Bluehost is a website building tool that is meant to help businesses create and manage WordPress websites from a single platform. Using the software allows companies to streamline numerous critical operations including migrating business files, streamlining shared web hosting operations, and managing domains.
Capabilities |
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Segment |
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Deployment | Cloud / SaaS / Web-Based |
Support | 24/7 (Live rep), Chat, Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base, Phone Support |
Training | Documentation |
Languages | English |
Bluehost is famous for its cheap web hosting, especially for WordPress websites and WooCommerce stores. But hype aside, is Bluehost a good choice for your website or online store?
So buckle in, and let’s find out. Here, in this Bluehost review, we’re uncovering everything you need to know about the service.
Global Performance Grade | A |
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Uptime Guarantee | ✔ |
Free SSL | ✔ |
Hosting Types | Shared, Dedicated, WordPress, VPS |
Basic Plan Features | 1 Website, 50 GB SSD Storage, 24/7 Support |
Starting Price | $ 2.95 |
Learn more at Bluehost.com |
Bluehost is one of the largest web hosting providers in the world. At the time of writing, they host over two million web domains. The company was founded in 2003 in Utah. But, Bluehost really gained momentum in 2009 when the company introduced CPU throttling technology to increase the efficiency and speed of its servers.
Fast forward to 2010, and they joined a conglomerate of other web service providers under the Endurance International Group. Since then, Bluehost has become a significant player in the web hosting industry, with an estimated market share of 3.4%.
Now that we’ve covered a bit about who Bluehost is, let’s look closer at its features and functionality…
Bluehost’s easy-to-use interface is one of its many appeals.
In fact, there are two interface options available:
Within your Bluehost dashboard, you’ll find a one-click setup for WordPress. Installing WordPress is as simple as logging in, finding the website section on your dashboard, and hitting “Install WordPress.”
You’ll then be asked to choose your domain name. At this point, you also need to provide an email address and create a username and password for your new installation.
SEO or (AKA Search Engine Optimization) refers to how easily findable your website is on search engines. Bluehost analyze your website and provides you with an online marketing report that’s divided into easy-to-read sections:
Overall, Bluehost provides a wealth of information to help you improve your website’s SEO.
Using Microsoft 365, Bluehost lets you create a custom professional email address where your domain name is simply transferred to your new email. If you already own a web domain, you can add it to your Office 365 subscription through its management dashboard (which you can access via your Bluehost control panel).
There are three email hosting plans to choose from:
All plans include:
You’re free to upgrade or cancel your subscription whenever you want (with no cancellation fees). Before canceling your subscription, be sure to download any data you require; however, you can still access this up to 30 days after canceling.
Bluehost claims to always be on hand to support its customers. So regardless of your chosen pricing plan, you’re entitled to 24/7 telephone and live chat support. To utilize the latter, hit the “chat now” button on Bluehost’s website. You’ll be asked if you’re a new or existing customer and a way to identify you, such as your web domain, phone number, or email address.
Bluehost also offers a blog, online knowledge base, and resource center. Here you can find answers to questions, how-to guides, and gather more info on topics about business, creating a website, and marketing. An interesting feature in the resource center is that you can filter by skill level: basic, intermediate, or advanced to ensure access to the information you’ll actually understand.
CPanel (AKA Control Panel) is Bluehost’s website management platform. You can access this via the advanced section of your Bluehost dashboard. From here, you can manage integrations and access a range of applications where you can add useful scripts to your website, such as:
The Bluehost Marketplace is where you browse, purchase, install, and manage your WordPress plugins, add-ons, and themes. You can choose from over 900 themes and tons of plugins.
Simply log into your Bluehost account and locate the marketplace button on the left-hand side menu to access the marketplace. To give you an idea of the kinds of plugins on offer, let’s focus on WooCommerce specifically. There are 18 WooCommerce-related extensions (plugins) covering shipping, scheduling, and payment processing functionality.
More specifically:
…to name a few.
Performance is imperative when picking the right web hosting service.
The key metrics here are twofold:
BlueHost boasts an impressive 99.99% uptime. In theory, this means your website should only experience (roughly) less than an hour (52.56 minutes) of downtime per year, which is a pretty good standard.
