Since 1996, BlueHost has been in the industry, offering reliable web hosting services and making it one of the oldest participants so far, and a leader in web hosting. There are so many open source software providers who recommend BlueHost as a hosting provider. Even WordPress recommends BlueHost, making it an ideal option for bloggers and small business owners. Read our Bluehost review below.
OverviewWith more than 2 million websites being hosted on their servers, this is one of the biggest hosting companies in the world. There are a lot of website reviews that highlight it as a top choice for so many users who are looking for web hosting services.
When compared with the immediate competitor, InMotion Hosting, BlueHost provides more than what the average developer and blogger needs. They go over and above in surpassing the needs of developers because of their support for open source development. That’s why since 2005, it has been the number 1 recommended hosting platform for WordPress.
One thing that makes it stand out is the fact that the users are allowed lots of hosting plans from where they can make a choice. Whether you are looking for cloud hosting, VPS dedicated plans or shared plans, there is always something for you.
Other than providing web hosting services, the company also provide some professional services to enable the users to have a better online experience.
When you sign up for the services, you can look forward to the following services:
When you are using BlueHost, you can rest assured that you are going to have an easier time designing creative and functional websites that meet your needs. Not only is it reliable, but flexible too, and with great hosting, it tops any service you might come across. Each of their hosting plans come with many features and add-ons, which are aimed at giving you the best performance so far.
Key FeaturesThe experts give Blue Host better ratings than do customers but what they both agree on is that Blue Host’s upselling is one of its worst features. Apart from that, are consumers nit-picking?
Pros
Cons
Renewal rates are some of the highest in the industry. Experts recommend customers on a budget switch hosts regularly to take advantages of specials.Blue Host doesn’t offer month-to-month shared hosting plans; you have to sign up for at least a year. There’s no uptime guarantee although the experts say not guaranteeing uptime is some sort of “new trend” in the industry.
In summary: Blue Host gets an inordinate number of mixed reviews and negative reviews cover pretty much every potential problem you can think of. While still popular, it’s receiving serious competition in the review stakes even from smaller, lesser known hosts.
Positive reviews include a fair number of recommendations by bloggers (some quite well-known ones too). The general consensus is that Blue Host is a great all-rounder: easy to use, offering good technical support and value for money. Perhaps fewer satisfied customers post reviews than dissatisfied ones because there are more negative reviews than positive ones.
The majority of positive reviews raved that:
Blue Host was for years one of the largest and most reputable hosting companies on the internet with consumers rating it, on average, 3.5 to 4 stars out of 5.
The majority of dissatisfied customers feel they are being deceived, lied to and “put off”, even accused of causing their own problems. The average consumer’s perception is that Blue Host’s first response to a problem is to try and pass the buck.
Customers most frequently complain about:
Reliability & UptimeOne of the best reasons for using BlueHost is the assurance of the best performance all through. The speeds on hosting could be better than they are right now, but they are still better than most, especially if you are using their shared hosting accounts.
For the best speeds, you are better off with the higher tier plans that they have, or cloud hosting. One of the best things about this service is the fact that their websites barely ever struggle with downtime.
Server performance
With an uptime of 99.98% and a response rate of 911 ms, this clearly sets them in the business together with all the leading service providers. They have a backup power system that keeps the quad-core servers in action even in the event of a power failure.
Other than power, they also have high-end protection against spam and DDOS attacks on their servers, making your businesses even safer.
Through the shared CPU protection system, they can deal with weird traffic spikes, so that none of the accounts can dominate too much of the CPU time. Other than that you are also encouraged to run CloudFlare through the control panel, to make your work even easier.
In general, their speeds are impressive, based on assessments and comparisons with other platforms. Anyone that is running a WordPress platform will notice load times of under 2 seconds, so it is a fair deal.
Features & Tools There is nothing that you would wish for in a Linux hosting environment that you would not find with BlueHost. It does not matter whether you are an advanced user or if you are an average user, you will enjoy the services.
You can also look forward to the following features:
Here are some of the features found on Flywheel.
| Feature | Overview |
| The Control Panel | The control panel is custom designed, and it comes integrated with a host of other features that make your work easier as an administrator. They have intuitive tools and clean design. Through this panel, you can monitor your websites, tweak things here and there, and make sure that when it’s all said and done, you eventually run a template that will appeal to your clients.
You will also be able to add accounts, configure FTP for file transfers and so forth. As long as you have some experience with any cPanel, you should not have much to worry about with this one. |
| Weebly website builder | Those who are trying to get professional looking websites but do not know how to go about it can do so through the Weebly website builder that has been integrated with the system. It gets even better because you do not even have to write a single line of code. All this is possible as a result of the drag and drop function. Your website will, therefore, be complete, and attractive. You can add all the features that you want such as contact forms, slideshows and so forth.
All BlueHost clients have access to the free Weebly Basic edition. If you need more features than are available in Basic edition, you can pay for the access to Pro version where you can also customize the themes and templates. |
| WordPress optimized hosting | It is only fair that a service which is strongly recommended by WordPress supports the same. Therefore, if you are running your website on WordPress, this is certainly one thing that you need to consider.
