Bluehost is one of the top website hosting providers on the market, powering over 1,800,000 sites on the internet. It is also WordPress’s official top hosting recommendation.
The almost two-decade-old company has a lot going for it. But reputation, stats, and recommendations don’t answer the real question: is it worth your money?
In this Bluehost review, we will analyze all of its plans and features, and weigh out the pros and cons of their service to help you decide if it is right for you.
Before we get into the details, here’s our verdict for those in a hurry:
Our Verdict on Bluehost
The company tends to upsell services before the initial sign-up, but other than that, Bluehost gives no opportunity to complain.
The ample storage offered, affordable pricing, extraordinarily fast loading speeds, the plethora of WordPress features, and stellar customer service make it the go-to web host for all businesses – small and large.
What Factors Are Important in Any Hosting?
There is no one ultimate feature that makes a website hosting provider better than the others. There are a variety of factors at play, and a robust host strikes the perfect balance between the many different factors:
Server Performance
Loading speed is the best measure of any web host’s performance. Although the loading speed depends on the amount of data on your site, having a loading speed shorter than two seconds is critical to a website’s success.
Page abandonment rates increase every second, bumping up to 25% at the fourth second. The idea of losing one in every four blog visitors or prospective customers that visit a website is nerve-racking.
Users report short load times, with websites consistently loading under two seconds, and lighter sites loading under one second. However, your results may vary depending on the traffic of your website, configuration, and plan.
You can check your website’s loading time using tools such as GTmetrix.
Uptime
The Internet does not shut down, and prospects and visitors can try to connect to your website at any time. Ensuring that your website is up as much as possible should be your top priority.
Even a 99% uptime amounts up to a 7+ hour outage every year – which makes finding a host guaranteeing the most uptime crucial.
Bluehost does not provide any guarantees, but their Network Server Uptime Agreement assures that most issues causing downtime are resolved in under 15 minutes.
Users report the total yearly downtime between 20 and 40 minutes, which is a lot higher compared to industry standards.
The good thing about Bluehost is that they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, meaning you can test their service out before committing.
You can use tools like Uptime Robot to monitor your website’s uptime.
Price
Budget is a significant factor that directly determines the quality of services users receive.
Most website hosting providers in the industry offer plans in the $5 to $15 range (per month) for shared hosting. Promo offers bring the prices of the first cycle down to as little as $0.99 a month. Shared hosting should suffice for individuals and small businesses.
Dedicated hosting plans range from $65 to $140 (per month) and above. Deals and promos can bring down the prices to as little as $45 a month. These are ideal for enterprises and software businesses.
All of Bluehost’s plans are competitively priced. For instance, the shared plans start at $7.99, but the promotional offer brings the price down to $3.95 per month.
Its dedicated hosting plans start at $119.99, but if you’re a new customer, you can get it for $79.99 (monthly) for your first term.
Support
Regardless of if you’re a beginner marketer or run an established business serving many customers, you must keep in mind that outages and technical issues can hurt every business.
Additionally, if you need help with the details of your account, or want to discuss requirements and pricing, reliable customer support can make things a lot easier.
It is standard for website hosting providers to have live chat support and a dedicated phone line to help customers with their issues.
While reviewing Bluehost, we found their focus on convenience and customer service very impressive.
They provide a live chat option, an international support line, and a toll-free U.S. support number, ensuring that regardless of where you are, you get the support you need in time.
The majority of users report that Bluehost’s customer service excels on both live chat and the phone line, resolving issues in minutes.
They also offer the Blue Flash service, enabling WordPress beginners to get a head start. It allows you to ask Bluehost to set up WordPress and install a theme of your liking on it at no extra cost. You can also connect with their WordPress experts and for guidance.
Bluehost also provides a FAQ section and a Knowledge Base section, enabling users to get answers to questions and resolve issues on their own quickly.
Security
Thirty thousand websites are hacked on average every day. Rock-solid website hosting security is the need of the hour.
In our Bluehost analysis, we find that although it is on the lower end of the pricing spectrum, it offers class-leading security features that will keep your website and your visitor’s data safe.
They offer a free SSL certificate, domain privacy features, and three layers of spam protection via Spam Hammer, Spam Experts, and Apache Spam Assassin.
All directories are password-protected, and the secure shell access enables you to modify configuration files individually and securely.
Bluehost also integrates with CloudFlare in one-click, which keeps you safe from DDoS attacks.
Ease-Of-Use
Having a user-friendly dashboard is of prime importance, especially if you want to make full use of the web host’s features.
As mentioned previously, we analyzed Bluehost and found that they commit a lot of focus on customer convenience. Their easy to learn cPanel makes setting up and managing a website very simple.
The interface is neat and makes the use of icons and text to help you find the right options and menus quickly.
You can take care of everything from the website’s security to your business’s email addresses from one interface.
