Bluehost and Wix are two high quality – butsuper different– ways to get a website up and running.
Bluehost is a hosting provider, which means it manages the server that houses your website and keeps it connected to the internet. Hosting providers focus on running your website, not helping you design it.
Wix is a website builder, which means it provides beginner-friendly website design tools. Wix hosts your website for you, but its servers aren’t as powerful as Bluehost’s.
Bluehost is better for those who want more security and design freedom. Wix is better for those who want an easier-to-use platform that still has plenty of style.
To find out how we’ve come to this conclusion, read on. This article will go section-by-section, pitting Bluehost and Wix head-to-head in all the most important areas, from pricing to design.
Bluehost vs Wix: What’s the Difference?
The main difference is this: Bluehost is a hosting provider, which focuses more on website resources like storage space. Wix is a website builder, which focuses more on website design tools like templates. But which type of platform will you need?
Bluehost vs Wix: Pros and Cons
Bluehost Pros and Cons
Pros
Cons
•Prices are cheaper than Wix’s •Server resources are more reliable. For example, you’ll get more storage space, and a higher uptime guarantee •Can combine with WordPress for near-limitless design freedom
•Not an all-in-one package – you’ll have to make your own arrangements for actually designing your site •Limitless customization means a more complex design process, too
Wix Pros and Cons
Pros
Cons
•Much easier to use than Bluehost. You can get a professional site up and running quickly •Pre-designed templates make editing simple, and they’re still very sleek •All-in-one package – Wix hosts your website for you
•Server resources are not as powerful or secure as Bluehost’s •Design customization is a lot more limited •Plans are more expensive than Bluehost’s
Pricing and Value for Money
Bluehost offers better value for money than Wix, but it’s important to note that you’ll be paying for very different services:
For $2.95 per month, Bluehost will give you powerful server resources, like bandwidth to accommodate plenty of website visitors and storage space to house plenty of media.
For $14 per month, Wix will help you design a modern and stylish-looking website, with no technical or coding experience required.
Both platforms have a range of paid plans to choose from, with the more expensive plans offering a wider range of features. But because Bluehost is a hosting provider and Wix is a website builder, the features included in their pricing plans are pretty different. Here’s what you need to know:
Bluehost
Wix
Cheapest Plan
$2.95/month
$14/month
Cheapest Plan Features
•Free domain for one year •50 GB storage •Unmetered bandwidth •Extremely basic website builder
•Free domain for one year •3 GB storage •2 GB bandwidth •Drag-and-drop site builder with how-to tips
Full Price Range
$2.95 - $119.99/month
$14 - $56/month
Bluehost offers better value for money than Wix because its prices are much cheaper, and you still get great features. That said, it’s important to note that website builders like Wix are all-inclusive – everything you need to get a professional site live is covered by Wix’s $14 per month cost.
Heads up: Wix also has a completely free plan. You won’t get to use a custom domain name (instead, it’ll look like yourname.wix.com/customname), and you’ll have to put up with ads on your site, but you’ll still be able to:
Up to 500 MB storage
Up to 500 MB bandwidth
Tips and guidance on using the website editor
On the other hand, hosting providers like Bluehost don’t cover the design tools that you’ll need to create a stunning site. It’s true that Bluehost provides a basic website builder in its hosting plans, but most people end up using a content management system (CMS) like WordPress to design their website instead.
Wait – what’s a CMS?
WordPress offers both free and premium themes that you can use, with premium themes typically ranging from a one-time payment of $40 – $130. WordPress themes are very customizable, but they require more advanced technical knowledge than Wix’s themes.
Key Takeaway: When you consider Bluehost’s super-low prices, remember to factor in:
The $0 – $130 cost of a WordPress theme
The time investment of learning how to use WordPress
This one’s a tie! Bluehost and Wix both offer strong features, but in very different areas.
