Bluehost vs Wix: We Compare Price, Speed, and Features

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Wix and Bluehost offer two very different web hosting experiences, but Bluehost is the better choice overall. Bluehost gives you total control and flexibility over your hosting, its plans are cheaper than Wix’s, and Bluehost offers specialized support for WordPress sites.

In comparison, Wix is a traditional website builder. Your site exists within its ecosystem, and is hosted by Wix, giving you access to all of Wix’s built-in features and support. But, you’re locked into the platform, making it harder to migrate your site in the future.

Key Takeaways 🔍

  • Bluehost is one of our top-rated web hosts – it’s officially recommended by WordPress because of its specialized support and features for the CMS
  • Wix is the best website builder we’ve tested, with hosting included in its plans (though you’re limited to multi-cloud hosting only)
  • Bluehost’s starting prices range from $3.99 to $144.19 per month (for a 36-month term), versus Wix’s starting prices of $17 to $159 per month (billed annually)
  • Wix does have a free plan, but it has limited storage space, ads on site, and you can’t connect a custom domain name

Is Bluehost Better Than Wix for Hosting?

Following our 2026 testing, Bluehost is a better web host than Wix because of its flexibility and scalability. Plus, it’s been officially recommended by WordPress since 2005, making it our top choice for websites built with the CMS. With all hosting plans, you’ll get 24/7 expert support, free WordPress migration, automatic updates, and more.

Bluehost also offers a range of hosting types (including dedicated hosting plans), making it easy for high-traffic businesses to scale if they need more power and storage. It also gives you more choice to pick a plan that suits your goals – with Wix, you have limited plans to choose from, meaning you could be paying for more than you actually need.

Who Should Use Wix?

Wix is a better option for time-sensitive small businesses and beginners looking for easy website management tools. Bluehost gives you absolute control, but it means you have to fix any technical or security issues yourself, whereas Wix handles all of this for you. However, it’s at the cost of your site’s freedom.

You can design and manage your site with Wix, but it’s a Wix site at the end of the day. You’re limited to what Wix can offer, and swapping to a different platform means starting from scratch again. And, as a website builder first, you can’t scale your Wix site with different hosting plans if you need more power and better performance.

How we test web hosts

  • We tested 8 leading web hosting providers in 2026, including Bluehost and Wix
  • We have 5 core research areas: performance, market analysis, pricing, features, and support
  • We use human experts to write our reviews and recommendations

Bluehost vs Wix: Head-to-Head Comparison

I’ve put Bluehost and Wix head-to-head in the table below so you can see which one wins when it comes to types of hosting plans, storage space, uptime guarantee, and other hosting must-haves:

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Bluehost

Wix

Starting from

$3.99

Starting from

$17 (or $0 with free plan)

Renewal price

From $9.99 per month

Renewal price

From $17 per month

Money-back guarantee

30 days

Money-back guarantee

14 days

Types of hosting

Shared, WordPress, WooCommerce, VPS, dedicated

Types of hosting

Cloud

AI website builder

Bluehost AI Site Creation tool

AI website builder

AI website builder + Wix Harmony

Number of sites

10 – 100

Number of sites

1

Storage space

10 – 3,000GB NVMe SSD

Storage space

500MB – Unlimited

Uptime guarantee

99.99%

Uptime guarantee

99.99%

Server locations

USA, Canada, Germany, France, UK, Spain, India, Brazil, Australia

Server locations

USA, Israel, Brazil, Mexico, Luxembourg, Lithuania, India, Germany, Ireland, UK, Ukraine (+ global multi-cloud networks)

Free domain

Free for 1 year

Free domain

Free for 1 year

SSL certificate

Free

SSL certificate

Free

Email accounts

1 month free trial (then $2.99/month)

Email accounts

From $7/month

WordPress migration

Free

WordPress migration

Manual

Automated backups

Weekly

Automated backups

Weekly + on-demand

Security features

Malware scanning, web application firewall, DDoS protection, weekly website backups, SiteLock Essentials, Codeguard, domain privacy

Security features

Data encryption, 24/7 monitoring, PCI DSS Level 1 certification, anti-fraud protection, TPRM program, DDoS protection, vulnerability checks

24/7 support

Live chat, phone

24/7 support

Phone, AI

Visit Bluehost Try Wix

Is it easy to migrate my site with Bluehost or Wix?

You can migrate your WordPress site for free with Bluehost, or pay $149.99 per website (if built with another platform).

With Wix, it’s much harder to migrate your site. You’ve built your site within the website builder’s ecosystem, so you’ll need to completely rebuild your site from the ground up. You can’t simply click a button to swap from Wix to another web host, whereas Bluehost makes it easy to pack up your site and move elsewhere.

Is Bluehost Cheaper Than Wix?

Bluehost’s introductory prices are cheaper than Wix’s plans, but once the discounts end, Wix’s all-inclusive model is more cost-effective. With Bluehost, your total costs will increase quickly with its modular add-ons, such as email and security.

Comparing costs: Year 1 vs Year 2

For an annual plan, Bluehost’s Starter plan costs $140.53 upfront. That includes hosting, domain privacy, security, and email in the total package. In your second year, the plan will renew at $303.63 (with all the same add-ons, plus your custom domain name fee).

