First of all, if you haven't know it yet, BlueHost and HostMonster is technically the same web hosting company that are owned and operated by Matt Heaton. Basically they share almost everything from pricing to office address to servers and to staffs, except the name. More discussions are in my Host Monster review.
Knowing that, some people will have the dilemma on which one to choose! And that's why in this post, I will explain why I am biased towards BlueHost.
Reason #1 - Age & Brand
If they are brothers, Blue Host is born in 2003 and Hostmonster in 2005. And because of the head start, Blue Host is a lot larger than Hostmonster in terms of customers. They are more well known and have a stronger brand. Both of them host over 1 millions websites each.
[Note: number of domains does not equal to number of customers because 1 customer can host unlimited domains]
Matt Heaton will always call himself the "CEO of BlueHost and HostMonster" but will never call himself the "CEO of HostMonster and BlueHost". BlueHost always comes first.
Because of the brand and size, BlueHost is worth a lot more than HostMonster and it will make business sense to take greater care of it.
Reason #2 - Forum Size
BlueHost customer forum is significantly larger than HostMonster's. There are more active customers and postings in BlueHost forum as compared to Host Monster. You can expect more discussions and replies if you are a BlueHost customer.
| Members | Threads | Posts | |
| BlueHost | 50,584 | 15,997 | 76,201 |
| HostMonster | 44,459 | 7,071 | 32,004 |
Reason #3 - Pricing & Promotion
While I are able to offer the discounted price of $3.95 for both BlueHost, I cannot get the deal for you for HostMonter. You have to pay $2 more for HostMonster at $5.95. So this reason good enough for you to choose BlueHost over HostMonster?
Why don't they stick to 1 brand and 1 name?
It is all marketing. As mentioned earlier, BlueHost is meant to be marketed as a "premium" host while HostMonster as a "low cost" host. But you may not know it, they even have the third brand known as FastDomain which I believe is meant to target customers looking for the lowest possible price! Unfortunately (or fortunately for simplicity sake), FastDomain is not able to make it big. Maybe they abandoned the plan and focus on marketing Bluehost and Hostmonster instead.
It is very common to have a company owning several brands of similar products. For example, Pantene, Head & Shoulders, Herbal Essences are all owned by P&G. In hosting, iPowerWeb, StartLogic, PowWeb are all under the Endurance Group! So the important thing for us is whether we are getting what we want, i.e. the quality of the service.
Conclusion
No one will argue with their wallets and if BlueHost is $2 cheaper, stick with BlueHost!
Read my BlueHost Review and HostMonster Review if you haven't done so yet!