Bluehost is one of the best and most popular website hosting companies offering cheap and reliable hosting services, with plans starting as low as $4 a month and an uptime guarantee of 99.95%.
Its hosting services are excellent for individual bloggers and small businesses looking to host, build, and grow their websites without breaking the bank.
This Bluehost review delves into Bluehost web hosting plans, its top features, pros, cons, and more.
Bluehost at a Glance
Bluehost Webhosting
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Cost/fees
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Variety of plans
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Uptime score
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Flexibility of services
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Security
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Customer satisfaction
Overall
Summary
Bluehost is a web hosting company preferred by many businesses due to its affordability and reliability in delivering web hosting services. With its hosting plans as low as US$2.95 a month for 12 months, Bluehost is a practical option for small businesses looking for a full-service web hosting service that provides tools to help build and maintain websites without a lot of hassle. The advantages of using Bluehost Webhosting include a 30-day money-back guarantee, a beginner-friendly interface, various hosting plans and options and a 99.95% uptime guarantee. Cons include no automated daily backups for shared hosting, fees for site migration support and a price increase when upgrading to higher plans.ย
Pros
- Easy-to-use interface
- Up to 69% discount using our exclusive link
- Excellent uptime guarantee
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Access to in-house site-building experts
- Many hosting plans and options
- Free marketing ad credits
- Numerous cPanel features
- 24/7 customer support
Cons
- No automated backups for shared hosting
- A $149 site migration support fee
- Significant price increase when upgrading
Bluehost Top Features
- A wide range of hosting plans and options
- Free SSL certificate and Free Domain for 1st year
- A low introductory price of $4 for shared hosting
- Reliable and excellent uptime of 99.95% and above
- Fast page loading speed, with Time-To-First-Byte (TTFB) averaging below 600ms
- 1-Click WordPress Installation
- Drag-and-drop WordPress Bluehost Builder with 300+ design templates
- An easy-to-use control panel that offers a smooth experience to beginners
- Various Bluehost domain extensions, including .com, .net, host.us, .club, .co, .website, .info, and more
- Powerful built-in marketing tools, including SEO tools, Google Ads services, and a free Google My Business profile
- Top security with Free SSL, malware detection, and automated security updates
- Powerful plugins to help you quickly and easily add online ordering, customer chat windows, bookings, and more
- Online knowledge base with many articles and tutorials to help you learn how to use the platform and solve simple issues
Types of Hosting and Hosting Plans
Bluehost offers both shared and dedicated hosting, as detailed below.
Shared hosting is the easiest and most economical way to get your site online. Your website is hosted on a multi-tenant server and shares server space with other usersโ websites.
Spreading the cost among many users makes it a cheaper option for hosting a simple blog or website.
The downside is that your site may experience performance issues if some of the websites on the server start to drive huge traffic.
You may also incur overage fees if your site attracts many visitors.
There are four hosting plans in this category: Basic, Plus, Choice Plus, and Pro. All come with basic features, including:
- Bluehost Website Builders
- Free Domain for one year
- Free SSL for the 1st year
- Free CDN included
- Custom themes
- 24/7 customer support
How much you pay comes down to the plan you choose and whether you opt for a locked period of 12 months or 36 months, as shown in the table below (prices in USD).
Plan | 12-month Price | 36-month Price | Top features |
Basic | $4.08/mo. | $6.84/mo. | 1 website 10GB SSD web storage |
Plus | $7.46/mo. | $10.20/mo. | 2 websites 20GB SSD web storage |
Choice Plus | $6.84/mo. | $10.29/mo. | 3 websites 40GB SSD web storage Free SSL Free Domain Privacy for first year Free WP Migration Tool Malware Scanning |
Pro | $13.74/mo. | $26.18/mo. | 5 websites Free SSL 100GB SSD Web Storage Free WP Migration Tool Free domain privacy for first year Malware scanning Multi-site Management Seamless Updates |
Dedicated Hosting
This hosting service is designed for websites that experience heavy traffic and usage.
It is the most stable, secure, and reliable hosting service that allows you to customize, optimize, and manage your resources with no limits.
Your site is hosted in a single-tenant server managed and maintained by Bluehost experts. The server is dedicated to your account, giving you more computing power, control, and privacy.
There are three 36-month plans under this category: Standard, Enhanced, and Premium. Each plan comes with one free domain, multiple dedicated IPs, cPanel & WHM with root and varying computing power.
Plan | Price | Top Features |
Standard | $151.91/mo. (12 months) | CPU: 2.3 GhZ, 4 cores, 3 Mb Cache 8 GB RAM 1 TB HDD Storage 5TB Network Bandwidth 3 dedicated IPs |
Enhanced | $193.38/mo. (12 months) | CPU: 2.5 GHz, 4 cores, 8 MB Cache 16 GB RAM 2 TB HDD Storage Unmetered Bandwidth 4 dedicated IPs |
Premium | $221.00/mo. (12 months) | CPU: 3.3 GHz, 8 cores, 8 MB Cache 30 GB RAM 2 TB HDD Storage Unmetered Bandwidth 5 dedicated IPs |
VPS Hosting
Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting gives you the best of both worlds: the performance benefits of a dedicated server and the cost-saving benefits of shared hosting.
