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!
Beyond boarding process for setting up a WordPress website was very easy. transferring a domain name to bluehost name servers with straightforward and setting up an email address was equally easy.
There are some upsels to WordPress plugins that could be a bit annoying but very easy to disable as well.
I did not want to deal with the complexity of setting up a web server and WordPress so something like blue post that takes care of all of that for you is very convenient.
I've never had any issues with Bluehost. They are fantastic with regular contact when expecting outages. Everything else has been very stable and reliable.
There is really not much that I dislike. A few times in the past, I have had to call them to reset my password, as the system doesn't allow the user to do it online.
My website is stable, secure, and rarely offline. That's the best I can ask for.
I switched from another host owing to frequent outages & poor client service. Bluehost has been an excellent selection. it had been simple to transfer my web site with terribly obtainable client support. The dashboard is straightforward to know & navigate. the {value} may be a sensible value. they're a wonderful selection for WordPress hosting. I even have knowledgeable just about no outages since moving to Bluehost. Also, speed & server response times were a lot of improved. I'm glad I found them.
UptimeRobot indicated my website went down sixfold in a very few hours.
I've had my weblog and store for years however recognize little concerning the technical aspect of a way to set it all up so on, however I used to be in ought to modification internet hosts(ugh that previous host still offers Pine Tree State anxiety) and a handful of friends counseled Bluehost. thus I signed up and was thus shocked concerning the convenience of use. virtually everything is completed for you mechanically and also the things that you just ought to modification have tutorials or support helped Pine Tree State move into no time in the least. I even have been with them for 2 months currently and could not be happier!
Uninterrupted website hosting, Good bandwidth and affordable domains
Bluehost host is the best choice for reliable website management with excellent customer support
Domain Registration and website hosting
Bluehost has 24/7 support online and the techs have always been helpful and knowledgeable. As a client for more than five years, there have been only a few times support was required. But it always ended in a resolution of the problem. Bluehost also has excellent up-time. I am aware of only one brief outage.
The only difficulty I have personally experienced with Bluehost is phone support which typically has had extremely long wait times.
My business is online only and Bluehost provides a secure environment for both data and programs proprietary to the business at a very reasonable price. Their virtual server has provided everything needed.
I love how affordable it is as well as how easy it is to set up and use. I've never had a problem with it.
There's Is nothing i would change about blue host.
I was using blue host as my domain provider as well as setting up my website. I realized that i could have my very own domain and website without burning a hole in my pocket.
Bluehost is easy to use and much more affordable than other hosting platforms. I also love that if I ever have trouble with something the customer service is available on an instant chat and have always been able to help me get my problem resolved. I like that the SSL is included in the hosting and you don't have to worry about setting that up separately.
The only thing that I had an issue with was when you very first set up your site it sets up a temporary domain, which is nice so that you can start building right away, but when your site is moved over to the permanent domain the pictures don't transfer over. I have broken image links on the front page of my website for a while before someone else pointed it out. Granted, I should have checked it more often but that was frustrating.
I have asked several of my clients to move over to Bluehost because of the ease of use and the SSL being included. It is really frustrating to work with some other providers support teams and I have always had a great experience with Bluehost's team. I am NOT a web developer so it is nice to be able to get questions answered and issues resolved.
It's super widely used, so there are tons of helpful resources online to help you along the way if you're not an expert in web development
every once in a while plug-ins update and wordpress doesn't notify you if something on your site breaks. Not sure if this is consistent among all hosting though.
Everything is streamlined, lots of integrations available, no need to use a ton of other products
Bluehost is a user-friendly hosting company. They work with Google and Wordpress, which is very convenient for most users. Pricing is very reasonable as well. No complaints. Very easy to use and work with when starting a blog!
The pricing year to year does not stay the same.
Being user-friendly has helped the process work at our advantage.
Bluehost makes things so much easier for my customers. They love the ease of paying online and I like that they never leave my website to do it. I like the ability to send texts to my customers. The customer support team really works hard to help when there is a problem and they are usually very quick to respond!
The website is pretty basic and not very attractive, but we have been more concerned with having a great management system, which we do have.