What’s Included With Bluehost’s Cheapest Plan
What’s Included With Wix’s Cheapest Plan
•Free domain for the first year •50 GB storage •Unmetered bandwidth •SSL certificate
•Website with a custom domain connected •Free domain for the first year •2 GB bandwidth •3 GB storage •SSL certificate •Drag-and-drop website builder
As you can see, Bluehost has greater storage and bandwidth than Wix, while Wix has better website design tools. It really comes down to which factor you value more:
How your website will perform (Choose Bluehost)
How your website will look (Choose Wix)
For Top Performance, Choose Bluehost
As a hosting provider, Bluehost offers great resources on the actual server your website is hosted on. These resources help your site perform better, meaning it will load faster and be able to accommodate more visitors at one time. But when it comes to the website’s look and feel, you’ll either have to outsource to a CMS like WordPress, or settle for one of Bluehost’s basic website templates.
Read our solo Bluehost Review for more information.
For a Better Look, Choose Wix
As a website builder, Wix hosts your website for you. This means you won’t have to worry about any technical headaches, but it also means you won’t have access to as much bandwidth or storage as you would with your own hosting provider (although small to midsize websites won’t really need more resources than Wix can provide).
Wix’s high-quality website templates and built-in, drag-and-drop editor make it extremely easy to design a stunning website all by yourself.
Check out our dedicated Wix Review to learn more.
Ease of Use
Wix is easier to use than Bluehost. Wix’s drag-and-drop website builder requires absolutely no prior knowledge, and all of the technical stuff – including hosting – is taken care of for you.
The first thing Wix will do is ask you what kind of website you want to create. You can choose everything from “Portfolio & CV” to “Online Store,” and once you’ve decided, you’ll then be given two options for creating your site:
Wix Editor is the famous drag-and-drop website builder that we’ve all come to associate with Wix. If you choose the editor, you’ll be able to pick a template and customize it yourself.
Wix ADI is an even easier to use version of Wix. This option generates a website for you, based on a few questions about the type of site you’re making and the kinds of features you want. There isn’t as much room for personalization, but you also won’t have to lift a finger.
If you choose Wix ADI, you’ll have a finished site in just a few clicks. If you choose Wix Editor, you’ll get to choose from one of 500+ templates, categorized by industry, and start customizing the design right away.
The Wix Editor lets you drag images and text boxes to wherever you want them on the page.
Managing your website is just as easy as designing it. Your Wix dashboard will walk you through everything, from connecting your free domain to implementing SEO best practices.
The Wix dashboard makes managing your website’s functions super straightforward.
Wix also hosts your website for you, so you won’t have to set that part up yourself. The drawback of this is that you won’t have as much server resources (like bandwidth and storage) allocated to your site as you would with Bluehost. But if ease of use is your top priority, then Wix is an unbeatable all-in-one package.
Want the simplicity of a drag-and-drop builder, but not sure if Wix is the one for you? Our ranking of the overall best website builders will show you more options.
Bluehost: No Hand-Holding
Although Bluehost offers a basic website builder with its hosting plans, most people don’t use it – it’s more like a formality. Instead, the most popular option is to create your Bluehost-hosted website through WordPress. In fact, WordPress is so popular that it actually powers 39% of the internet!
Since WordPress is a CMS and not a website builder, it offers more design customization than Wix. But that comes at a price: WordPress is not very beginner-friendly. For example, Wix lets you see what your changes (like moving images and text blocks) will look like as you make them on-site. But with WordPress, you create your pages in a dedicated editing section, and then have to enter a separate “Preview” mode to see what they’ll actually look like.
This is the WordPress editor. To see what your changes will actually look like, you’ll have to click “Preview” in the upper right corner.
A basic knowledge of code will help you master this CMS editor. But if you’re intimidated by the thought of some HTML, or simply don’t have time to delve into it, then Wix’s code-free editor is a much easier option. Plus, Wix does let you code if you want to – it’s just that with Wix, dealing with code yourself is completely optional!
For managing websites, Bluehost uses “cPanel,” a popular dashboard for hosting providers. Although it’s not as modern-looking as Wix’s dashboard, the cPanel is still a pretty straightforward way to manage your Bluehost site.
Decided you want the freedom of a WordPress site, but aren’t sure if Bluehost is the right host for you? We’ve ranked the best web hosting providers to show you what else is out there.
Website Design
This one’s another tie. Wix websites are easier to design, but will still look amazing. Bluehost WordPress websites require more advanced knowledge, but allow for infinite design freedom.
Wix: Easy and Quick Design
Wix offers hundreds of ready-made templates that you can tweak to your own style.
