you in terms of customizing WordPress to suit your needs.

Ideally, you want to have complete control over your branding, layout, and end user experience for website visitors. This helps you create a professional and visually appealing website to help you grow followers and create a memorable webiste that people will come back to.

This puts WordPress at a huge disadvantage. When you host your WordPress site here, you’ll have to deal with:

• WordPress ads on every page that you can’t remove – and you can’t earn money from
• A subdomain name instead of your own personal website brand

If you want to remove ads and get a custom domain, you’ll need to opt for a paid plan – but unless you get the higher priced Business or eCommerce plan, you’ll still have to deal with the built in widgets and plugins, which severely limit your website’s personalization options.

Bluehost offers a ton more flexibility when it comes to personalizing and branding your new website. As we mentioned, you can install literally any theme or plugin that’s compatible with WordPress software. Plus you can set up personal email addresses that match your custom domain name – making you look instantly professional to followers, friends, and clients that you might need to send to your website.

And also, you won’t have any annoying ads running on your site with Bluehost – unless you choose to monetize with advertisers like Ezoic or Mediavine further down the track.

The winner = Bluehost

There’s not really any competition here. Bluehost is the winner by a mile when it comes to giving you the ability to personalize your website.

Bluehost gives you a free domain name with even their cheapest monthly plan, so you can choose a great branded name for your new site – and you don’t have to suffer the kind of lame subdomain option offered by WordPress on their basic plans.

To get the same level of personalization that Bluehost offers on their cheapest $2.95 monthly plan, you’ll be paying over $300 every year for WordPress hosting with their Business tier plan.

Website Maintenance

Once you’ve got your website up and running, you’ll need to think about maintaining it. Themes and plugins constantly need updating as new versions are released – so WordPress has the edge in this respect. As it’s so simple and doesn’t let you do a lot in terms of personalization – it’s also easier to maintain over the long term.

WordPress will automatically take care of things like security and backups for you. And if you’re on one of the more expensive paid plans, they’ll also update plugins and themes as well. All you have do is focus on creating content and promoting your website.

With Bluehost, you’ll need to check into your dashboard regularly to update themes and plugins (this is done with one click, so it’s easy!) or you can set up auto-updates for your plugins in the WordPress dashboard.

You’ll also need to think about security plugins and backups so if things go wrong or you get hacked, all your hard work creating content is salvageable. The basic Bluehost plan doesn’t include automatic backups, but these are included if you opt for one of the higher tier plans.

For a free security plugin, we absolutely recommend Wordfence – you should install this the moment your Bluehost WordPress blog goes live, to protect you from malicious spammers and other cyber threats. If you do get hacked at any point, they also have a cyber team who can clean your site and remove any malware – I’ve had a site hacked and the Wordfence team waas fast and meticuolous about getting everything restored and back online!

Although you’ll need to do a bit more maintenance with Bluehost, it doesn’t take that much time out of your week, as most things can be updated with a single click from your dashboard.

The winner = WordPress

If you’re a complete beginner or want a website that’s mostly hands-off – then WordPress comes out on top. But – you’ll need to be on one of their premium plans to get the most out of this.

Bluehost vs WordPress Pricing

Pricing can often be the deal breaker when it comes down to choosing where to host your WordPress software.

As we’ve discussed already, Bluehost is the cheapest option AND has the most flexibility and personalization options, right from their basic plan upwards. Their plans for shared hosting will only cost between $42.95 and $13.95 a month – which also gives you a ton of features.

WordPress paid plans start at $4 and range up to $45 per month – which makes them the most expensive option.

As WordPress’ free plan is super limited in features and functionality, we’re only going to compare the paid plans between these two hosting options.

Bluehost pricing

Bluehost is cheaper all round for most users — and especially so if you’re a beginner who’s starting out on their basic plans.

If you want to use the full functionality of WordPress, including making your website look great and load quickly – even the cheapest plans on Bluehost let you get the full benefits.

Remember that whichever plan you choose on Bluehost, it will have more features for a cheaper price point than WordPress.

If you choose managed hosting over shared hosting with Bluehost, you’ll get a bunch more powerful features built in as well.

