Sustainable Business Toolkit

Bluehost Review: Is It Fast & Reliable?

bluehost review

In this article, we take a close look at Bluehost and consider and compare the various plans they have on offer.

We also have a look at their customer service support, and explore the pros and cons of their service in an attempt to help you decide if this is the best hosting service for your website.

Recent Update: Bluehost is one of three web hosting companies that are officially endorsed by WordPress. In our recent analysis of Best WordPress Hosts, we ranked Bluehost #2.

Special Offer

Looking for a quality WordPress or Shared Hosting service? We recommend Bluehost.
Get a FREE Domain and SSL Certificate for $3.95/month.

Grab Your FREE Trial

Bluehost Review FAQ

Should you use Bluehost?

If functionality and top-rated hosting at reasonable prices is what you’re looking for, then Bluehost is for you. This is especially true if you plan to use WordPress for your website.

As one of only three hosting sites with an official recommendation from WordPress, it is definitely a frontrunner when choosing a shared hosting service.

What are the Pros & Cons of Bluehost?

Pros

  • Strong uptime – Bluehost offers great uptime, some users report 99.99% uptime.
  • Affordable pricing – With packages from as little as $2.74/mo, Bluehost is now placed as one of the best priced web hosts on the market
  • Security – Bluehost offer market-leading security levels for their servers, which lowers cyber risks like DDos attacks.
  • Usability – Bluehost have a really awesome cPanel user interface, which allows you non-techies and techies alike to easily manage their website files, domains, emails, and databases.
  • 30-day free trial – Bluehost provides customers with a 30-day trial period with which to test out their services for free, before deciding whether or not to sign up permanently. 
  • Money-back guarantee - It is, however, important to note that the following T&Cs apply: add-on products such as free domains, are excluded, and should you cancel a service that includes a free domain within the 30-day trial period, you’ll be liable to a deduction from the total refunded payment. It is also important to note that newly registered domains cannot be migrated for a 60-day period after registration.

Cons

  • Site migration cost – Bluehosts’ site migration fee is costly compared to other sites, where it is often a FREE service. For an existing site to move hosts and become a Bluehost user it will cost $149.99 if you use their migration service. Additional limitations to this migration include the maximum of 5 websites, and no more than 20 email accounts.
  • Full functionality – While there are many add-ons available, most of these need to be setup individually and have an associated costs. For example, many of the shared web hosting add-ons are set up as upsells. These include Dedicated IP, SSL Certificates, SiteLock etc.

Special Offer

Looking for a quality WordPress or Shared Hosting service? We recommend Bluehost.
Get a FREE Domain and SSL Certificate for $3.95/month.

Grab Your FREE Trial

What hosting plans and features does Bluehost offer?

Bluehost provides several options depending on budget and requirements. Options include WordPress hosting, VPS, cloud hosting, dedicated server hosting and more.

Below we briefly look at each of these:

  • WordPress hosting – This package is completely optimized for WordPress and protects websites against common threats. When it comes to WordPress websites, Bluehost is a solid choice.
  • Shared hosting – Shared hosting favours new websites who typically start with low traffic volumes. The resources are shared with other sites which makes the price favourable to freelancers, bloggers, start-ups etc. Again, Bluehost have a solid offer here.
  • VPS – This is the upgrade to shared hosting which allows you to enjoy virtual dedicated hosting resources whilst still being hosted in a shared environment. Although Bluehost have a fairly good VPS offering, we think there are better options in the market.
  • Cloud hosting – Also provides a useful alternative to shared hosting. Cloud hosting connects to multiple cloud servers which means it avoids the drawbacks of shared hosting by switching between servers during high traffic periods or hardware failures. Again, we aren't convinced that Bluehost have the best Cloud offering.
  • Dedicated server hosting – This package dedicates all server resources to your website, it also means that you will have to manage the server by yourself as well. Like Cloud and VPS hosting, we think there are better options in the market for these services than Bluehost.

What is Bluehost's Customer Service like?

Bluehosts’ customer support centre caters to both tech savvy and novice website users. They offer 24/7 online chat, telephone and email support.

We found their support offering very fast and efficient. The combination of their support functions allow Bluehost customers to reach quick, hassle-free solutions. 

Bluehost also provides plenty of how-to articles and videos on their website which are easily searchable.

Special Offer

Looking for a quality WordPress or Shared Hosting service? We recommend Bluehost.
Get a FREE Domain and SSL Certificate for $3.95/month.

Grab Your FREE Trial

Final Verdict

Bluehost provides a variety of packages which suit different needs and different budgets. From WordPress, Cloud, dedicated, VPS or shared hosting, Bluehost has you covered with packages starting from as low as $2.95 per month.

Our view is that Bluehost performs really well in the WordPress and shared hosting space, and is therefore a great choice. But if you are looking for a solid VPS, Cloud or dedicated hosting service, you may be better served looking elsewhere.

From a WordPress perspective, Bluehost provides a rock-solid service to their clients, through combining great speed and uptime with great customer service.  

Migration costs are however high and the the upsells for SSL, dedicated IP address and sitelock do add up.

Thus we recommend that you start your website with Bluehost, rather than migrating an existing website from a different service provider to Bluehost.

About the Author Devon Ramages

Devon is our resident online business and social media guru. With a background in digital marketing, Devon has worked in a consulting capacity helping small business scale their reach and engagement online. When not consulting or writing about online business, Devon can be found surfing in his hometown, Cape Town, South Africa.

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