Editor's opinion
Sean Thompson
I am a full-time web developer & IT professional with more than 18 years experience. I have been working with numerous hosting companies over the years.
First impression
Bluehost was founded way back in 2003 by Matt Heaton and Danny Ashworth in Provo, Utah, and has since cemented itself as a major player when it comes to Shared Hosting and WordPress Hosting. They embrace solutions for open-source implementation and development and are even endorsed by WordPress as a recommended hosting provider, a feat rarely seen. This market leader, consisting of more than 750 dedicated and skilled administrators, engineers, and technicians, powers more than 2 million websites across the globe and is one of the most loved and trusted Hosting solution providers around. Besides the aforementioned services, they also offer VPS Hosting, Dedicated Server Hosting & Reseller Hosting.
Their best-in-class, hassle-free solutions are reasonably priced and designed to meet the needs of a wide range of customers, from newbies right through to seasoned pros. They also make onboarding a breeze, all packages come standard with tools that are simple and easy to use, and their setup wizard will guide you through the setup process to help you launch your site in no time!
A Brief Video Introduction from Bluehost Company
Trial Period
There is no free trial on offer to test drive their services, but rather a 30-day money-back guarantee, which is standard practice these days for any quality hosting company worth their salt.
Billing Cycle
With Bluehost, you will have the option to sign-up on either a month-to-month basis or pay annually, this applies to all their packages. One should note that you will be required to take the annual option when first joining, and only when your plan comes up for renewal will you have the option of paying monthly. Personally the annual options make much more sense as these are incentivized by huge discounts. Bluehost accepts all major credit cards or PayPal as payment methods.
Control Panel
Users can manage their files through the ever-popular and easy-to-use cPanel.
Limits
Bluehost offers four plans on their Shared Hosting, namely Basic, Plus, Choice Plus, and Pro, with the biggest difference being the allocated disc space. The Basic Package starts with a mere 10GB SSD Storage (very little compared to most competitors), the Plus Package comes with 20GB, Choice Plus 40GB, and lastly, 100GB for the Pro Package. All come standard with a Free SSL certificate, Free Domain, and Free Content Delivery Network (CDN). On the higher-end packages, you will also have a few value-added services like Domain Privacy and Performance Insights.
One should note that the SSL on the Basic Package is only free for the first year.
Their VPS Hosting offers three choices, starting with 30GB SSD space, 2 GB RAM on the Standard Package, 60GB space and 4GB RAM on the Enhanced, and 120GB space with 8GB RAM on the Ultimate Package. The first two will also have 2 Core CPUs while the Ultimate Package has 4.
Security
Their all-in-one solutions make website protection and reliability easy with a free SSL through Let’s Encrypt that is automatically assigned to all domains, free basic malware detection, and automated security updates.
Should you need more protection, Bluehost also has a paid service called SiteLock. It is their product and comes with varying levels of protection.
The essential plan is charged at $7.99 per month and will only scan website files. The Prevent plan scans all files, as well as the database, and this will set you back $19.99 per month. Lastly, they have the PreventPlus plan for $29.99 per month which includes all of the above, and also provides an Advanced Security Firewall.
OS
Bluehost only offers Linux-based Hosting.
Support
Around-the-clock help is available via phone, email, or live chat.
Bluehost is famous for its "excellent support". I put them to the test and sadly was rather disappointed. I would rate them as average at best. Their online chat representatives disappear at times, leaving you to ponder if you are still connected, and although I eventually got the technical answers I was after, this was still a far cry from superior support.
Is Bluehost suitable for my company?
Who might benefit from Bluehost?
WordPress users: Bluehost is actually officially recommended by WordPress.org, and they offer several attractive features for WordPress users, including one-click installs and automatic updates.
Beginners: Bluehost is known for its user-friendly interface and excellent customer service, including 24/7 support. This can make it a great choice for those who are new to web hosting.
Small to medium-sized businesses: Bluehost's shared hosting plans are competitively priced and offer a good range of features, making them suitable for smaller businesses. They also offer more advanced options, such as VPS and dedicated hosting, for when your business grows.
Who might not benefit from Bluehost?
Budget-conscious users: While Bluehost offers a good value for the price, there are cheaper hosting options available. Those with a very tight budget might prefer to look elsewhere.
High-traffic sites: While Bluehost's shared hosting is excellent for smaller sites, it might not be sufficient for sites with very high traffic or resource-intensive applications. In these cases, a cloud hosting or dedicated server might be a better choice, though Bluehost does offer these options as well.
Users needing advanced features: While Bluehost is great for beginners and intermediate users, some advanced users might find it lacks certain features they need. For instance, it doesn't offer hosting based on the Windows operating system and might lack certain developer-friendly tools.
Conclusion
👍 Pros
👎 Cons
Free Domain;
Free CDN (Content Delivery Network);
Free SSL;
Affordable;
Money Back Guarantee.
Lack of Windows options;
Only one option for Control Panel;
Average Support.
