When you’re exploring different options online for website hosting solutions, it does happens quite a few numbers of times that you stumble across myriad possibilities. Well, a few months back even I found myself in the same kind of situation and believe me felt like crazy as was confused after browsing through different options. Definitely, it is an overwhelming process wherein you see all service providers are rendering services and solutions in similar lines and figure out which one would be the best deal for you. Actually, I too find it pretty challenging to choose between these hosting giants’ eHost, Bluehost, and Godaddy
You see, I had to profoundly dig into various resources online to get a perfect picture about the services offered by these service providers and choose one out of them. They say, ‘Deep research and dedicated work only helps you pulling off really well in times of confusion’.
After all, affiliating with a dependable service provider is without a doubt crucial. You can’t just pick any web host as it can have powerful scores of bearing on your business, which is definitely incorrigible.
Through this post, I would like to highlight on some of the key aspects that you can consider before deciding between eHost, Bluehost, and Godaddy – as your service provider. Let’s get on the track with a brief overview of these three service providers.
Brief introduction-
Godaddy journey as a web hosting service provider
History:
GoDaddy was introduced in the market by Bob Parsons. Formerly to GoDaddy, Parsons operated his financial software services company patented as “Parsons Technology, Inc.” to Intuit. In 1997, after stepping down from work Parsons announced the inauguration of Jomax Technologies, which later transformed into today’s GoDaddy Group Inc. GoDaddy was funded by leading scheme capital funds from KKR, Silver Lake, and Technology Crossover Ventures.
GoDaddy is a publicly-owned Internet domain registrar and widely held website hosting service provider. As per the evaluations of January 2017, it has been publicized that GoDaddy is alleged to have over and above 61 million domain names efficaciously running, thus making it the world’s leading ICANN-qualified registrar. It tailors to the requirements of more than 14 million clienteles and has a worker strength more than 4,000 people. Isn’t that remarkable figure?
The enterprise has been acknowledged as a benefactor of NASCAR a postseason college football bowl game. On top of domain registration and hosting contributions, GoDaddy also runs e-business linked software and services.
eHost journey as a web hosting service provider
eHost is the leading brand that operates under the brand name of the Endurance International Group, which is one of the world’s biggest web hosting companies operating successfully over sixty different hosting brands under its flagship. EIG, in the beginning, originated as BizLand, but then with the passage of time hit the road purchasing smaller web hosting businesses to broaden their customer base. At the moment, they possess some of the most purported and widely held hosting companies in addition to eHost such as BlueHost and HostGator.
Bluehost journey as a web hosting service provider
Bluehost is yet another web hosting company like eHost that runs under the flagship brand of the Endurance International Group. It is one of the 20 leading web hosts, jointly hosting well over 1.9+ million domains along with its subsidiary companies, including HostMonster, FastDomain, and iPage.
Matt Heaton was encouraged to kick start Bluehost in 1996 when he was busy gauging the web statistics program project of his own conception and realised that web hosting services are so much sought after. He understood web hosts could propose more space and be more expedient to use, and he set out to a resolution that, creating two other web hosts, 50megs.com and 0catch.com, before finally introducing Bluehost in 2003. In 2010, BlueHost was acquired by Endurance International Group (as we mentioned above).
Going forward, let’s have a general idea about the featured services and hot deals offered by these service providers:
Lucrative deals –
Godaddy-
Godaddy has created a special page for deals. I was surprised to see the different types of deals presented by the service provider. Let’s have a look at each deal one by one:
- Now get domain + website+ email just for $1/month. Isn’t it a good deal?
- You can avail up to 50% off on web hosting services starting at $1 per month.
- You can even save up to 74% on website builder and the annual plan includes hosting and free domain as well.
- Now you can save 50% on purchase of Premium SSL Certificates.
eHost-
Let’s see what eHost has to offer to the clienteles:
They are at the moment presenting the customers with a 50% promotional preliminary offer, in which the company is proposing their shared hosting plan for only $2.75 per month with FREE DOMAIN, to be paid on a one-year term basis. Isn’t that a great deal to go ahead with?
Probably Godaddy is offering hosting services for more, yet if you try to equate both, straight away you will get to distinguish the actual difference and will think about going ahead with eHost. No doubt Godaddy is a renowned name in the hosting industry, but that doesn’t mean service providers like eHost can’t provide better hosting solutions.
Bluehost:
The company is offering web hosting services starting at $3.45/month. See Bluehost Coupon.
Verdict-
In terms of deals, if you see then I would definitely like to go ahead with eHost as they are offering reliable hosting services along with numerous freebies at economical price range. So, eHost is the winner in this domain.
Now, let’s move on to the featured services offered by these service providers to understand which could be a better option for the users:
Domain Registration:
Godaddy:
The company proposes to offer approximately around 100’s of domain options. You need to pick one from these options. Needless to say, prices that they offer won’t even burn the hole in your pocket. Quite reasonably priced!
eHost:
On the other hand, eHost offers a FREE domain with hosting services.
Bluehost:
Bluehost even offers FREE Domain Policy that is quite a great deal.
