Bluehost Review

How good is web hosting company Bluehost?

Bluehost’s price is one of the lowest on the market and it comes standard with all the basic features one could want from a shared hosting provider.
 
They are worth comparing to other similar budget servers as they offer a wide variety of plans with certain niche advantages. But, you may want to keep an eye out for a few things our researchers found. Uptime and speeds are lower than most competitors (especially higher-priced competitors), and Bluehost’s customer service is not as helpful as you might expect.

Pros

  • Some of the cheapest prices.
  • Tons of features
  • Good for beginners
  • Excellent security features for affordable hosting

Cons

  • Speed can be a problem
  • Uptime not guaranteed
  • Some support issues


Summary Because Bluehost is so large and shares resources with sister companies, they can offer some of the cheapest prices for hosting. And at insanely low prices, Bluehost’s plans cover most of the basics like WordPress, VPS hosting, strong security features, and tons of free tools to boot. But at the end of the day, you get what you pay for. Bluehost’s customer service is lacking, uptime is poor, and its speed leaves a lot to be desired. Webmasters on a budget who don’t anticipate a lot of traffic or support tickets will find everything they’re looking for with Bluehost pricing. But if higher reliability is important to you, the extra money is worth shelling out for a more customer-oriented host like SiteGround or WP Engine. 
Support – 3.5 | Speed – 3.5 | Features – 4.5 | Value – 4.5 | Transparency – 4

Our official Bluehost review

Looking for a cheap, no-frills lodging experience that meets all your basic needs? Then Bluehost is an excellent option for you.

Bluehost’s price is one of the lowest on the market, comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, and includes a selection of the most widely used website building and security tools. But if your web project requires server spikes, an uptime guarantee, fast speeds, and comprehensive customer service, Bluehost is probably not your best option.

Spend a little more money to get a lot more reliability.

Bluehost Highlights

  • Very affordable prices, starting at just $ 2.95 / month (discounted)
  • 1-click WordPress install – 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 large site it can slow it down
  • Cloud hosting and other updates available
  • Very limited email storage on the basic plan
  • Websites limited to just 1 on the basic plan
  • 30 days refund if you don’t like them

Bluehost Pros

Bluehost has an excellent understanding of what the average customer needs as a basis from their web host. The biggest strength of Bluehost is that they cover all these bases for an incredibly low price. And with 2 million domains worldwide, this is clearly an excellent selling point.

1. Bluehost cPanel – Redefining the demo

Before you spend a penny 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 clients by giving you demo access to a fully functional cPanel. Since cPanel is what you will use to manage your entire website, showing you a simplified version of this program would be detrimental. The full demo is a smart move, as cPanel’s features are robust and easy to use. When you make a purchasing decision, you know exactly what you’re getting into.

2. Military grade encryption & Other security

Before sending data to a hosting company, you don’t want to know how secure it is? Bluehost hosting has everything up to date under the hoods of their servers. With shared and dedicated SSL certificates, daily backups, and a secure FTP process, Bluehost hosting knows what it means to keep your data safe. If you think about it, this may be one of the selling characteristics of your product, as your customers want to know if their personal and private financial information is in good hands before giving you a penny.

Bluehost has some of the best security features among low-cost web hosting companies. Its competitor HostGator, for example, is a bit more expensive but has a severe lack of spam and virus protection in its inboxes, and they only back up your data once a week. Even a more expensive option, SiteGround, does not meet its security against hacking. Bluehost really goes the extra mile in security for the price.

3. Finally: gifts you can use

Bluehost recognizes that most people start basic websites to expand their brand presence and marketing efforts. So included in your Bluehost plan are a host of free ecommerce, shopping cart, email, and marketing apps. Google Apps and CloudFlare are two examples, and all of these apps integrate seamlessly and are incredibly easy to use. You don’t have to be a developer to discover the free apps that will certainly be useful for any small business.