Wix’s total cost of ownership is more expensive to begin with, costing $204 for its Light plan (without email included). One perk of Wix’s packages is that prices don’t increase year-on-year, unless there are wider price changes for the platform. So, in year two, you only need to factor in your domain renewal, taking the overall price to $217.35.

While Wix does offer a limited free plan, Wix’s premium plans range from $17 to $159 per month (billed annually):

Plan Price with our discount: TAKE10 Standard rate (12-month term) Standard rate (monthly)
Free $0 $0 $0
Light $15.30 per month $17 per month $24 per month
Core $26.10 per month $29 per month $36 per month
Business $35.10 per month $39 per month $46 per month
Business Elite $143.10 per month $159 per month $172 per month
  • Business email – from $7/mo (Google Workspace integration)
  • Domain names – free for 1st year (.com renews for $13.35 per year)
  • Third-party apps – from $3/mo
  • Ecommerce – need to upgrade to at least the $29/mo Core plan
  • Processing fees – 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction

Bluehost’s pricing ranges from $3.99 to $144.19 per month (for a 36-month term), depending on the hosting type chosen:

Cheapest plan Introductory deal (36-month term) Standard rate (36-month term) Standard rate (monthly)
Shared hosting (Starter) $3.99 per month $9.99 per month $15.99 per month
WordPress hosting (Starter) $3.99 per month $9.99 per month $15.99 per month
WooCommerce hosting (eCommerce Essentials) $14.99 per month $21.99 per month $32.99 per month
VPS hosting (NVME 2) $4.99 per month $4.99 per month $9.99 per month
Dedicated hosting (Standard NVME 32) $144.19 per month $191.79 per month $209.47 per month
  • Email – $2.99/mo (1 month free trial)
  • Security – SiteLock Essentials ($2.99/mo) + Codeguard ($2.99/mo)
  • Domain names – free for 1st year (.com renews for $12.99 per year)
  • Domain privacy – $11.88 for 1st year, renews at $15 per year
  • Extra features – Yoast SEO ($2.99/mo), Google Workspace ($3.50/mo)
  • Non-WP migration – $149.99 for one website

Which Web Host Performs Better?

Both Bluehost and Wix performed well when it comes to speed and uptime, so it’s a tie.

For US server response time, Bluehost is faster, with an average speed of 580ms. In comparison, Wix’s server response time is slightly slower at 650ms. That said, Wix has a larger range of global data centers and CDNs, as well as support from its multi-cloud hosting network.

Bar chart comparing US server response times of web hosts with Bluehost and WIx highlighted in different shades
If you're looking for fast response times, Bluehost and Wix are slower than other web hosts we've tested. Source: Website Builder Expert

And, both Bluehost and Wix offer a 99.99% uptime guarantee. This is high in the industry, with other major web hosts offering a lower guarantee of 99.9% (such as Hostinger and GoDaddy). While Bluehost and Wix will always aim for 100% uptime, a 99.99% guarantee means your business might only face up to four minutes of downtime per month.

What the Community Says

Bluehost

  • Trustpilot: 4.6
  • G2: 3.4
  • Capterra: 3.6

Wix

  • Trustpilot: 3.6
  • G2: 4.3
  • Capterra: 4.4

Both Bluehost and Wix are credible platforms, but they offer different experiences.

Bluehost is praised for its WordPress-optimized plans and recommended by WordPress officially. This is where the majority of its positive reputation comes from, but Bluehost does face criticism for its billing and renewal traps, with introductory prices being much lower than the standard rates. Users are also wary of its ownership by Newfold Digital (formerly EIG), since the company is known for poor support.

Wix also faces its share of positive and negative reviews. The website builder has been widely recognized for its beginner-friendly drag-and-drop editor, large suite of built-in features, and its smooth onboarding for getting your site live quickly. That said, I’ve found its editor to be slow to use during tests, and Wix’s closed ecosystem can make it difficult to migrate platforms.

Summary: Should You Choose Bluehost or Wix?

After reviewing both platforms, I recommend choosing Bluehost as your web host over Wix. It offers great plans for WordPress sites, 24/7 support, and cheap introductory prices (from $3.99 per month). Bluehost is also more scalable than Wix given its flexible plans, migration options, and performance capabilities.

Wix is a better option if you’re looking for a website builder and aren’t comfortable managing all of your website’s security, updates, and hosting yourself. While this can be convenient, you’ll get more control over your site with Bluehost.

Written by:
Headshot of Emma Ryan
Emma is Lead Writer at Website Builder Expert, having first joined the team in 2022. She manages the website's topical content strategy to help website owners navigate the highs and lows of being online. Emma also specializes in following the development of leading website builders Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify, through hands-on testing and research. Her work and expertise have been featured in Startups.co.uk, Digiday, TechRound, Industry Today, and Digital Information World.
Researched by:
natasha_willett
I love to understand human behavior and the cognitive biases that drive us to do what we do. For over nine years I have worked as a mixed method researcher – research using a mix of numerical data and personal experiences – across a range of sectors, from insurance and policy development to finally arriving at Website Builder Expert five years ago. Fascinated by consumer decision-making, I meticulously built our leading ranking methodology to explore where providers like Wix sit within a competitive industry and what value they truly bring to our audience.
As a member of the Market Research Society, I’m an advocate for high ethical, commercial, and methodological best practices. All of this combines to give you the most ethical recommendations based on real data.

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