Bluehost review conclusion
Bluehost is a web hosting company providing users with a large number of possibilities for hosting. It is officially recommended by WordPress for WordPress site hosting.
Bluehost is reasonably priced and offers various plans for shared, dedicated and VPS hosting. It also has specialized plans for WordPress and WooCommerce hosting. Furthermore, performance-wise, Bluehost is really highly ranked and secure,
Bluehost has many add-ons to make your site grow with ease, although most of the add-ons are not free. Also, using Bluehost you might encounter some problems with customer support.
Bluehost is an excellent choice for anyone on a budget, since shared hosting is really cheap there. According to benchmark data, it’s one of the most reliable hosting providers, if not the most reliable.
Pros
Cons
There are a large number of web hosting providers out there.
I know that making a decision on which one to choose is hard. Thats why I have decided to provide you with reviews and comparisons of different web hosting providers.
In this article, I have one major provider in the loop – Bluehost.
In this Bluehost review, I give you everything you need to know about Bluehost: its pros and cons, services, benchmark data and more.
So… just scroll down to find the answer for whatever question you might have.
Table of Contents
What is Bluehost?
Bluehost is a web hosting company that is owned by the Endurance International Group.
Furthermore, it is among the 20 largest web host companies in the world. It is said that Bluehost is hosting over 2 million domains along with its sister companies FastDomain, HostMonster, and the iPage.
The company is located in Provo, Utah, and it operates within a 50,000 square feet server house. Bluehost was started in 1996 by Matt Heaton; however, it changed its name to Bluehost in 2003.
This web hosting company offers WordPress hosting, shared hosting, dedicated hosting, WooCommerce hosting, and the VPS hosting, among other hosting and domain services. When it comes to servers, Bluehost is powered by HTTP/2 PHP7 and NGINX + caching. In this article, we shall be going through the Bluehost review.
Who is Bluehost for?
Quick answer
Bluehost is perfect for hosting WordPress and WooCommerce sites, it even has plans dedicated to those. It is also great for someone on a budget, since prices are pocket-friendly.
If you are looking for a reliable web host with an excellent reputation, then Bluehost will be perfect for you.
Furthermore, it is one of the oldest web hosting companies and has established trust for quite some time.
Bluehost is ideal for WordPress customers who are willing to pay extra to access more features. Bluehost has an experienced and dedicated support team of WordPress experts.
If you own either a small or large business, then Bluehost is one of the best web hosts for you.
It is also a great web host firm if you are on a budget, and you require a general-purpose shared hosting.
All in all, you find everything you need in hosting with Bluehost. I can say with all honesty that for me Bluehost is a perfect solution, especially for WordPress hosting.
Of course, hosting is a wide industry and people’s needs are different. It might not be perfect for you, but there is a high probability that it is.
Performace of Bluehost
Performance-wise, Bluehost is one of the best hosting providers out there. This is extremely important because its pricing is quite low, making it a really great value for money.
Bluehost performs high in both load time and uptime, making it a really reliable tool for anyone.
The load time of Bluehost is much above average, according to different benchmarks, it ranks number 3-4 in load time.
Uptime is certainly important for every website owner because when servers are down your site is down. Bluehost guarantees at least 99.98% uptime. Furthermore, according to recent benchmarks, the number is actually close to 99.99%.
To find out about services offered by Bluehost, continue reading this Bluehost review.
Services offered by Bluehost
There are five levels of services provided by Bluehost:
- WordPress hosting – shared hosting for WordPress. It is optimized for WordPress usage and officially recommended by WordPress. Pocket-friendly and easy.
- WordPress Pro – advanced hosting for WordPress, with various tools and dashboard, where everything is manageable.
- WooCommerce – host WordPress online stores, quite cheap and easy.
- Shared hosting – pocket-friendly and basic. Perfect for newbies and small businesses. You will be sharing servers with other customers.
- VPS hosting – middle-ground option between shared and dedicated hosting. You will be sharing a physical server with other individuals. However, you will be having a virtual operating system of your own; therefore, the server will function as if it is yours.
- Dedicated hosting – the most expensive service. You will be renting physical servers. Highly recommended for large commercial companies who require maximum control of their possessions.
WordPress hosting
What is WordPress hosting?
WordPress hosting is hosting specialized on WordPress. Regular WordPress hosting uses shared hosting principles. WordPress is automatically installed with this plan and managing is simple.
WordPress hosting is cheap and simple. It includes everything to host your WordPress site:
- Automatic WordPress installation
- Free SSL Certificate
- The free Domain name for 1 year
Regular WordPress hosting is a shared hosting, which allows driving the prices for the plans low. Normally the price ranges between $7.99 to $14.99 a month, but on the same sales, the prices can be as low as $2.50.