Other Features
Backups
Bluehost has a backup policy stating that any backups made by the company are solely made at their discretion. These backups are in addition to their Terms of Service, and they are not guaranteed.
Furthermore, backups made are only kept for 30 days, and customers must download a copy of it if they wish to keep the backup.
cPanel enables you to back up your data manually, and you can also use an FTP manager to make a backup. However, keep in mind that backing up data this way can get tedious.
Upon analyzing Bluehost further, we found that the company offers the premium Site Backup Pro tool to legacy accounts, enabling them to browse, download, or restore files seamlessly. But Rock accounts do not get access to this functionality.
WordPress-based sites can back up their data with ease by using plugins like UpdraftPlus.
Renewals
Users can renew their plans from the Bluehost website, and setting up auto-renew is also possible. If you use a domain from Bluehost, you will be able to renew it right from cPanel. Domain prices start at $3.99, and renewal costs begin at $15.99.
Resource Limits
The company offers unmetered bandwidth and disk space and allows users to make unlimited websites and email addresses.
Although there is no mention of a solidified limit to resource consumption, the company examines its customer’s usage and dynamically defines an average range of resource consumption.
These limits are difficult to exceed, and users don’t have to worry about corrective actions since they will be emailed if their usage is too high.
Transfers
If you use another hosting service and are looking to move your hosting to Bluehost, you will need to migrate it yourself or avail of their Site Transfer service. It is not free and costs $149.99.
This is the most disappointing revelation of our Bluehost review.
The high fee is surprising – most other premium site hosting services carry out site transfers for new customers at no cost.
How Does Bluehost Compare to Other Popular Hosting Providers?
Analyzing Bluehost and comparing its offerings with other hosting providers will help you understand its standing on the market.
Bluehost Vs. A2 Hosting
Bluehost is more affordable, with shared hosting available at $7.99 a month. A2 Hosting offers shared hosting at $8.99 a month.
However, A2 offers a better initial discount, reducing prices to $2.99 a month. In contrast, new Bluehost users must pay $3.95 for shared hosting initially.
A2 Hosting wins on the support front, offering email support in addition to phone and live chat support.
A2 also offers free site transfers, built-in DDoS protection, security monitoring features, and a lot of other eCommerce and WordPress-centric features.
If you are prepared to spend more on hosting in the long run, A2 Hosting won’t let you down.
Bluehost Vs. HostGator
HostGator does not offer shared hosting, but it does provide an advantage with its complimentary automated daily backups.
HostGator’s WordPress plans come in at $9.95, which is a lot more expensive than the Bluehost’s equivalent plans.
However, HostGator outperforms Bluehost on the security front, with free DDoS protection and malware scans.
It is also slightly easier to use for beginners, owing to the free site migration that makes getting a business website back online a lot easier.
Bluehost Vs. Siteground
Siteground’s plans start at $11.95 per month, and they offer only 10GB of space. However, they do have a CDN, and all of their plans come with managed WordPress, making it right for an eCommerce business that operates internationally.
Siteground makes backups of your website every day, the built-in caching system shortens loading times, and the staging area enables you to test website changes before making them official.
Siteground is a lot less popular than Bluehost; however, it has a fantastic uptime track record. Lapses in service are extremely rare.
The first site migration is free with Siteground, but you will need to pay a $30 premium for every following transfer. However, that is still a lot cheaper than the $149.99 Bluehost asks for.
Siteground offers DDoS protection amongst other security features and provides 24/7 support via email, phone, and chat.
For a few extra dollars a month, Siteground offers reliable hosting, backups, security, and support, making it perfect for established businesses that drive a lot of traffic.
Bluehost Vs. GoDaddy
WordPress can be installed on your Bluehost account in one-click, but GoDaddy does not have this feature.
Additionally, when it comes to customer support, Bluehost’s team tends to be a lot quicker to respond.
Both hosting services offer an easy to use control panel and decent loading times in all of their plans. However, GoDaddy has one major caveat – a high price.
Their basic plans start at $12.99, making it one of the most expensive hosting plans on the market.
Small and medium-sized businesses alike should steer clear of GoDaddy.
Bluehost Vs. Cloudways
One of the most significant advantages of getting Cloudways hosting is that you get fully managed hosting service on all plans. You will never need to fiddle with an interface for anything you need.
The security of your website is also managed and monitored for you, and if you’re migrating your site, you can get it done for free – even if you have a non-WordPress setup.
The 24/7 ticket support enables you to get help when you need it and not the next day. Also, Cloudways notifies you about your server’s health in real-time.
The unlimited staging areas make it very easy to test out different versions of your site for errors, and the native CDN ensures that your website can be accessed quickly from any part of the world.
Their plans start at $10, which is super impressive considering all they have to offer.
