Bluehost VS 1&1 (US)

Deciding which hosting company is the best for your business all depends upon exactly what you need for your online business hosting needs. You need to decide if your business simply requires the basic hosting account or more options that include dedicated and virtual hosting that would be advantageous to businesses that will outgrow the basic hosting plan. Let’s take a brief look at Bluehost and 1&1 (US) and see which works best for your business.

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Pricing

Bluehost offers an all-encompassing plan that includes the features and options you would expect of a hosting account. For $6.95 a month, no set up fee, no hidden charges and a domain included, Bluehost offers a great deal for a small amount of money.

1&1, on the other hand, offers several plans ranging in different levels of space and bandwidth as well as a choice of either Linux or Windows hosting. The company is currently running a special where you can start out paying as low as $3.49 a month for your first six months ($6.99 a month thereafter). That’s a fifty percent savings for six months.

Products and Services

In light of its current special, you get quite a lot for your dollar at 1&1. All accounts come equipped with an included domain, unlimited monthly transfers and a huge number of email accounts. Every account holder has access to the 1&1 WebsiteBuilder, the 1&1 Photo Gallery, $75 in marketing vouchers and much more. PHP 4 and 5 are supported with all accounts. Perl and Python are added with higher leveled accounts. Because of the special, you can include Perl and Python at a lower than normal rate. As opposed to Bluehost’s web hosting only offering, 1&1 also has dedicated and virtual servers for those businesses who need a bit more in the power and space department. All server accounts are competitively priced.

Bluehost also offers unlimited monthly transfers and tosses in a few more unlimited options – forwarding email accounts, auto-responders, and disk storage to name a few. All accounts are installed with PHP 5, Perl 5, Python, and Ruby/Ruby on Rails making scripting woes a thing of the past. The hosting company also offers its clients a large number of plug-in scripts, ecommerce solutions and a free search engine submission.

Web Hosting Features

1&1 hosting accounts all come with firewall protection installed and are backed up daily – ensuring your data is safe. The Marketing Center included with each account not only includes $75 in vouchers to be used for advertising but it also includes access to Google’s Webmaster Tools. A unique bit of site-building software offered by this company is its Spreadshirt Merchandising. This tool allows you to design and brand your own products for sale on your website. This is not an average hosting offering and is a great marketing tool.

At Bluehost you are treated to a large number of scripts you can add on to your site. Some of these include Moodle, Tikiwiki, Coppermine and a project management script. Frontpage extensions are available, if needed, and you can even have access to customized cronjobs. To handle your ecommerce needs, the company offers several different shopping carts to choose from and gives its customers access to an SSL secure server. All accounts are monitored 24×7 and site backups are made regularly.

Customer Service

Customers needing support at 1&1 can do so directly from their control panel. 1&1 also has FAQs online, e-mail support and a toll-free number for its customers to call. Additionally, if you are in need of some direct, hands-on support, the company offers “Netviewer.” This is a secured software that enables direct online assistance from 1&1’s support staff.

At Bluehost, their online Help Desk is full of great support options. Wizards, tutorials, knowledge base and a user forum are just a few of the options available. If you need more one-on-one support, Bluehost also has a 24×7 toll-free phone number to call and a live chat button for quick support.

Recommendations

If your business is already established and you simply need a nicely featured web hosting account, Bluehost is the company for you. However, if you are expecting your business to grow and need the availability of hosting products that will allow you to continue to grow, 1&1 is the clear choice.

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