Wix vs Bluehost – Which is Better to Build Your Website in 2024?

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This Wix vs Bluehost comparative review will help solopreneurs or digital nomads like you choose the right platform to build your first website.

The core difference between Wix and Bluehost is that Wix is a website builder while Bluehost is a web hosting provider.

With Wix, you can build your website using the tools they provide. You cannot choose the technology you want to use.

Bluehost will allow you to host any website built on any technology as long as the server operating system and software stack (or web environment) supports that technology.

So, which platform is better for your first website or travel blog? Continue reading this Wix vs Bluehost review to find out.

Wix vs Bluehost: Comparison TL;DR

Pros of Wix

• Web-based drag-and-drop website builder suitable for people with no coding skills.
• A wide collection of premade free templates.
• Offers an ad-supported free plan for people with zero budget.
• Provides a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
• Offers 24/7 customer support.

Pros of Bluehost

• Web hosting provider with multiple hosting types like shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, WordPress hosting, etc.
• Supports various CMS platforms like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc.
• Support for WordPress content management system gives limitless design possibilities.
• Offers a drag-and-drop website builder with various shared hosting plans.
• Offers 24/7 chat support.

Wix vs Bluehost: Detailed Comparison

Wix and Bluehost comparison breakdown by features:

• Features
• Ease of Use
• Responsive Design
• Personal Blogs & eCommerce Functionality
• Security
• Customer Support
• Pricing

Bluehost vs Wix: Features

Every web hosting company must offer enough features that can fulfill your needs. Since Wix and Bluehost are quite different hosting services, it is only logical to compare the features offered by their most basic plan.

Wix

For its most basic plan, Wix will offer:

• Support for custom domains
• One free domain for one year
• Free SSL
• 2 GB storage
• 30-minute video streaming a month
• Drag-and-drop website builder

The 2 GB storage limit is very low, but considering that Wix websites are based on HTML5 technology, the websites are usually lightweight. 2GB is sufficient unless you want to add a lot of images to your website.

What’s disturbing is that while the pricing page says that the basic plan has 2GB storage, their help center article states that the plan comes with 3GB storage and 2GB bandwidth.

You will also get the drag-and-drop site builder for an easy design using editable Wix templates. Wix ads will be removed from your site.

Bluehost

For its most basic shared hosting plan, Bluehost offers:

• Support for custom domains
• One free domain for one year
• Free SSL
• 10 GB storage
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Website builder with WordPress integration

10 GB storage will allow you to add more files like images and PDFs. It is great if your website relies more on visuals to convey messages.

Unlike Wix, you are free to install WordPress and use the Bluehost site builder to design your website using the drag-and-drop feature. WordPress will give you more design flexibility compared to Wix.

Bluehost’s shared plans are not meant for video hosting. One or two videos are fine, but you must consider embedding videos while using Bluehost shared hosting to avoid account suspension.

Winner: Bluehost because it offers more storage and supports WordPress, which is insanely flexible compared to Wix templates.

Bluehost vs Wix: Ease of Use

Any platform you select must be easy to use. Both Wix and Bluehost have a learning curve, but who wins?

Wix

Wix offers a website builder with a drag-and-drop interface. You start by selecting a Wix template and then use the Wix Editor (which is the drag-and-drop website builder) to edit & customize the template. Once you are done, hit the publish button to make your website live.

There are two problems:

• The Wix Editor interface is a lot crowded and it can be confusing.
• Once you have published the site, you cannot change the template.

There is another option.

You can use Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence). If you use Wix ADI, Wix will ask you a few questions about your business, and based on the answers, it will create a website for you. You can then edit the template a bit and finally publish it.

The Wix ADI has a problem. It creates a website by analyzing your competitors. So, what you get is a run-of-the-mill site similar to your competitors.

Bluehost

Launching a WordPress site with Bluehost is very easy. The platform will ask you a set of questions and help you with a guided installation of WordPress.

During the installation process, you can choose to install one of the various WP themes or you can install a premium theme later. There are thousands of such WordPress themes to choose from.

You can also use the Bluehost site builder to create a custom design. Even if you use the website builder, you will not stay limited to a collection of smart templates. You can create a new design from scratch.

Like all other website builders, the one offered by Bluehost also has a learning curve, but it is much simpler than the Wix Editor.

Winner: Bluehost because its website builder is much simpler and integrates with WordPress to give more creative freedom.

Bluehost vs Wix: Responsive Design

Today, responsive design is a default aspect of website building, and it is important for SEO.

Wix

Wix’s drag-and-drop dedicated website builder and the Wix ADI will not allow responsive design. The website builder will show you ‘mobile’ and ‘desktop’ icons to test your design, but that’s NOT RESPONSIVE.