Verdict:
For domain registration, I will say Godaddy is the best option. Godaddy is the largest domain registrar in the World and their pricing is also quite affordable too. For new customers they have lucrative deals.
Godaddy:
Godaddy presents you with shared hosting plans for both Linux and Windows.
Linux web hosting:
The company provides Linux web hosting with the various added-on provision. Best thing is that they keep on running different types of discount offers on different plans. Let’s have a quick peep at the plans they offer:
Added-on features of the Linux hosting are:
- 125+ free applications. (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Python etc.)
- 1GB database storage (MySQL Linux)
- DDoS protection
- Quick setup for GoDaddy registered domains
- CloudLinux for a seamless balance of website.
Windows hosting services:
GoDaddy acts as guarantor for Microsoft Windows servers for ASP.NET, ASP, and SQL Server users. Service offerings of Windows Hosting plans:
Added-on features of the Windows hosting plans are:
- Windows® Server 2012 R2 under all available plans. WOW!! Apart from this they also help in setting up for Microsoft IIS 8.5.
- DDoS protection
- 50+ free applications including WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, MYSQL, SQLserver, ASP.net, PHP and much more along with Odin Plesk
- 200MB MSSQL database storage (not comprised in the Starter plan).
- Odin Plesk control panel.
eHost:
Purchasing the shared hosting plan from eHost means that you will not only get an account but also you can benefit from free domain name and website on signup. You will also be qualified to capitalize on some of their freebies offered by them.
Freebies –
Here are some of the freebies that you can enjoy after taking services from eHost:
- Free Domain Name – Available with all hosting plans offered by the company.
- Free Email Address –Easy to set up unlimited email addresses with email forwarding and auto responder provision.
- Free Website Builder– 1000s of professional website templates with instant access to the drag and drop website editor, blog tool, photo galleries, online store, webmaster tool and other widgets. Amazing deal!
- Free Ad Credits– Ad credits worth £100 for search engines such as Bing and Yahoo.
- Benefit from the marketing suite that comprises of Site Analytics Software, Website authentic seal, and SEO tools and tips without question FREE.
Bluehost:
On the other hand, Bluehost offers given below three different plans that you can choose as per your varying business requirements.
Well, the company isn’t offering many freebies apart from a free domain, site builder, and 1 click WordPress installation. It also offers some paid resources like Google Integration, Ad campaigns from Google and Bing.
Verdict:
Here is a tie between Godaddy & eHost. On one hand, Godaddy offers both Linux & Windows hosting options, and on the other hand eHost’s pricing and features are great.
Migration Services:
Godaddy:
If you are thinking about migrating your website to Godaddy well then they offer a self-based transfer service. However, if you don’t want to get into self-migration nitty gritty then you can avail the expert assistance, which is chargeable.
eHost:
On the other hand, eHost do offer transferal succour but that is not FREE of cost. Data transferring from the previous web host is a big muddle on eHost, for that you have to get in touch with their support team, they will create an application for data move for you, and then you have to hold your fire. Additionally, they don’t take the responsibility of the data lost or corrupted at the time of transfer.
Bluehost:
Now comes the turn of Bluehost, the company offers paid migration services. You can migrate up to 5 websites and 20 emails account for $149.99
Verdict:
Godaddy here is a winner in this domain at least if you don’t wish to spend money on migration then go ahead with them. Else, you can look for eHost as well.
Money back policy:
Godaddy:
The company follows standard refund guidelines in which the amount of product bought from them will be reimbursed, on condition that you revoke the services within the following timeframe:
- Annual Plans – Within 30 days of the date of the transaction
- Monthly Plans* – Within 48 hours of the date of the transaction.
*Monthly Plans include all plans with less than a 1-year term (e.g., 6 mos., 9 mos., etc. However, the company provides no money-back guarantee in any of its web hosting solutions.
eHost
eHost offers 45-day time span for money- back guarantee that too for managed shared hosting services. If you buy an account with 45-day money-back guarantee and then revoke within the first 45 days of the beginning of the first term (the “Money-Back Guarantee Period”), you will certainly get a reimbursement of your money on inscribed request to their support team after 90 days of the cessation or annulment appeal. Another significant point to note is that they reimburse money for basic shared hosting services and will not take into account the managerial fees, installation fees for custom software or other arrangement and added services fees.
Bluehost:
The advertising price is for the first tenure only and plans to reintroduce at the fixed rate. If you decide your account does not adequately meet your requirements, you can revoke at any time for a reimbursement as follows.
- If you terminate within 30 days you will get a complete repayment on your hosting service.
- If you revoke after 30 days you will get a prorated refund for the rest of your hosting term.
If you register a domain with Bluehost when registering then the domain fee won’t be refundable. This not only covers their costs, but they assure you that you won’t lose your domain name. You’ll be permitted to transfer it (after obligatory lock periods). You keep possession of your domain till the end of its registration period lest you chosen to prolong it.
The company’s money-back guarantee applies to hosting plans, but isn’t applicable on most add-on products, such as domains, given the exclusive nature of their expenditures.
Verdict:
Bluehost is the true winner in this regards.