If you’re looking to get a managed hosting solution for your first website, or you run a business and need a host that can accommodate scaling, getting Cloudways is a great idea.
Is Bluehost The Best Hosting Company?
Different hosts offer different features at a variety of different price points. Hence, they cannot be judged equally. Additionally, the definition of “best website host” is subjective and depends on your requirements and priorities.
What is perfect for you will not always be suitable for someone else.
In our experience with Bluehost, we find it to be ideal for small websites that drive little traffic – if you run a restaurant or a brick and mortar store, and are looking to expand your reach to online audiences, Bluehost is right for you.
You can also use Bluehost to host a portfolio site, a website for an event, and even a landing page for your product.
Bluehost is not the right host for businesses in the scaling stage. Companies that are scaling require cloud hosting, which can meet sudden increases in traffic by dynamically allocating more CPU power and memory to your website when needed.
Where Are Bluehost Servers Located?
The company has a 50,000 square foot facility in Utah, and this is where all of the servers are operated from.
They do not have servers spread out across the world, which results in slower loading speeds in other parts of the world.
If you’re planning to run a blog and want to connect to people around the world, you must look into getting a CDN – Bluehost is not right for this purpose.
Bluehost Plans and Pricing
Bluehost offers five types of hosting plans:
Shared Hosting
If you’re looking for basic hosting and don’t require a lot of processing power, shared hosting is right for you. It is perfect for individuals and small business owners looking to get their brand and business online, and those businesses that don’t expect a lot of traffic on their site.
The pricing starts at $7.99, and if you need better speed, support, and security, you can consider upgrading to one of their three advanced shared hosting plans.
The most expensive plan is capped at $23.99, which is both affordable and competitive.
VPS Hosting
If your website attracts medium-level traffic, but you don’t require the resources that a dedicated server offers, VPS plans are right for you.
Bluehost remains competitive, with the Standard plan available for $29.99 per month.
Dedicated Hosting
If your business attracts thousands of users every day, you need a dedicated server that can accommodate the traffic.
If you require 3TB of bandwidth or more each month, it makes much more financial sense to get the standard dedicated hosting plan instead of the ultimate VPS plan, since they come in at the same price.
WordPress Hosting
Bluehost’s WordPress hosting plans are perfect for bloggers and marketers looking to get their brand and business online.
The plan gives you access to managed WordPress hosting – meaning Bluehost handles all of your updates, security, and backups.
You get access to over a hundred beautiful themes, malware detection and removal features, domain privacy and protection features, Jetpack Analytics, and also WP Pro, which is Bluehost’s in-house marketing analysis software.
You get a free SSL certificate and also get access to a free domain for your first year with the company regardless of the plan you choose.
How to Get the Best Value from Bluehost?
In our analysis of Bluehost, we find that it offers super affordable hosting for your first billing; however, the renewals are slightly expensive.
To get the most value from Bluehost, you must lock in the cheap promo hosting offers for as long as possible by getting the most extended plan you can.
Bluehost Pros
Affordable Pricing
Most plans come with unlimited storage, email addresses, and bandwidth – all for a low price.
Money-Back Guarantee
Regardless of what hosting plan you get, if you don’t like the service, you can ask for a full refund within 30 days.
Free Anti-Spam Solutions
Keeping your site’s emails safe from spam is one of the best ways of avoiding cyberattacks, and with Bluehost, you get premium spam protection for free!
Bluehost Cons
High Renewal Rates
You will not get any discounts at the end of your first billing cycle. To get the best value, you must get a triennial plan and pay upfront.
No Free Migrations
If you already have a website and want to switch your host, you will either have to do it yourself or pay Bluehost $149.99 for it.
Expensive Upsells
You will continually be pitched security and performance-boosting services, which can be very aggravating.
These upsells are included in your plans by default, so you must make sure you remove them from your package extras if you don’t need them.
No Monthly Plans
The only way to get access to Bluehost hosting is by paying upfront. There are no monthly plans whatsoever.
Bluehost Analysis: Is It Right for You?
Bluehost is ideal for small businesses, and perfect for bloggers and individual marketers that are looking to host their first website. It has a lot to offer – a minimum of 50GB of space, free SSL certificates, and a free domain for the first year, setting users up for growth.
It works exceptionally well with WordPress, offering short loading times and an abundance of WordPress-specific features, making it the ideal web host for any individual or business trying to get their WordPress blog or e-store online.
Businesses on the upper end of the scale can also use Bluehost since it offers the high-speed hosting and stellar customer service expected out of a premium website hosting provider.
However, once the initial plan expires, customers have to pay the full price of the plans.
Our experience with Bluehost has been great, and other than the tendency of the company to upsell their services, Bluehost has no flaws – explaining the reputation, stats, and recommendations.
If you’re looking for a web host you can rely on, consider getting Bluehost without hesitation.
