Bluehost is a web hosting company founded by Matt Heaton and Danny Ashworth in Provo, Utah. They have a staff of 750 people working around the clock. Being recommended web hosting by Blog Tool, Publishing Platform, and CMS – WordPress, they feature 1-Click installations in all their plans.
If there is one name you know in the world of web hosting, Bluehost is probably on the top along with SiteGround and HostGator. It got its start back in 1996, which makes it ancient by web standards, but I like them nonetheless.
In this post, I take you behind the scenes and show you the features of it. I will also share a special deal for Hosting Manual visitors only at the bottom of this page.
Here’s what the customer dashboard looks like:
By the time you finish reading this review, you will know what to expect from Bluehost and (equally important) what NOT to expect from them.
Beyond question, they have built a solid reputation over the decades, especially when it comes to WordPress hosting.
They are listed as one of the officials recommended hosting providers for WordPress blogs and offer an abundance of great tools, bonuses, and resources to WordPress customers.
Ready to find out more about Bluehost? We’re going to get deep into the details in my Bluehost review. But let’s get started with a few quick facts first about Bluehost.
- Plans appear cheap at first glance, but not all of them are as cheap as they seem. You can get started for as little as $3.95 per month with shared hosting if you snag a deal like this.[1] Otherwise, the Starter plan usually costs $7.99 per month, which is still quite reasonable. But WP plans are pretty expensive, starting at $12.49 monthly.
- Get unmetered bandwidth with all accounts.
- The starter plan comes with 100 email accounts. The Plus and Business Pro plans offer unlimited email accounts.
- Get up to $200 in marketing offer bonuses.
- Enhanced cPanel makes it easy to configure and control your sites (see a demo here).
Decision: Which Level of Service Should You Choose?
Bluehost offers five main types of hosting plans:
- Shared Hosting
- VPS hosting
- Dedicated hosting
- WordPress hosting
- Cloud Sites
If you are looking for something inexpensive and basic, shared hosting is probably what you need (if you are just entering the world of blogging). This is what most beginners and small businesses are shopping for. Dedicated hosting is the most expensive option ( Don’t even think of it unless you are a pro blogger/business ) appropriate for large commercial firms that need full control of their resources.
With dedicated hosting, you are essentially renting a physical server. VPS hosting is a middle-ground option where you share a physical server with others, but you have your virtual operating system, so the server functions as if it is physically yours. WordPress hosting is of course what it sounds like—hosting optimized for WordPress customers. Let’s take a look at the plan tiers for each.
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Shared Hosting
- Basic: Mostly recommended for beginners, costs $2.95 through my link here
- Plus: At $5.45 per month, this plan jumps up to $10.99 per month at the regular price.
- Choice Plus: This plan is $5.45 per month. Which is normally $14.49 per month.
Here these prices are all pretty good. But with this deal, you can make sure you get the best price! At the Basic level, you get one website, 50GB of space, and unmetered bandwidth. You also get one domain, five parked domains, and 25 sub-domains. Additional features include 5 email accounts with 100 MB of storage each.
VPS Hosting
- Standard: $19.99 your first month, up to $29.99 after that
- Enhanced: $29.99 your first month, up to $59.99 after that
- Ultimate: $59.99 your first month, up to $119.99 after that
Don’t think of getting a VPS hosting if you are a beginner. I know you won’t since we don’t put our money where we don’t know truly that it will give us the right kind of returns.
These prices are in line with typical costs for VPS hosting industry-wide. The speed for the first two plans is 2 CPU cores, up to three and four cores for the top plan. You get 30GB SAN storage at the lowest tier, and up to 120GB at the highest level. RAM ranges from 2 GB up to 8 GB. You get 1 TB of bandwidth at the Standard level, and up to 3 TB at the Ultimate level. Each tier includes one domain. The Standard tier includes one IP address; you get two with the rest. Every plan is backed by 24/7 support and a money-back guarantee.
Dedicated Hosting
- Standard: $79.99 your first month, $119.99 per month after that.
- Enhanced: $99.99 your first month, $159.99 per month after that.
- Premium: $119.99 your first month, $209.99 per month after that.
With the Standard plan or Enhanced plan, you get a 4 x 2.5GHz CPU. The Premium plan offers you a 4 x 3.3GHz CPU. Storage is ranging from 500GB to 1 TB (mirrored), and RAM starts at 4 GB at the Standard level, ranging up to 16 GB at the Premium tier. You get 5 TB of bandwidth at the Standard tier, 10 TB at the Enhanced tier, and 15 TB at the Premium. One domain is included with every plan. You get three IP addresses at Standard, four at Enhanced, and five at Premium. All plans are backed by 24/7 service and a money-back guarantee.