Shared hosting prices for Bluehost:

• Basic Plan: From $2.95 a month
• Plus Plan: From $5.95 a month
• Choice Plus Plan: From $6.95 a month
• Pro Plan: From $13.95 a month

WordPress pricing

WordPress also has a few paid plans to choose from:

• Free plan – best for beginners – very limited in features and personalization options
• Personal plan – $7 a month if you pay monthly
• Premium plan – $14 a month if you pay monthly
• Business plan – $33 a month if you pay monthly
• eCommerce plan – $59 a month if you pay monthly

If you’re keen to try the WordPress site builder option, you can always sign up for their free plan, and then jump onto a paid plan if you like the feel of it.

Winner = it depends!

If you want to start a very basic, free website that has zero maintenance requirements, then the free WordPress plan makes sense. BUT – remember your website will have ads all over it that you can’t remove – and you’ll only be able to use a “yourname.wordpress.com” subdomain.

Once you move to paid plans, the Bluehost options are cheaper than WordPress paid plans. However, you’ll need to do your own groundwork to find the best balance between the features and cost of each plan to check that it’s going to meet your website requirements.

For a full year of hosting on a basic plan, these are the differences in price:

• $108 for Bluehost
• $300 for WordPress

So Bluehost works out at under half the price – and also gives you more options to customize and grow your site

Monetization

If you’re building a website or blog with the intent to monetize it, Bluehost and WordPress both offer great options.

On the paid plans, WordPress has a variety of tools like gated content options, and payment processing that you can set up easily with a couple of clicks. To do the same thing on Bluehost, you’d need to install plugins for payments, and create the membership side of things yourself.

For ecommerce, WordPress offers a specific eCommerce plan with all the bells and whistles you need to build a store. And with Bluehost, you can sync directly to WooCommerce with a plugin and build your store that way.

If you’re looking to monetize your website with ads, WordPress will let you do this if you’re on one of their more expensive plans like Business or eCommerce. You’ll also be able to build email marketing newsletters, schedule content, and check your growth with Google Analytics.

On Bluehost, you can monetize your site easily with ad neworks like Google AdSense, Ezoic, and Mediavine – even if you’re on their cheapest plan.

Winner: tie between Bluehost and WordPress

Both hosting solutions let you monetize your blog in a wide range of ways. With WordPress, you’ll need to opt for either the Business or eCommerce plans though – which will cost you a lot more than Bluehost.

WordPress makes it slightly easier if you’re planning to set up an eCommerce store – but you’ll be paying their top tier hosting fee for this.

Bluehost vs WordPress Performance

This is also a close tie between the two platforms – as they’re both popular and known for their reliability as hosting providers. Let’s break down their various performance abilities – speed, load time, and uptime

Uptime and response time

Bluehost say that they have a 99.9% uptime – which means you can expect very little time when your website might be offline for any reason. But you may find this isn’t quite the case – and you may get regular notifications that your site is down, especially if you’re on a shared hosting plan.

WordPress on the other hand, tends to be exceptionally good in maintaining constant uptime for its users.

It’s worth noting that neither of these providers offer an uptime guarantee like some of the more expensive hosting providers do.

Speed and load time

The faster your website loads, the better it will perform in search, and the longer people will stay on your site to read things and click around. A slow loading website will tank your traffic and you won’t be as visiblie in Google search results.

Bluehost load times are typically around 405ms – and they’re ranked as one of the five fastest hosting providers in the world. However, if you’re on a shared hosting plan, you’ll be sharing a server with lots of other websites – so for the best and fastest load times, you’ll need to opt for managed hosting.

With WordPress, you’ll need one of the higher tier plans to approach the same load times as Bluehost.

Winner: Tie between Bluehost and WordPress

Both of these providers are pretty solid in terms of performance. WordPress has a better reputation when it comes to uptime – but Bluehost wins if fast load times are your priority. Even the basic hosting plan on Bluehost is faster for load time than a mid-tier plan from WordPress.

Storage Space

Bluehost offers unlimited storage on every plan except for their basic tier. But Basic still gives you 50GB of data storage, which will last you a while as you get your site up and running.