Wix templates are modern and stylish, and they give you a stunning website without any work involved on your part. When it comes to making the template your own, you won’t have as much freedom as you would with Bluehost/WordPress, but it’s still easy to change colors, fonts, and layouts. One user put it best:
“It was easy to drag in images and video, and the more I used it, the easier it became.”
The biggest draw of Wix’s templates is that they’re ready-made, but they’re still high-quality designs, too. With Wix templates, you can have both style and ease of use.
What about Wix’s apps?
If you want to add extra functionality to your site, like a live chat widget or an ecommerce shopping cart, Wix’s App Market has over 250 free and paid tools that you can install with just a few clicks. Wix’s app offerings aren’t as extensive as WordPress’, but once again, they’re easier to add to your website.
Bluehost with WordPress: Complicated but Customizable
There are plenty of free and paid WordPress templates available.
WordPress offers thousands of templates (or “themes,” as you might see them called), ranging in price from free to about $130 each. Out of the box, these themes are nowhere near as sleek or modern as Wix’s templates.
However, WordPress themes are much more customizable than Wix’s templates. If you have a little bit of coding knowledge, and some time to get comfortable with the WordPress CMS, then you’ll be able to create your own unique pages, loosely based on the WordPress theme you choose.
We spoke to Harry Clarkson-Bennett from Red Orange Peach about his experience using WordPress to create the site:
“If you want to have total control and creative freedom over your website – and you know you’re going to want to make substantial changes in the future – then the design freedom you get with WordPress is, in my opinion, essential.
There are so many more things that can go wrong with WordPress, but I know I can’t create the website I really want with a website builder.”
What about WordPress’ apps?
As far as apps go, WordPress offers almost 60,000 plugins that you can install to add extra features to your site. There are much more WordPress plugins available than Wix apps, so you’ll be able to find practically any tools you can think of.
The drawback to this is that a lot of the plugins in the WordPress market were created by independent, third party developers, not by the official WordPress software. We recommend checking a plugin’s user reviews before downloading it to make sure you’re not installing anything on your site that’s out of date, or which contains malicious code.
Key Takeaway: Both Wix and WordPress templates can give you a stylish end result. Use Wix if you want it to be easy. Use WordPress with Bluehost if you want it to be customizable.
Performance and Security
Bluehost wins for performance and security. Hosting providers are better than website builders in this area, because they’re more focused on the resources and reliability of the actual web server, rather than the front-end of the website that your visitors see.
Wix has better help and support than Bluehost. They both have responsive support teams that you can reach over phone or email, but the Wix editor’s built-in tips, which guide you as you go along, push this builder over the top.
First, the basics. Both Bluehost and Wix offer multiple ways to contact their support teams:
Bluehost
Wix
Phone
24/7
Monday to Thursday, 5am-5pm EST
Email
✔
✔
Live chat
✔
✘
Knowledge base
✔
✔
It’s true that only Bluehost offers 24/7 phone support – in fact, Bluehost beat every other hosting provider in our rankings for “customer support.” Still, what elevates Wix’s support over Bluehost’s is the amount of guidance you get while you’re actually in the editor making changes to your site.
Wix even lets you search through helpful articles without having to leave the site editor.
Since Bluehost isn’t a dedicated website builder, it can’t offer this level of on-the-job guidance for website design.
Bluehost vs Wix: Summary
It’s clear that Bluehost and Wix are very different platforms. But one thing’s for sure: They’re both high-quality tools! To recap, here’s how they stack up against each other:
Bluehost
Wix
Pricing
Winner! Starts at $2.95 per month
Starts at $14 per month
Features
Tie! Lots of bandwidth and storage
Tie! Drag-and-drop editor
Ease of Use
WordPress editor requires some tech knowledge
Winner! Ready-made templates
Design
Tie! Limitless customization
Tie! Quick and easy, but still stylish
Performance
Winner! Secure, powerful servers
Less focused on server resources
Support
24/7 phone support
Winner! Helpful guidance as you go
Are You Ready?
Visit Bluehost
Visit Wix
Who Should Use Bluehost?
Anyone looking to grow their site’s content or audience in the future
Bloggers with a lot of posts to keep track of
Anyone with a lot of images or other media on their site
Anyone who values total design freedom
Anyone who wants a more powerful, advanced platform
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