Because WordPress is currently the most popular CMS platform around, you can look forward to faster response rates on your website. Site performance is one of the most important things that you should never take for granted, and this is why this particular feature is important. WordPress allows you incredible functionality; the ability to customize your templates and website whichever way you want makes it one of the most user-friendly options available, which also gives the developers an easier time in the long run. |
| Open source applications | There are so many applications that have been built into the platform that will make things easier for you as a webmaster, through SimpleScripts. From here you can use the shopping cart, forum, and other accessories. It is also possible to integrate the likes of Joomla into your database. |
| eCommerce platforms | As long as you are interested in trading online, there are free apps that are available on the BlueHost web hosting plan, which can help you get started in no time. They also assist in securing information accessed and shared with customers.
You have apps that support eCommerce like ShopSite and Magneto, the latter offering more flexibility than the former. Either of these options that you choose, you will still be able to get your site up and to run so fast. |
| Enhanced security | One of the most important things that make BlueHost stand out from the competition is the emphasis that they place on a security of their servers. Even if you are on a shared platform, you are still guaranteed great safety on your web apps. Security updates to the platform are made routinely, which are aimed at enhancing your website hosting security in general.
As a result of the security protocols, it is easier for you to rest assured that the information on your site is safe. The administrative protocols on your site are safeguarded by a password. The FTP available is so fast, making it easy for you to upload files onto your website. Through the SSH, administrators are also able to access different configuration files on the server. If you are worried about spamming, there are tools designed for the control panel to handle that. Spam Experts, Apache Spam Assassin, and Spam Hammer will do the work for you, alongside their hotlink protection. It makes easier for you to come up with filters for all accounts, blacklist certain fake IP addresses and so forth. Through the CloudFlare service, security features are enhanced, performance is also improved. In fact, it makes it feasible for you to use SSL on your website because it prevents DDOS attacks. It does not matter whether you are a shared customer or using a premium account, BlueHost makes their SSL certificate available for all the accounts. If you are running a Pro or Standard account, you are eligible for one SSL certificate and one dedicated IP. Those who are running dedicated reseller and VPS accounts can benefit from multiple dedicated IPs and SSL certificates, primarily because of the ability to use more than one cPanel in the account. |
| Email addresses | Website owners must have some relevant email addresses that can be used for different reasons. With the simplest plan, you can set up 100 email addresses, but if you upgrade to higher tier plans, you have unlimited email address plans. |
| Additional Features | The following are some of the features that you will get irrespective of the plan that you are using:
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Plans & Pricing One of the most important things about using BlueHost is the number of hosting plans that you can choose from. There are some web hosting plans. You also have a variety of professional services that are geared towards assisting customer services to improve online.
In most cases, clients often sign up for the shared hosting plan, which is a good idea, since it supports so many small businesses, personal blogs or anyone else who is just starting out. Since it is possible for you to work your way up, there is nothing wrong with starting on the basic plans.
If you are looking forward to some excellent load speeds on your website, perhaps upgrading to cloud hosting would be a brilliant idea for you instead. Besides, other than the slight increase in the price, you will not feel the pinch because the boost in speed will be a worthwhile experience.
When you upgrade to cloud hosting, this almost doubles your speed, so you can also appreciate the fact that your website will be much faster than before. This is as a result of a unique caching technique that they use, which makes it easier for your users to retrieve information whenever they need it. The importance of caching is the fact that information no longer has to travel through longer channels before it reaches the final destination.
Cloud customers can also benefit from the simpler performance tracking report. Through this, it is easier for the user to see the trends on the website, the download speed, global reach and so forth. These features make it easier for you to run detailed information on your site, to see the returns thereof.
At the same time, if you are looking at a very high rate of growth but at the same time running low on resources, you can go further and increase your cloud storage use through the one-click interface. This, therefore, means that you no longer need to worry about downtime, rebooting or new users on your platform.
You will also come to notice that when you are using BlueHost, you will not have to worry about dedicated hosting or VPS. Compared to the rest of the providers out there, their services might be slightly expensive, but when you look at this from the perspective of performance and security, you will realize that this is a worthwhile experience if you are running bigger websites that bring in more money.
Customer Support There are different ways for you to get in touch with their customer support team. You can get in touch with them on their phone lines, which are up 24/7. You can also reach out to them through online web chat, their user forums, or through a ticket-based system.
There are some documentaries that they have made available on their YouTube channel which provide tutorials that can get you through so many of the common problems that users have from time to time.
Should you have any problem that is associated with sales or billing, you can get support in as short a time as possible. Tech support questions, on the other hand, tend to require longer wait times, but they will still manage to sort you out.
Ease of Use Irrespective of the plan that you have purchased, you will realize that it is very easy to get into the control panel (Account Management Panel – AMP). This is one of the most manageable control panels to use so far. You might need to take some time to learn your way around it, but eventually, it will be a good experience for you.
If you start working on your website, and your business grows over time, you can quickly upgrade and switch to a premium account, and all this will be done at the click of a button.
It is easier to manage your website through the cPlanel, making your work as a web administrator a lot easier. You also get to appreciate the ease with which you can install additional programs and apps such as Drupal rather quickly.
Conclusion If at all you are thinking regarding affordability and good quality services, BlueHost is perhaps the best option that you can consider in the market. The fact that they have something to every budget plan makes this even more relevant for you.
With more than a decade in the industry, their infrastructure has improved over the years, and they are currently in a good position to deliver far better services to their clients so that everyone is in a good position to design and use an excellent website.
In conclusion, hopefully, this will come in handy for you while making up your mind on whether this is the best hosting plan for you or now. Each and every site that you might own is different in one way or the other, so to make things easier, it might help to start off with the basic plans, and then move up. You can get more information from www.bluehost.com
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