Is Bluehost a good hosting company? - Bluehost review

 In this Bluehost review, I've thoroughly discussed many things like prices, interface, performance, security, customer support, and so on.

Is Bluehost a good hosting company? The shortest answer is ‘Yes.’

Bluehost is one of the most reliable hosting providers and it has a strong user base because of its performance and reliability. There are lots of advanced features included in it. That is how it dominates over lots of other hosting providers.

Quick Overview of Bluehost hosting

Bluehost was founded in 1996, and it is WordPress's recommended hosting since 2006. It currently powers more than 2 million websites. Bluehost provides 24-hour support 365 days a year via phone, email, support ticket, and live chat.

Compared to its competitors, Bluehost provides some hosting plans at a cheaper rate. Small business owners can find it best suited to their business. Bluehost offers free site migration for WordPress users, as well a one-click easy installer is available.

It is well designed for start-ups, while someone wants to start with a lower investment on a hosting plan with great performance. 30-days no-risk money-back guarantee included with all plans.

Renewal price can be higher than the first-time purchase price, and free domain renewal charges can be more than the regular price.

What Products and Services Does Bluehost Offer?

Domain names: 

Every website needs a domain name to launch. It also sometimes defines the brand name. Whatever it is, you need to register your domain name must, which you can do using the Bluehost domain registration service.

Shared hosting:  

Shared web hosting is the hosting where multiple users use a single hosting server. It reduces users' costs because users also share their costs.

Dedicated hosting: 

Dedicated hosting is the opposite of shared hosting where a single user manages a single hosting server. It is quite a bit costly but highly secured. 

VPS hosting: 

VPS or virtual private server is a highly configured hosting server. Though it is called a private server, it is also can be shared with multiple users. 

WordPress hosting: 

WordPress is fully optimized for WordPress. If you are willing to run a WordPress site then it will be a better option to use a WordPress hosting package. 

Online store:

Bluehost allows you to create an online store using WooCommerce. You will get everything to run your virtual store. Standard and premium plans are available to choose from. 

Website builder: 

Site builder allows you to create a professional website within a short time, and you don't have to acquire much knowledge about coding. You will get a one-click WordPress installation system with custom CSS functionality.

Addon Products and Services

Bluehost offers some addon products to ensure a better user experience. You have to pay annually for that, and there is also have monthly payment system available. So addon products are Microsoft 365, Dedicated IP, Spam Experts, SiteLock, Premium SSL, SEO Tools, Domain Privacy, and CodeGuard.

Other services:

Bluehost offers some other professional services, like Consulting services and Email marketing services. Those are definitely helpful if you want to grow your business well. 

Bluehost Shared Hosting Comparison

Bluehost all hosting plans at a glance

Why Bluehost is a good hosting company? 

Best Uptime: 

Bluehost ensures over 99.98% uptime, though they don’t offer any uptime guarantee. High uptime is very essential for any website to gain user reliability. No company can guarantee a 100% uptime, but more than 97% uptime is good enough. 

Loading Speed: 

Loading speed is good enough for Bluehost, but some other hosting companies perform better than Bluehost. Though there has an area to improve, this company already gathered a reputation for good speed.  

Pricing: 

Price is very low on Bluehost, so it is very helpful for beginners to maintain their initial cost. You can start just from $2.75 a month. But it is a discounted price, where you have to $9.99 a month normally. 

Security Options:

Bluehost offers a free lifetime SSL certificate, and HTTPS protocol ensures visitors that your site is secure to share sensitive data. You can purchase more advanced security features like SiteLock from this provider. 

Easy to Use: 

As a beginner-friendly web hosting service, Bluehost is very easy to use for beginners and obviously for advanced users. I like their modern control panel and advanced organized functionality that definitely create a better user experience. 

Risk-free Money-Back Guarantee:

A 30-day money-back guarantee is offered by this hosting company. But in most cases, you will get this refund for your hosting services, not for other services like addons and domains. If you get a free domain with a hosting plan, they will deduct a non-refundable domain fee. 

Customer Support:

Support is amazing here because they can ensure 24/7 customer support for the whole year. You will get support via live chat, phone calls, email, and tickets. For me, I like live chat support most, and they are able to respond within five minutes. 

