If you're creating a new blog or starting new websites, one of the first things you need is a trustworthy, high-quality, and secure website hosting service.
If you spend a few minutes searching for “best web hosting providers,” chances are Bluehost will be on your radar immediately.
So, why is there so much buzz about Bluehost? Powering more than two million websites worldwide, Bluehost is a renowned brand name in affordable web hosting. It’s easy to use, even for first-timers, and fantastic price discounts speak for them.
You can carry out a search on Google for “the best web hosting solutions,” and Bluehost will appear top on the SERPs due to its popularity.
Without further ado, Let's Find out more about what you get, and why I think Bluehost provides the best value for your money.
What is Bluehost?
The company offers an extensive array of hosting plans, such as VPS, affordable shared, and dedicated hosting. It now powers more than 2 million websites from all over the world.
How Good is Bluehost Hosting?
Bluehost's greatest selling point is, well, their selling point.
Bluehost pricing is some of the lowest on the market and comes standard with all of the basic features one could want from a shared hosting provider.
They are worth comparing against other similar budget hosts as they offer a wide variety of plans with certain niche advantages. You may want to keep an eye out for a few things that our researchers found, however. Uptime and speeds are significantly lower than most competitors (especially higher-priced competitors), and Bluehost customer service is not as helpful as one would hope.
For Whom Bluehost is Useful?
Bluehost is ideal for beginners that are starting a website for the first or second time. Say you’re a blogger getting started in your niche, Bluehost enables you to get an easy start without sweating all the technical details.
Along with their customer support features and easy to navigate cPanel, Bluehost ensures your learning curve is as small as possible and gets your site publicly available to the world with plenty of uptime.
On the other hand, if you’re looking to start an eCommerce business with tons of products and need the best site speed and dedicated hosting, you might want to look at other options first.
Bluehost Highlights:
- Very affordable pricing, starting at just $2.75/mo (with discount)
- 1-click install of WordPress – perfect for new sites
- 24/7 support – which has improved over the past year
- Highly recommended by top podcasters like Pat Flynn
- Like all shared hosts, if you have a big site, may slow you down
- Cloud hosting and other upgrades available
- Email storage very limited on the Basic plan
- Websites limited to just 1 on the Basic plan
- 30-day refund if you don't like them
What products does Bluehost offer?
Bluehost offers loads of different hosting-related products, from domain names to dedicated servers. Let us quickly go over their large catalog.
Bluehost Domain name:
Although Bluehost is not the cheapest domain name registrar, you can buy domain names directly from it. Domain names at Bluehost cost $1.99/ year for .website, $4.99/ year for .tech, $9.99/ year for .co, $12.99 a year for a .com and .org, and $14.99/ year for .net.
Bluehost Shared hosting:
Shared hosting works by allowing multiple users to share space on a single server maintained by Bluehost. You can think of it as sharing a flat; you will share a server (flat) but have your own hosting space (room) - cheaper but noisier.
This type is perfect for blogging, hobbies, and small business websites. At Bluehost, the shared prices go from $2.75 per month. Its promotional price for the first term includes:
- Basic: $2.75/ month
- Plus: $4.95/ month
- Choice Plus: $5.45/ month
- Pro: $13.95/ month
Bluehost Dedicated hosting:
Dedicated hosting is a web hosting environment that provides the highest privacy, control, and resource allocation. Dedicated servers are entirely isolated from one another, allowing users to get full access to configure their server anyway they want, without affecting another user, or being affected by other users’ actions.
You can think of this as having your own house, no roommates or neighbors to bother you. Customers with high-traffic websites are usually the best fit for dedicated hosting. At Bluehost, the dedicated prices go from $79.99/ month.
- Standard: $79.99/ month
- Enhanced: $99.99/ month
- Premium: $119.99/ month
Bluehost VPS hosting:
VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting is something in between shared hosting and dedicated one. You will share a server with other users, but there is a virtual wall between your projects and theirs.
Your account will always be allocated the set amount of CPU, RAM, and Disk Space you’ve chosen, regardless of what others on the server are doing. This enables more excellent stability and the performance of your website. You also don’t share the Operating System with any other users, providing better security for your website resources.
This type is recommended for those needing special server configuration (i.e., using a specific programming language). VPS hosting plans at Bluehost go from $18.99/ month.
