When choosing a web hosting provider it is useful to do a side by side hosting comparison. This is FatCow Review and BlueHost Review.
Background
BlueHost has been a web hosting company since 1996 and is well-respected in the industry. They are a sister company to HostMonster.
FatCow has been in business since 1998, and hosts over 30,000 sites. It has consistently received high ratings has won several industry awards. They are an eco-friendly company, and are proud that their offices and datacenters are 100% powered by wind energy.
Plan Features and Pricing
Hosting Plan
BlueHost offers a basic plan that includes unlimited disk space, file transfers, and domains. They also offer plans at higher monthly rates that have more features.
FatCow offers one main plan with unlimited disk space, bandwidth, domains, and email. They also have a MiniMoo plan which is a great option for those just starting a business or to have a placeholder for several domains.
General Features
BlueHost’s basic plan includes unlimited disk space, bandwidth, and domains. It includes 2500 POP/Imap email accounts. There is one free domain that the customer can keep forever. It also comes with a free web site builder.
FatCow includes many tools to help build the website, in addition to the unlimited disk space and bandwidth. They have wizards to add open source applications and easy to install forums and blogs. There are great features for e-commerce sites including E-Store Builder, Secure SSL, and free Google and Yahoo! Credits.
Cost
BlueHost’s basic plan costs $95.40 per year with no start up fees.
FatCow basic plan costs $66 per year for the main plan and $5 per year for the MiniMoo domain parking plan. There are no setup fees.
Reliability
Datacenter Facilities
BlueHost has a high quality datacenter in Utah, and they share some of their facilities with their sister company HostMonster. They recently introduce a new bandwidth pipe and are consistent with updating their infrastructure systems as needed.
FatCow also has a high quality datacenter and it combines many state of the art features to make their datacenters the best. Dual routers support the FatCow hosting platform for greater redundancy. It has a top line Cisco PIX firewall for excellent security. They have NetApp storage clusters for improved reliability. FatCow also has a new gigabit network connection to enhance performance. Together these features make FatCow an extremely secure and reliable web hosting provider.
Servers
BlueHost uses Opteron servers. FatCow uses Linux servers
Uptime Guarantees
BlueHost has an uptime guarantee of 99.9%. FatCow has an uptime guarantee of 99.9%.
Support
BlueHost has 24/7 toll free support, as well as email, and live chat. They also have a knowledge base page and ticketing system.
FatCow has several ways for customers to contact them, including 24/7 toll free support, email and live chat. They also have a knowledge base, tutorials, and an FAQ library.
General Aspects
In many ways BlueHost and FatCow are very similar. Both web hosting companies were consistently ranked high by industry leaders and in customer reviews. BlueHost does have some pricing methods that are unpopular with some customers, such as a sudden jump in the service rate after the initial special offer ends.
Fatcow - The Best Shared Web Hosting
No comments:
Post a Comment