With WordPress free plan – you’ll only get 3GB of storage – which isn’t a lot. Even on their top tier plan you’ll still only get 200GB of storage space

Winner = Bluehost

Bluehost is the clear winner, as all of their plans offer much more generous storage for files than WordPress.

Bluehost vs WordPress Security

Being hacked is probably one of the last things on your mind when you’re excitedly going about choosing a WordPress hosting provider and setting up your new online empire. But the scary reality is that hackers are out there every day trying to mess with all your hard work.

So let’s take a look at the ins and outs of Bluehost and WordPress security. Both of these solutions come with pretty standard security tools like:

• Free SSL certificates to protect your personal data
• Brute force DDoS attack protection
• File backup and recovery

Bluehost Security

If you need extra security features, Bluehost also offers add-ons like

• Monitoring and protecting your site from malware and attacks
• Domain name privacy
• Daily backups, monitoring, and restorating of files

All of these will cost you extra in addition to your hosting plan. However – the world of plugins is your oyster with Bluehost, so you can install a ton of free security plugins that will seriously upgrade your website security and enable you to easily backup and restore files yourself.

Bluehost also integrates with CloudFlare which gives you the added protection of a firewall, bot management, VPN, caching, and image optimization.

Read more:

• Best VPNs For Digital Nomads
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WordPress Security

WordPress runs its own firewalls for all plans, and offers constant monitoring for malware and other hacking activity

On the most expensive plans, you can also enjoy automatic updates – which includes security updates and updates on any premium plugins you may have purchased.

Winner: Bluehost

WordPress has a slight advantage with the features it offers built into some of their premium plans, BUT Bluehost lets you give your security a serious boost at any price point with the ability to install third party security plugins. Many of these plugins are free too, so your monthly spend won’t go up.

Backups And Data Restoration

Pushing the wrong button on your blog or website content has resulted in internal screaming for pretty everyone who has tried to build a website. There’s nothing like all your content simply vanishing – taking hours of work with it!

If you don’t want this (and who does) – you’ll need to ensure your content is always backed up so you can easily get it back again

With Bluehost you can install any number of backup and restore plugins, and they also offer access to their own restore tool in your subscription if you’re on a more expensive plan. This will automically back your work up every day, enabling you to revert your site to any earlier version if you ever need to.

WordPress only enables you access to backup and restore features on their two most expensive plans. You won’t have the option to install any extra plugins, so if you have a free or basic plan, you’ll be more at risk of losing data.

Winner – Bluehost 

WordPress has great backup and restore features – but you can only use these if you want to pay 25+ a month on their two most expensive plans.

Bluehost wins, as you can install powerful plugins even on their cheapest plan that will take care of all your backup requirements.

Customer Support

Support is a crucial factor when it comes to building a website. It’s easy to get stuck with adding themes, losing data, or having any number of weird and wonderful problems as you create and grow your website. So having 24/7 support on call is a huge advantage!

WordPress offers a knowledge base and a forum which can help you answer questions you may have, but in terms of live support – you’re stuck with relying on email unless you upgrade to the most expensive plans where you can access live chat.

Bluehost, on the other hand, gives you a range of ways to get in touch 24/7 – with live chat, phone, and ticket support. And believe me – live chat is awesome when you really need to get something fixed. Having been with Bluehost for years, I can confidently say their support team is fast, knowledgeable, and friendly to deal with.

Bluehost also has an extensive knowledge base if your problems aren’t urgent.

Winner: Bluehost by miles

Bluehost gives you 24/7 live chat for even the most basic plan – versus paying a premium per month for WordPress live chat. What’s not to love!

Comparison Summary Of Bluehost vs WordPress

Now that you’ve read through our detailed summary – here are the key takeaways and comparisons between using Bluehost for WordPress, and using WordPress.com to build your website.

