Bluehost may be a web hosting company founded by Matt Heaton and Danny Ashworth in Provo, Utah. they need a staff of 750 people working round the clock. Being a recommended web host by WordPress.org, they feature 1-Click installations altogether their plans.
Comparison: Features and Pricing
If there's one name you recognize within the world of web hosting, Bluehost is perhaps on the highest alongside Inmotion and GreenGeeks. It got its start back in 1996, which makes it ancient by web standards, but I prefer them nonetheless.
I have published the primary version of this review years ago. Bluehost was and still is one of my most recommended web hosts. they need to keep reinventing themselves with new features and services.
In this post, I take you behind the scenes and show you features through my account. I will be able to also share a special deal for Hosting Manual visitors only at the rock bottom of this page (you can get $2.95 pricing rather than the regular $3.95/mo).
Here’s what the customer dashboard looks like:
By the time you finish reading this review, you'll know what to expect from Bluehost and (equally important) what to not expect from them.
Beyond question, they need to build a solid reputation over the decades, especially where it involves WordPress hosting.
They are listed together as the official recommended hosting providers for WordPress blogs and offer an abundance of great tools, bonuses, and resources to WordPress customers.
Ready to determine more? We’re getting to delve deep into the small print in our Bluehost review. But let’s start with a couple of quick facts first.
• Plans appear cheap initially glance, but not all of them are as cheap as they appear. you'll start for as little as $2.95 per month with shared hosting if you snag a deal like this. Otherwise, the Starter plan usually costs $7.99 per month, which remains 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 do you have to Choose?
Bluehost offers five main sorts of hosting plans:
• Shared hosting
• VPS hosting
• Dedicated hosting
• WordPress hosting
• Cloud Sites
If you're trying to find something inexpensive and basic, shared hosting is perhaps what you would like. this is often what most beginners and little businesses are buying. Dedicated hosting is that the costliest option, appropriate for giant commercial firms that require full control of their resources.
With dedicated hosting, you're essentially renting a physical server. VPS hosting may be a middle-ground option where you share a physical server with others, but you've got your virtual OS, therefore the server functions as if it's physically yours. WordPress hosting is in fact what it sounds like-hosting optimized for WordPress customers. Let’s take a glance at the plan tiers for every.
Shared Hosting
• Basic: Beginning at $2.95 per month, this plan jumps up to $7.99 per month at the regular price.
• Plus: This plan is often $10.99 per month, now only $5.45.
• Choice Plus: This plan is $14.99 per month, now only $5.45.
• Pro: Normally $23.99, now only $13.95.
These prices are all pretty good. But with this deal, you'll confirm you get the simplest price! At the essential level, you get one website, 50GB of space, and unmetered bandwidth. you furthermore may get one domain, five parked domains, and 25 sub-domains. Additional features include 5 email accounts with 100 MB of storage each.
With the Plus, Choice Plus, and Pro plans, you get unlimited websites and unmetered space and bandwidth, which is awesome. You get unlimited domains and sub-domains.
Email accounts and storage are unlimited, alongside $200 in marketing offers. Plus it includes Global CDN and one SpamExperts (over $24 per annum in extra benefits).
The highest level plan is Pro. It includes up to $180 in extra annual benefits, including better performance and a fanatical IP, which is vital for SEO.
VPS Hosting
• Standard: $18.99 your first month, up to $29.99 then
• Enhanced: $29.99 your first month, up to $59.99 then
• Ultimate: $59.99 your first month, up to $119.99 then
These prices are in line with typical costs for VPS hosting industry-wide. The speed for the primary two plans is 2 CPU cores, up to 3 and 4 cores for the highest plan. You get 30GB SAN storage at the rock bottom tier, up to 120GB at the very best level. RAM ranges from 2 GB up to eight GB. You get 1 TB of bandwidth at the quality level, up to three TB at the last word level. Each tier includes one domain. the quality tier includes one IP address; you get two with the remainder. 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 then.
• Enhanced: $99.99 your first month, $159.99 per month then.
• Premium: $119.99 your first month, $209.99 per month then.
With the quality 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 starting from 500GB to 1 TB (mirrored), and RAM starts at 4 GB at the quality level, ranging up to 16 GB at the Premium tier. You get 5 TB of bandwidth at the quality tier, 10 TB at the improved tier, and 15 TB at 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 equivalent to their shared hosting plans, and that they cost an equivalent.
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 equivalent prices as general-purpose shared hosting plans).
WordPress Pro at Bluehost may be a big deal, however, and one among the company’s hottest services (with quite 1,000,000 sites hosted by the company).
The Pro plans are running 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 may be intensified 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 offer you real-time optimization recommendations on the way to increase your program rankings. It’s integrated into the Marketing Center where you'll see stats on how you're doing in major search engines.