The first plan has some limitations:
- 1 website
- 50 GB SSD storage
- 5 parked domains
- 25 subdomains
If those parameters are enough for you, then WordPress hosting is really cheap for you. The difference between the two latter plans is that Choice Plus offers basic backup as well.
Bluehost came up with a new category known as WordPress Pro at the end of 2018. This has far more features than basic WordPress hosting and you should consider it if marketing is important to you.
WordPress Pro
What is WordPress Pro?
WordPress Pro plans include more features in addition to features that WordPress regular hosting provides. It includes, for example, SEO tools, Marketing tools, PayPal integrations and much more.
The new WordPress Pro features expensive plans when compared to WordPress hosting. At Bluehost, WordPress Pro is a big deal, and it the most outstanding service at the company hosting more than one million sites.
The WordPress Pro is operating on a high-performance VPS and grants you improved site speed.
Features of WordPress Pro include daily backup, basic jetpack site analytics, up to 100 premium themes for free, removal for add security, marketing center, and malware detection.
Business review tools allow your customers and visitors to leave positive comments to different search engines, like Google, directly from your site.
Furthermore, the SEO tool provides real-time optimization tips on ways you can increase the search engine ranking. The marketing center will allow you to see how you are performing in the major search engines.
The top-level scale plan provides PayPal integration and Elastic search.
Without discounts, prices for WordPress Pro range from $29.99 to $59.99 per month.
Those plans are quite expensive so choose wisely the cheapest plan that fits your needs.
WooCommerce
What is WooCommerce package?
Bluehost’s WooCommerce package is a specialized package for WordPress eCommerce sites. It includes everything you need to get started and maintain a WooCommerce site.
This is a solution for those who need hosting for WordPress eCommerce sites. Setting up WooCommerce is made easy by Bluehost.
All plans include WooCommerce automated installation, free SSL and 1 free domain and many other features.
WooCommerce was especially designed for WordPress. It’s a really powerful tool and handles everything from inventory management to payment methods.
If you need to host your WooCommerce site somewhere, then Bluehosts’s WooCommerce solution is definitely the way to go for you.
Normally, prices fall into a range of $13.99 to $31.99 a month. In my honest opinion, the price is really fair or even rather small.
As always choose the cheapest plan that you can manage with since the most expensive one is a considerable $31.99 per month.
Enough about WordPress lets now discuss Bluehost’s regular web hosting services, like shared hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated hosting.
So far we have covered WordPress related services, keep reading this Bluehost review find out about other services.
Shared hosting
What is shared hosting?
The idea behind shared hosting is that you will be sharing servers with other customers. You can add your website files to the server and start hosting, but you cannot install your own programs. But don’t worry, most of the necessary programs are included anyway and this kind of solution gives an ability to drive prices really low.
Shared hosting is the most pocket-friendly and basic solution that Bluehost offers. This fits well with newbies and small businesses.
Bluehost offers 4 different plans for shared hosting, starting from $7.99 / month and ending with $23.99 / month.
These are amazing prices. At the Basic plan, you will get a website along with unmetered bandwidth and 50GB worth of space. Furthermore, you will receive a domain, 25 sub-domains, and five parked domains. The additional features are five email accounts along with 100 MB of storage for each email.
For the Plus plan and Choice Plus plan, you will receive unlimited websites as well as unmetered space and bandwidth. You will have a domain included, sub-domains, and unlimited numbers of parked domains. You receive unlimited email accounts plus unlimited storage and $200 in the marketing offer.
The Plus plan comes with Global CDN as well as a SpamExpert, which is more than $24 yearly in extra benefit.
The Pro is the highest level plan, and it includes $180 annually in extra benefit, including a premium SSL, two SpamExperts enhanced performance, an IP address, SiteBackup Pro, and domain privacy.
VPS hosting
What is VPS hosting?
VPS hosting is in the middle of the shared hosting and dedicated hosting. You will still share physical servers with other users, but you have more control over what you can do. You will have your own virtual operating system, meaning that you can treat the server as your own. You can install all the necessary programs that your webpage needs.
Bluehost offers 3 different plans for VPS hosting: Standard, Enhanced and Ultimate. Prices without discount range between $29.99 and $119.99 per month.
The prices are based on the typical rate for the VPS hosting industry-wide.
Choosing a plan here is quite simple, just estimate how much power you need, in terms of CPU, storage, RAM, bandwidth and IP addresses. After estimation, choose the cheapest plan that fills all the criterions.
Now as I have covered most common hosting types in the market today in this Bluehost review, let’s move on to a more expensive hosting type.
Dedicated hosting
What is dedicated hosting?
Dedicated hosting is a form of hosting where you rent a physical server only for yourself, meaning you have full control over the server and its programs.
Dedicated hosting is recommended for big companies, who need total control over their possessions. It is usually not recommended for small companies since the price of dedicated hosting is really high.
