BlueHost Review(2023)

What Is Bluehost?

“Bluehost” as the name suggests is a website hosting platform and is one of the largest website hosting providers. It is one of the oldest, because it was started in 1996 and had been performing impeccably since then. Bluehost stands out from the crowd with its affordable pricing and impressive performance. It hosts more than 2 million websites.

Why Do You Need Bluehost?

If you are looking to build a WordPress website specifically then Bluehost is the solid option. Bluehost is the officially recommended hosting provider by WordPress. As every coin has two sides even Bluehost has both pros and cons. We will look at each side in detail.

Pros:

First let’s look at the advantages which makes it a choice.

Most affordable prices - Their hosting plans are very affordable even for people who are just starting out.
Free domain for one year – When you sign up on their website you get a free domain for the first year.
Free CDN + SSL -- You get free SSL certification and free Cloudflare CDN to prevent malware and provide security.
24/7 customer support – It offers a great customer support. You can feel free to contact them if you have any queries.
Single click WordPress install – Their website is very user friendly that makes installing WordPress very easy.
No hidden charges – When you sign up on their website there will be no hidden charges.
30-day money back guarantee – You get refund within 30 days of sign up if you are not satisfied with what they offer.

Cons:

Every hosting company has some downsides. Here are some of the disadvantages of making BlueHost as the choice.

No cloud hosting plans – Bluehost no longer provides cloud hosting plans.
No month-to-month plans – You should choose a minimum of one year plan.
Higher domain renewal prices – The domain renewal prices are higher than the average.
Upselling addons – They have many addons to buy but you can just uncheck them if you don’t want.

Detailed Review

In this section, we will provide you with a complete detailed review of Bluehost. We will talk about different aspects which make it stand out from the crowd. The following are the factors to consider when choosing a website hosting provider.

1. Speed:

When it comes to a website fast load speeds are very important for businesses to be successful, and the server response time plays an immensely huge role in loading up the websites faster. With one datacentre located in the USA, lot of people thought Bluehost would not perform well when put to the tests, but they are dead wrong.

It responded exceptionally well reaching the speeds that are way faster than Google’s recommended 200ms in almost every country. It has an average worldwide score of 153ms which makes it one of the fastest website hosting providers. No matter where your audience are Bluehost will be able to reach them at any cost.

2. Performance:

If you are planning to run large-scale websites or websites like Reddit, Bluehost offers high-performance servers that are suitable for your needs.

Why performance matters a lot?

As the name Shared web hosting suggests, you share the space on the server with other users which makes it affordable. However, some users might use up more resources which makes other websites on that server load slower, and sometimes the sites won’t even load up.

Since Bluehost has high-performance servers it allocates only a few users per server and each user is given only a file count of 3,00,000 which makes the websites maintain consistent load speeds and the downtime caused by other users is less. The high-performance servers are only available on their pro plan. If you want good performance, you might have to consider paying for it.

3. Reliability:

As mentioned in the performance section since it has high-performance servers you don’t need to worry about your site going down, your website will be up almost all the time. Most users reported that their website was uptime all the time.

4. Customer Support:

It will be frustrating to wait endlessly for the support team to respond to you when you have issues with your website, or your site needs attention. But a lot of people are quite pleased with Bluehost’s support team. The average response time of the support team is around 10-15 minutes.

You can contact them through phone calls or email or even live chat very quickly without any huge effort. You can find the details to contact them on their website. Forgot to mention, their team is available 24/7 so you can contact them at any time and get your problems solved seamlessly.

5. Features:

Bluehost provides a customized, enhanced version and easy-to-use cPanel (Control Panel). The control panel is the section where you manage everything related to your hosting, registration, renewals, transfers, email address, inbox, and payment/billing. You also get full-featured domain and email management features which are easily upgradable and scalable.

From your control panel with just one click you can have access to thousands of add-ons and apps in a place called “MOJO marketplace”. These apps have different themes and website builders to highly customize your website the way you want it.

You have different ways to create a website. You have the choice to choose the WordPress content management platform, the Weeble website builder, the go-Mobi mobile web builder, etc.

Things you can do with these apps and add-ons

You can add image galleries
You can add a calendar
You can create customer forums
You can make your customers pay by SMS
You can add a hotel booking plugin
You can display your pricing plans as a table
You can also have access to an app that lets you create and sell courses online.
You can have PayPal integration
You can add Google Analytics
You can add a Map to your website.

Bluehost also has free website builders. These site builders let you create very attractive websites without requiring you to have any prior programming knowledge. You can just drag and drop the features you want, and you can place them wherever you want them on your website.

6. Security:

When it comes to security Bluehost never compromises. These are different security features provided by Bluehost.

CodeGuard

It has CodeGuard, as the name looks fancy, which is a daily backup service. It monitors your website/database very often regularly. It notifies you if there are any changes and it automatically performs backups.