The top-level Scale plan gives you Paypal integration and Elastic Search.
It’s worth noting that you simply 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.
All plans accompany Positive Wildcard SSL, and 24/7 service, and a money-back guarantee back them. These plans also include automatic plug-in updates and regular backups and a staging environment that permits you to create and test your WordPress website before publishing it.
A feature that probably not many uses is that unlimited video compression. you'll upload your videos without optimizing them online. Bluehost takes care of it. I even have not used Bluehost for streaming and that I couldn’t find a review of it either, but support told me they need no restrictions on what percentage of videos are you able to stream.
These are all excellent features, but still, you'll be asking, “Why would I pay this much for WordPress hosting?” Bluehost plays a really active role within the WordPress community and features a core staff of developers. meaning that Bluehost offers first-class customer support and troubleshoot even complex problems which are unique to WP.
This is to not say Bluehost is your only or best choice. Hosts like Siteground can easily compete, and at a lower cost.
Free Expert WordPress Migration
Sometimes the sole obstacle of moving your website to a far better host is that the hassle of the migration. I even have done it plenty of times. Still, I wouldn’t say i prefer it much. Luckily Bluehost can lookout of that for you if you've got a WordPress website. Once you check in with any of their plans, this service is out there for you freed from charge.
Here may be a more detailed description with everything you would like to understand about the FREE migration service.
First search for Site Migration within the Bluehost Marketplace and fill out the location migration form.
Bluehost has developed a WordPress plugin that guides you thru the ultimate steps. Once done, you ought to see a screen like this:
You will get a link to your new site to see if everything is functioning correctly. If all is ok , you'll got to update your DNS settings together with your registrar and you're done.
Blue Flash Launch Support
New to both Bluehost and WordPress? Bluehost makes it a breeze to urge started with a special feature called Blue Flash Launch Support. This service is included entirely freed from charge together with your hosting package. It takes the shape of knowledgeable consultation over the phone with a WordPress expert.
With Blue Flash Launch Support, you'll enjoy a guided tour of the dashboard in order that you'll identify all the features and options you'll use for posting at a look . You’ll have an opportunity to urge answers to your questions during this orientation phase. As WordPress are often overwhelming first-time users, this is often an enormous timesaver, and makes the method of getting off the bottom tons more accessible.
During your call, you'll get quickly found out together with your account, and can have an opportunity to select a topic which is suited to the design and purpose of your site. the choices which are shown to you'll already be vetted beforehand consistent with your requirements.
The specialists with Blue Flash Launch Support will even suggest appropriate plugins to you. That way you'll cash in of everything that WordPress has got to offer for your needs.
The Blue Flash team is out there round the clock a day of the week. meaning that regardless of where you're located, you'll rise up and running rapidly with WordPress and obtain right to performing on your website.
If you need more assistance with WordPress after you're done using this free service, you've got the choice of signing up for WP Live support for $99 a month.
Domain Name Email Address
When it involves building brand awareness and establishing trust and relationships in business, a website name email address can go an extended way. once you purchase a hosting plan from Bluehost, you've got the choice of signing up for your own name email address.
The most basic plan, Email Essentials, including emails and calendars, Outlook Web Access, and 15 GB email storage. If you get the Business Plus plan, that has an equivalent features along side Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Office Online also as 1 TB OneDrive.
The Business Pro plan adds Microsoft Office for Desktop, Access + Publisher for Desktop, Outlook Customer Manager, and tools for bookings and invoicing.
With all plans, your software updates automatically, and you enjoy the safety and recovery services offered through Microsoft Office 365. A simple, user-friendly interface makes it easy to manage your account employing a single login. there's a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and your plan is backed by 24/7 customer support.
Additionally, you're allowed to use multiple devices to access these programs and tools. meaning that regardless of where you're located, you'll log in to manage your account and work on your projects.
Domain name email plans start at just a couple of dollars per month. this is often a powerful low cost, and adds significant value to your hosting plan.
eCommerce Features
It is easy to line up a web store with Bluehost, which offers many various shopping carts: Zen, Cube, Agora, and OS Commerce. You get SSL security for your transactions, a certificate generated for free of charge , and OpenPGP/GPG Encryption.
In 2021 Bluehost has introduced a replacement Woocommerce service. Woocommerce is made on WordPress and it’s probably the foremost popular alternative to Shopify without a vendor lock-in.
With the new service you not only get to put in Woocommerce with one click, but Bluehost also makes it easier to feature payment processing (1-click install), multiple shipping options, built-in calendar bookings, and daily backups.
The plans start at $12.95/mo and up counting on your commitment and add-on services.
Unlimited bandwidth sounds good, but I’m pretty sure they might limit your account consistent with their use policy if your website had consistently outstanding traffic. there's no such thing as unlimited bandwidth. Bluehost has got to buy the bandwidth you're using. this is applicable to all or any web hosts. I suggest you read my post about bandwidth and disc space .