• WordPress themes – only the more expensive WordPress.com plans include the ability to install paid themes on your website. With Bluehost, you can install and WordPress compatible theme you like, on any plan
• WordPress plugins – all Bluehost plans give you the ability to find and install plugins to make your site better – but you can only install plugins on the most expensive plans with WordPress.com
• Ease of use – WordPress.com is the easiest of these two options. Bluehost is still very beginner-friendly and easy to use, but you’ll need to take a little more time to figure out the dashboard and customize your site
• Speed – WordPress.com has a slight edge over Bluehost when it comes to page load times
• Storage spage – Bluehost is the clear winner, with ample storage on the basic plan, and unlimited storage for its higher tier plans
• Security – Bluehost offers extra security as you can install third-party plugins to increase the security functions of your website
• Backups – Bluehost lets you install backup plugins with any plan. Both Bluehost and WordPress offer backup and restoration features on their more expensive plans.
• Support – Buehost has 24/7 support that can be easily contacted via email, phone, or live chat. WordPress only offers email support on its basic plans, so you’ll need to pay more for live support.
• Monetizating your website – the more expensive WordPress plans offer monetization opportunities, but they’re limited and you’ll need to follow their strict guidelines. Bluehost is the winner here, allowing you to explore many more monetization opportunities like premium ad networks and affiliate marketing.

Bluehost vs WordPress FAQs

Are Bluehost and WordPress the same?

No – Bluehost is a website hosting provider that allows you to install and host WordPress.org content and other CMS software. WordPress.com is a self-hosted platform for WordPress.org content.

Is WordPress free with Bluehost?

Yes – WordPress software is free with Bluehost. You’ll just need to sign up for any Bluehost plan, which starts at $2.95 a month.

Can WordPress host my website?

WordPress.com can host your blog or website if you want to build with WordPress software and all you need is a very basic site.

Is Bluehost a good web host?

Yes. If you want a flexible, easy to use, affordable website, with a reliable provider that has 24/7 support – Bluehost is a great choice.

Is Bluehost good for blogging?

Bluehost is excellent for blogging! All you need to do is sign up for a plan, click to install the free WordPress software, and you’re ready to start writing!

How does Bluehost work with WordPress?

WordPress software comes with Bluehost, so when you sign up for a Bluehost plan – all you need to do is click to install the software and set up your new website.

Do I own my domain name with Bluehost?

Yes – you own your own personal domain when you use Bluehost with WordPress. You can also request domain name privacy to keep your name, address, and email safe from spammers and hackers.

Which is better – a Bluehost website builder or WordPress.com?

Bluehost gives you more options to create your website exactly as you want to. WordPress is great if you only want something very simple and basic to put online.

How much does it cost to start a blog on Bluehost?

You can start your blog on Bluehost for as low as $2.95 a month – which includes a free domain name.

How do I start a blog with WordPress and Bluehost?

Read our full tutorial here about how to start a WordPress blog with Bluehost

In short, all you need to do is:

• Sign up for Bluehost
• Choose your monthly plan
• Choose your perfect domain name
• Complete your registration
• Click to install the WordPress software
• Log into your dashboard and start creating and writing`!

Does Bluehost WordPress include email hosting?

Yes – Bluehost includes free email hosting with every type of plan. So you can get a personalized email starting at $2.95 a month, along with your very own website.

Do you get your own email address with Bluehost?

Yes you can choose your own email address with Bluehost, which will be attached to the free domain name you signed up with during registration. You can set up up to 5 email accounts for free.

Conclusion – Why Use Bluehost For WordPress?

So – why use Bluehost for WordPress? In this article, we’ve discussed the main differences between Bluehost vs WordPress.

WordPress.com is ideal if you want a free blog without having to get web hosting that doesn’t require any maintenance or setup from your side – BUT you’ll be spending a lot more every month to get the features that Bluehost offers as standard, or at a much cheaper monthly price. Plus – you won’t be able to customize your website as much as you’d like to – which can hinder the future growth of your blog or business.

We prefer Bluehost, as it lets you create a professional website with your own domain name, and it enables you to use any themes and plugins that are compatible with WordPress software. Prices start at $2.95 a month, which is excellent if you’re a beginner or if you don’t have much budget allocated to get your website up and running.

The Bluehost setup wizard means you don’t need any technical knowledge to start using this platform and building your WordPress site. Just follow their guide, and you can get started as soon as you’ve finished all the steps.

If you’re a first time website builder, using Bluehost for WordPress will give you a great head start, and you’ll have the ability to customize and grow it as much as you like.