Bluehost is one of the most well-known WordPress-recommended hosts, but its severe renewal price hikes and shared hosting limitations hold it back. Cloudways offers a completely different tier of experience with modern cloud VPS. Is it time to upgrade?
Key metrics first — a quick look at the differences:
| Feature | Cloudways | Bluehost |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing Basis | Flexible vs Autonomous; confirm final amount at official checkout | Introductory first-term price plus current renewal price |
| Renewal Risk | ✅ Check final amount in checkout before launch | ⚠️ Renewal can be much higher than intro price |
| Server Type | ✅ Cloud VPS (dedicated resources) | ❌ Shared hosting |
| TTFB Speed | ✅ ~180ms | ⚠️ ~400ms |
| Free Trial | ✅ 3 days (no credit card) | ❌ None (30-day refund) |
| Scalability | ✅ Instant vertical scaling | ❌ Must upgrade plan |
| Cloud Provider Choice | ✅ 5 providers | ❌ Proprietary infrastructure |
| Free SSL | ✅ | ✅ |
| Free Domain | ❌ | ✅ First year free |
| Free Email | ❌ | ✅ |
| WordPress.org Recommended | ❌ | ✅ |
| Support Rating | ⭐ 4.5/5 | ⭐ 3.8/5 |
| Try Cloudways → | Visit Bluehost |
Bluehost was founded in 2003 and is a representative of traditional shared hosting. Cloudways was founded in 2012 (now part of DigitalOcean) and represents the direction of modern cloud hosting. Their technical architectures are fundamentally different.
Bluehost's core model is "shared tenancy" on a single server:
Bluehost is suitable for complete beginners, but it's fallen behind the times in performance and modernity.
Cloudways operates on an entirely different architectural philosophy:
In one sentence: Bluehost is a 2010s hosting solution; Cloudways is a 2020s cloud hosting solution. The technology gap creates an experience gap.
We tested both using the same WordPress test site (default theme + 5 common plugins + 10 posts), deployed on Cloudways (DigitalOcean 1GB) and Bluehost (Basic plan).
Cloudways TTFB is about 55% faster than Bluehost. Dedicated VPS resources and an advanced cache stack are the key advantages.
Conclusion: Bluehost performs acceptably at low traffic, but its shared architecture is severely inadequate under high concurrency. For any business site with meaningful traffic, Cloudways' performance advantage is very significant.
Bluehost and Cloudways take completely different pricing approaches — one hooks you with low intro rates and charges heavily on renewal; the other is always transparent.
✅ Always the same, no renewal price hike
⚠️ Check current renewal price
Bluehost's lowest price is usually an introductory first-term offer. Before buying, check the renewal price, contract length, backup add-ons, email/domain terms, and whether the plan still fits your expected traffic.
For a simple starter blog, Bluehost may still be cheaper. For a business WordPress site, compare the full cost against Cloudways' VPS-level resources, caching stack, scaling path, and migration risk.
For detailed plans, see our Cloudways Pricing Guide, and for savings tips, see Latest Coupon Codes.
| Feature | Cloudways | Bluehost |
|---|---|---|
| Control Panel | Proprietary modern panel | cPanel (traditional) |
| PHP Version Management | ✅ Freely switch | ✅ Multi-version support |
| Staging Environment | ✅ One-click | ⚠️ Premium plans only |
| Automatic Backups | ✅ Daily + on-demand | ⚠️ Paid CodeGuard add-on |
| Git Integration | ✅ | ❌ |
| SSH Access | ✅ Full SSH | ✅ |
| Redis / Memcached | ✅ Built-in | ❌ |
| Server-Level Cache | ✅ Varnish + Breeze | ⚠️ Basic cache |
| Free Domain | ❌ | ✅ First year |
| Free Email | ❌ | ✅ |
| WordPress Pre-install | ✅ | ✅ |
| WordPress Migration | ✅ Free plugin | ⚠️ Paid service |
| Team Collaboration | ✅ Multi-user permissions | ❌ |
| API Access | ✅ | ❌ |
Summary: Cloudways leads across all technical features — free daily backups, Git, Redis, staging, and team collaboration. Bluehost's advantages are its free domain and email, plus the familiar cPanel interface.
| Support Channel | Cloudways | Bluehost |
|---|---|---|
| 24/7 Live Chat | ✅ | ✅ |
| Ticket System | ✅ | ✅ |
| Phone Support | ❌ Premium plans only | ✅ |
| Average Response Time | ~2 minutes | ~10–15 minutes |
| Server-Level Support | ✅ | ❌ |
| Knowledge Base | ✅ Comprehensive | ✅ Comprehensive |
Cloudways responds far faster than Bluehost (2 minutes vs 10–15 minutes) and handles server-level technical problems. Bluehost's phone support is an advantage, but its support quality has declined noticeably since the Newfold Digital acquisition with increased outsourcing.
If you're currently on Bluehost, migrating to Cloudways is much simpler than you might think — especially for WordPress users, as Cloudways provides a free migration tool.
The entire process typically takes 30 minutes to 1 hour with zero downtime. For detailed steps, see our Cloudways Migration Complete Guide.
The best time to migrate is just before your Bluehost renewal date — this lets you avoid paying the inflated renewal price. Start preparing 1–2 weeks in advance to give yourself enough time for testing.
Honestly, Bluehost was once a decent choice — but that was before the EIG/Newfold Digital acquisition. Today's Bluehost suffers from severe renewal price hikes, mediocre performance, and aggressive upselling. It's no longer what it was at its peak.
Cloudways leads across the board on performance, pricing transparency, scalability, developer features, and support quality. If you use Bluehost Choice Plus (the more practical plan), the two-year price is nearly equal to Cloudways — why not choose the better product for the same money?
The only reason to choose Bluehost: you're a complete beginner who needs a free domain + email + cPanel all-in-one package, and you just need a simple personal blog.
For every other situation — especially if you're already on Bluehost and your renewal is coming up — we strongly recommend migrating to Cloudways.
Bluehost uses low first-term pricing followed by higher renewal pricing. Cloudways uses hourly billing, but the exact payable amount should still be confirmed in checkout.
Very simple. Cloudways provides a free WordPress migration plugin (Cloudways WordPress Migrator). Install it in Bluehost's WordPress dashboard, enter your Cloudways server details, and the automatic migration typically completes in 15–30 minutes. See our Migration Guide for detailed steps.
While Bluehost is WordPress.org officially recommended, Cloudways delivers stronger WordPress performance — dedicated VPS resources plus Varnish + Redis + Memcached advanced caching makes WordPress run faster and more stably. Better suited for WordPress sites with growth ambitions.
Cloudways TTFB is ~180ms versus Bluehost's ~400ms — about 55% faster. Under 50-concurrent-user load testing, Cloudways held steady at ~220ms while Bluehost spiked to 1200ms+. This stems from the architectural difference between dedicated VPS resources and shared resources.
Bluehost offers a free domain (first year), free email hosting, traditional cPanel, and phone support — none of which Cloudways provides. But Cloudways leads across the board on performance, scalability, developer tools, and pricing transparency.