Bluehost offers feature-packed, dependable Hosting that is perfect for anyone starting out. They noticeably lack Windows Hosting options, and the support might feel average at times, but overall still a great hosting choice, especially for users that are budget conscious.
FAQ
✅ Can I upgrade or downgrade my Bluehost hosting plan?
Yes, you can upgrade or downgrade your Bluehost hosting plan at any time. If your website grows or your needs change, you can easily move to a different plan that better suits your requirements. To upgrade or downgrade, you can contact Bluehost's customer support, and they will assist you with the process.
✳️ What payment methods does Bluehost accept?
Bluehost accepts major credit cards, including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover. They also accept PayPal payments. Keep in mind that Bluehost charges for their hosting plans on an annual basis, so you'll need to choose a 12, 24, or 36-month term when signing up.
✴️ Does Bluehost offer a CDN (Content Delivery Network)?
Yes, Bluehost offers free integration with Cloudflare CDN on all hosting plans. A CDN helps improve website performance by caching and delivering content from a network of servers located around the world. This ensures that your website loads quickly for visitors, regardless of their location. To enable Cloudflare CDN, you can follow the steps provided in Bluehost's knowledge base or contact their customer support for assistance.
Plans
Note! Some companies do not include VAT in their prices. Prices are indicated for one month’s pay. If you pay for a longer period - discounts are possible. Domain prices are indicated for new domains registration.
We conducted tests on the website bluehostcom.hostings.info with its help, we conduct testing and monitoring. Plan: Basic Web Hosting (3.95 USD per month)
Uptime: 99.86 % excellent 1 minutes of downtime per month
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Sorting
Hosting rating
Anthony
Russia
18 jan. 2017
This hosting company is good, I have been using it since 2008, and have had no particular problems.The only issue - the plan isn't for unlimited resources: there are restrictions on the number of tables SQL databases (large enough), they warn you when there are more than 90,000 folders on the account.
Bluehost was one of the first hosting services that I paid for monthly when I began developing for the web and clients. I used their offerings for all my websites between 2008 and around mid 2011. They offer cPanel and at the time were quite fast. However I only noticed that my sites would begin to go slow at certain times from around 2011 and especially if you are running a WordPress site - you will require MySQL services which they aren't very efficient in. Bluehost don't seem to have enough resources in this area because of how quickly they've grown and their current and very large customer base. Therefore I would not recommend Bluehost if you are running a high traffic website or a website that has a lot of functionality utilizing MySQL. Due to their "reasonable" pricing they manage to fit a lot of customers on one server and overall I would say this is best suited if you are going to be hosting a very simple website or a portfolio-type website that doesn't receive a lot of traffic. They are also quite strict about the type of content they host as they are Mormon-owned and so if you are going to publish any content that they deem offensive get ready for your services to be disabled or paused without notice. Back when I first started I was an affiliate for Bluehost and recommended them to my clients but from 2011 onwards I stopped as their services I feel aren't suited for my needs as a developer and that is why I would not recommend them today in 2020. Please keep in mind however that this review is a reflection of their Shared Hosting plans - I have not as yet used their VPS or Dedicated plans but I feel the shared service can be a good judge. Overall I think there are better offerings out there for shared plans as Bluehost is in my opinion too "crowded" and the fact that they apply monitoring of content and can "disable" any content they personally deem offensive to Mormon-ism isn't great. Their support is on par with other web hosts and when I've used them they offered quick chat support.
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We highly recommend not to purchase the cheapest hosting package. Usually, they come with a row of issues: the server is often down, the hardware is outdated, lousy and slow support, registration and payment errors, etc.
For your convenience, we have created a tool that can help you to choose the right hosting package for you just by answering a few simple questions.
CMS is a content management system. A lot of hosting providers offer so-called CMS optimized packages. However, this is a marketing trick because most CMSs do not have special software or hosting requirements.
Bulletproof hosting - it’s a type of service that allows to host almost any type of content, even the restricted one (adult content, warez, spam etc). Bulletproof hosting providers do not remove your content in case someone reports an abuse.
Unlimited hosting - refers to companies that provide packages with unlimited disk space, bandwidth, number of domains, databases or email accounts, etc. This is usually a marketing trick but sometimes you can find something worth a try.
Secure hosting - it’s a type of service when the hosting provider is mostly responsible for the security of the user’s account: updates the software installed on their servers, provides an antivirus and malware scanner, firewalls and basic anti-DDoS protection, etc.
DDoS-protected hosting - companies that provide packages that include anti-DDoS protection. These packages are considerably more expensive than regular ones. Nevertheless, they’re totally worth their price because the company will ensure that your website is secured from cyber attacks.
The more comfortable the control panel is, the easier will it be for you to change the website and hosting account settings.
Most hosting providers that are in TOP20 in our rating offer user-friendly control panels, such as cPanel, Plesk or DirectAdmin. That’s why we recommend to pay attention to other, more important parameters, while choosing a hosting provider.
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