- Standard: $18.99/ month
- Enhanced: $29.99/ month
- Ultimate: $59.99/ month
Bluehost Shared WordPress hosting:
Shared WordPress hosting was specifically designed for users who need the resources, tools, products, and support to create and manage their WordPress website. No matter if it is choosing a theme, updates to the platform, or ensuring you have the latest and most secure version of WordPress for your site, this plan is excellent for anyone looking for a dynamic WordPress website.
Below are several features of the Shared WordPress hosting plan:
Automatic WordPress installation: When you sign up for this plan, your control panel will install the latest version of WordPress on your account automatically.
WordPress updates: When you host your WordPress site through Bluehost, it will automatically update for you. This makes sure that you are always running the latest version of WordPress with the best security features to protect you and your audience.
Free SSL Certificate: As will all Bluehost plans, your website will be given a free SSL certificate. This makes sure that your site is safe and secure while protecting you and your visitors.
Free Domain name (1 year): When you choose this plan, you’ll be given a free domain name for the first name. After that, you need to renew your domain.
Secure Login Credentials: Once you have created your WordPress hosting account, you can change your login credentials. You can choose your own passcode or have Bluehost configure a generic passcode for you.
Shared WordPress hosting plans at Bluehost go from $2.75/ month.
- Basic: $2.75/ month
- Plus: $4.95/ month
- Choice Plus: $5.45/ month
Bluehost Managed WordPress hosting (WP Pro):
This hosting type is a fully managed environment allowing you to stay focused on building your website with unique content, while Bluehost handles the daily maintenance of your servers and the apps that keeps your websites running smoothly.
Managed WordPress hosting is an all-in-one marketing center, offering you everything you need to build and grow a professional WordPress website. This plan at Bluehost runs from $19.95/ month.
- Build: $19.95/ month
- Grow: $29.95/ month
- Scale: $49.95/ month
Here are some features of this plan:
Unlimited domains: When you come with this plan, you can point as many domains to your Bluehost account as you need. This allows you to set up multiple websites and give each of these sites a unique domain name.
Unlimited subdomains: You are able to organize your website in any order that you want. With unlimited subdomains, you can create your URL structure in any way that you wish.
Unlimited websites: With the WP Pro plan, you’ll be able to build as many websites as you can. You are allowed an unlimited number of WordPress installs on your account and unrivaled customizations.
Unlimited web storage: You can grow your website without worrying about any limits on the size of your site. With unlimited storage, you can build a website that is as large as you want.
No traffic limits: This plan never restricts how many viewers can use our website, or slow down your speed because you’ve exceeded a visitor count. You will have unlimited hosting data so that you can get unlimited traffic for your website.
Staging environment: This feature lets you test your website without publishing your posts for everyone to see. This ensures that your posts are correctly formatted and scale for mobile without any problems.
Bluehost WooCommerce hosting:
WooCommerce is actually a WordPress plugin that is used for selling products or services online. Whether your products are physical or digital, WooCommerce makes it easy to set up an online store, which is customized specifically to your business needs. WooCommerce also makes it simple to manage your inventory, monitor shipping, take secure payments, and even apply taxes accordingly.
This hosting plan at Bluehost runs from $6.95/ month.
- Starter: $6.95/ month
- Plus: $8.95/ month
- Pro: $12.95/ month
Other Bluehost features:
As a matter of fact, in addition to providing the above products, Bluehost is a trustworthy one-stop shop for small businesses as well. Below are some other features that make Bluehost stand out from the crowd.
- Website builder: Bluehost provides a drag-and-drop site builder for anyone having an idea of what they want to set up, but don’t have sharp enough CSS and HTML skills.
Digital marketing tools: Bluehost provides a package of professional marketing services, including advertising, SEO, social media marketing, and content creating for your site. You can get monthly consultations from a marketing professional. And they will measure the progress so that you can see your ROI (Return on Investment).
cPanel: You won’t be confused about getting started with Bluehost, thanks to its beginner-friendly cPanel. The Bluehost control panel is simple to use and intuitive, allowing you to manage your website easily. All you have to do is click on the icons, and it will instantly open up the pages for you.
Storage: Depending on the plan you go with, Bluehost offers anything from 50GB to unlimited storage space for your site files. If you only plan to run a WordPress blog with content and images, the 50GB plan will be fine, as it’ll take a while to use up that much storage.
Bluehost Uptime:
Bluehost Security:
The best indication of a secure website is an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate. SSL certificates let users know that any information they share on your site will be safe, and these certificates are indicated by the padlock icon and the “HTTPS” at the beginning of a web address.