Wix relies on what is called Absolute Positioning to give a mobile-friendly design. With Absolute Positioning, you need to arrange the elements of a web page by pixels and not relative to the device screen.

In simpler words, you need to drag and position the elements of a web page depending on the screen size of the device. Thus, you must do this for every available screen size. This approach is unrealistic.

There is a solution to this problem. You can add a “viewport meta tag” code to the header of the homepage from the “Advanced SEO” tab. The code you need to add is:

<meta name=”viewport” content=”width=device-width, initial-scale=1″>

Wix has something called Editor X that allows to create truly responsive design, but that tool is available for developers and agencies.

Bluehost

Bluehost is only a hosting company that supports WordPress hosting. You can also host websites powered by other CMS platforms.

If you are opting for WordPress hosting with Bluehost, you don’t have to worry about the responsive design. Every WordPress theme today comes with responsive design code and it works out of the box.

In fact, no matter which CMS you are using to build your own website, theme developers always include responsive design codes that do not rely on Absolute Positioning.

Winner: Bluehost because you can create truly responsive websites.

Bluehost vs Wix: Personal Blogs & eCommerce Functionality

You must select a platform that will allow you to create a personal blog or an online store. You can achieve that with both Wix and Bluehost.

Wix

With Wix you can build an online store, a personal blog, a photography website, and various other types of sites.

If you want to build a personal blog, you must select one of their ‘Website Plans.’ For eCommerce features, you will need one of their ‘Business and eCommerce Plans,’ which are far more expensive.

For blogs, Wix provides search engine optimization features that will allow new site owners to optimize their blogs for search engines. In fact, there is a Wix SEO wizard that can help you to get started.

For eCommerce, Wix offers many features like unlimited products, abandoned cart recovery, multiple currency support & online payments, the ability to sell on marketplaces & social channels, dropshipping, loyalty programs, product reviews, etc. However, some features are restricted to higher-tier plans.

Bluehost

Bluehost itself doesn’t offer blogging or online store features because it is a web host or a hosting service and not a standalone website builder like Weebly site builder or Shopify.

You can host blogs, eCommerce sites, business websites, and a wide range of other websites on Bluehost servers.

Bluehost WordPress websites can be used as personal blogs or they can be transformed into powerful & highly scalable online stores using the WooCommerce WordPress plugin.

If you don’t want to use WordPress & WooCommerce to build an online store, you can use solutions like OpenCart, Magento, etc.

However, to get all the features essential for running a successful online store on the Bluehost platform, you need to add various third-party services and make them work together. This can be a big hassle as opposed to Wix’s out-of-box solutions.

Moreover, you must not operate an eCommerce website on a shared hosting package. You will need dedicated WooCommerce hosting (if you are using WordPress) or at least a VPS hosting if you want to use some other eCommerce solution like Magento.

For blogging, Wix cannot match the power of WordPress. WordPress has a massive pool of plugins including SEO plugins that can help you to create highly advanced blogs.

Winner: Bluehost because despite being complex to build powerful blogs and online stores, it offers way more flexibility and control.

Bluehost vs Wix: Security

When you build a professional website, you must take security seriously.

Wix

Wix offers security features like SSL certificates, DDoS protection, automatic backups, and server monitoring. But that’s all! You don’t get a choice and accept whatever is there.

Bluehost

Bluehost also provides security features like DDoS protection (via Cloudflare), SSL certificates, server monitoring, etc., but for additional features like email spam protection, automatic backups, etc., you must purchase and attach additional third-party services to your Bluehost account.

If you use WordPress to create websites, you can avoid purchasing the additional security features offered by Bluehost and use various free and premium plugins like Wordfence, Sucuri, etc, to reinforce the security of your websites.

You can even purchase Cloudflare premium plans to build a nearly impregnable security layer.

Winner: Bluehost because as a web host it will provide a choice of selecting highly advanced security services.

Bluehost vs Wix: Customer Support

For any new website owner, customer support is vital.

Wix

Wix customer support team provides 24/7 email support, but for phone support, you must call within 5 AM to 5 PM EST from Monday to Thursday. You can also access knowledge base articles anytime.

Bluehost

Bluehost offers 24/7 live chat support along with round-the-clock email and phone support. You can also access their help articles anytime you need them.

Winner: Bluehost because the web hosting provider offers 24/7 chat, phone, and email support.

Bluehost vs Wix: Pricing

Pricing is an important consideration because solopreneurs often face budgetary constraints.

Wix

Wix has different pricing plans for simple websites and eCommerce sites. For simple websites, they offer four plans, all of which support custom domain, provide a free domain for a year, remove Wix ads, and offer a free SSL certificate. The main differences are:

Combo: $16 a month

• 2 GB storage.
• 30 minutes of video streaming.