4. Easy design tools

Bluehost hosting puts you in the driver’s seat when it comes to designing your website, and they make it so easy that you don’t need to have any experience. At one point, hiring a web designer might have been part of your marketing strategy, but now it doesn’t have to be. Bluehost plans provide add-on website design software with drag and drop technology, allowing you to design the site yourself with ease. This type of software is literally called WYSIWYG – what you see is what you get. It means you don’t have to be a computer programming expert to customize your website the way you want it.

5. Bluehost VPS is really 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 rich in features such as improved cPanel, CentOS, and powerful cloud technology. And with four different tiers, Bluehost VPS plans provide plenty of room to scale with growth.

Cons Bluehost

When prices are this low, it’s hard to complain too much about the shortcomings of Bluehost’s plans. But there are some serious downsides to Bluehost that can’t be overlooked if low prices aren’t your top priority.

1. Bluehost’s customer service is unpredictable

Any company that has clients around the world should be able to provide 24-hour support. Bluehost has an average response time of 30 seconds, but this does not seem to be the case in reality. During peak hours, many customers report wait times of almost 45 minutes. To make matters worse, many clients express frustration that communication can be curt and unhelpful. Few things are more irritating when you have technical difficulties than having to wait an inordinate 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 that their customer service is consistently high quality.

However, Bluehost does have a YouTube channel full of helpful tutorials. If your question isn’t urgent, sometimes it’s better to just roll up your sleeves and learn how to fix it yourself. You can even resolve the issue before you leave the support line.

2. No guarantee of uptime

Before making your hosting decision, you will probably have read hundreds of different reviews from several different perspectives on almost every hosting company. One of the patterns you may observe is that several of these hosting companies offer an uptime guarantee, usually a 99.99% uptime guarantee. This promises that you will be compensated for more than 8 hours of downtime per year. This is not the case with Bluehost. Bluehost will not make up for it if your uptime falls below the advertised average. While its uptime tracking isn’t far behind, studies show that Bluehost tends to have a slightly lower uptime rate than most of its big-name competitors. For sites that monetize visits, Those extra 4 hours of downtime per year can have a huge impact on your business. But compared to other budget sites like WebHostingPad, Bluehost has a much better uptime for the money you pay.

3. Slow loading speeds

On average, Bluehost pages take 25% longer to load than pages hosted by other major hosting providers. This time difference may not sound like much, but did you know that nearly three-quarters of your traffic will bounce if your page doesn’t load within 5 seconds? Slow loading speeds hurt your user experience, lowering your visitors and your earnings. Sure, Bluehost is still way ahead of many smaller web servers, but they are at the bottom of the barrel among its main competitors. We would point out that speed is the number one item they could work for if they wanted to improve their service. If speed is your top priority at a web host,

4. Get all your emails

Another feature that Bluehost hosting is missing is what is called a “catchall email inbox.” This means that if someone sends an email to a non-existent user on your domain, they will end up in this general email inbox. Although this is not a necessary feature, it is one that other hosting companies have.

5. The best price requires a longer contract

If you plan to keep your site for a long time, then it doesn’t matter. If you’re not sure how long your site will be up, then the 36-month window to get the best price can be a bit frustrating.

It is up to you if that is negative or not, but we think you would like to know.

The bottom line:

It’s hard to say no at a low price with great value, and the popularity of Bluehost is a testament to this.

They have all your basics covered in one neat and inexpensive package, which is exactly what your typical novice webmaster is looking for when it comes time to build a site for their business. Bluehost falls short on mere fractions, but those fractions really add up when it comes to big numbers. This is why we would not recommend Bluehost for sites that generate a lot of traffic or waste a lot of time when your site stops working. But if all you want is your own little corner of the internet and you may not notice any downtime or lagging speeds yourself, Bluehost is a great, cheap place to start.

 

Bluehost Hosting FAQs

What are the core features that Bluehost offers?

Bluehost offers dozens of features, but these are the four most important to start with.

