Fast Page Load Speed
One of the most difficult decisions to make when trying to build a website is which web host to go with. To a large extent, that decision can be made easier by looking at metrics that measure performance. One of these kinds of metrics is page load speed.
And why is page load speed important?
There are a few reasons. First, your web host, to a great extent, determines how fast your web page would load. A website that loads slowly will not come up often on Google searches. If that is the lot of your website, you may have to kiss good SEO ranking goodbye. A website that has great average load speed would be the exact opposite and would come up often on Google searches. This, of course, will substantially increase your conversion rate.
So, how do you know how fast a web host is? It’s simple, really. You test. Like we did.
Bluehost Average Page Load Speed
Our page with Bluehost had an average page load speed of 700ms seconds. That is faster than most of the web hosts that we’ve ever tested.
Pressable Average Page Load Speed
Our site with Pressable had an average page load speed of 711ms, which was just almost as fast as Bluehost’s.
So Pressable and Bluehost have great speed. That means that you cannot make a decision based on these stats alone. The next question, of course, is how much do you have to pay for a Bluehost or Pressable plan. And when you pay, will you get value for your money? Or will you have to pay over the odds?
To find that out, we’ll be carrying out a pricing and value for money comparison.
Bluehost vs. Pressable; Pricing And Value For Money Comparison
Choosing the right web hosting package can be a herculean task. But it doesn’t have to be. You only need to know what you need, what is on offer, and how much you can afford. With the knowledge of those three, you can easily come to a rational decision about what host you should go for.
Since Pressable is a strictly managed hosting WordPress web host, we’ll be comparing their plans to Bluehost’s WordPress managed hosting plans called WP Pro.
Both hosts have three tiers of managed WordPress hosting, so let’s see how all these eventually pans out.
Entry Level Plan; Build Plan vs. Personal Plan
The Build plan is Bluehost’s cheapest managed WordPress hosting plan and it comes with jetpack site analytics (basic), marketing centre, daily, scheduled backups, malware detection and removal, domain privacy and protection, and 1 Office mailbox 365 free for thirty days. All of Bluehost’s plans, including the Build plan, come with unlimited websites, unlimited domains unlimited subdomains and unlimited web storage. The plan costs $19.95.
The Personal plan of Pressable comes with 1 WordPress install, 200 GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, and a capacity for 60,000 views per month. The plan also comes with jetpack premium, free SSL certificate, free automated migration, and staging environments. The plan costs just about $25.
The Build plan of Bluehost offers unlimited websites, while the Personal plan offers only one. Despite this, the Personal plan is about 6 dollars more expensive than the Build plan. It’s obvious which plan has the best value for money
Mid Tier Plan; Grow Plan vs. Starter Plan
The Grow Plan is the midtier plan of Bluehost and it comes with everything in the Build plan + Business review tools, 10GB video compression, Bluehost SEO tools, and Blue Sky ticket support. All of Bluehost’s plans, including the Grow plan, come with unlimited websites, unlimited domains unlimited subdomains and unlimited web storage. The plan costs $29.5 per month.
The Starter plan of Pressable comes with 10 WordPress installs, a capacity for 200,000 page views per month, 200GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth. The plan also comes with jetpack premium, free SSL certificate, free automated migration, and staging environments. The plan costs just about $45 per month.
The Starter plus plan costs a lot more than the Grow plan and still doesn’t provide unlimited websites. It doesn’t even come close to providing the numerous extra features that the Grow plan packs along. This shows that the Bluehost plan obviously has better value for money.
Top Tier Plan; Scale Plan vs. Pro Plan
The Scale plan is Bluehost’s most expensive WP Pro plan and it comes with everything in the Grow plus Jetpack pro, unlimited backups and restores, PayPal integration, unlimited video compression, and Elastic search. The plan costs $49.95 per month.
The Pro plan of Pressable, on the other hand, costs $90 and it comes with 20 WordPress installs, a capacity for 400,000 views per month and unlimited bandwidth. The plan also comes with jetpack premium, free SSL certificate, free automated migration, and staging environments. It costs just about $90 per month.
First off, the Pro plan of Pressable is so expensive. Secondly, it doesn’t come with unlimited sites, so the Scale plan of Bluehost (or any other plan of Bluehost to be fair), has more value for money than it. There’s nothing that the Pro plan can offer than the Scale plan can’t offer— and it does that at almost half the price.
The Right Host For You
Choosing the right host for you means looking at the entire picture and choosing the host that would give you the best mixture of value for money and performance. Pressable has great performance, as we saw with our speed test. But that’s all about the web host to be fair. Their managed hosting plans are terribly overpriced, and Bluehost managed to offer more or the same at a far lesser price. Add that to the fact that Bluehost has great performance too, and the picture starts to clear. The fog begins to open up, and Bluehost appears to be clearly the more sensible choice.
Alternative
If you’re looking for a great managed hosting host, then you should probably consider Pressable if you haven’t already. The company is one of the first to actually provide managed hosting, so if you’re looking for a new home for your site, or if you’re just in the process of building one, you should check them out.
They have great customer support, excellent uptime and are without a doubt one of the fastest hosts on the market. However, you may not be able to afford their managed hosting plans. Their cheapest plan may be within the range of most people, but once it begins to climb it becomes more and more expensive. Importantly, you won’t be able to host more than 20 websites on their most expensive plan, so if you need to host more sites than that you may have to look to another web host.