Unlimited: $22 a month

• 5 GB storage.
• 1 hour of video streaming.
• Ad vouchers.
• Site booster app.
• Visitor analytics app.

Pro: $27 a month

• 50 GB storage.
• 2 hours of video streaming.
• Ad vouchers.
• Site booster app.
• Visitor analytics app.
• Event calendar app.
• Professional logo.
• Social media logo files.

VIP: $45 a month

• 100 GB storage.
• 5 hours of video streaming.
• Ad vouchers.
• Site booster app.
• Visitor analytics app.
• Event calendar app.
• Professional logo.
• Social media logo files.
• Priority customer support.

Bluehost

Bluehost provides both WordPress hosting and shared hosting at the same price. In fact, they have the same plans.

Assuming that you want WordPress hosting, here is what Bluehost offers:

Basic Hosting Plan:

• $2.95 a month for an annual plan but renews at $9.99.
• $4.95 a month for a 3-year plan but renews at $9.99.
• 1 WordPress website.
• 10 GB SSD storage.
• Website builder.

Plus Hosting Plan:

• $5.45 a month for an annual plan but renews at $14.99
• $7.95 a month for a 3-year plan but renews at $13.99.
• Unlimited WordPress websites.
• 20 GB SSD storage.
• Website builder.

Choice Plus Hosting Plan:

• $5.45 a month for an annual plan but renews at $18.99.
• $7.95 a month for a 3-year plan but renews at $18.99.
• Unlimited websites.
• 40 GB SSD storage.
• Website builder.

Pro Hosting Plan:

• $13.95 a month for an annual plan but renews at $28.99.
• $18.95 a month for a 3-year plan but renews at $26.99.
• Unlimited WordPress website.
• 100 GB SSD storage.
• Website builder.

Winner: Bluehost because its basic plan is a little over 5 times cheaper than Wix.

Wix vs Bluehost: Summary

Wix is one of the most popular website builders that has the facility to build simple blogs to complex eCommerce sites. Its drag-and-drop website builder is perfect for the ‘non techies’ amongst us!

However, as it’s a hosted solution (or a closed source hosting), you can host websites built only using the Wix platform. Also, it has limited design flexibility.

Bluehost, on the other hand, is one of the most popular web hosts or hosting services that offers one of the easiest website builders you can ever find. Plus, it supports installing and operating WordPress sites, giving creative freedom that Wix can never match.

As a solopreneur or digital nomad on a shoestring budget, Bluehost is likely a better choice. It is cheap and gives you the simplicity of site builders and the power of WordPress simultaneously. If you want a more advanced option, read my WPX Hosting review.

Wix vs Bluehost: FAQs

Is Wix the most popular website builder?

No, Wix is not the most popular site builder. With only a 3.4% market share as of July 2022, Wix has the third-largest market share. Shopify is ahead of Wix with a 6.4% market share and WordPress tops the list with a 64.2% market share. The Weebly site builder is way below at the 13th spot with just 0.6% market share. You can find the full data here.

Does Wix offer an app market?

Yes, Wix has an app market. With over 250 third-party apps, the Wix app market can help you extend the features and functions of your Wix website. The app market is only a fraction of the size of the WordPress plugins market.

What is Ascend by Wix?

Ascend by Wix is an all-in-one solution for businesses. The platform offers integrated payment options, automated lead generation services, shopping carts, promo codes, etc. You get everything under one roof to build and scale your eCommerce business.

Is Wix better than Bluehost?

The suitability of Wix or Bluehost depends on your specific needs. Wix, a user-friendly website builder, is ideal for those seeking a template-based design experience. In contrast, Bluehost, a hosting provider, is preferable for users requiring robust hosting services and WordPress support.

Which one should I prefer, Wix, or WordPress with Bluehost?

The choice hinges on your preferences and requirements. Wix is recommended for its user-friendly, drag-and-drop website builder. However, if you prioritize control, scalability, and the flexibility to use WordPress, Bluehost is the preferred option. Bluehost supports WordPress hosting, providing the power of WordPress alongside reliable hosting services.

Is Bluehost compatible with Wix?

Bluehost and Wix serve different purposes and are not directly compatible. Bluehost, a hosting provider supporting various CMS platforms, is distinct from Wix, a standalone website builder. If you opt for Bluehost’s hosting services, you would use it independently of Wix, as they are not designed to be used together.

Is Wix good for web hosting?

While Wix offers hosting services for websites built on its platform, it primarily functions as a website builder. For users prioritizing simplicity in website creation and maintenance, Wix is suitable. However, those seeking more robust hosting services, especially for WordPress websites, may find Bluehost, a dedicated hosting provider, more preferable.