Bluehost vs. Kinsta

Last verified 35 days ago · 31 sources · Updated automatically

Bluehost and Kinsta compared across Company facts, Pricing, Performance & infrastructure, WordPress management, Support & security and Platform & integrations — every fact sourced and re-verified from each vendor's public material.

Bluehost

Budget-friendly, WordPress.org-recommended hosting aimed at first-time site owners.

HQ Jacksonville, FL

Visit Bluehost Full profile

Kinsta

Premium managed WordPress hosting on Google Cloud's Premium Tier, focused on speed and developer tooling.

HQ West Hollywood, CA

Visit Kinsta Full profile

Attribute

Bluehost

Kinsta

Company facts

Headquarters

Jacksonville, FL Operating HQ of parent Newfold Digital

West Hollywood, CA Remote-first company; West Hollywood, CA is the registered US address

Employees

4.1k Parent company Newfold Digital headcount (Bluehost-specific count not published)

225 ~220-230 employees (distributed across 6 continents)

Pricing

Starting Monthly Price (USD)

$9.99 Starter plan renewal rate (36-month term)

$35 Single 20GB plan; $30/mo when billed annually ($350/yr)

Entry Plan WordPress Sites

10 sites Starter plan

1 sites 1 WordPress install on the Single 20GB entry plan

Entry Plan Monthly Visits

40k Starter plan — vendor states 'ideal for 40K visits/mo' (guidance figure, not a hard meter)

—

Entry Plan Storage (GB)

10 GB Starter plan — 10 GB NVMe SSD

10 GB 10 GB disk; entry plan meters bandwidth (20 GB server bandwidth), not visits

Free Trial Length (Days)

0 days No free trial; 30-day money-back guarantee instead

0 days No standard free trial; new accounts get a first-month-free promo and a 30-day money-back guarantee

Money-Back Guarantee (Days)

30 days

30 days 30-day money-back guarantee (first-time customers; excludes one-time fees, overages, dedicated-server fees)

Performance & infrastructure

Underlying Cloud

own datacenters

Google Cloud Google Cloud Platform, Premium Tier network

Datacenter Locations

—

27 27 Google Cloud data center locations available for site placement

Free CDN

Free CDN included on all plans (Cloudflare-powered)

Cloudflare-powered CDN + edge caching, free on all plans (125 GB CDN bandwidth on entry plan)

Web Server

Apache

NGINX NGINX-based stack

Built-in Object Cache

Redis object caching enabled by default on WordPress plans

Redis object cache is a paid add-on ($100/mo per site)

Latest PHP Version

8.4

8.5 PHP 8.5 generally available (selectable in MyKinsta); 7.4 through 8.5 supported

Free SSL Certificate

Free SSL (Let's Encrypt) on all plans

Free Cloudflare/Let's Encrypt SSL, auto-provisioned and renewed; wildcard supported

WordPress management

Automatic WordPress Updates

Managed WordPress core updates included

Kinsta does not auto-update WordPress core; automatic plugin/theme updates are a paid add-on ($3/site/mo)

Staging Environments

WordPress staging site included on all plans

One free standard staging environment on all plans, with push-to-live (selective file/DB push); premium staging is a paid add-on

Automatic Daily Backups

Free backups are weekly; daily automatic backups require the paid CodeGuard add-on

Automatic daily backups with one-click restore; 6-hour/hourly backups are paid add-ons

Backup Retention (Days)

—

14 days 14 days of daily backups on the entry plan; higher tiers retain 30 days

Free Site Migration

Free self-serve WordPress migration tool

Unlimited free expert-handled migrations on all plans

SSH & WP-CLI Access

SSH & WP-CLI access included on standard WordPress plans

SSH access on all plans; WP-CLI v2 pre-installed on every server. Git supported.

WordPress Multisite Support

—

Officially supported, but not on the entry plan: requires Single 40GB / Single 65k or higher

Support & security

Uptime SLA (%)

99.99% 99.99% uptime SLA (server/Apache performance); remedy is a 5% monthly account credit

99.9% 99.9% SLA-backed uptime guarantee (up to 99.99% on custom plans)

24/7 Support

24/7 support; chat on all plans, phone added on Business and above

24/7/365 human expert support via live chat on all plans

Malware Removal / Hack Fix

Starter includes malware scanning only; malware detection/removal unlocks on the Business plan and above

Free hack-fix / malware removal under the Security Pledge (excludes nulled plugins/themes)

WAF / DDoS Protection

Web Application Firewall and DDoS protection included on all plans

Cloudflare-based managed WAF + L3/4/7 DDoS protection, free on all plans

Platform & integrations

Control Panel

custom Bluehost custom dashboard (cPanel available underneath)

custom MyKinsta custom dashboard (no cPanel)

White-Label / Agency Features

No white-label/client-management tooling on the entry managed WordPress plan

White-label WP admin, agency partner program, MyKinsta multi-client/team management

Email Hosting Included

Professional email is a paid add-on after a 1-month free trial (~$2.99/mo per mailbox)

No email hosting; Kinsta recommends Google Workspace / Microsoft 365 and helps add MX records

The verdict

Bluehost

Best for hosting multiple sites cheaply

Bluehost starts at $9.99/mo versus Kinsta's $35, and its Starter plan holds 10 WordPress sites against Kinsta's 1. Its Redis object cache is built in (a $100/mo add-on at Kinsta), and WordPress core updates are managed automatically, which Kinsta does not do. It also carries a higher 99.99% uptime SLA.

Full profile

Kinsta

Best for agencies and managed security

Kinsta runs on Google Cloud across 27 datacenter locations versus Bluehost's own facilities, and includes daily automatic backups (Bluehost's free backups are weekly). Free malware removal and white-label/agency tooling ship on every plan; Bluehost gates malware removal to Business+ and offers no agency features. Migrations are expert-handled.

Full profile

Sources · 31 verified references

bluehost.com pitchbook.com websitebuilderexpert.com kinsta.com

Affiliate disclosure. DecisionWire may earn a commission when you sign up through links on this page. Commissions never influence our data, scores, or rankings.