Bluehost Review – All Features, Pros, and Cons

Introduction

In one of our previous articles, we discussed the Pros and Cons of SiteGround Web Hosting vendor. Today, we are going to review another popular web hosting vendor, Bluehost.

We have already discussed the importance of Domain Name and Web Hosting provider if you are a blogger or own a business. Every occupation today needs a website for good reach and for marketing your brand. It is thus imperative to choose the right domain name and the right web hosting vendor. 

Before we start with the review, let us quickly look at some factors that you should take care of while opting for a particular web hosting provider.

• Pricing
• Availability
• Storage
• Robustness
• Performance
• Hardware and Software configuration
• Support Type

Review of Bluehost

Bluehost is one of the biggest and oldest web hosting companies. It is owned by the Endurance International Group and was founded in 2003. Bluehost servers are located in Orem, Utah, United States. Some of the other web hosting providers are SiteGround (Check out our Siteground Review), Hostinger, Hostgator (Check out our Hostgator Review), WP Engine, Hostwinds, GreenGeeks, Dreamhost, etc.

Currently, Bluehost is serving over 2 million websites globally.

Types of Hosting

Bluehost has a range of plans to offer:

• Shared Hosting
• WordPress Hosting
• WordPress Pro Hosting
• VPS Hosting
• Dedicated Hosting
• eCommerce

In this post, we will cover all the hosting plans and prices. We will also review some properties and try to map them against what Bluehost offers.

Bluehost Plans Review and Pricing

Bluehost provides a free WordPress installation as part of WordPress-related packages. This means WP comes pre-installed. You just have to log in and start building your website.

Bluehost WordPress Pricing

There are three packages (Basic, Plus, and Choice Plus) as part of the WordPress hosting plan that Bluehost provides. Their initial rates are very much affordable. 

The plan provides automatic WP install and updates, free SSL certificate, a free domain name for the first year, high SSD storage, sub-domains and domains, and more.

In INR, the prices are as below:

In USD:

WP Pro

Bluehost has introduced a new powerful hosting plan called WordPress Pro or WP Pro. This plan gives the user an advanced WordPress experience. The plan consists of a single dashboard for all your marketing needs. In addition to WordPress hosting plan features, the plan also includes Search Engine Optimization, Email Marketing, and Social Media tools to get you started instantly.

Bluehost claims that this plan is specifically fine-tuned for WordPress needs. It is optimized for WordPress Website performance and also gives fast loading speed.

The plan has three packages as part of WP Pro: Build, Grow, and Scale.

The prices in INR are as below:

In USD:

You can see that the packages provide:

1. Jetpack for website backup, spam check, monitoring, etc.
2. More than 100 WP themes.
3. Daily Backups.
4. SEO Tools.
5. Business Review Tools.
6. Elastic Search for data filtering and analytics.
7. Video Compression.
8. PayPal integration.

And, much more.

Shared Hosting Pricing

Shared hosting is a type of web hosting where the server resources are shared between various websites/users. This plan is good for small businesses and bloggers as it is cheap and affordable.

There are four packages part of the Shared Hosting plan: Basic, Plus, Choice Plus, and Pro.

In INR, the prices are as below:

In USD:

VPS Pricing

VPS or Virtual Private Server hosting is a popular hosting method for websites. In this type of hosting, a dedicated virtual server and private resources are provided for the website. This is different and stable than a shared hosting service where the server resources are shared between various websites/users.

In INR, the prices are as below. There are three packages part of the VPS hosting plan: Standard, Enhanced, and Ultimate.

In USD:

Dedicated Hosting

A dedicated hosting plan, as the name suggests, is a plan where a dedicated server is allocated to a website. The prices in this plan are based on server resources like RAM, CPU Cores, Storage, Bandwidth, etc. This plan is suitable for large businesses that require independent server resources.

The prices in INR are as below. There are again three packages to choose from Standard, Enhanced, and Premium.

In USD:

eCommerce Hosting

eCommerce hosting is used for eCommerce businesses. In the case of Bluehost, this plan provides secure payment gateways, customized themes for eCommerce business, business call setup, etc.

There are three packages from which you can choose: Starter, Plus, and Pro.

In INR the prices are as below:

In USD:

Bluehost’s WordPress Hosting options can be bought for 1, 2, or 3 years. The renewal prices are high if you are buying Bluehost for 1 year only. The prices can spike up to 2.5 times the original price.

The following image shows shared hosting Basic package prices for 12, 24, and 36 months.

Just select your currency, a suitable hosting plan, and that’s it.

Bluehost Servers & Traffic Load Review

We know that a good chunk of websites today are built on WordPress. Bluehost claims that their servers are fine-tuned and optimized for WordPress, and thus it can be treated among the top web host providers. As per some of my friends and colleagues, Bluehost is reliable, fast, and offers good and robust hardware.