Every Bluehost plan comes with a free SSL certificate, so you never have to worry about visitors getting a warning that your site is insecure. For more advanced security, you can also purchase a premium SSL certificate at $49.99/year. This would be a worthy investment for eCommerce sites or any site where users will be logging in with a username and password and/or providing sensitive information (like credit card details).
Other free Bluehost security features include Spam Assassin protection, hotlink protection, and Secure Shell access. Basically, Bluehost includes more than enough security measures to get a standard size off the ground – but if you’re looking to scale your site or sell online, you may want to invest in a few extras.
Bluehost offers a lot of additional security measures to choose from, but they can quickly add up and increase your bill, so it’s important to choose wisely. For example, SiteLock Find (advanced security for eCommerce) only costs $1.99/month, but if you want to buy it, it must be billed annually at $23.88/year. That’s still not a lot to ensure the protection of your online shoppers, but it can be hard not to feel blindsided at checkout.
Bluehost Additional Costs:
Unfortunately, most hosting providers will fill your virtual basket with add-on items during checkout. These odds and ends will hike up the price of your plan, but you can always uncheck them before making your purchase.
However, some of these additional items will be worth the money, depending on the type of website you’re looking to get off the ground. Here’s an overview of the most common extras you’ll run into:
Bluehost Customer Support:
Bluehost Pros
Bluehost has an excellent understanding of what the average customer needs as a baseline from their web hosting provider. Bluehost's greatest strength is that they cover all of these bases for an incredibly low price. And with 2 million domains worldwide, clearly, this is an excellent selling point.
1. Bluehost cPanel – Redefining Demonstration
Before you spend a dime on online services – hosting included – wouldn’t it be nice to know exactly what you’re paying for? Bluehost hosting gives you a true taste of what it’s like to be one of their customers by giving you demo access to a fully functional cPanel. Since the cPanel is what you will use to manage your entire website, showing you a stripped-down version of this program would be to do you a disservice. The complete demonstration is a smart move, as the features in cPanel are robust and user-friendly. By the time you make a purchase decision, you know exactly what you getting yourself into.
2. Military Grade Encryption & Other Security
Before you ever send data to a hosting company, don’t you want to know how secure it is? Bluehost hosting has everything up to date under their servers' hoods. With shared and dedicated SSL certificates, daily backups, and a secure FTP process, Bluehost hosting know what it means to keep your data safe. If you think about it, this can be one of the selling features for your product as your customers want to know if their personal and private financial information is in good hands before they give you a dime.
Bluehost has some of the best security features among low-cost web hosting companies. Their competitor HostGator, for example, is slightly more expensive but has a serious lack of spam and virus protection in their inboxes, and they only back up your data once a week. Even a more expensive option, SiteGround, falls short on their security against hacking. Bluehost truly goes above and beyond in security for the price.
3. Finally – Freebies You Can Use
Bluehost recognizes that most people start basic websites in order to expand their marketing efforts and brand presence. So included in your Bluehost plan is a bevy of complementary e-commerce, shopping cart, email, and marketing applications. Google Apps and CloudFlare are two examples, and all of these apps integrate seamlessly and are incredibly user-friendly. You don't need to be a developer to figure out the free applications that will undoubtedly be useful for any small business.
4. Easy Design Tools
Bluehost hosting puts you in the driver’s seat when it comes to your website design, and they make it so easy that you don't need to have any experience. At one point, hiring a web designer might’ve been part of your marketing strategy, but now it need not be. Bluehost plans provide complimentary website design software with drag-and-drop technology, allowing you to design the site yourself with ease. This kind of software is quite literally called WYSIWYG – what you see is what you get. It means you don’t have to be proficient in computer programming to customize your website the way you want it.
5. Bluehost VPS is Actually Affordable
VPS hosting is always more expensive than shared hosting plans because you are guaranteed the resources of a private server. But where most hosting companies charge incredibly high prices for VPS, Bluehost's low prices extend to VPS. Bluehost VPS is fully managed and is rich with features, like an enhanced cPanel, CentOS, and powerful cloud technology. And with four different levels, Bluehost VPS plans to provide lots of room for scaling with growth.
Bluehost Cons
When prices are so low, it's hard to complain too much about the shortcomings of Bluehost plans. But there are some serious cons to Bluehost that can't be overlooked if low prices aren't your top priority.
