bluehost honest review 2022
Bluehost is a well-known web hosting company that hosts over two million websites. It does an excellent job of simplifying and demystifying the process of creating a website for beginners, particularly if you want to use WordPress. All plans come with a free domain for the first year, excellent uptime (based on real-world data), a free CDN, a drag-and-drop website builder, and a free SSL certificate. Everything you need is in one place, but one question remains. Is it appropriate for your next website? Continue reading to find out.
Bluehost vs. the Best Web Hosting Services
Bluehost ranked fifth in our list of the eight best web hosting providers after two weeks of rigorous testing that included signing up, building a website, speaking with customer support, and 30 days of uptime and speed testing. Although other hosts outperformed Bluehost, it remains an excellent choice and our top pick for a free, beginner-friendly WordPress drag-and-drop site builder.
If that isn't important to you, there may be a better option. See all of our top picks to read in-depth reviews written by a team of researchers who have used the products, our scoring strategy, and which one is best for you based on your needs.
Bluehost's Advantages and Disadvantages
Even the most comprehensive web hosting service has flaws. Here's an in-depth look at Bluehost's best and worst features.
The Good
Excellent Security: Bluehost has some of the best security measures available on the market. All of Bluehost's security features are effective and will save you hours of tweaking your website. It will also provide you with peace of mind, which is especially important for complete beginners.
All Bluehost plans include resource protection, and CodeGuard Backup Basic can be added for $2.99 per month. CodeGuard will assist you with daily backups and monitoring, as well as alerting you to any changes.
The most basic version of this security feature includes 1GB of storage space, daily backup and monitoring, and three monthly restorations. However, for the more expensive plans, such as Choice Plus and Pro, you can expect one year of free automatic backups and 24/7 network monitoring.
Extensive and Quick Customer Support: Bluehost's extensive and quick customer support is another outstanding feature. Customer support is essential for any web hosting service, but finding one that provides quick and efficient support can be difficult.
Fortunately, Bluehost provides just that, and most users report that customer service is extremely helpful when they require immediate assistance. In fact, there's a good chance you'll be connected to Bluehost's Live Chat system within five minutes.
Its entire support staff is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so you don't have to worry about figuring out time zones. Bluehost also provides phone and email support, though wait times vary. You can always kill time by browsing its extensive knowledge base support forum for multiple FAQs, videos, in-depth articles, and support resources on everything web hosting related.
Bluehost is the most popular web hosting service on the market not only because of its outstanding features and products, but also because it is so incredibly simple to use. Ease of use is an important feature to have because web hosting can be confusing for some people, so the onboarding process shouldn't be difficult as well.
But don't worry, Bluehost has a simple onboarding process that will get your website up and running in a matter of minutes. With an easy-to-use interface, it will ask you to fill out a form with your website goals, what you want to add to your site, and what you want your site's name and tagline to be.
After answering these questions, you will be able to select a theme from the Bluehost Marketplace, and it will then automatically install WordPress for your convenience. All you have to worry about is customization, while Bluehost handles the backend and technical details.
High-Performance Servers: Bluehost's final plus is that it provides very high-performance servers to all users who purchase the Pro plan. Although paying more money isn't always ideal for every user, we believe you get what you pay for. You can get access to Dual Quad Processor Performance Servers for $14.95 per month, which will keep large ecommerce websites running smoothly.
This server is an excellent choice for larger websites because Bluehost ensures that there are fewer users per server (with a file count of 300,000), ensuring that there are no slowdowns for anyone involved.
However, if you don’t want to pay the price for these servers, we still think regular Bluehost servers that come with the other plans are great and work just fine.
The Bad
No Free Site Migration: This is where the drawbacks come into play. Bluehost currently does not provide free site migration, which may be an issue for users transferring from another web hosting service.
Bluehost will charge you a hefty $149.99 to migrate up to five websites and 20 email accounts. Despite the fact that this service includes 24/7 support, a thorough review, and a seamless transition, it is still quite expensive for most users—especially when many other web hosting services will transfer your website for free.
It's also worth noting that this migration service excludes reseller, VPS, and dedicated server accounts, as well as domain registrations.
No Uptime Guarantee: Unlike most web hosting companies, Bluehost does not provide an uptime guarantee on any of its plans. This is concerning because downtime can be very costly for website owners, as you may lose potential customers if your website is down.
An uptime guarantee provides users with additional peace of mind by demonstrating that the provider will keep your website up and running in the most efficient manner possible—and is serious about the customer service experience while putting the needs of its customers first.
Despite the fact that this may be an issue for some, many users have praised Bluehost for its uptime, regardless of guarantee, as data shows it has an uptime efficiency of 99.99 percent.
Pricing and Options for Bluehost
Bluehost provides a variety of pricing plans based on the goals and needs of each individual website. Let's break it down by level.
Bluehost Pricing
The great thing about Bluehost is that it offers a wide range of services at a reasonable price. It provides three main business niches, each with a different pricing plan. Shared hosting, online stores, and managed WordPress are examples of these.
Shared Hosting Plan
Bluehost customers prefer the shared hosting plan because it provides the most flexibility. The thing about Bluehost pricing is that a 36-month plan is significantly less expensive than a 12-month plan, so let's compare the two. This plan has four pricing options, which are as follows:
Basic: $4.95 per month for a 12-month term; $2.95 per month for a 36-month term
Plus, a 12-month term costs $7.45 per month, while a 36-month term costs $5.45 per month.
Choice Plus costs $7.45 per month for a 12-month term and $5.45 per month for a 36-month term.