The $200 in free marketing credits is additionally an enormous help if you're a store owner. you'll use these to market your business through Google, Facebook, Bing, and Twitter.
All of that having been said, Bluehost isn't particularly known for eCommerce, and a few sites make it easier and faster to line up a store . But Bluehost is a cheap choice, and you'll get access to plenty of great features to assist you sell online.
Ease-of-Use
Bluehost makes it a breeze to line up your website and manage it. the improved cPanel interface is as easy to use because it gets-you just click on the icons to urge to where you would like to travel .
You can lookout of everything together with your websites and email addresses in one central location. you'll customize the layout of the instrument panel to your needs. That way you'll get quick access to your favorite features.
Refund Policy
Bluehost covers its plans with a 30-day a refund guarantee. meaning if you cancel within the primary 30 days, you'll get a full refund. If you select to cancel then , you won’t get a prorated refund for the amount of your hosting term which you've got not used. Domain fees aren't refundable. I even have not tried to urge a refund with them yet so I cannot say how easy it's .
Security Features
Security is a neighborhood where Bluehost excels. You get three layers of anti-spam protection within the sort of Spam Experts, Spam Hammer, and Apache Spam Assassin. You get protection for your inbox as well; it's easy to line up filters. Your directories are all password-protected.
If you would like to dam access to your site, you've got the choice to blacklist IP addresses. Another top-notch feature is secure shell (SSH) access. this enables you to access configuration files individually and securely.
Bluehost also offers single-click integration with CloudFlare, which provides even more excellent security measures and accelerates your site! CloudFlare is especially good for thwarting DDOS attacks. Virtually every review I even have seen of this is often positive.
Who is Bluehost Best For?
• Customers who are trying to find a reliable web host with a robust reputation. Bluehost is one among the oldest names within the business and has established trust.
• WordPress customers who pays extra to urge access to more features and a fanatical support team of WP experts.
• Owners of both large and little businesses. Bluehost is ok if you're on a budget and just want general-purpose shared hosting. Just be careful for the upselling.
Websites Hosted by Bluehost
Even though Bluehost is best known for it’s shared hosting services, it hosts some very high-traffic websites.
Customer Service
Here is a neighborhood where Bluehost gets mixed reviews. many purchasers report positive experiences with fast, helpful, friendly customer service agents. Unfortunately, there also are tons of clients who say that they were unable to urge the assistance they needed even with numerous phone calls.
Another problem with Bluehost is excessive upselling. this is often a corporation that likes to attempt to sell you on add-ons and upgrades, and there are tons of areas where you flat-out need add-ons for full functionality. that's a drag if you're on a decent budget.
A review can't be complete without a pros and cons list. Here they are:
Pros of Bluehost:
• Most plans include unlimited disk storage, domain hosting, email addresses, and bandwidth.
• You get a free name for a year included together with your purchase.
• The enhanced cPanel is basically easy to use and offers fast access to features.
• The security measures on Bluehost are flat-out excellent.
• Numerous databases are available, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, CGI-BIN, PHP, Python, Perl, Ruby on Rails, and far more.
• Tons of free website scripts are available, including social networking scripts, blog support, mailing lists, message forums, Joomla and Drupal and Tikiwiki.
• eCommerce features are good with multiple shopping carts available and SSL security.
• Most customers report that Bluehost is fast. Integrate with CloudFlare, and you’ll get even better performance.
• If you'll afford it, the WordPress hosting on Bluehost is taken into account to be top-notch.
Cons of Bluehost:
• While there are many useful add-ons available, unfortunately, you would like to put in many of them to urge the complete functionality you would like .
• The customer service team gets mixed reviews.
• Bluehost likes to attempt to up-sell its customers, which may get to be annoying if you're on a decent budget.
• The WordPress plans, while very nice regarding features, also are very expensive compared to plans offered by many competitors. Inmotion, for instance , has a superb plan starting at just $2.95 monthly. That’s but half the starting price for rock bottom tier WP plan offered by Bluehost.
Conclusion
There are many exciting features and extras included at every price point, and therefore the diversity of plans provides tons of flexibility for each budget. Whatever your needs, Bluehost delivers regarding its packages.
Despite some feedback , the bulk of consumers are quite proud of Bluehost’s services. there's a reason that this company has such a robust reputation over 20 years of online business!
In summation, Bluehost is literally one among the highest few that i might recommend to anyone and everybody . If you’re trying to find an internet host with a rock-solid reputation, then look no further than Bluehost. With cheap and scalable plans you'll customize your solution, and in only a few of moments, you’ll be up and running.
Bluehost is an absolute knockout of an internet hosting provider — if you'll grab the occasional sale (right now 50% Off).