1. Bluehost Customer Service is Hit or Miss
Any company that has clients around the world must be able to support them around the clock. Bluehost boasts a ticket response time average of 30 seconds, but this hardly seems to be the case in reality. During peak hours, many customers report wait times of nearly 45 minutes. To make matters worse, many customers express frustration that communication can be curt and unhelpful. Few things are more infuriating when you're experiencing technical difficulties than having to wait an exorbitant amount of time only to receive an answer that doesn't get you any closer to a solution. Slow and unhelpful service is not always the case with Bluehost, but it is the case often enough that we cannot say their customer service is consistently high quality.
However, Bluehost does have a YouTube channel filled with useful tutorials. If your question isn't an urgent one, sometimes it's best to just roll up your sleeves and learn how to fix it yourself. You may even solve the problem before you get off hold on the support line.
2. No Uptime Guarantee
Before you make your hosting decision, you’ll probably have read hundreds of different reviews from several different perspectives on just about every hosting company out there. One of the patterns you might notice is that several of these hosting companies offer an uptime guarantee – usually a guarantee of 99.99% uptime. This promises that you will be compensated for any more than 8 hours of downtime per year. This is not the case with Bluehost. Bluehost will not compensate you should their uptime dip below the advertised average. While their uptime record isn't behind by much, studies show that Bluehost tends to have a slightly lower uptime rate than most of their big-name competitors. For sites that monetize on visits, that extra 4 hours of downtime per year can have a huge impact on your business. But when compared with other budget sites like WebHostingPad, Bluehost has a far better uptime for the money you pay.
3. Slow Loading Speeds
On average Bluehost, pages take 25% more time to load than pages hosted by other top hosting providers. This time difference may not seem like much, but did you know that almost three-quarters of your traffic will bounce if your page fails to load within 5 seconds? Sluggish loading speeds hurt your user experience, thereby decreasing your visitors and your profits. Sure, Bluehost is still far ahead of a lot of smaller web hosts, but they're at the bottom of the barrel among their top competitors. We'd point to speed as the number one element they could work to fix if they'd like to improve their service. If speed is your top priority in a web host, you might be interested in paying an extra few dollars a month for superfast A2 Hosting.
4. Getting All Your Emails
Another feature Bluehost hosting is missing is what is called a “catchall email inbox.” What this means is that if someone sends an email to a nonexistent user in your domain, it will end up in this catchall email inbox. Although this is not a necessary feature, it is one that other hosting companies have.
5. Best Pricing Requires Longer Contract
If you're planning on holding onto your site for a long time, then hey it doesn't really matter. If you're not sure how long your site will be up, then the 36-month period for the best pricing can be a bit frustrating.
So it's up to you if that's negative or not, but we thought you'd want to know.
Limitations:
Many Bluehost customers have expressed frustration with the lack of pre-installed features. It’s true that Bluehost has a lot to offer, but it’s also true that you have to actively pick and choose which of those offerings you want on your site – and often at an additional cost.
Additional Products:
We now know about the additional costs that must be purchased outside of your Bluehost plan. But there are a lot of additions that do come included in every Bluehost plan. In fact, the most basic, bare-bones plan you can purchase with Bluehost (the Basic Shared plan, $2.75/month introductory price) still comes with:
- 50 GB SSD storage
- Unmetered bandwidth
- Free SSL certificate (remember those?!)
- 1 domain included
- 5 parked domains
- 25 subdomains
And if you venture one-tier upwards to the Plus Shared plan (at an introductory price of $4.95/month), the number of websites, SSD storage, domains, parked domains, and subdomains all become unlimited. Plus Shared also gives you 30 free days with one Office 365 mailbox, and anti-spam email filtering through Spam Experts.
Final Thoughts:
So, is Bluehost as good as they say?
Yes, it certainly is!
We’ll always recommend Bluehost to our users. We hope that our Bluehost review has provided you with all the insights needed to make the right buying decision.
Bluehost is an insanely reliable and high-performing web host. With uptime and speeds that constantly rank high in the industry, you should absolutely consider them.
Plus, their plans are affordable and loaded with lots of jaw-dropping features. And with different hosting plans available, you’re sure to find something that’s suitable for your new site.
Lastly, they’re also a good option if you’re looking for a reliable WordPress-managed host. Their WordPress optimized hosting is trustworthy and highly recommended by WordPress themselves.
If you have any queries about Bluehost feel free to Contact Us!
or you can mention it in the comments.
Bluehost Hosting FAQs:
Q1. Is there a minimum contract duration?
A. Yes, when you purchase web hosting from Bluehost, you need to subscribe to your web hosting plan for a minimum duration of one year. Alternatively, you can buy the hosting plan for two or three years too.
