Bluehost is owned by Endurance International Group, the conglomerate behind popular hosting providers like SiteBuilder.com or HostGator. Bluehost is on the top of the web hosting services world. Being home to millions of websites and domains all over the world and even recommended by WordPress itself, Bluehost has built its reputation over the years.
But let’s take a deeper look and find out more about this popular hosting provider.
Bluehost Services and products.
Bluehost provides a wide range of products and services, from domain names, WordPress hosting, social media marketing, shared hosting, VPS, etc., for small or even large and established businesses.
Domain names: It is possible to buy domain names at Bluehost and the prices start at $12.99/year for the first term only, which are more expensive than other web hosting providers.
WordPress hosting: The WordPress hosting plan normally starts at $29.99 and it is more expensive compared to other hosting providers.
Shared hosting: One of the best options to consider when looking for cheap and basic hosting is shared hosting. There is a total of four plans to fit your needs and budget.
The prices at Bluehost for the basic plan start at $2.95 ($7.99/month for auto-renewals) and it includes free global CDN, free SSL certificate, free domain for one year, and customer support.
The other plans offer unlimited SSD storage and websites and free Office 365 for a period of 30 days, the pro one offers a free dedicated IP and other privacy and backup features for the price of $13.95 ($23.39) per month.
VPS: One of the most popular choices of hosting is the Virtual Private Server, providing more security than shared hosting and still costing less than dedicated hosting.
The prices at Bluehost go from $19.99/mo ($29.99/month on renewal) for the standard plan to $59.99/month($119.99) for the ultimate one.
The standard plan comes with 1 TB of bandwidth for 1 IP address, while the enhanced and the standard ones come with respectively 2 and 3TB of bandwidth for 2 IP addresses.
The standard plan provides 30 GB of SSD Storage, the Enhanced one 60 GB, and lastly the Ultimate one with 120 GB SSD Storage.
Comparing the Best Web Hosting Services!
Comparing different web hosting services. You can check out our comparison here.
1.Hostinger – Best web hosting for most
2.SiteGround – Best for keeping uptime above 99.99%
3.HostGator – Best for scaling your small business easily
4.DreamHost – Best for pay-as-you-go web hosting
5.Bluehost – Best drag-and-drop page builder for beginners
6.Inmotion – Best price for hosting two websites on one plan
7.Nexcess – Best for experienced WordPress users
8.A2 Hosting – Most dependable web hosting for European and Asian audiences
Note: Comparison of hosting providers is in progress…
Dedicated hosting: For the exclusive use of the server, optimized for a high capacity use, the dedicated servers make the best choice.
The prices at Bluehost start at $79.99/month($119.99 on renewal) for the standard plan. RAM ranges from 4GB for the standard plan, to 16GB for the premium plan.
You get 5TB Bandwidth and 3IP addresses for the standard plan, 10TB of bandwidth and 4 IP addresses for the enhanced plan, and 15TB of bandwidth along with 5 IP addresses for the premium one.
Detailed reviews.
Prices: Bluehost is one of the cheapest options for the first terms only, including some necessary features on the standard plans.
Clearly, there are other hosting providers offering lower prices for similar services and products. Unfortunately, you cannot bill monthly but the 36-month plans saves you a lot of money.
Guarantee: The hosting plans have a 30-day money-back guarantee, which is very good, but other providers can offer up to a 90-day guarantee. On the other side, domain fees are nonrefundable.
Space limit: The shared hosting plan offers 50GB storage and unmetered bandwidth, it is perfect for a website that doesn’t require a lot of storage, while the other plans offer unlimited storage.
Ease of use and backup: The control panel is user-friendly and very intuitive to use for beginners, and you can easily install WordPress through it.
The backup needs to be managed by the customers themselves and it can be done using a tool named Site Backup.
Support: The Bluehost website offers a range of frequently asked questions and articles with information on categories you might be interested in.
The live chat support experience is pretty good, and you can also get technical support via email or phone.
Emails: You get unlimited email only for higher plans, and only 5 email accounts for the basic plans.
Speed and performance: Most of the clients’ reviews claim that the performance is pretty good and based on tests it has an uptime throughout the year of 99.98%, which is surely high.
It also provides good load times (not top of the class), and you have the option to integrate with Cloudflare for better performance. Keep in mind that this is very important for SEO.
Server location: The sites can only be hosted in the US, so this means that for clients outside the US the sites will load slower, and that’s not something that you would like for your website and user experience.
Security options: Even with the cheapest plans, Bluehost offers an SSL certificate and other free features.
The other plans come with advanced options like domain privacy protection, tools like SiteLock, Codeguard, and Postini to ensure maximum protection.
The customers’ reviews on the security aspect are very positive.
Bandwidth: It is not unmetered even with the cheapest plans.
Databases: You can easily create minimally 20 databases including CGI-BIN, MySQL, etc., and the size varies up to 5 GB, which is excellent.
Software and applications: It is very easy to install software like Joomla, Tikiwiki, WordPress, and other accessible website scripts just with one click.
Site migration: Bluehost does not migrate your site for free(only WordPress sites), in case you already own one, and it charges $150 for five site migrations at a time.
Conclusions.
Being one of the oldest names in the business, Bluehost provides decent services and products with some amazing options and features, compared to other web hosting providers.
The strong security, the range of plans, the great uptime, and user-friendly apps make it a suitable option for small websites.
On the other hand, the renewal rates increase after a period of time and the site speed isn’t perfect, or at least the expected performance based on the prices. The upsell pitches can be really annoying for the clients.
There are also things that can be improved regarding backup and customer service. In conclusion, Bluehost isn’t perfect, but surely it’s still one of the top web hosting providers that you can find.