I love the easy access and love how I can help walk customers through the payment options if they want to setup automatic payments, etc.
It is a Hosting where I can have full confidence that my website is safe and stable. The service is excellent, they always help you with the issues from the first contact
Sometimes the wait for support is a bit long.
stability and better performance on my website
Knowledgeable customer service, mostly U.S. based (during business hours). CPanel is easy to use, Synching with Wordpress is easy. Good security features. And decent pricing.
Knowledge base could provide a little more instruction on more technical areas. Would prefer not to have to call if I can find it in their Help section.
Web Hosting. Email Management. WordPress management.
At first I thought it was a bad company, but when I tried it I found that this company was the best hosting company I used. Easy to use control panel and I don't the free SSL certificate, Unlimited email storge, unlimited bandwidth, free domain, 24/7/365 super support and many of the great features that I didn't get for free from a company before but I got it with BlueHost.
Affiliate support is very slow and doesn't respond quickly. Sometimes I send message and get a response after a week. There are also some responses that come to justify this delay because they didn't get my message. How did you not get my message and you respond? Therefore, I hope that the affiliate support will be improved, I am a affiliate member and I have not received any cent since I registered.
Fast technical support, high value of services, server speed and the additional features are offered with shared hosting plans. I have been in the past suffering from a lot of downtime and I have to pay extra money to get additional services, but I found these services free with Blue Host and you do not have to pay more money to get the services I want.
The uptime. The added features (ssl, security and backup). I host 8 domains and 15 subdomains on my plan and i've never had downtime in over 3 years. Once i accidentally deleted a site during an upgrade and the support tech had me up and running in less than 25 minutes! You can't beat that level of customer service.
Nothing to be honest. I would only suggest they increase the number of web applications available for install using an auto installer. like more LMS and e-commerce web builders.
We're hosting our websites, knowledgebases, databases and even a linux instance. The benefits are largely operational. Email and web hosting is hassle free, supporting my team is stress free and we can guarantee 99.99% uptime to our customers.
The low prices allow novices to get right into running an online business.
I dislike that the low price hosting is somewhat unreliable. You are on a shared server so it goes out whenever someone elses website has an issue.
Bluehost gets you up and running quickly.
Bluehost customer service is unparalleled. Their staff is extremely helpful and it makes the experience excellent.
There really isn't much, maybe the email setup being a little complicated.
I have a great hosting platform for the websites and emails I host.
The cpanel is an EXTREMELY user friendly way to manage every aspect of your domain. Whether you are trying to add a subdomain, user email addresses, or redirect pages on your website, the cpanel makes these tasks simple. This is good news for those of us who have become the website administrator by default.
I have not experienced any major problems with Bluehost.
We are a small organization with a staff of five employees. Until recently, we were still using personal gmail accounts to handle all of our communication with each other, as well as our congregation. We have recently made the switch to using email addresses available to us through our domain. This gives a much more professional look to our print materials.
Bluehost makes it easy to create attractive, functional, and fantastic websites. Besides fantastic features they also have the best support.
Sometimes their phone support is tedious process but their chat is wonderful. Once in a while something goes wrong with a site but Bluehost is always super quick at helping. Value wise as a renewing customer, I was a bit disappointed by the price they offered me for a 2+ years hosting. I was seeing better offers with other hosts.
Find a hosting that provided fantastic support, easy to use cpanel and host mutiple sites.
I like the cost and the support team is VERY helpful whenever I break something! We have access to the automatic server backup files!
There's not much to dislike with a web host. They keep my sites up and running and don't break the bank when it come time for renewal!
Web hosting - We are able to host several websites within a single account and have access to automated backups!
Easy to use. One click Wordpress installs. Good communication about maintenance. As somebody that just started blogging and has no idea what he was doing Bluehost is a very solid choice. I am very satisfied with my Website and the hosting they have provided is great.
Currently have no had any issues. Every support was answered correctly and on time. Has not failed for me. This is very biased opinion since I am a noob to website hosting and domain. I don't know what I am doing but Bluehost made it easy. I am very pleased with my site.
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