When compared to other hosts, Bluehost’s uptime ranks pretty competitively:
(According to tooltester and uptime.is).
As we’ve already hinted, site speed refers to the number of seconds it takes for a web page to load. Needless to say, the quicker, the better. According to tooltester and Pingdom, here’s how Bluehost fares against its competitors:
As you can see, Bluehost takes a lower ranking for this mark as it needs c. 0.91s to fully load the website while the best tested host (iPage) needs just c. 0.30s. It’s not the worst, but it’s certainly not the best either. However, there are remedies to this issue. If you expect high traffic volumes, there’s a cache setting you can utilize to improve your website’s performance. Caching allows you to store assets in a temporary storage location to load your site faster. You can find this feature in your Bluehost portal under ‘My Site’ and then “Performance.”
We’re living in an age where digital fraud is rife, and, as such, secure web hosting is essential. With that in mind, let’s see what Bluehost offers:
WordPress website creation can be a daunting task, but Bluehost tries to make the process as easy and quick as possible:
For the uninitiated, web hosting refers to a website’s allotted space on a web server. The website’s files are stored here: code, images, etc. This enables your website to be accessible on the web.
In contrast, a web domain is simply your website’s URL address. The issue that many great domain names are already taken so you have to be quite creative when choosing one.
Give it a go and see if the domain name you like is available:
You need both web hosting and domain name to launch a website. To hit the ground running with this, click “Get Started” or “Start Building.” From there, choose the plan you want. Bluehost offers three pricing plans and makes it easy to understand what’s included in each.
But, in a nutshell:
Basic at $2.95 per month: This is “Perfect for bloggers and personal websites.”
Plus at $5.95 per month: is considered “Perfect for business sites.”
Online Store at $15.95 per month: as the name suggests, this is “perfect for online stores with product shipping.”
All plans include web hosting, unlimited websites (which means you can host as many websites as you need), and over 300 templates. You also have unlimited access to their image library, email marketing tools, and blog post management features.
The Plus and Online Store options unlock additional features, including extra premium template designs, domain privacy, and online selling features.
Once you’ve chosen your plan, if you already have a web domain name, enter it now. Or you can skip this step if you want to tackle this later. If you’re creating a new web domain, enter your desired URL, and Bluehost will tell you whether it’s available. If it is, then you can proceed. It’s worth noting that your web domain is free for only a year; after that, you’ll need to pay.
Next, you’ll be asked to enter your personal details and agree to their terms and conditions.
Bluehost wants to tailor the user experience as much as possible. So they’ll ask a few short questions about the type of website you intend to make, your goals, and how comfortable you are with website creation.
Bluehost automatically provides a default website design for you, which you can view by clicking “visit site.”
However, you’ll probably want to change this as it’s very simplistic. WordPress is pre-installed to save you the hassle of doing this yourself.
To create, edit, and design your website, head to your WordPress dashboard. First, you’ll most likely want to select a theme for your website. To do this, click on “Appearance,” then “Themes,” and finally, “Add a new theme.” From here, you can search for a theme. Scrolling through the vast array of options can seem overwhelming. But you can use the filters to help narrow down your search.
Some themes are free, while others have a price tag. The best theme for your website comes down to what you visualize your website looking like. You may find it worthwhile paying a little bit for the look you want, but the choice is yours. When you find a template you’re happy with, simply install it and then hit “Activate.”
After logging onto your Bluehost control panel, go to “My site” found on the left-hand menu, followed by the “manage site” button. This takes you to your WordPress dashboard, where you can click “website builder.”
From there, you can begin editing as you like. You can click on any web page and select the different elements you want to change. For example, you can edit text, text on buttons, images, color preferences, and background. You can also edit the pictures by searching through Bluehost’s vast library of images or uploading your own.
Whatever aesthetic you’re after, WordPress can help you achieve it. You can even change the headers and logos using the “customize” button.
To add new pages, simply click on the “pages” tab on the left menu and then locate “add new” by the “Pages” title.
Bluehost’s drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to edit your template and add features to your website. Overall, creating and editing your website with Bluehost is really that simple. What it really takes is a bit of exploration and an idea of what you want your finished product to look like.