The other thing to note is that Bluehost works with the latest version of PHP and MySQL and it can handle huge traffic load without affecting the application or website.

Caching & CDN

Bluehost provides in-built caching features and claims that the plugins like W3 Total Cache etc. are not required. Different levels of caching are also available in Bluehost.

Bluehost service can also be integrated with Cloudflare CDN easily to enhance the load speed.

Domain

Bluehost provides a free domain name for the 1st year which means that you don’t have to pay anything for the domain name for the first year. 

The Basic WP package provides an option for 25 subdomains and 5 parked domains. On the other hand, the Plus and Choice Plus packages provide an unlimited number of parked and sub-domains.

*Parked Domains are the domain names that you can purchase but not necessarily use with a website. You keep them for the future or use it as a secondary domain, etc.

Free SSL

Bluehost provides a free SSL certificate for all the WordPress hosting packages which is required today for protection of data. In recent years, Google and other search engines have started taking SSL feature seriously for their rankings.

Bluehost Storage Review

Bluehost’s WordPress and Shared Hosting plans have a Basic package that provides 50 GB of SSD storage, while plans like Plus and Choice Plus have unmetered storage. Unmetered storage means that there is no specific limitation on storage, though the environment should be used within Bluehost’s policies.

Nevertheless, 50 GB is more than enough for personal and small business website.

Email

Both Plus and Choice Plus provide 30 days of free Microsoft 365 Mailbox. The Basic package provides 5 domain-specific email accounts, while Plus and Choice Plus plans provide an unlimited number of email accounts.

Usage types

• For bloggers and very small businesses, the Basic package should suffice. Note: basic package only allows one website.
• For multiple websites, choose the Plus package. Plus package is good for medium to big businesses.
• For extra features related to backup and restoration, Choice Plus will suit your needs. 

In most cases, Plus package should suffice as backup features can be provided by various plugins like Updraft, etc.

Uptime & Availability

Bluehost claims to have 99.98% availability. This means that there is hardly any outage or interruption in services.

Bluehost WordPress Migration Review

Bluehost provides a couple of options for migration of your website from your current web hosting provider to Bluehost. There is a free option where you will have to take care of the migration all by yourself. Here, the Bluehost team will only help you with the steps to be followed for the migration.

The other is the paid option where the migration would be handled by the Bluehost experts. You will be contacted for migration process and for reviewing the website before it is deployed on Bluehost.

A Bluehost plugin is also available for WordPress website that you can use for setup purposes.

Check out our article on WordPress website migration to Bluehost for more insights.

Resources

Bluehost hosting plans take care of the number of resources. With some Bluehost plans, you get unmetered Disk Space and bandwidth, while in others, there is limited storage. For unmetered resources, CPU and Storage are on the higher side and thus you won’t have to worry much regarding the consumption.

Usage

Bluehost is considered easy to use and is managed via cPanel. Their previous cPanel was OK, but recently they have upgraded to a new cPanel which is very light and easy to use.

SSH

Bluehost provides SSH access to the web server backend. This functionality though should be used with utmost care.

Security

Bluehost lays huge importance on Security. There are different layers of security in Bluehost that provide optimum and best security features. Email protection and folder protection are also quite robust. The option of blacklisting certain IPs from attacking the server is also available. Integrating Cloudflare adds that extra layer of security. Cloudflare (CF) is known for its protection against DDOS attacks.

Money-Back Guarantee

Like SiteGround, Bluehost also provides 30 days money-back guarantee if you do not like the platform and the services. As the hosting services and the infrastructure is fine-tuned and efficient, there are fewer chances of you being dissatisfied.

Bluehost Support Review

As per my experience, Bluehost has a decent support team and their time to acknowledgment and resolution in critical scenarios ranges between 30 – 50 minutes. This is good when compared with other web hosting providers. For normal queries, the support is very quick. Their support is available 24/7 via chat, call, and email.

Overall there have been mixed reviews when it comes to Bluehost’s support.

Bluehost Properties Review Summary

*Yes, with caution – Recommended property but should be used with great caution as any wrong use or configuration can lead to crashing of your website.

Bluehost Review Conclusion

Overall, Bluehost is a very good option for your web hosting. We have given it a rating of 9.4 out of 10 which makes it a recommended option.

Bluehost has been there in the market for a long time and provides robust, fast, and highly secured hosting services. It also has added advantages of ample disk storage, high bandwidth, and decent DB storage. 

The few drawbacks of Bluehost I see are the renewal pricing (but, then other good web hosting providers have approximately the same pricing structure) and support. Their support can be a touch better.

Bluehost is a renowned and one of the oldest brands in Web Hosting. Personally, it is a trusted option and can easily fulfill your website hosting needs.

Images are subject to copyright @ Bluehost Website

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