The basic version of CodeGuard provides 1GB storage space but if you want more you can upgrade to professional/premium/enterprise versions anytime you want. But you need to be prepared to pay a little bit higher.

SpamExperts

Bluehost has an advanced email filter known as SpamExperts which scans the incoming emails for spam, viruses, phishing, and other attacks by spammers related to email and filters them even before they reach your inbox with an impeccable 99% accuracy.

SiteLock

Bluehost offers a basic and minimal level of protection against threats through its integrated firewall. However, if you ever want to switch to enhanced protection then SiteLock is your pick.

SiteLock is available in 3 levels/plans. They are Essential, Prevent and Prevent Plus.

In the Essential plan you get automatic malware removal without any hassle, but it does not include prevention from DDOS attacks and any other major attacks/threats.

In Prevent the security goes a bit higher, everything in Essential is included with the additional benefit of DDOS protection and 6-hour response time, and image optimization.

In Prevent plus everything in Prevent is included additionally having daily scan.

But all of this comes for a price. You can pick this if you need extra layers of security additionally other than what they offer for free.

7. Pricing:

Bluehost offers its services through different pricing plans. Bluehost has three different kinds of hosting plans.

A. Shared hosting

In shared hosting, you share/rent space on the server along with a lot of other people like you. Shared hosting has four different kinds of tiers.

Basic – The pricing is $2.95/month. This plan offers one website/blog, 50GB SSD storage, 1 database, custom themes, a free domain for 1 year, free CDN included, and free SSL will be given for the first year.
Plus – It is $5.45/month. This plan offers unlimited websites, unmetered SSD storage, unlimited databases, and Yoast SEO optimizer.
Choice Plus – It is also $5.45/month. Everything in Plus is included with the additional benefits of free domain privacy and free daily website backup.
Pro – This plan is $13.95/month. Everything in choice plus is included with the additional benefit of optimized CPU resources.

B. Dedicated hosting

With dedicated hosting, the server is all yours, with no sharing, and no limits. It comes as a four-tier plan.

Standard – It is $79.99/month. You get 8 cores & 8 GB ram, 500 GB SSD storage, 5 TB bandwidth, and 3 IP addresses.
Enhanced – It is $99.99/month. You get 8 cores & 16 GB ram, 1 TB SSD storage, 10 TB bandwidth, and 4 IP addresses.
Premium – This plan is $119.99/month. With this plan, you get 8 cores & 30 GB ram, 1.5 TB SSD storage, 15 TB bandwidth, and 5 IP addresses.
Managed dedicated – This plan has custom pricing because they manage your website based on your requirements. You can consult them if you’re planning on purchasing this one.

C. VPS hosting

If you want to build one high-performance website or a bunch of them then this plan may suit you. This hosting also comes with four-tier plans.

Standard – It is $19.99/month. You get 2 cores & 2 GB ram, 30 GB SSD storage, 1 TB bandwidth, and 1 IP address.
Enhanced – It is $29.99/month. You get 2 cores & 4 GB ram, 60 GB SSD storage, 2 TB bandwidth, and 2 IP addresses.
Ultimate – It is $59.99/month. You get 4 cores & 8 GB ram, 120 GB SSD storage, 3 TB bandwidth, and 2 IP addresses.
Managed VPS – This plan is having custom pricing. You can consult them to know more about this plan.

If you want to know more about their pricing plans, below is the link to their website.

Check it out — Bluehost

Is Bluehost the best fit for your business?

If you want to build your website with WordPress and if you commit to taking a minimum of 1-year plan then you might have to consider Bluehost. Since 2005 Bluehost is being recommended by WordPress officially. Bluehost has very sophisticated integrated services for building WordPress websites.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What exactly does Bluehost do?

If you want to start any business in the real world you require some physical location to set up your store and sell your products from there.

The same goes for the digital world. When you want to set up an online business you will have multiple files, and images that make your website. These files require some storage space. Without any online hosting, your files will just remain on your computer and no one will ever see them.

So, a hosting provider provides you some storage/space on a web server to store your files, and also it is responsible for showing up those files to your customers/audience when requested through a browser.

Is Bluehost good for beginners?

Yes, Bluehost is very beginner friendly. It is very easy to use and easy to navigate within the website interface. It is also awesome for professionals with its impressive WordPress built-in capabilities. It has many website builders, so you don’t to worry much about building your website.

Why is Bluehost so cheap?

Bluehost is cheap when you go for the shared hosting plan where you’re not the only one on the server. There will be a lot of people like you, sharing the same server. If you want a dedicated server, you can always upgrade to a better plan which costs huge.

Is Bluehost better than GoDaddy?

Bluehost’s introductory hosting plans are much cost-effective compared to GoDaddy where the introductory hosting prices are a bit higher.

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