Q2. Does Bluehost offer a free trial?
A. No, however, Bluehost does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. This means that you can try out their web hosting plans and cancel the subscription before 30 days to get all of your money back. After 30 days, your plan will renew at the special introductory rates.
Q3. Does Bluehost offer free website migrations?
A. No. If you already have a website that’s hosted by another web host, Bluehost doesn’t offer any free website migration services. You could, however, opt for a paid migration service.
Alternatively, you can contact their reliable customer support staff and they can help you through the steps involved.
Q4. Which payment methods does Bluehost accept?
A. When it comes to payments, Bluehost makes the process of buying your web hosting plan extremely easy. They offer a variety of payment options such as:
- Major Credit Cards (American Express, Discover, Mastercard, and Visa)
- PayPal
- Checks (US Only)
- Money orders in USD
Q5. Does Bluehost support webmail?
A. Yes, Bluehost supports both POP3 and IMAP webmail clients and has three webmail solutions including Roundcube and Horde.
But here’s the real deal:
Most of their plans also let you create an unlimited number of domain-specific email accounts.
Q6. Is there a limit on the number of websites that I can host on Bluehost?
A. Yes. If you choose the Basic plans, you might have a limit on the number of websites that you can host on Bluehost. However, most plans let you host an unlimited number of websites, even with shared or WordPress hosting.
Q7. What are the modes through which I can reach out to Bluehost’s customer support?
A. One of the biggest advantages of Bluehost is that you can reach out to their customer support team 24/7.
And that’s not even the best part.
You can get in touch with the customer support team by either phone or live chat. This way, you can get your troubles resolved right away.
For complicated issues, the team will reach out to you by email once the issue has been resolved.
Q8. Does Bluehost provide Microsoft 365 emails?
A. Yes, when you purchase hosting plans from Bluehost, certain plans offer a 30-day Microsoft 365 registration.
However, if you want, you can purchase Microsoft 365 email from Bluehost. The plans for this start from $2.99 per license per month.
Q9. Why use Bluehost in 2021 for your online business?
A. Website loading speed is of the utmost importance and has even become a ranking parameter on Google. That’s why it’s important to use a hosting platform that offers good speeds and Bluehost excels at that by providing blazing fast speeds.
Q10. Is Bluehost a good web host?
A. Bluehost is a great web hosting service. In fact, it’s one of the only three web hosts that have been recommended by WordPress. With great uptimes and fast loading speeds, it’s one of the finest out there.
Q11. Can I trust Bluehost?
A. Yes, you definitely can trust Bluehost for your website’s hosting. In fact, it’s trusted even by WordPress and is one of the three hosting providers that WordPress recommends.
Q12. Why is Bluehost so cheap?
A. Bluehost is cheap because you get a steep discount when you’re buying one of their hosting plans for the first time. However, when it comes to renewals, the rates are similar to those of other popular hosting services.
Q13. Is Bluehost good for beginners?
A. Bluehost is a great platform for beginners. Their portal is designed to help you handle your website without the hassle of getting into the technicalities. The intuitive dashboard also makes it easy to manage multiple websites.
Q14. Is GoDaddy better than Bluehost?
A. While both GoDaddy and Bluehost are great web hosts, Bluehost clearly takes the cake, especially when it comes to WordPress websites. It’s recommended by WordPress while GoDaddy is not.
Q15. Which Bluehost plan is best?
A. While the Basic plan of Bluehost is the best choice for anyone who’s just starting out, the best plan for slightly more experienced people is the Choice Plus plan, which includes loads of features and lets you host unlimited websites.
Q16. Is Bluehost better than WordPress?
A. While WordPress.com is a great way to host your website, it gives limited flexibility as it’s not self-hosted. On the other hand, WordPress.org gives greater flexibility and they recommend Bluehost for self-hosting websites. This makes Bluehost the better choice of the two.
Q17. Can you cancel Bluehost at any time?
A. Yes, you can cancel Bluehost at any time. However, for cancellations after 30 days, you don’t get any refund. On the other hand, for cancellations within the first 30 days, you get a 100% refund on your hosting service charges.
Q18. Can I pay Bluehost monthly?
A. No. Unfortunately, Bluehost doesn’t offer any monthly payment plans. You need to purchase a subscription for a minimum of one year. The maximum duration for which you can purchase a subscription at once is three years.
However, if you opt for VPS Hosting, Ecommerce Hosting, or Dedicated Server Hosting, Bluehost does offer monthly plans.
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