  • PHP –  Unless you want your website to be dull and boring, you will need to use PHP. This service allows you to create dynamic content for your site, including images, buttons and text that can distinguish you from the crowd. Depending on the type of website you want to build, Bluehost offers different packages to give you more control through PHP.
  • WordPress –   In addition to hosting your site, Bluehost will give you access to WordPress so you can customize and create the look and feel you want. Most new sites use WordPress, so you definitely want to take advantage of it.
  • MySQL –  If you plan to have a lot of data on your site or want to collect a lot of data with your website, you will need MySQL to do so. Bluehost gives you the tools you need so that you can not only collect, but also process and manage all the data you want. As we mentioned, there are different packages you can choose from to make sure you have enough storage space for everything.
  • Uptime Guarantee:   Bluehost has a 100% Uptime Guarantee, which means your site will never be down for any length of time. If for some reason that happens (knock on wood), Bluehost will make up for it.
  • Email –  Bluehost offers free email accounts with all packages.
What kind of email features does Bluehost offer?

Bluehost has a webmail portal for its users, and it also allows you to choose your favorite inbox program. They use SpamAssassin and SpamExperts to filter your inbox. They also have some email marketing capabilities to help you increase your subscriptions.

What kind of hacking security does Bluehost offer?

To help you stay protected, Bluehost offers multiple login and security features that can keep your site and all pertinent information out of the reach of hackers and thieves.

  • Two-factor authentication: In addition to your password, you will need a different security key to log in. This helps prevent hackers from gaining access
  • PIN: As an added security feature, you can set a PIN for verification. However, you cannot use your PIN to log in.
  • Password settings for authorized users: If you have other people managing your website, you might not want them to have access to everything you do. So you can set which options are available to which users, as well as change passwords remotely.
  • Account password: this allows you or an authorized user to access the website to make changes or update information
  • Billing password – This password is for the account holder only, as it allows you to purchase additional services from Bluehost or cancel your account entirely
  • Single sign-on for trusted sites:  like Google and WordPress.
If I bought a domain elsewhere, can I transfer it to Bluehost?

Yes, Bluehost will allow you to transfer any and all domains you own to your hosting account. However, you will need to reset your domain name settings to direct it to Bluehost.

Can I buy a domain name through Bluehost?

Yes, you can buy a domain name through Bluehost, as long as it has not been taken over by someone else. Just enter the name you want and the site will inform you if it is available.

Does Bluehost offer domain name privacy?

They Yes. All domain names that have been purchased are required by law to show information about who owns the domain. However, if you are concerned that your personal information is public, Bluehost may provide you with privacy options to keep that information private. What if you don’t use this security feature? You can be the target of:

  • Unwanted mail
  • Phone calls
  • Postal mail
  • Identity theft
  • Fraudulent domain transfers
What payment methods does Bluehost accept?

Bluehost accepts most major credit cards, as well as PayPal and various other online financial services. If you are not sure that your payment will go through, please contact the support team. They also offer a detailed billing history that can be accessed online.

Can I set up automatic renewal for my site?

Yes, you can set up a renewal per month or per year, depending on your needs. Bluehost sets up automatic renewal for all new accounts, but you can switch to manual payment if necessary. Bluehost will contact you whenever a payment is due or is about to be withdrawn for renewal. More on Bluehost.com

Uptime Guarantee: 99.9%
Response Time: 491 ms
Bandwidth: Unlimited
Storage: 50 GB
Price: $2.95/mo
Our Verdict: Quick, reliable and cheap.

Here are the top Bluehost features:

  1. Easy-to-use, customized cPanel
  2. Free SSL certificate
  3. Dozens of site tool add-ons
  4. Free site builders
  5. Free domain-specific email addresses
  6. 99.99% uptime
  7. Technology to support fast page load times
  8. Cloudflare integration (speeds your site loading)
  9. Above-average security features.