Multiple websites are hosted on the same physical server, but the server space is partitioned among the clients.
Each site enjoys fully dedicated server resources, including storage, operating system, RAM, bandwidth, and more, to ensure isolated site performance and efficiency.
Its top features include:
- Root access
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Access control
- Multi-server management
- Unlimited domains and websites
- 24/7 managed VPS support
VPS hosting is excellent for system administrators, developers, and designers looking for more computing power to build without limits. It will be a top choice if your website or blog starts to grow and attracts impressive traffic.
Bluehost offers three 36-month plans under the VPS hosting category, each with cPanel/WHM, and slight differences in terms of SSD storage, RAM, Bandwidth, and IPs.
Plan | Price | Top Features |
Standard | $41.43/mo. | 2 CPU cores 2 GB RAM 120 GB SSD 1 TB Bandwidth 1 IP address |
Enhanced | $54.73/mo. | 2 Cores 4 GB RAM 165 GB SSD Unmetered Bandwidth 2 IPs |
Ultimate | $96.69/mo. | 4 cores 8GB RAM 240 GB SSD Unmetered Bandwidth 2 IPs |
WordPress Pro Hosting
Bluehost offers Managed WordPress hosting services which are a bit pricier but great for website owners using the WordPress CMS. Your website is hosted on a managed VPS to ensure optimized performance.
You gain access to managed support, 1-click WordPress install, and plenty of themes & plug-ins to help you quickly build a stunning, fully functional website.
You also access an all-in-one marketing center dashboard that offers SEO, email, and social media marketing tools.
Bluehost offers three plans under this category with the following renewal monthly prices:
- Build: $39.99
- Grow: $49.99
- Scale: $74.99
The plans come with unlimited domains and sites, free AutoSSL and Site Analytics.
WooCommerce Hosting
This hosting plan is a great choice for users looking for a simple and easy eCommerce host and online store builder.
You get access to WooCommerceโs powerful tools, including shopping carts, unlimited bandwidth, and a myriad of features and tools to build, promote, customize, and streamline your online selling experience.
You can choose between Standard and Premium plans:
- Standard: 1 month โ $29.95; 12 months โ $24.95; 36 months โ $24.95
- Premium: 1 month โ $49.95; 12 months โ $39.95; 36 months โ $39.95
Security
Bluehost offers robust security features to prevent website data breaches and hacks for even the basic plans, including:
- One-click Cloudflare integration
- Spam protection & malware detection
- Automated security updates
- Block IP address features
- Single sign-on feature
- Two-factor authentication
- Account validation by token
Customer Service
Bluehost offers excellent customer support 24/7 via live chat, phone, and email ticketing systems.
Though you may find a few Bluehost complaints, their customer representatives are friendly, polite, and always ready to answer your questions, concerns, and challenges.
Pros of Bluehost
These are the benefits of using Bluehost:
- Excellent uptime guarantee and loading speed
- Easy-to-use, beginner-friendly interface
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Lots of walk-through articles and tutorials
- In-house experts to help you build a professional site
- Many hosting plans and options to choose from
- Offers free marketing ad credits for Google, Bing, and Twitter
- Great cPanel with a wide array of features
- 24/7 customer support
Cons of Bluehost
Some of the downsides of using Bluehost are:
- Shared hosting doesnโt include automated daily backups
- They charge a hefty fee of $149 for site migration support
- Users must commit to multiple years to enjoy low prices
- Prices may increase significantly if you upgrade to higher plans
Best for:
Bluehost is great for individual bloggers and small businesses looking for an easy-to-use web host with all the tools they need to build, customize, promote, and grow their sites at a reasonable price.
Bluehost Summary
Owned by Endurance International Group, Bluehost is a web hosting company that has been operating since 2003.
It works as a full-service web hosting vendor, offering Bluehost domain registration, website builders, marketing tools, and full-time customer support.
It has an easy-to-use, beginner-friendly interface and a wide range of hosting plans and options to accommodate all users.
Over the years, Bluehost has become the most popular hosting choice among professional bloggers and over 2 million websites in different industries.
Bluehost has been featured as one of the best web hosts on Business.org and is officially recommended by WordPress to host its CMS.
Bluehost Alternatives
Below are two popular alternative website hosting platforms similar to Bluehost.
Bluehost vs Siteground
SiteGround is the top Bluehost competitor, offering impressive performance, lots of hosting plans & features, and responsive support. However, it comes with a higher price tag.
If you are looking for more storage and good performance at lower prices, Bluehost is a top choice.
Bluehost vs GoDaddy
Starting at $2.95/mo. and with 50GB storage, Bluehost offers great value for money and more hosting plans than GoDaddy.
GoDaddyโs basic plan starts at $3.99/month but offers less storage of 30 GB.
Bluehost FAQs
Bluehost is not only for WordPress. It can host your custom-developed or any CMS website along with WordPress.
Bluehost and GoDaddy are two different website hosting platforms. GoDaddy offers slightly better features and is considered easier to use by many people.
With Bluehost, you can use a domain you already own or register a new domain name. Bluehost provides domain security, meaning they hide your personal contact information, but you still own the domain.
You can host unlimited domains on your Bluehost account.
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