Data Security
Godaddy :
The company makes use of security procedures to defend against the forfeiture, fiddling or amendment of the information. They encrypt the transmission of that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL).
Ehost :
eHost makes use of technical security procedures to avoid the loss, misappropriation, changing or unsanctioned revelation of data under our regulation. Such safety actions include but are not restricted to physical, electronic and administrative techniques to shield the information. All confidential information is collected on a secure server and data is secured using Secure Sockets Layer (“SSL”) technology. They follow commonly recognized standards to defend the personal information, both during diffusion and once they receive it.
Bluehost :
Bluehost’s security provisions are really good, presenting tools that contest some of the most common website jeopardies. For instance, you can avert spam with highly advanced tools like SpamAssassin, Spam Experts, and Spam Hammer. They provision CloudFlare, which supports thwart galling DDoS outbreaks that can force your website face downtime with a devastating amount of traffic from varied sources.
They also facilitate the user with hot link fortification (averting people from pilfering your images or sensitive content), IP address prohibits filibustering tricky entities and SSH gets into for secure web sessions.
Verdict:
Here, Bluehost is a clear winner.
Network Uptime:
Godaddy :
Network uptime is one of the most critical aspects of any business as no one wants to lose sales opportunity due to slow loading of website or prolonged downtime. Luckily, GoDaddy is quite an unfailing service partner and always makes a point to provide up to 99.9% guaranteed uptime. Customer websites are backed up at predefined interims, in tandem with complete backups on an abridged amount of recurrent basis. GoDaddy asserts on the very fact that the backups are put in storage away from the data centre in case of any anomalies onsite.
eHost :
eHost holds the potentials to offer 99.9% of guaranteed uptime. To explore whether the company is really accomplishing the possibilities as vouched for on their website, I administered few websites hosted on eHost.com servers and their results were reasonable. Below is the screenshot of the uptime for last 30 days. It clearly demonstrations that the uptime offered by the company is pretty good. During the month it offered 100% uptime which is really good.
Bluehost :
Bluehost’s uptime comes in at industry standard (99.94%). As per the estimated research on them, it was found that they only tend to have 5 hours of downtime. The downtime was majorly seen in the month of February this year. Bluehost alleged that they had numerous DDos attack on the road to their servers. Largely, not perfect, but not very bad either. I’d say it’s strongly above the mediocre which is somewhere around 99.90%.
Verdict-
It’s a tie for all here.
Customer support services:
Godaddy :
Indeed, Godaddy is an established and well-known name in the hosting industry but I was a bit stunned to discover that – they have strong telephone customer support services and not the live chat support. Here is a succinct of my individual experience:
Telephone support
I tried calling them on a weekday on given support number and had a conversation with their customer service executive he instantly fixed the issue within some time. I asked him about the Windows and WordPress hosting services, and my experience was really worthy. Their executives do have the painstaking knowledge and assist you in choosing the right service plan.
Live Chat support
When it comes to live chat support services, sadly speaking there wasn’t any such kind of provision available. It’s startling actually as how such a big name in the industry could don’t bother to offer live chat support provision.
Let’s delve into what Godaddy’s customer has to say about them:
“We ourselves are Godaddy customers since 2013 and we use Godaddy web hosting services to host most of our websites. I must say their support team is real quick to pick up your call and assist you until your problem is solved. In last 3 years, I have called them only thrice and every time I get a satisfactory reply from them.”
eHost :
On the other hand, eHost offers round the clock customer support services through three different ways that aren’t provided by the Godaddy:
- Chat support
- Phone support
- Email support services
While availing their customer support services at any point of time you won’t feel that your inquiries or technical issues are not attended appropriately. The active team of the eHost is cheerfully accessible through different mediums and can provide you with right info well-timed.
Let’s delve into what eHost’s customer has to say about them:
– Review Source : WhoIsHostingThis.Com
Bluehost :
Managing over two million sites can’t be a simple job. That’s comprehensible. But making your existing or prospective customers for over 43 minutes (that too during the peak hours of the day) to reach out their support team isn’t really good for a company that is serving the customer in a highly competitive domain. Furthermore, my experience presented long postponements between abrupt rejoinders (making their support services almost pathetic).
Let’s delve into what Bluehost’s customer has to say about them:
– Review Source : WhoIsHostingThis.Com
Verdict:
Well, here a tie between eHost & Godaddy.
Final Verdict: And the Winner is …
All the three companies are definitely leaving no stone unturned to provide as much as possible options for website hosting solutions and related services, but sometimes due to one or the other reason they tend to go off the beam and displease their customers and lose them forever.
If you are a web host and you are very much aware of the formidable competition in the market, then you need to stay always ready and ensure that you meet your customer requirements beyond what they expect from as this is the key to reducing the customer churning rate.
After evaluating each and every point as stated above, I would certainly recommend people to go ahead with eHost. In contrast, the company doesn’t hold much of experience in the market but still is able to provide their customer’s way much better web hosting services than other well-established companies in the market. Whether you look at their hosting plan price range, freebies, migration services, data backup support or customer support services, in all domains they are trying to do their best.