Bluehost provides many different web hosting plans to choose from. We’ve made a short summary table so you can get your head around all of them.
Shared Hosting | Yes |
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WordPress Hosting | Yes |
Cloud Hosting | No |
VPS Hosting | Yes |
Dedicated Hosting | Yes |
Reseller Hosting | Yes |
Linux Servers | Yes |
Windows Servers | No |
In this review we will focus on three most popular options, namely:
Let’s take a look at what these mean:
In shared hosting you share server resources with other customers. It’s by far the most popular hosting plan thanks its affordability and it’s perfect for those creating a website or blog for the first time. When considering shared hosting, there are a further four 12 month plans to pick from:
Please note: All above presented prices are promotional for the first term only and renew at the regular rates.
Besides the above mentioned key features all plans also include:
Considered perfect for expanding websites needing more control. There are three plans available: Standard, Enhanced and Ultimate.
All plans come with 24/7 customer support, and each program runs on a 36-month basis.
Please note: All above presented prices are promotional for the first term only and renew at the regular rates.
Aptly named, the Dedicated plan provides a dedicated server for just one individual, application, or organization. In other words, you won’t be sharing a server with anyone else. If you’re running a business or your website’s snowballing, you may want to consider this option. But, ultimately, you have to decide whether it makes sense for your budget and business plans.
There are three plans to choose from:
Please note: All above presented prices are promotional for the first term only and renew at the regular rates.
We’ve covered lots of information here, so let’s condense what we’ve discussed into a quick pro-cons list:
Bluehost also offers an affiliate program. You can find Bluehost’s affiliate program by scrolling to the bottom of their home page and clicking ‘Affiliates’. The affiliate scheme is free to join. You just have to sign up, and you’re immediately provided with a unique tracking code and affiliate links or custom banners (or both).
Then, for every visitor who clicks on the link and signs up to Bluehost, you receive a commission starting at $65 and increasing with a volume of referred customers. From there, you can earn an unlimited amount: the more people who sign up to Bluehost via your link, the more money you’ll make.
Overall, this affiliate marketing scheme is pretty decent and has one of the better payouts in the web hosting space. What’s more, Bluehost provides you with support and promotional resources to give you the best shot at earning as much as possible.
If you decide Bluehost isn’t for you, don’t fret. There are plenty of other great options to choose from:
Hostinger is a European-based web hosting company boasting decent website speeds and affordable hosting plans. Their shared hosting package starts at $1.99 a month (for a 12-month subscription and a renewal rate of $5.99). You can host up to 100 websites with this plan, and you’ll get a free web domain. Other freebies include an SSL certificate, Google Ad credit, and weekly site backups. On the downside, they have a lower uptime score than Bluehost, and they don’t have their own website builder.
Hostgator is a popular US-based web hosting solution. They’ve been around since 2002 and have made their mark, offering low, competitive prices. From $2.75 a month, you can expect to host one website, connect a custom domain, and have an SSL certificate. In addition, Hostgator boasts good uptime speed, so you can be sure of its reliability. You’ll also have access to an AI-fuelled website builder, so you can set up a WordPress site in just a few clicks.
Hostgator’s drawbacks lie in its poor customer service. For example, they have notoriously long waiting times for their support chats. In addition, customers have complained that their team didn’t have a good technical understanding of website management. Also, as noted above, they have one of the slowest website speeds of all the competitors listed here.
SiteGround is an excellent choice if you’re looking for quick website speeds and reliable uptime as they reign supreme in both areas. They’re another European-based provider gradually gaining popularity for their well-priced and fast hosting services.
Their Starter plan of $2.99 (per month) gives you one website, SSL, and CDN certificate. You also receive free daily backups, access to their website builder tool, and free firewall security built into your website. Finally, they also have WooCommerce integration options available.
On the downside, Siteground only offers shared hosting plans. They don’t provide VPS hosting or dedicated servers. Your resource space is also considerably limited (10 GB) compared to competitors. Moreover, it doesn’t offer a free domain name.
So, there you have it. This concludes our Bluehost review. We hope we’ve provided everything you need to decide whether they’re a good choice for your website. There are many aspects to consider, from security to functionality to ease of use. But, Bluehost is regarded as one of the best overall hosting providers on the market.