WordPress Hosting
- Basic: Starts at $2.95 with a 36 monthly subscription
- Plus: Starts at $5.45/mo with a 36 monthly subscription
- Choice Plus: Starts at $5.45/mo with a 36 monthly subscription
These plans look the same as their shared hosting plans, and they cost the same.
However, at the end of 2018, Bluehost introduced a new category: WordPress Pro.
WordPress Pro
These plans are quite expensive compared to their simple WordPress hosting and what some competitors offer (many hosts sell WordPress hosting plans at the same prices as general-purpose shared hosting plans).
WordPress Pro at Bluehost is a big deal, however, and one of the company’s most popular services (with more than a million sites hosted by the company).
The Pro plans are run on high-performance VPS and offer improved site speed.
Features at the Build level include Basic Jetpack Site Analytics, Marketing Center, 100 Free Premium Themes, daily backups, and Malware detection and removal for added security.
The Grow plan is a step up with Jetpack Pro. The Business review tools let your visitors leave positive Yelp, Google, Yahoo, or Bing reviews for your business directly from your site. The SEO tools give you real-time optimization tips on how to increase your search engine rankings. It’s integrated into the Marketing Center where you can see stats on how you are doing in major search engines.
The top-level Scale plan gives you Paypal integration and Elastic Search.
It’s worth noting that you get live support with Grow and Scale. It gives you hands-on assistance with design, functionality, or general questions from real WordPress experts 24/7.
This is not to say Bluehost is your only or best option. However – hosts like Siteground can easily compete, and at a lower cost.
Let me tell you the PROS and CONS of Bluehost :
PROS :
- The first term is cheap: But be aware of the renewal rates, they are high.
- Solid uptime: Generally speaking, my uptime tests with Bluehost have always been good. But unlike other providers, they don’t offer an SLA (Service Level Agreement) that guarantees a minimum uptime.
- Generous storage: Their shared hosting plans offer loads of storage.
- Unmetered bandwidth: Bluehost won’t limit the traffic that your website(s) can get.
CONS :
- Slow Support: Yes they provide a bit of slow support but with time you will be smarter enough to deal with small problems and won’t need an expert there to solve your problems.
Let’s take a quick review here. I’ve shared all the technical details with you. Now you must have some wh ( what, how, when, where ) questions. Let me answer those and I will keep it to you to choose Bluehost or not.
When to Use Bluehost Hosting?
If you are looking to host a small-medium project (e.g. a bakery site) and you won’t be getting tons of traffic, Bluehost can be an OK alternative. Be warned about their slow support though.
But being 100% honest, I think there are similar alternatives with good prices.
Consider Reading Later: Tips for Launching a Successful Blog in 2022
When Not to Use Bluehost?
If you are managing a project that depends on your website and you need the best performance, Bluehost isn’t for you. Look for alternatives if you own e-commerce, are a thriving blogger, or provide Software as a Service.
Bluehost won’t be for those looking for advanced hosting features like staging areas or Git repositories either.
It’s probably not the best match for beginners either as their support is not the most helpful. Additionally, they won’t help with your site’s migration unless you pay extra.
Is Bluehost’s Uptime Good? ( This question doesn’t start with ‘wh’, but its an important question although )
Believe it or not, your hosting provider (most likely) won’t have 100% uptime. Due to technical reasons (e.g. server maintenance), your site will be down for (hopefully) short instances of time.
A bad uptime is terrible as your visitors and search engines won’t be able to reach your site. Your goal should be to have an uptime higher than 99.95%.
Bluehost Review: Do I Recommend It?
Yes, I do recommend Bluehost for beginners.
Conclusion: Is Bluehost the Right Choice for You?
After reading this review you might be wondering if Bluehost is the right choice for your website?
Bluehost is often ranked the #1 hosting company by many websites. They offer a wide range of hosting plans with tons of features that help you easily build your website.
All their hosting plans include expert 24/7 customer support from knowledgeable staff.
Most importantly, they offer affordable starter plans that fit any budget requirement.
If you are just starting out, then you cannot go wrong signing up for a Bluehost shared hosting plan. It’s easy on your pocket, and comes with all the right tools. As your site grows you can easily upgrade your hosting plan accordingly.
Ready to start your website Bluehost? Click here to select your Bluehost plan. I was impressed with their uptime scores as they got similar results to top providers like SiteGround and DreamHost. Check out DreamHost hosting Here.
Finally, I want you to be aware that their support can take too long to answer your questions and may not always resolve your issues.
Get your Bluehost Coupon Here. Only $3.95 per Month, that’s not even ₹300 (as when I am writing the post) .
Hi,
Thank you for this review on Bluehost. I was looking for it.