Are you tired of the all 5-star ratings and reviews of BlueHost? Then this is going to be quite refreshing for you. It is time someone brought forth an unbiased review of the hosting service for you. While getting a new web hosting service, you must ensure that the provider fulfills all your website hosting necessities. BlueHost has been around since 2003, and the fact that they have hosted over 2 million sites since then definitely stands up for them. However, one question remains – are the services any good for you?
Earlier, BlueHost provided only hosting plans. Right now, they provide cloud hosting, domain services and a plethora of hosting options for dedicated CMS platforms including WordPress. As you can understand by now, BlueHost is one of the top players in the web hosting game. Just like all other players, they have strengths and weaknesses. The top verified reviews make it clear that BlueHost is easy to use and easy to sign up for. Additionally, you can install WordPress with ease using the cPanel with just one-click. Nonetheless, that is not enough to ignore the disadvantages of the hosting service. So, this honest BlueHost review will give you a detailed look at the pros and cons of using it.
The reasons you should be considering BlueHost as your web hosting options right now –
- It is affordable – BlueHost has opened up web hosting for all types of website owners and managers. Whether you run a small blog or a corporate site that sells to other businesses, you will find at least one plan and pricing that suits all your hosting needs. The hosting plans start at around $2.95 per month (that’s cheaper than pizza!), and you can go up from there.
- It is excellent for WordPress sites – WordPress recommends using BlueHost, and that is a massive achievement for any hosting. It offers 1-click installation of WP and NGINX page caching for fast website loading. The new Bluerock platform provides a 2-3 times speedier experience. Here are a few performances and security features you can enjoy –
PHP7 and HTTP/2 support
NGINX caching
Free CloudFlare CDN
WordPress staging
SSD drives
Free SSL certificate
- Money-back guarantee – not a lot of hosting providers can offer 100% money-back guarantee within 30 days as BlueHost does. Even if you cross the initial 30-days period, you can receive a portion of your money back on your credit card. Thankfully, there are no pesky penalties or hidden fee trying to rob you as you leave.
- Excellent performance – BlueHost lives up to its reputation of being reliable and fast. It has about 99.8% uptime for 12 months. In the last month, websites using BlueHost have experienced 0% downtime.
- It upholds high-end security values – security is a priority at BlueHost. There is no way your website is going to perform well or offer 100% customer satisfaction rates unless it is secure from malware attacks. BlueHost provides a plethora of security services including secure shell access (SSH) of the config files to the admins and developers. IP address blacklisting, account filters, digital certificates, 128-bit encryption, and password protected directories are other features of a premium BlueHost plan.
- Hosting option variety – there is no dearth of options for hosting. They provide scalable plans that you can expand or hop each time your business achieves a goal. A quickly growing business requires flexible hosting plans to accommodate their expanding data and user database. Pick from their shared, cloud, VPS, dedicated and reseller hosting plans to suit your needs.
- 24/7/365 customer support – what good is a website host that does not provide a way for their clients to reach them? Not only do they have dedicated tutorial videos and guide blogs, but they also have dedicated technical support for their global customer base. Their knowledge database is especially commendable since it can give you access to time-tested solutions without the hassle of chats and phone calls.
- Amazing extras – not a lot of hosting plans can boast amazing extras as BlueHost plans do. You start off with a free domain name that lasts a year, and you can explore advertising credits on Google AdWords and Bing. You can save a lot on your online marketing budget by starting with any BlueHost hosting plan.
Are these advantages enough to convince website owners to migrate to BlueHost? Is there anything more you should know before you pick this provider?
BlueHost certainly has many pros, but that does not wash away the cons. The only way you can recognize a reliable provider is by weighing its advantages and its disadvantages. Therefore, here are the cons of using this service you should know –
- The pricing and plans can be confusing – we have heard this a lot from many users. For example – we have previously mentioned their starting price to be $2.95. However, you can only enjoy this pricing if you pick a 36-month long package. You can select a 12-month or 24-month pack too, but the prices increase significantly. Unlike other contemporary website hosting providers, BlueHost has no 2 or 3-month plans at all.
- Automated backups, what are they? – BlueHost offers a lot of generous extras and add-ons, but automatic backup is not one of them. You can run your backup through cPanel. In fact, any new backup will overwrite the other backup that is less than 30-days old! The only way to bypass this is by opting for the third-party paid add-on, Site Backup Pro that automates the process.
- Nothing is truly unlimited – this is a common problem with the popular hosting services that have several “unmetered” plans. BlueHost caps all database storage. Therefore, all “unlimited” plans have certain limits.
- Only Linux-based servers – BlueHost does not support Windows hosting. In fact, they only support Linux servers. That does not bother a lot of developers and admins since they already use Linux extensively.
- No free migration of sites – you can leave BlueHost, but for a fee. BlueHost supports the transfer of 20 email accounts and up to 5 websites for a price of $149.99.
If you can overlook the cons or live with them, BlueHost can be your ideal hosting partner. After all, they do provide free SSL certificates, CloudFlare CDN, BlueRock control panel, built-in NGINX caching, free domain names, PHP7 and HTTP/2 backing, and WordPress officially recommend them for hosting.
