BlueHost vs HostMonster - Which One Is Better?

First of all, if you haven't know it yet, BlueHost and HostMonster is technically the same web hosting company that are owned and operated by Matts Heaton. Basically they share almost everything from pricing to office address to servers and to staffs, except the name. More discussions are in my Host Monster review.

Knowing that, some people will have the dilemma on which one to choose! And that's why in this post, I will explain why I am biased towards BlueHost.

Reason #1 - Age & Brand

If they are brothers, Blue Host is born in 2003 and Hostmonster in 2005. And because of the head start, Blue Host is a lot larger than Hostmonster in terms of customers. They are more well known and have a stronger brand. As of writing, Blue Host is hosting 915,000 domains while Hostmonster 600,000.

[Note: number of domains does not equal to number of customers because 1 customer can host unlimited domains]

Matt Heaton will always call himself the "CEO of BlueHost and HostMonster" but will never call himself the "CEO of HostMonster and BlueHost". BlueHost always comes first.

Because of the brand and size, BlueHost is worth a lot more than HostMonster and it will make business sense to take greater care of it.

Reason #2 - Forum Size

BlueHost customer forum is significantly larger than HostMonster's. There are more active customers and postings in BlueHost forum as compared to Host Monster. You can expect more discussions and replies if you are a BlueHost customer.

Reason #3 - Pricing & Promotion

While we are able to offer the same discounted price of $3.95 for both BlueHost and HostMonter, please remember that not everyone is getting the price! Those who don't come here and go directly to them will have to pay $6.95!

However, from time to time, Hostmonster will slash the price by $1 for everyone, selling it at only $5.95. They will never do that for BlueHost.

That means 3 things. One, when you purchase using our discount link of $3.95, you get bigger discount "psychologically". And two, because they make more money with BlueHost than HostMonster, the owner will love BlueHost more than HostMonster. And three, BlueHost is marketed as a "premium" hosting while HostMonster is marketed as a "low cost" hosting.

Why don't they stick to 1 brand and 1 name?

It is all marketing. As mentioned earlier, BlueHost is meant to be marketed as a "premium" host while HostMonster as a "low cost" host. But you may not know it, they even have the third brand known as FastDomain which I believe is meant to target customers looking for the lowest possible price! Unfortunately (or fortunately for simplicity sake), FastDomain is not able to make it big. Maybe they abandoned the plan and focus on marketing Bluehost and Hostmonster instead.

It is very common to have a company owning several brands of similar products. For example, Pantene, Head & Shoulders, Herbal Essences are all owned by P&G. In hosting, iPowerWeb, iPage, FatCow, StartLogic, PowWeb are all under the Endurance Group! So the important thing for us is whether we are getting what we want, i.e. the quality of the service.

Conclusion

At the end, all parents love their children no matter what. Whether it is BlueHost or HostMonster, I believe Matt will take good care of them. And if the brand and forum really mean nothing to you, they are really not that different. Maybe it is just me that's more biased towards BlueHost because I have been using it for more than 4 years without any problem! (and maybe that's the reason why I try to make up these excuses here) :)

Read my BlueHost Review and HostMonster Review if you haven't do so yet!