Bluehost may be more known for its cheap hosting plans, but the EIG company has recently launched its own managed WordPress hosting service. With managed WordPress hosting, you won’t have to worry about backups, updates, and security issues as your host takes care of these things for you. Flywheel is among the most popular managed WordPress hosting providers today and is especially popular among web developers who want to resell hosting.
To keep a level-playing field, we’ll focus on comparing Bluehost and Flywheel’s managed WordPress hosting features and services. With that said, we also added Bluehost’s regular hosting services in the comparison chart below in case you decide you’d rather manage your WordPress website yourself.
Contents
Bluehost vs Flywheel WordPress Web Hosting Comparison Chart
| Name | Bluehost | Bluehost (Managed WordPress Hosting) | Flywheel |
| Â |  | |  |
| Pricing | Check Pricing at Bluehost.com | Check Pricing at Bluehost.com | Check Pricing at GetFlywheel.com |
| Traffic Tiers (Visitors/month) | Shared: N/A VPS: N/A Dedicated: N/A | Build: 50,000 Grow: 150,000 Scale: 500,000 | Tiny: 5,000 Starter: 25,000 Freelance: 100,000 Agency: 400,000 |
| Storage Tiers | Shared: 50GB SSD to Unlimited VPS: 30 to 120GB Dedicated: 500GB to 1 TB | Build: 20GB Grow: 40GB Scale: 80GB | Tiny: 5 GB Starter: 10GB Freelance: 20GB Agency: 50GB |
| Monthly Bandwidth | Shared: N/A VPS: 1 to 3 TB Dedicated: 5 to 15 TB | Build: N/A Grow: N/A Scale: N/A | Tiny: 20 GB Starter: 50GB Freelance: 200GB Agency: 500GB |
| Websites | Shared: 1 to unlimited VPS: Unlimited Dedicated: Unlimited | Build: 1 Grow: 1 Scale: 1 | Tiny: 1 Starter: 1 Freelance: Up to 10 Agency: Up to 30 |
| Hosting Interface | cPanel | cPanel | Flywheel-designed |
| Free Content Delivery Network | Yes, Cloudflare | Yes, Cloudflare | Yes |
| Free SSL Certificates | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Staging Area | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free Site Backup | Varies | Varies | Yes |
| Free Site Restore | Varies | Varies | Yes |
| Free Domain | Yes, on the first year | Yes, on the first year | No |
| Site Migration | Free Tool | Free Tool | Free |
| Free Email | Yes | 30 days free trial: Microsoft Email | N/A |
| Customer Support | 24/7 chat, phone, ticket | 24/7 chat, phone, ticket | Live Chat, Phone support: 9am to 5pm CST |
| Money Back Guarantee | 30 days | 30 days | 3 days on the monthly plan, 30 days on the yearly plan |
Hosting Features
Flywheel is specific to managed WordPress hosting while Bluehost offers free domain registration and email
Both Bluehost and Flywheel take care of all the plugin updates, security, and backups for you. They also offer free migration, spam protection, server-side caching, and CDN (content delivery network).
While they may offer similar core managed WordPress services, Flywheel is focused on WordPress hosting alone. They aim to be the best at this, so they don’t offer other services you will need to get your website up and running, such as domain registration and email. You’ll need to set this up yourself and get your domain name from a different registrar if you want to use Flywheel. With Bluehost, you can get your domain for free in the first year.
Both Bluehost and Flywheel have limited storage, traffic, and bandwidth, but Bluehost offers higher bandwidth and storage in all its plans. For instance, its entry-level Build Plan lets you have up to 50,000 visitors and up to 20GB SSD storage. Meanwhile, Flywheel’s entry-level Tiny Plan only offers 5GB of storage, 20GB monthly bandwidth, and up to 5,000 visitors. If your website finds a spike in traffic, your site might go down if it exceeds the hosting plan you’re on. Otherwise, both Bluehost and Flywheel have excellent uptime.
