Bluehost is a reputable web hosting company that millions use to power up their online businesses. Bluehost powers up 2 million websites all over the world. This hosting service provides a good return on investment. You will not regret your decision to buy Bluehost hosting if you are just starting out in the online business space. In this Bluehost review article, we’ll discuss its features, benefits, and pricing models to equip you with the necessary information for your hosting requirements.
Having a hosting service is essential in the 21st century. It is like your plot in the online world.
Starting from an affordable hosting service provider like Bluehost can benefit you in the long run. You get a free domain for a year with any plan of Bluehost. The hosting costs are as little as $2.95 per month. In return, you get efficient and high-quality hosting services.
Now, let’s dig deeper into the features, pros and cons, and pricing details of Bluehost. By the end of the article, you will agree that Bluehost is the best value for your money.
Table of Contents
Bluehost is The Best For?
Bluehost is best for people who are just starting out for the 1st time. They are either making a website for the 1st time or 2nd time. Bluehost makes it easy for you to create a website without worrying about the technical details. Its shared hosting feature is the best one.
However, if you need dedicated hosting with plenty of uptime for your e-commerce store, you might want to consider some other hosting options.
Bluehost Pros
24/7 customer support
The customer support of Bluehost is literally one of the best support teams out there. You can run into dozens of technical issues while starting a website business. The Bluehost team helps you every step of the way to set up a successful online business.
Beginner-Friendly
Bluehost makes sure that you don’t run into development or coding problems while setting up your website for the 1st time. It is okay if you don’t have advanced-level knowledge about coding and development languages. You can set up your own website within an hour following the guided steps.
Bluehost has also collaborated with WordPress and installing WordPress is now a piece of cake.
Easy Site Setup
As a beginner in the online business domain, you can find immense help and support in setting up your website. Bluehost dashboard is intuitive and user-friendly. You can set up your website without external help with the guided step-by-step tutorial-type interface.
Free Domain Name
One of the best features of Bluehost is that along with hosting, you get a free domain name for over a year. This can save you one extra step of registering a domain with a 3rd party domain name provider.
Free SSL
An SSL certificate is required for your site to confirm its identity. Thanks to Bluehost, it provides a free SSL certificate when you buy its hosting package. SSL certification is an extra security layer that encrypts the information on your site as well.
Bluehost Cons
Site Migrations
If you want to migrate your site from or to another platform, Bluehost is not your ideal choice. It charges $149 for single-site migration.
Not suitable for high-traffic sites
If you want to scale your existing site to accommodate high traffic, the entry-level Bluehost package won’t help it. You can always buy higher-level pricing plans of Bluehost to address the needs of high traffic.
No guarantee of uptime
Bluehost doesn’t offer an uptime guarantee on any of its plans. It is quite concerning as the downtime can hurt a website’s performance immensely. However, based on live data, Bluehost’s uptime has been estimated to be 99.99% which is quite an appreciable performance.
Bluehost Pricing
You can get Bluehost for less if you buy its 36-month plan at a one-time price. However, you will need to pay more per month if you buy a 24 or 12-month plan. If you want to pay month by month, Bluehost will cost more.
Now, let’s review the shared hosting pricing packages of Bluehost.
Bluehost Hosting Plans
Shared Hosting
You can get a basic plan of shared hosting for as low as $2.95 per month. It gives you 50 GB of space along with the hosting ability of a single site. You also get a free SSL certificate and CDN feature.
However, if you want to run more than one site, you can go for a plus plan of shared hosting. You get a free SSL certificate and CDN features in the Plus plan just like the basic plan. The plus point is that you can host an unlimited number of websites with this plan. It only costs $4.45 per month. You also get access to Microsoft 365 for 30 days.
If you are concerned about the security of your website, you can opt for a choice-plus plan. You get domain protection and automated backups for over a year. As the price of choice Plus is the same as the Plus package, it is the clear winning package in the shared hosting packages.
If you want more advanced features, you can go for the pro package which costs $13.95 per month. It gives access to more CPU resources along with a dedicated IP for your website.
VPS Hosting
VPS stands for Virtual Private Server hosting which is a part of shared hosting but acts as dedicated hosting for your website. It is less expensive as compared to dedicated hosting. VPS hosting provides better security as compared to shared hosting. It also enhances the performance of the website.
VPS hosting provides dedicated resources for the better performance of your website. You get VPN features for just $18.99. It provides 2 GB RAM and 1 TB of bandwidth. Though Bluehost is a beginner-friendly hosting service, it also provides affordable dedicated and VPS hosting features.
Dedicated hosting
Dedicated hosting provides the best deal when it comes to hosting your website with dedicated resources. You get better privacy, security, and performance in dedicated hosting. Bluehost offers 500 GB of storage, 4 GB of RAM, and 5 TB of bandwidth in its dedicated plan which costs $79.99.
Managed WordPress Hosting
Bluehost is one of the 3 hosting companies that is officially endorsed by WordPress. This really adds to the credibility of Bluehost. Bluehost offers a Managed WordPress hosting plan that provides more speed, better security, and marketing features. Bluehost gives you 3 pricing options in Managed WordPress hosting. It has named them Build, Grow, and Scale. They cost $19.95, $29.95, and $49.95 per month, respectively.
Build: The build package offers space for up to 50,000 visitors. You can avail of storage of 20 GB, a free SSL certificate, and access to 200 global servers. It costs only $19.95 per month.
Grow: The grow package includes space for up to 150,000 visitors. You can avail of storage of 40 GB, a free SSL certificate, and access to 200 global servers. It only costs $29.95 per month.
Scale: The scale package includes space for up to 500,000 visitors. You can avail of storage of 80 GB, a free SSL certificate, and access to 200 global servers. It only costs $49.95 per month.
To decide which package you should go for, you will need to know the visitor’s traffic to your site. Selecting a plan according to your traffic will help you make use of the appropriate resources needed for the traffic.
The most popular hosting provided by Bluehost is the shared hosting service. However, as your site grows, you will need to buy some more powerful hosting options. That’s where the dedicated and VPS hosting services come in. You can get dedicated hosting for more power and flexibility.