Bluehost offers 3 plans for dedicated hosting: Standard, Enhanced and Premium. Prices range from $119.99 / month to $209.99 / month.
Like for VPS hosting, you should choose your plan according to the estimation of features needed. Choose the cheapest plan that fits the set barriers.
eCommerce with Bluehost
Setting up an online store with Bluehost is relatively easy. The platform offers various shopping carts such as OS Commerce, Agora, Cube, and Zen. For any transaction made, you will receive an SSL security, a free generated certificate, and GPG Encryption/Open PGP.
Having unlimited bandwidth might sound reasonable; however, your account can be limited based on the fair use policy when your website experiences a constant outstanding flow of traffic. Therefore, there is no unlimited bandwidth; however, Bluehost will pay for every bandwidth you use.
If you own a store, the $200 free marketing credit will be of great help to your business. You can rely on it to market your business via Google, Facebook, Bing, and Twitter.
Despite not being famous for eCommerce, Bluehost is equipped with various marvelous features that will help you start and boost your eCommerce business. Furthermore, it is easy to operate and fast to set everything up to start your business with Bluehost.
Thus far, you should have a pretty good idea about the services offered by Bluehost. To find out more about Bluehost’s features, like security, refund policy, user interface and more, keep reading this Bluehost review.
Bluehost Security features
This is where Bluehost has excelled in. With Bluehost, you are guaranteed three layers of anti-spam protection, in the form of Apache Spam Assassin, Spam Hammer, and Spam Expert.
You can as well have protection for your inbox. Furthermore, all your indexes are password protected.
You can blacklist an IP address if you want to block any access to your site. The secure shell, also known as SSH access, is one of the top-notch features available in Bluehost. SSH permits you to have access configuration files securely and individually.
Furthermore, Bluehost is equipped with single-click integration with Cloudflare. This feature provides maximum security as well as speeds up your site. Cloudflare particularly is perfect for preventing any DDOS attacks.
The refund policy
Bluehost operates on 30 days money-back guarantee cover plan.
This means that you can cancel your subscription within the first 30 days, and you are guaranteed a full refund.
However, canceling your subscription after 30 days, you will not receive any refund. Furthermore, you should note that domain fees are non-refundable.
Coming up in this Bluehost review: user interface and customer service.
User interface
Bluehost features an easy to operate design, which makes it interesting to set up your domain and manage it.
Furthermore, Bluehost features an enhanced cPanel interface that is easy to operate. All you need to do is to click the icon and navigate to where you would like to be.
With Bluehost, you can take care of email addresses, websites, and everything else within a central location. You can as well customize your control panel layout to your preference. This makes it easy for you to access your favorite features quickly.
Customer service
Bluehost customer service has received a mixture of reviews.
Unfortunately, some clients claimed that they were not able to get any help they requested from the customer service.
However, most customers have reported that Bluehost customer service is fast, friendly, and very helpful.
Upselling is one of the main problems with Bluehost. The company often tries to sell add-ons and upgrades to its customers.
Furthermore, some areas require you to have add-ons for full functionality. If you have a tight budget, then this becomes a significant problem.
In this Bluehost review, I have covered the most important aspects of hosting a website on Bluehost, it’s time to sum it all up.
Summary
To sum it all up, Bluehost is a great web host firm equipped with plenty of amazing features.
Furthermore, this web host firm offers flexible plans, making it easy for you to choose the best one depending on your budget.
Bluehost is especially recommended for WordPress hosting, even WordPress states officially that Bluehost is their recommended partner. WordPress hosting is made really easy with Bluehost – starting with basic hosting and ending with WooCommerce.
The only downside that I found, is that customer service might not always be fast or even there. Most of the clients are happy though, but some have encountered problems.
Also, one problem with Bluehost is that they have many useful add-ons, but most of those are paid, so you need to pay extra for managing your site successfully.
Having Bluehost is an excellent investment for an individual with either small or large businesses. Also, the prices are quite cheap for shared hosting and acceptable for other services.
I hope you enjoyed this Bluehost review, feel free to leave a comment if you have any further questions.
Get started with Bluehost now!
Bluehost review conclusion
Bluehost is a web hosting company providing users with a large number of possibilities for hosting. It is officially recommended by WordPress for WordPress site hosting.
Bluehost is reasonably priced and offers various plans for shared, dedicated and VPS hosting. It also has specialized plans for WordPress and WooCommerce hosting. Furthermore, performance-wise, Bluehost is really highly ranked and secure,
Bluehost has many add-ons to make your site grow with ease, although most of the add-ons are not free. Also, using Bluehost you might encounter some problems with customer support.
Bluehost is an excellent choice for anyone on a budget, since shared hosting is really cheap there. According to benchmark data, it’s one of the most reliable hosting providers, if not the most reliable.