Something you can’t do on Bluehost that Flywheel supports is reseller hosting. If you’re a web developer or own an agency, Flywheel has plans that let you install up to 30 sites. What some web developers do is charge their clients monthly hosting and maintenance to cover Flywheel’s monthly cost. At the time of writing, Bluehost only lets you install one WordPress site in all of its plans.
Performance & Support
Both have excellent uptime
Both Bluehost and Flywheel have excellent uptime of up to 99.9%. In terms of speed, Flywheel is one of the fastest out there, although Bluehost’s over 200 global edge servers also result in fast load speeds. Just to reiterate, we’re talking about Bluehost’s managed WordPress hosting plans. If you opt for Bluehost’s cheaper shared hosting plans, expect slower loading speeds. Both hosting providers also provide multi-layer caching and they take care of your content delivery network (CDN) for even faster speeds.
While performance may mean uptime and speed, customer support is also a major consideration when choosing your managed WordPress hosting provider. Flywheel offers 24/7 chat support, but its phone support is only available to the higher-tier plans. WPEngine, another managed WordPress hosting provider, has acquired Flywheel, so customer support is expected to further improve. Meanwhile, Bluehost provides 24/7 phone support in all its plans.
Plans and Pricing
Flywheel’s managed WordPress plans are overall more affordable
If you’re looking for the cheapest hosting plans, managed WordPress hosting is not the way to go. You’re better off getting Bluehost or SiteGround’s shared hosting plans if you’re on a budget. With that caveat aside, the cost of Bluehost’s and Flywheel’s managed WordPress plans are standard. Flywheel’s monthly plans start at a lower cost than Bluehost’s, but they also have much lower traffic and storage limits:
- Tiny: 5,000 visits/month with up to 5GB of storage space
- Starter: 25,000 visits/month with up to 10GB of storage space
- Freelance: 100,000 visits/month with up to 20GB of storage space
- Agency: 400,000 visits/month with up to 50GB of storage space
Flywheel’s Tiny Plan costs $13 USD/month if billed annually and $15USD/month on monthly billing. If you want to resell hosting, you’ll need either the Freelance or Agency Plan to do so. They range from $96 to $242/month (see photo above) and let you add up to 10 and 30 sites, respectively.
Meanwhile, Bluehost’s plans start at a slightly higher monthly cost, but the higher pricing offers higher traffic and storage:
- Build: 50,000 visits/month with up to 20GB of storage space
- Grow: 150,000 visits/month with up to 40GB of storage space
- Scale: 500,000 visits/month with up to 80GB of storage space
Bluehost offers much lower monthly pricing if you opt for a three-year contract upon application. Once your contract ends, the regular rate will apply upon renewal. For instance, the Build Plan starts at $19.95/month if you sign up for the three-year contract, but at the start of your fourth year, you’ll be charged $29.99/month. If you want a one-year contract, the regular rate applies.
Verdict
Bluehost’s managed WordPress hosting plans offer overall better value for money, but if you want to resell hosting, go for Flywheel
It’s not easy to choose the winner between Bluehost and Flywheel’s managed WordPress hosting plans. They both deliver impressive uptime and speed and offer similar services. With that said, if you see your website’s traffic growing rapidly, Bluehost’s higher traffic cap and storage make it the better and more cost-effective option.
On the other hand, Flywheel offers a more affordable entry-level plan that makes it a great option for newer websites. Flywheel also has topnotch customer support and their backend is more intuitive than Bluehost’s cPanel. Once your website’s traffic starts growing, however, be prepared to pay more as Flywheel’s traffic and storage caps are much lower than Bluehost’s.
FAQs
If you’d rather not worry about security, backups, and updates, yes, Flywheel’s managed WordPress hosting is definitely worth it.
No, Flywheel’s plans are not shared. This means you’re not sharing resources with other websites owners. Bluehost does offer shared hosting at a much lower cost.
Flywheel was recently acquired by WPEngine, another managed WordPress hosting provider.
Yes, Bluehost’s affordable plans make it a good choice for small businesses. Bluehost makes it easy to install WordPress or WooCommerce as well, so you can have your website up and running quickly.