Drawbacks of Bluehost

Higher Renewal Rates: 

You will be charged higher when you go for renewing your products. It happens because of attracting offers for first years. Almost every hosting providers do the same. 

Extra Charge on Free Domains Renewal: 

Bluehost offers free domains with their hosting packages. But when the time to renew that domain after the first year, it will charge higher than regular renewal charges. 

Cheapest Plan Restrictions: 

Cheapest plans will restrict you to use some feature that is only available with advanced packages.

The overall analysis and ratings of Bluehost

Overall rating:

I found this web hosting amazing for providing good services. Though has all the essential facilities available, there have some areas to improve. 

Storage:

Bluehost is offering a sufficient amount of storage that is more than enough for small businesses. It offers unlimited storage with all of their plans instead of the Basic plan but the Basic plan also gives 50 Gb of storage, which is actually a huge amount I think.

Uptime: 

Uptime is very good for Bluehost, and that is 99.99%. Uptime means which amount of time a hosting provider will run their server in a particular year. No company makes a guarantee of a hundred percent uptime.

Bandwidth:

There is no limit of bandwidth in Bluehost while a lot of hosting providers limit their bandwidth. Bandwidth refers to the amount of data that is used by your website visitor.

Control Panel:

A Control panel or cPanel is essential to maintain a website. Different companies offer different types of cPanel and that is why Bluehost is also offering a control panel that is well decorated and maintenance is very easy for beginners as well as advanced users.

Ease of Use: 

Bluehost is very beginner-friendly and that is why it is very easy to use. Anyone can understand its functionality and it is very comfortable to use.

Applications: 

Bluehost offers a lot of applications in their control panel where several one-click installers are also available.

FTP Accounts:

Bluehost allows users to use multiple FTP  accounts to control databases located in the server.

Server Location:

It uses different server locations to provide quality service. So you are able to use the nearest server which will increase your website performance.

Backups:

It offers different types of backup services according to your hosting plan. If you want to get an advance backup service then you have to choose Choice Plus or Pro plan. 

Speed:

As far as I know, the speed of Bluehost is a little bit lower than some other hosting. But still, Bluehost offers to host that is speedy enough.

Price:

The price is very beginner-friendly. Bluehost is offering a great service at a lower cost. If you want to pursue a 36 monthly plan then it will reduce your cost a lot.

Features: 

There are lots of features that are included in Bluehost which are not available in some other major hosting. Bluehost has  rich features with a lower cost

Support:

You will get 24 by 7 customer support through different kinds of mediums like phone calls,  live chat, email, and ticket support.

Site Transfers:

Bluehost offers no free site migration with any of their plans, but if you want to transfer your WordPress site then that is totally free. If you want to transfer your site that is not developed by WordPress, you can also transfer it by spending a certain amount of money. 

Renewal Rates:

Renewal rates are much higher than the price which Bluehost initially offers. Please don't forget to see the renewal price when you buy your plan for the first time,  because it may be under a certain offer.

SSL:

SSL certificate is totally free with all of their plans even with their basic plan. It increases the extra security of your website visitors.

Domain:

Bluehost offers a free domain for 1 year with some of their plans, but the renewal rate is higher than the regular price.

Security Features: 

Using Bluehost hosting is much safer because of its security features that will prevent users from being hacked or DDOS attacks as well as many other kinds of vulnerability. 

Refunds and Guarantees:

You will get a 30-day money-back guarantee with all of their plans, so you can use Bluehost just to try without getting any risks.

Do I Recommend Bluehost web hosting?

I think Bluehost is best for small business owners. It is a wise decision to minimize initial costs when someone wants to succeed in his or her small business. If you want to start your business with a profitable investment, then you can choose Bluehost because of its compatible price and better quality. 

But you have to make sure about renewal prices because first-year pricing is remarkably cheap. The free domain also charges a higher end for the first year.

I'm not pretty sure about their server speed for shared hosting, because it is a little bit slower than some of its competing providers. But the uptime of Bluehost is impressive which is 99.99%, though they don't offer any uptime warranty.  

If you want to scale your business, then this hosting is definitely suitable for you. The company includes basic plans for small business owners, but they also have plans for larger enterprises. 