Pro: $18.95 per month for a 12-month term; $13.95 per month for a 36-month term
As you can see, 36-month terms are significantly less expensive than 12-month terms. Bluehost also offers a 24-month term, but it is only slightly less expensive than the 12-month option.
Having said that, all pricing plans include a free one-year domain, free CDN, free SSL certificate, custom themes, and 24/7 support.
The Plus, Choice Plus, and Pro plans include unlimited websites, unlimited SSD storage, and a 30-day trial of Office 365.
Plan for an Online Store
Bluehost's online store plan appears to be much simpler than its shared hosting plans. These specific plans are best for ecommerce stores, where you can build, promote, and begin selling through your WooCommerce-enabled store.
This plan has two pricing options for 12-month and 36-month terms, which are as follows:
Standard: $15.95 per month for a 12-month term; $12.95 per month for a 36-month term
Premium is $32.95 per month for a 12-month term and $24.95 per month for a 36-month term.
Both plans include unlimited products, the installation of WooCommerce, 24/7 customer support, payment processing, discount codes, and CodeGuard Backup Basic.
Managed WordPress Plan
This powerful plan is designed for users who are creating a website with WordPress. It enables you to purchase a plan for your professional WordPress website that provides scalability, security, speed, and support.
This plan has three pricing options, all of which are available on a 36-month basis, including:
Build: $9.95 per month
Grow: $14.95 per month
Monthly fee: $27.95
All plans include top features such as one WordPress website, 200+ global edge servers, free SSL, built-in high availability, staging environment, and best for up to 50,000 monthly visitors.
You can also count on daily backups, malware detection and removal, and domain privacy and protection.
Bluehost Providers
Bluehost provides a wide range of web hosting-related products that are suitable for the majority of users. Here's an in-depth look at some of Bluehost's products:
WordPress Hosting
Bluehost and WordPress complement each other, and there is no better method to run your website than with its official WordPress hosting. Bluehost designed this hosting bundle to help you grow your business by providing resources and tools that work flawlessly with WordPress.
This hosting plan is ideal for blogs, websites, or online stores because it is fully compatible with any WordPress website. Automatic WordPress installation, automatic WordPress updates, and Google My Business verification are all available from Bluehost.
Not only that, but you can select from a one-of-a-kind collection of WordPress-specific themes and templates from the Bluehost Marketplace. With customizable features and simple-to-install plugins, you have complete design freedom.
Other benefits of WordPress hosting include:
Microsoft Office 365 includes a free one-year domain name.
Setup of a secure login
WordPress hosting assistance is available 24 hours a day, seven days a
This hosting package is priced differently than the Managed WordPress plans. You can get specific WordPress hosting under three 36-month plans, which include:
Basic: $2.95 per month
Plus: $5.45 per month
$5.45/month for Choice Plus
Shared Hosting
As previously stated, the shared hosting package is the most popular among Bluehost users because it is the simplest way to get your website up and running at a low cost.
Simply put, shared hosting allows multiple users to run their websites on the same server. This package is ideal for blogs, hobbies, or small business websites.
The shared hosting package's best feature is that Bluehost manages and monitors the server, so users don't have to worry about server management or platform patches.
The following are some of the shared hosting package's features:
Domain manager
Resource protection
SSL certificates
Google Ads
Small businesses would benefit the most from a shared hosting plan because it is more straightforward and cost-effective. Small businesses aren't as affected as larger businesses that require more space because shared hosting doesn't guarantee RAM or CPU.
Dedicated Server Hosting
Dedicated hosting is an excellent option for larger businesses that require more storage, power, and control. This package is on the more expensive end of web hosting, so it prioritizes performance and security.
A dedicated hosting server, as opposed to shared hosting, offers its users the highest level of protection, security, and control. Because these servers are independent of one another, each user has full access to the server without being affected or affecting the experience of another user.
Bluehost dedicated hosting provides every user with stable and predictable website performance, as well as complete control and privacy.
This package is ideal for users with high-traffic websites, as you will require the full range of RAM and CPU to run your website efficiently—exactly what dedicated hosting provides.
Among the helpful features for dedicated hosting are:
Extremely fast
RAID storage with rapid provisioning
Root privileges
Dedicated assistance
Storage enhancements
One year of free domain registration
Bluehost's dedicated hosting, on the other hand, is not cheap. It has three pricing plans, which are as follows:
Standard: $79.99 per month for 500GB of storage and 4GB of RAM.
Enhanced: $99.99 per month for 1TB of storage and 8GB of RAM.
Premium: $119.99 per month, includes 1TB of storage and 16GB of RAM.
Every pricing plan includes a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Choosing the Best Web Hosting Providers
We spent hours researching various web hosting services. You can find our comparison guide here.
Hostinger – The best web hosting for the majority of people
SiteGround – Best for maintaining uptime of greater than 99.99 percent.
HostGator – Excellent for easily scaling your small business.
DreamHost – The best option for pay-as-you-go web hosting.
Bluehost – The most user-friendly drag-and-drop page builder for beginners.
Inmotion – The most affordable option for hosting two websites on a single plan.
Nexcess – Recommended for advanced WordPress users.
A2 Hosting – The most dependable web hosting service for European and Asian clients.
Overall, Bluehost is an excellent choice for beginners because it includes everything you need to get started with WordPress, from a free domain name and automatic WordPress installation to a free drag-and-drop page builder and detailed step-by-step instructions.
We believe that most users will enjoy the Bluehost experience, which includes a wide range of product offerings such as WordPress hosting, shared hosting, dedicated hosting, and multi-tiered pricing plans.
The good outweighs the bad, and it's a web hosting service worth considering—especially for WordPress users.