As we’ve discussed, it allows you to design, optimize and host your website for a reasonably low price. The price hike for renewing your subscription is still pretty reasonable for beginners looking to get their business off the ground.
All in all, Bluehost provides everything you need to kickstart your online business, from an intuitive website builder to web domains to helpful plugins – and tons more to boot!
Is Bluehost the right choice for your business? Tell us your thoughts in the comments box below!
We hope this review was useful. Click below to let us know what you think or leave a comment in the comment section!
Super easy to use compared to Go Daddy in terms of hosting. Everything is laid out, simple, and ready to use.
Nothing I dislike - very simple and useful tool.
Moved from GoDaddy hosting. Much easier to use and edit.
One click wordpress installation and very easy to maintain. In the last 2 years, my website was not down for even a minute. Even in a shared hosting plan. Also, the free domain registration for a year was very welcomed!
They could include SEO and site backup feature in the lower plans, these are now basic features that customers look for while evaluating hosting services.
Created a marketing blog using Bluehost, worked like a charm. I was able to get a very good job showcasing my marketing and writing skills.
I really liked how simple and easy it was to set up my new WordPress site with Bluehost. There are no complicated steps, and as soon I decided which domain I wanted I was able to start the process of building the website (even though it took about 24 hours for the domain to be active with WordPress).
I haven't had any issues with BlueHost up to now. For one of my websites, I decided to move my domain to BlueHost since I was already hosting with them; the process was smooth, and I had no problems.
I wanted to be able to design and host simple websites that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg, and that's what Bluehost WordPress hosting has been able to offer me. A simple and affordable approach to building and hosting websites with no complications involved.
I love the customer service and real human chats service 24/7. I needed a lot of help and extra help and the team got all my answers and problem done for me. Super good pricing compared to monthly Shopify.
I didn't know what I was getting myself into and had to find out the hard way that design was expensive.
My website is hosted through bluehost.
Reliable and mostly I found best support
Little bit Expensive, first time it is okay but recharging fee little bit high then initial
Mostly I recommend my clients
I occasionally feel intimidated by learning new applications and systems- but with my experience thus far, it’s been highly intuitive and not overly complicated to catch on. I think it’s best for less experienced users like myself who are just starting a site.
Sometimes there are things I’d like to add to my site and in order to do that I have to purchase add ones.
I feel like it updates my changes quickly and it helps me keep track of inventory.
It is very easy to run WordPress, and I've had no downtime to-date. I really like all of the different options that are available out of the box. Also, there are many free trials of products that I didn't even know existed so that was very helpful.
The main dashboard is a little difficult to get used to, but I chalk that up to just having to learn their system. It is a little cumbersome at first, but really once you get a little time under your belt that system isn't hard to navigate.
I've been able to have a website up and running fairly quickly with no downtime. When I've had to use customer-support they were always easy to get in touch with. Also the FAQ was very in-depth, and I was able to learn through self-guided study how to make some different things work that i didn't know was possible.
One of the cheapest hosting providers out there. Basic SSL is included with their packages. Interface is so easy to use. Unlike other companies, where you have to dig to find what you need, everything is easy to find. Has everything I need for Wordpress sites.
I've only been using BH for a few months. Everything has worked perfectly. No downtime on sites. Only slight con is to get the best pricing on hosting you have to purchase at least 3 years up front.
I needed to get SSL for all my client sites since Chrome/Google mark sites as insecure now without it. They are not ecommerce sites, so nothing fancy was needed. BH is saving me tons compared to the previous hosting company I was using. I was expecting it to be so easy to use, and so they've also saved me time as well.
I love the ease of use and how intuitive Bluehost is for a new website builder. Their pricing structure is set to sell and will be sure to bring in customers
Bluehost itself doesn't really offer many great website templates for free so you have to get one from outside of Bluehost, but that isn't a huge deal.
Marketing and sales via a new website that is hosted by Bluehost. Bluehosts automation and notifications make business so easy!
The instructions and steps to set up a website were very understandable.
I don't really have any dislikes. I had a little difficulty with linking to word press, but was able to figure it out.