After all, this is one of my favorite hosting services. 

Who is Bluehost Best For?

• Small or larger business owners who want to scale up the business properly.
• Who wants massive storage with lower cost and also want unrestricted bandwidth.
• Someone who wants unconditional website traffic to grow more audiences.
• The beginner who wants to minimize initial costs and needs to do things easily on cPanel. 

FAQs About Bluehost hosting

Q: Is Bluehost good for beginners?

Obviously, it is a very beginner-friendly web hosting service. Basically, who wants to start his or her website by spending less amount of money on good quality.  

Maintenance is too easy here, so anyone can handle it without getting too much knowledge. This hosting 

Bluehost is an excellent choice for beginners because you will get enough services, like automatic WordPress installation, free drag-and-drop page builder, step-by-step instructions, and so on. 

It comes with everything you need when you want to get started with WordPress.

Q: Can Bluehost handle high traffic?

As there is no limitation of bandwidth in any plan of Bluehost. So unlimited visitors can visit your website without any restrictions, and that will not hamper Website performance.

There hasn’t also any traffic limit count, so unlimited visitors will be able to visit your site without any restrictions. A huge number of page visits won’t even make slower your website page loading speed. 

To ensure a better user experience, you can use CDN, which will make your page loading speed faster for lots of visitors. 

Q: Where are Bluehost servers located?

The main data center is located in Provo, Utah, USA, and the IP Address is 162.88.60.37 where ns1.bluehost.com is used as a nameserver. 

The secondary data center is located in Orem, Utah, USA, and the IP Address is 162.88.61.37 where ns2.bluehost.com is used as a nameserver.

Though Bluehost doesn't officially disclose their server locations, they are using those servers to power numerous websites around the world. 

Q: What Bluehost plan should I get?

It totally depends on you. You can choose different hosting plans according to your business size and your necessity.  But I think the Basic plan is more than enough for you if you intend to start your own brand new website.  

If you want to grow your existing websites then you can choose different plants as well. Or when you want to run a website for your larger business, Bluehost will give you enough support through their Premium plans. 

You can also use Dedicated or VPS servers according to your needs. But if you are a beginner and just starting a new business, then choose the basic Shared hosting plan.

Q: What are the Shared Hosting's Benefits?

Shared hosting costs very little money with lots of features. The main difference in share roasting is distributed among lots of users, and you will get relatively less security.

You will have enjoy some advanced features at a lower cost. The cost is lower because lots of users bear the costs for a single server. As the same server is used by multiple users, there can have few security risks. 

But while you are using a quality hosting service like Bluehost, then you may not face any security issues.

Q: What is the difference between Shared vs WordPress Hosting?

WordPress hosting is basically designed for WordPress, but shared hosting is suitable for any CMS or custom-designed website. 

Both hosting plans are actually shared hosting, but the main difference is their use areas. Normal shared hosting is suitable for all kinds of websites, also even WordPress websites. But WordPress hosting is only designed for WordPress sites.

Particularly, WordPress hosting includes some functionality that gives extra comfort for WordPress users. Basically, beginners can get more benefits with WordPress hosting.  

Q: How do I migrate to Bluehost?

If you want to transfer your WordPress site then it is totally free of cost but if you want to transfer your website coding personally or using other CMSs then you have to pay a certain amount to migrate.

To transfer your website to Bluehost, first, you have to create an account after choosing your desired hosting plan. Then download the free migration plugin on the Bluehost dashboard. 

You need to check compatibility if your site is perfect for migration or not. After a quick check, you can start your migration process. During the process, the Bluehost expert team will contact you and they will review your site. 

Finally, your site migration process will take a few times, and your website will be still visible on the internet. 

Conclusion:

Bluehost is a worldwide recognized hosting service provider. They mainly stand over a huge reputation for providing quality services. The company mainly focuses on beginners and the advanced features tell us that truth. 

Cost reduction can be the first step to be succeeded as a startup. Bluehost offers lower-cost plans with rich features through shared hosting plans. It doesn't mean that Bluehost is only for beginners, there have some plans and services only for large enterprises. 

From my perspective, Bluehost is definitely a good hosting company.