Founded in 2003, Bluehost is the most popular shared hosting company in the world. It powers around 2 million websites. BH has been consistently ranked among the top 3 companies since 2008. Should you buy a hosting plan from Bluehost? What plans does BH offer to its users? Is BH a reliable company? Let’s find it out!
Bluehost review
BH provides three types of hosting service – shared, cloud and VPS. The Bluehost shared hosting is ideal for low traffic websites or static websites e.g. blogs powered by a content management system such as WordPress. Websites deployed on a shared server share resources with other websites i.e. RAM and Processor with other websites.
The hosting company provides 3 shared hosting plans – Basic, Plus, and Prime.
Basic Plan: This web hosting plan supports 1 website and provides 50 GB storage memory on the server for the website and 100MB memory for emails. It is priced at $3.95.
Plus and Prime plans: These 2 hosting plans allow you to launch unlimited websites. They also don’t come with website/email storage memory restrictions. BH Prime and Plus plans offer marketing credits worth $200. You can use this credit to run a campaign on search engines. The two plans cost $5.95.
The difference between Bluehost Plus and Prime plans:
BH will automatically backup your website if you’re using the Prime plan. It will also hide the WhoIS data. The BH hosting plans don’t have bandwidth restrictions which means your website can transfer an unlimited amount of data to the website visitor’s device. Like other hosting companies, BH might send warning emails to shared hosting users overusing the allocated resources. The Bluehost VPS hosting is suitable for large websites or sites that require more system resources i.e. CPU, RAM, etc. If you’re using VPS hosting, only you’ll have to access the server. BH VPS servers provide up to 8GB of RAM. The company offers three VPS plans:
| Name | Configuration | Pricing |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | 2GB RAM, 2 core processor, 1TB bandwidth, 30GB SSD | $19.99 |
| Recommended | 4GB RAM, 2 core processor, 2TB bandwidth, 60GB SSD | $19.99 |
| Recommended | 8GB RAM, quad-core processor, 3TB bandwidth, 120GB SSD | $19.99 |
Bluehost Cloud hosting service can be used by small or large websites. They give users the freedom to upgrade/downgrade resources without changing the IP or OS. Like VPS and Shared hosting, Bluehost provides 3 cloud hosting plans to the users.
| Name | Configuration | Pricing |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | 2GB RAM, Dual-core processor, Unmetered bandwidth, 100GB SSD, 1 website, 1 Free domain | $6.95 |
| Performance | 4GB RAM, qual-core processor, Unlimited bandwidth, Unlimited storage memory (SSD), Free domain | $8.95 |
| Business Pro | 6GB RAM, hexacore processor, UL bandwidth/Storage on SSD, Free domain | $15.95 |
BH offers a special VPS/Cloud/Shared hosting service for WordPress users. Bluehost and WordPress are a match made in heaven.
Infrastructure (Including page speed)
The BH servers are powered by high-performance Intel processors and the latest software. As it’s a large company with good revenue, Bluehost has a solid infrastructure. Websites running on Bluehost servers have a record uptime of over 99%. Your site won’t be down unless the server is facing serious attacks or it is undergoing maintenance.
The speed of a website depends on the configuration of the software as well as hardware. BH provides hardware/infrastructure that 99% of the users wouldn’t complain about. If you’re using a CMS or you’ve built a website from scratch, it is up to you to improve the performance of the website. An unoptimized website on Bluehost will take up to 2 seconds to open up in the browser. An optimized website will take about 1.4 seconds.
Features
BH is one of the few hosting companies that provide a free .com domain with hosting. Once you buy hosting from Bluehost and login to the Cpanel, you can use the one-click installer scripts to quickly install Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, Magento, etc on the server. BH allows you to log in to the server from a remote location through the command prompt or terminal using the SSH command. Once you log in to the server, you can edit the PHP configuration, htaccess files, manually back up the database, see log file data, etc. Bluehost allows users to enable SSL for their website without editing the webserver configuration file.
BH allows users to activate the Cloudflare CDN service without creating a Cloudflare account and changing the DNS records. Bluehost allows you to assign roles to other users i.e. you can assign one of your employees the role to manage the server/hosting, another to access and manage billing, etc. BH lets users create branded email addresses with just a few clicks. It also provides a GUI to manage, compose emails you get to the inbox. To create an email account, BH will request you to enter a username, password for the account. It’ll also prompt you to select a quota (amount of space on the server that should be allocated to emails).
See full features of Bluehost hosting here
Customer service and support
BH provides email, phone, ticket, and chat-based support to the customers. The support team is active 24 hours a day for the entire year. BH has categorized live chat support into 3 categories – general, VPS/Dedicated, and WordPress related support. The phone call/chat waiting time is low compared to other hosting providers. BH has a blog section where you’ll find marketing and WordPress related news and tips. The Bluehost blog is a great resource for beginners.
Refund
BH offers 30 days money-back guarantee on its hosting plans. If you’re not happy with the company or support, you can contact BH and get your refund (within 30 days of 1st payment).
Who recommends and uses Bluehost?
- Developers of the WordPress CMS.
- 200,000,0000 users (including me).
Pros:
- Good support.
- Free domain.
- Great uptime.
- Cheap plans.
- Several plans.
Cons:
- None
Final thoughts
Bluehost Shared, VPS, and cloud web hosting plans are cheap and the hosting is reliable. Its servers have the latest hardware and software. The company offers good aftersales service. If you’re searching for a hosting company, try Bluehost. You won’t be disappointed.
Discount
Click here to get a 50% discount and a free .com domain on buying a hosting plan from Bluehost.
Image source: Pixabay
