Linode vs Bluehost - Which Is Better Hosting in 2021?

Looking for the best VPS hosting provider between BlueHost and Linode? Here is the right place. In fact, both of the 2 companies are famous hosts that have been trusted and recommended by a large number of webmasters and authority organizations, so choosing between them might be difficult.

In this circumstance, we have carried out an in-depth and objective comparison between their services, with a view to helping our readers make the right decision.

Budget-Friendliness

To be frank, both of the two hosts offer a budget-friendly price that is absolutely affordable for the majority of website owners all over the world. Thus, customers can build their sites without costing too much.

BlueHost has 4 packages that are named as Standard, Enhanced, Premium, and Ultimate. Customers can purchase them at the price of $29.99/mo, $59.99/mo, $89.99/mo, $119.99/mo, which is much cheaper than many other VPS hosting solutions we have reviewed so far. However, in order to give more people the opportunity to enjoy the service, this company has released a 50% discount for the first month, with which customers can purchase starting at $14.99/mo only by going through this special promotion link.

In terms of Linode, the options are various. It offers 8 plans for customers to choose. Depending on the volume of disk storage and bandwidth needed, the price is ranging from $20/mo to $800/mo.

Feature-Richness

As compared, both BlueHost and Linode offer a large allocation of server resources, so customers can feel free to set up a large and complex site featuring a lot of images and plugins. In respect to other features, however, Linode falls behind as it lacks free domain name and cPanel control panel. In addition, its money back period is only 7 days that are not long enough for customers to test whether this service is worth trying or not.

Hosting Performance

Due to the fact that the web server and data center infrastructure play a vital role in uptime and page loading speed, we have reviewed the two parts carefully and have found that both of the two companies view this aspect seriously.

BlueHost, for instance, utilizes 100% factory-tested DELL servers running dual quad processor to ensure a fast and stable connection. Besides, it has invested millions of dollars to build 3 world-class data centers featuring 24/7 network monitoring, diesel generators, uninterrupted power supply, multiple 10 gigabit fiber connections, and automatic cooling system.

As tested in the real world, it has achieved an average of 100% uptime and a fast server response time of 320ms.

Control Panel

Without doubt, an easy-to-use control panel is one of the most important ingredients for a truly quality hosting service. After all, people need it to manage their websites, domains, accounts, files, data, and many other tasks.

BlueHost has done a good job in this part as it offers the most popular cPanel. This kind of control panel comes with an intuitive user interface with easy-to-understand graphics, so even a five grade child can use it without any hassle.

Linode, however, doesn’t provide a pre-installed control panel, but a barebone service with the command line. Honestly speaking, managing via shell commands may not be a big issue for developers or professionals, but can be a headache for common webmasters.

Usability

To be frank, BlueHost absolutely wins over Linode in this aspect, for it offers the managed service while the other one offers an unmanaged solution.

What is the difference between the 2 hosting types? Managed providers allow customers to focus on the websites only, and handle any other issues such as server maintenance and patch, security update and audit, hardware setup and upgrade, software installation and configuration, and many more. Unmanaged service, however, requires customers to do all of these things by themselves. If there are some problems occur, people have to fix these issues on their own with no aids from hosts.

In this respect, the service offered by BlueHost is undoubtedly more user-friendly, especially for non-technical customers.

Technical Support

In order to improve customer satisfaction rate, BlueHost offers a responsive technical support that is available 24/7/365. All the support staffs are knowledgeable and well-trained, providing customers with the best assistance via hotline, e-mail, live chat, and company blog.

Linode also offers an all-time available support service, but the support representatives can only be contacted through the ticket system and phone. Besides, customers cannot get help for some application specific issues like script configuration and CGI programming.

Summary

According to the information discussed above, both BlueHost and Linode are good VPS hosting providers with cheap pricing and excellent hosting performance. However, BlueHost is the better one with rich features, managed service, cPanel control panel, and unmatched support.