Building a website + domain registration
Customer support is awesome! I have called in multiple times with issues that should have been handled by my webmaster, but their tech support went above and beyond every time to actually fix my issues for me.
There isn't much I dislike about them, they seem to have everything under control when it comes to hosting.
My site provides motivation and useful self-improvement information. Because of the fast, and user-friendly experience that Bluehost provides, I've increased my readership by 30% month over month since I started using Bluehost.
Great selection of options when it comes to the web hosting services and they also have a great customer support.
I can not think of what I dislike about Bluehost
Getting the web and domain support I need from both the hosting services and the customer support they offer.
Not only is Blue Host extremely easy to set-up and use, it is also a competitive price. I was able to purchase my domain name, for my blog about education, using a prorated plan. Even if you are not sure how long you will be active on the Internet, or use your site, Blue Host's options for purchase offer competitive, realistic hosting rates. I purchased my domain name for three years. It was much cheaper than other hosting sites. The customer service options are also excellent. I receive updates on my site, information on how to improve, and general updates.
I am not incredibly savvy when it comes to creating and managing a website, so I was confused about the different levels of purchase available. I was not sure what level of traffic I would receive on my blog, or the type of advertisement options I might want available. I also was not sure about affiliate programs. Blue Host also prompts you to use Word Press, which is fine for my site, but may not work for others. I think the push to use this specific secondary source as a blog site might interfere with the work you do online.
I like Blue Host because it allows me to easily keep control of my website, without a lot of work on my part. It is not difficult to know what is happening with the company, nor do I need to worry about hidden fees and random charges on my account. I am always kept up-to-date on what is happening.
Simplicity, any user can easily get started and be walked through checkout. seems to be designed to take into account the most experienced users or the newest
nothing yet, Hopefully it stays this way. so far there hasn't been much negative to speak of.
Hosting, Domain registration and actually it even uses mojo marketplace to install wordpress.org for me.
They seem to be a highly stable and reliable platform. We have had no issues with Blue Host performance. More so, we have continued to add services from hosting our email to blogs. They also have a number of affiliates and partners--some of which we have begun to use.
Rather challenging at first to steer through their Home page, and cPanel. The layout is quite complicated, Again learning curve, so now not an issue
They host in one location a number or our emails, 1 website, and 2 Wordpress sites. We can add new email address very easily for staff and outside contractors.
Bluehost makes it easy for anyone to design & edit personal websites.
Nothing - the platform is easy to use and provides all the functionality I need.
I maintain my law firm site on Bluehost as well as my personal networking site - Alangarner.net.
I have used Bluehost both for a client and for my own applications. The customer service is above and beyond expectations. If I have a question I am not at all hesitant to contact customer service - some companies frustrate me to the point I would rather just find an answer myself because it seems I can do it faster and easier than the agent. Bluehost obviously trains their employees and hires critical thinkers. I appreciate this more than I feel I can truly express.
I haven't found anything to dislike with Bluehost in the 3 or so years I have used them.
Ah, to use Corporatespeak... I use them for Hosting and Domain Registration, so solving the problem that I need those things, and realize that Bluehost provides those services and that benefits me.
Hands down, their customer service. Anytime I've had an issue with my hosting or website, I've called or chatted Bluehost, and they were super informative, giving me all the answers and solutions I needed to fix the problem and get on with my day!
The hosting tends to fail every now and then (less as of recently), and it's frustrating when it happens in the middle of the day.
I have a blog and sell products on my website; Bluehost helps give me the flexibility and storage to do what I need and not worry about running into issues or storage capacity, for the most part.
Great customer service and a helpful user interface. I like that they offer a referral program.
There is nothing I didn't like. The control panel was a little busy at first.
I'm seeking marketing solutions.
We received a great intro offer for email and web hosting. We currently have a website and 5 user accounts and it was easy to set up. It was easy to integrate with wordpress and our website was up and running in no time. There are also a lot of other features we plan to use.
The email platforms that are supported by this are very simple, but it integrated nicely with our iphones.
We were able to launch a new website and get our team up and running with business email addresses for catalina crew. I am able to be the admin and create new user accounts very easily.