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For over 16 months, we've been a paying customer of Bluehost. But unlike most other customers, we've been monitoring their performance and service to help determine if BlueHost is really right for you.
A lot has changed at BlueHost since we first signed up for an account, and in this review we will list objective metrics and data such as uptime, page load time, and customer support statistics.
What is BlueHost
With over 2 million websites hosted worldwide, BlueHost is one of the most popular and affordable shared hosting providers.
The company, founded in 2003 by Matt Heaton and Danny Ashworth in Plover, Utah, now employs 750 people working around the clock to ensure the highest quality of support services.
While a long history and dedicated customer service help to boost confidence, we still base our reviews on real statistics, which are collected on the cheapest shared hosts.
Pros Of Bluehost
- Free migration service
- Free SSL Certificate
- Free domain for one year
- basic site builder
- One-Click-Install for WordPress
- User friendly Easy to use Control Panel
- 24/7 support (Phone and Live)
- Ready to Use Themes are Available
Cons Of Bluehost
- Discount Price Available for 3 year plan
Performance Of Bluehost
- Speed: 200ms
- Uptime: 99.99%
- Security: Best
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Benefits of BlueHost
As with all web hosting, we are committed to providing the most unbiased and transparent information possible, relying heavily on relevant statistics and quantifiable performance metrics to determine the quality of their services.
1. Excellent uptime (>99.99%)
Because BlueHost's servers have undergone a major overhaul, their uptime is now very close to perfect.
There have been only five brief outages in the last 12 months, specifically less than nine minutes of inaccessibility in the 7,296 hours during our review period, a remarkable stability well above the industry standard of 99.94%. Although this metric took a serious hit in August 2017, BlueHost claims these issues were due to various DDoS attacks against its servers and that the data has been very stable since then.
2. Fast page loading (424 ms)
When we reviewed BlueHost in early 2016, their page load speeds were -- frankly -- unsatisfactory. Averaging over 1,500 milliseconds, this speed was simply too slow and far higher than most of their competitors. But a year later, BlueHost has improved this metric dramatically, and that number is now just 424 milliseconds, making it one of the fastest managed hosts available.
This huge improvement surprised many people, so I personally contacted their team and asked how it was done, and their answer was simple: we wanted to improve the customer experience and decided to invest in upgrading our hardware servers.
3. Affordable price
In the past, it was hard to justify BlueHost as a compelling hosting option because of their overpriced and underwhelming service. However, they have evolved to the point where they not only maintain excellent stability and loading speeds, but also position themselves as one of the cheapest hosting providers on the market.
Although BlueHost is not the cheapest compared to its competitors, the improved service makes it a great choice for most people.
4. Good security features
With threats such as cyber attacks and data breaches increasingly spreading in the market, it is increasingly important to choose a sufficiently secure managed hosting. In this regard, BlueHost offers some great tools to combat and prevent various common risks.
You can use tools such as Spam Assassin, Spam Experts, and Spam Hammer to block spam, speed up page loading with Cloudflare, and effectively prevent DDoS attacks. Other security features include hotlink protection, IP address blacklisting, SSH secure access, dual authentication, and optional filters that can be used for specific users and email accounts, and more.
5. Rich integration of plug-ins and e-commerce features
BlueHost offers a dashboard with a rich set of built-in plugins, which allows you to integrate a variety of different services directly through cPanel, such as Google Apps and the aforementioned Cloudflare.
The eCommerce feature is also very easy to use and it's easy to set up an online store with countless shopping cart options, all with a simple click of the Install button and you're up and running in no time.
6. WordPress.org official recommendation
While you should make your own decision, when the world's largest CMS recommends a colocation provider, you usually can't go wrong by choosing this authoritative advice.
The official WordPress website recently redesigned the Hosting page and listed a few of their favorite hosting providers: SiteGround, DreamHost, and BlueHost, which we are now introducing.
7. Easy to use
Building a website is not difficult, but BlueHost makes the process much easier. With the cPanel panel, all your work starts with a click of an icon.
In addition, you can fully customize the layout of the cPanel to meet your specific needs.
Disadvantages of BlueHost
1. Customer support is fast, but not professional enough
Bluehost's customer support response rate has improved astronomically in recent months, but their skill level still lags behind that of their major competitors.
When you submit an issue, the support team will essentially respond immediately, but if the issue is very difficult, they may not be able to provide a solution right away and will need to do some research (or discussion) in the background.
2. Best price is only available for the purchase of a 36-month plan
BlueHost is cheap, but it depends, if you want to enjoy the lowest price, then you need to buy a 36-month plan.
Personally, I would recommend accepting their 3 year limit with an unconditional refund within 30 days if you feel anything is not right during use.
3. Website migration is not free
Most of the hosting providers we reviewed were happy to offer free migration services, but Bluehost was not one of them.
They charge $149.99 to do something that most of their competitors offer for free and cannot migrate more than 5 sites and 20 email accounts.
BlueHost prices
BlueHost offers three shared hosting plans, it is important to note that the advertised pricing below is a discount for purchasing three years, if you purchase a shorter plan then you will have to pay a higher price.
Basic
$3.95/month
- 1 site
- 50G web space
- Unlimited traffic
- 1 free domain name
- 5 parking domains
- 25 sub-domains
- 5 email accounts
- 100M space per email account
View Details
Plus
$5.95/month
- Unlimited Sites
- Infinite Cyberspace
- Unlimited traffic
- 1 free domain name
- Unlimited parking of domain names
- Unlimited subdomains
- Unlimited Email Accounts
- Unlimited space per email account
- $200 advertising credit
- 1 SpamExperts
View Details
Prime
$5.95/month
- Unlimited Sites
- Infinite Cyberspace
- Unlimited traffic
- 1 free domain name
- Unlimited parking of domain names
- Unlimited subdomains
- Unlimited Email Accounts
- Unlimited space per email account
- $200 advertising credit
- 1 SpamExperts
- 1 domain name protection
- CodeGuard Basic
View Details
Additional information.
- Free domain names.
- Account registration: very simple, done on two pages
- Payment method.
- Hidden fees and terms: lowest price only if purchased for three years (or more)
- Account activation: Instant activation, if information is inaccurate or suspected fraud, then there may be a delay
- Control panel and dashboard: easy to use
Summary
BlueHost is currently the most popular hosting provider with the best uptime and is officially recommended by WordPress.org as a trusted and reliable option.
Advantages
- Excellent uptime
- Very fast page loading speed
- Affordable price
- Good safety features
- Rich integration of plug-ins and e-commerce features
- Officially recommended by WordPress.org
- Very easy to use
- 30-day money back guarantee
Disadvantages
- Customer support is fast, but not professional enough
- Best price is only available with the purchase of a 36-month plan
- Website migration is not free
You may like
- SiteGround vs.
- Established: 2003
- Lowest price: $3.95/month
- Uptime: 99.99%
- Page load time: 424 milliseconds
- Hosting plans: web hosting, mail server, WordPress hosting, e-commerce hosting, VPS, reseller hosting, dedicated servers
- Customer support: live chat, email, phone, knowledge base
- Data Center: Plover, Utah
- Control backend: cPanel
- Payment method.
- Money back guarantee: 30 days