BlueHost Vs InMotion Hosting

Here’s another episode of the “Host Vs Host” series! By popular demand, we’re now going to compare two well-known web hosts: BlueHost and InMotion Hosting.

I’ve got an account with both web hosts as a part of my comparison between HostGator, HostPapa, BlueHost, InMotion Hosting, GoDaddy and 1and1.

BlueHost has a single shared hosting plan while InMotion Hosting offers Personnal Web Hosting, Business Class Hosting, VPS Hosting and Dedicated Servers.

Let’s see how each host compares to each other as far as shared hosting goes.

InMotion Hosting Overview

Delivering quality web hosting since 2001, InMotion Hosting has built a strong reputation based on high performance and reliability. But aside this, InMotion Hosting’s true gem is found in their excellent customer support.

InMotion Hosting has offices in Los Angeles and Virgina. This web hosting company is owned and operated by their employees which explains why they are so conscious about their customer service.

They offer a wide range of products, mainly based on Linux operating systems:

• Cheap and Personal Website Hosting - From $3.00 / mo.
• Business Class Hosting - From $6.95 / mo.
• Virtual Private Servers - From $39.95 /mo.
• Dedicated Servers - From $199.95 / mo.

Along with any hosting plan, you get 24×7 phone and email support.

BlueHost Overview

Based in Orem, UT, BlueHost has been delivering affordable web hosting since 1996, hosting now more than 600,000 domains for customers all around the globe.

They offer a single one-size-fits-all hosting plan with all the leading features that will help you build your personnal or small business website.

BlueHost delivers friendly and professional support 24 hours a day 7 days a week. You can join them either by phone or email all around the clock.

InMotion Hosting Vs BlueHost: Shared Hosting Comparison

Since BlueHost has a single shared hosting package, we’ll be comparing it to InMotion Hosting’s shared hosting plans.

InMotion Hosting has two levels of website hosting: Personnal/Cheap Hosting and Business Class Hosting. The difference remains in the fact that Business Class Hosting customers will benefit of data backups every 24 hours (versus once a week) and high-end servers and equipement that result in faster website performance. The Business Class clients will also get a Premium website builder as opposed to the standard one offered with Personnal Hosting.

InMotion Hosting’s Basic and Max plans are part of the Personnal Hosting class while the Launch, Power and Pro packages are part of the Business Hosting Class.

Since both BlueHost and InMotion Hosting are offering cPanel Hosting, they offer quite a similar set of features. BlueHost’s unlimited hosting package is obviously offering more features than InMotion Hosting’s Personnal / Cheap Hosting packages: unlimited storage, unmetered bandwidth and unlimited domains. But still, if you aren’t gonna use that much resources, you shouldn’t base your decision on this factor alone.

While you won’t find Ruby On Rails support listed as one of InMotion Hosting’s features on their website, you have to mention it when you sign up. They will create your hosting account on a different set of servers supporting Ruby On Rails.

So except for the Basic hosting plan from InMotion Hosting which offers less than the other packages, I think that it’s a tie here: both web hosts offer great features and everything you’ll need for your website.

Extra Features

On the security side of things, BlueHost offers Postini, a great antispam, in addition to SpamAssassin, another antispam software. SpamAssassin is a great antispam but some users might find Postini easier to use.

Other than that, with BlueHost you’ll get some marketing vouchers like a $50 Yahoo Search Marketing voucher, a $50 Google AdWords voucher and $50 of Miva ad credits. These can be very useful if you haven’t got into Pay-Per-Click Marketing yet.

InMotion Hosting doesn’t give away free PPC vouchers but they have a team of Google AdWords specialists ready to help. I think it would’ve made sense to offer AdWords vouchers too but no.

Control Panel

As mentioned earlier, both web hosts offers cPanel which the best web hosting control panel for Linux servers in my opinion. It allows to manage every possible aspect of your website like email accounts, databases, addon domains and subdomains, antispam, etc.

BlueHost Control Panel

InMotion Hosting Control Panel

Support

Both BlueHost and InMotion Hosting offer customer support 24 hours a day 7 days a week. They can either joined by phone, email or through their ticket system.

While I haven’t been with both web hosts for a very long time, I’ve had really good support from InMotion Hosting so far. They’ve been very kind, efficient and professional in providing me with the answers I needed. On the other hand, I’ve never had to use BlueHost’s support so far so I can’t tell. If I rely on most BlueHost Reviews, their support seems to be good.

Pricing

If the Personnal/Cheap Hosting Class packages are enough for you and you don’t mind paying for two years in advance, then this is a great deal. Other than this, I think you’d have a better price / value with either BlueHost’s Unlimited Hosting plan or InMotion Hosting’s Launch plans. I wish that InMotion Hosting would’ve offered the possibility of hosting more than 2 domains on this hosting package though. Two domains is not a lot.

Conclusion

This is quite a tie here: lots of features, 24×7 support and good prices. My take is that if I were going to host a personnal blog or website, I’d go with BlueHost. The Value Class plans from InMotion Hosting are available on a 24 months contract only and I don’t like paying for more than a year. Still if you don’t mind this, you’ll get a nice hosting package at a very low price.

But if I were to host a small to medium business website, I’d choose InMotion Hosting over BlueHost. The reason being that if you’re serious about your business, then be serious about your hosting. InMotion Hosting’s Business Class packages will deliver more performance and having one data backup a day isn’t luxury.

InMotion Hosting

• Pros: daily backups (Business Class plans only), high-end servers, awesome 24×7 phone support, toll free number, scalability (you can later upgrade to a VPS or a dedicated server).
• Cons: long term contracts on cheaper hosting plans.

BlueHost

• Pros: good 24×7 phone support, great community forums.
  
• Cons: only one single hosting plan, weekly backups.

Links

• InMotion Hosting Website
• InMotion Hosting Review and User Reviews
• BlueHost Website
• BlueHost Review and User Reviews

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