Best web Hosting - Blue Host Review

Bluehost is one of the most common and cost-effective web hosting services available. In this Bluehost hosting analysis, we look at what goes on behind the scenes, how successful the platform is, and whether it's the best fit for your next website project.

What is Bluehost and what services does it provide?

Bluehost has become one of the most successful hosting companies, particularly for WordPress sites, over the years.

Only looking at their homepage and all of the various things Bluehost has to sell reveals a lot about why it has so many fans. To begin with, Bluehost offers a wide range of hosting services, not just basic website hosting.

Second, their rates are incredibly reasonable. In addition, you will receive a number of free bonuses. As a result, the average cost of launching a platform is far smaller than what you'd have to spend if you went with the competition.

But first, let's go over the basics. Here are the various hosting options offered by Bluehost, including one that is likely to be the most common among users.

Let's break down the list into a few categories:

1. Web hosting for beginners

In Bluehost's web hosting portfolio, this is the most affordable choice. These plans are typically selected by consumers who are unfamiliar with the idea of owning a website and the need for web hosting.

Bluehost's entry-level hosting services are divided into two categories:

Web hosting on a shared server

WordPress hosting at its most basic

Although the latter may appear to be superior if you choose to use WordPress as your website engine, they are actually the same product. According to what I've seen, this is just a different advertisement framing, but the inside components are the same.

2. WordPress hosting that is managed

The above-mentioned simple WordPress hosting plans are just that: basic. Bluehost, on the other hand, provides a Managed WordPress kit that is more advanced.

The controlled option, as opposed to the simple option, takes care of all technical aspects of hosting setup and WordPress maintenance for you.

To put it another way, if you use controlled WordPress hosting, you won't have to worry about anything related to keeping your site up and running. Instead, you should concentrate solely on designing and promoting your website.

Managed plans also give you more control behind the scenes, which is essential for sites that have a strong market position and receive a lot of traffic.

Bluehost also has a special WooCommerce-enabled WordPress hosting package for eCommerce stores. Some WooCommerce-specific elements are pre-installed on those plans (WooCommerce itself, an optimized theme, payment processing tools, security, extras).

If you're searching for a host because you're going to open a WooCommerce shop, this is most likely the best choice.

3. Use a professional hosting service

Bluehost's professional-level hosting is the top tier of their service. There are two main products here:

Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting

Servers that are exclusively yours

The former is a fascinating phenomenon that revolves around virtualization hosting. The term VPS refers to a virtual private server. What you're really getting is access to a web hosting setup that runs on a larger, physical server as a virtual machine. It's a good setup to use for creating web apps or other web-based items that aren't necessarily websites.

Dedicated servers are for when you just need a whole physical computer at your disposal. This is typically the most costly and efficient web hosting option open to most businesses.

Bluehost hosting review: benefits and costs

As you can see from the table above, Bluehost offers a variety of hosting plans and levels, each with its own set of features.

For the purposes of this Bluehost hosting analysis, we'll look at the Basic Web Hosting package, which is the most basic choice.

It's the most cost-effective option in the lineup, and as a result, it's the most common among customers.

Here’s a snapshot of the pricing page at the time of writing:

Bluehost, as you can see, has a really inexpensive plan that starts at just $2.95 per month. However, the first thing you should note about this price is that it is only available if you sign a three-year contract. It's also billed in advance, but you'll have to pay $106.20 on the first day.

There are ways to start with shorter contracts, but the prices rise as the length of the contract increases. Here's the whole story:

Basic $2.95/mo, Plus and Option Plus $5.45/mo, Pro $13.95/mo for 36 months

Basic $3.95/mo, Plus and Option Plus $3.95/mo for 24 months $6.95 per month, Pro $15.95 per month

Basic $4.95/mo, Plus and Option Plus $4.95/mo for 12 months $7.45/month, $18.95/month

Bluehost does not accept payments on a month-to-month basis.

But, for these rates, what do you get?

Bluehost focuses on two topics in particular:

most users would need the most basic collection of features and server capabilities,

facilitating the use and accessibility of certain features

On paper, all of the entry-level plans seem to be very similar, although there are a few minor variations.

To begin with, neither is "more strong" than the other. In terms of processing power and "website size," they can all handle the same amount of traffic. The key differences are in the size of the website and the number of websites you can manage.

You can only get one website on the Basic package. You're also limited to 50 GB of disk space.

All of the other plans allow you to run an unlimited number of websites and use an unlimited amount of disk space.

This is fantastic because it means that if you want to create two or more websites, Bluehost will only charge you $5.45 a month.

Here's what else you'll get.

The fundamental strategy is as follows:

Customer service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via phone and chat (more on the quality of that later in this Bluehost hosting review),

Custom themes are available from within the Bluehost screen.

a free domain name for the first year (! ), as well as access to a domain manager

Despite the fact that it's tucked away in the column, email hosting is available.

a $100 credit for Google Ads and Google My Business integration

Free CDN integration – a "information delivery network" connection ensures that your website's data is served from several servers across the internet rather than only one; this greatly increases site speed.

SSL certificates are available for free.

The Option package includes a one-month free Office 365 subscription. Free domain privacy (so that no one can search your personal data associated with the domain name) and free automatic backups are included in the Choice Plus package. Finally, the Pro package includes a dedicated IP address (which is useful when developing web apps/tools but not so much for regular websites).

Overall, there isn't anything that could be improved. Bluehost has given some serious thought to what the most important web hosting features are, and then bundled them all together in this package.

In particular, the free domain is a huge plus! A new domain name registration costs about $15 in most cases. Although it might not seem like much, it adds up to a significant portion of the total website launch costs. The fact that Bluehost includes it for free is fantastic.

Take note. Keep in mind the cost of renewal. When you first sign up for Bluehost, as with most hosting firms, you will be charged a different amount than when you renew after a while. Those renewal fees are more expensive. Take another look at the pricing screenshot from earlier. Can you see the price that has been crossed off below the main price? This is the renewal fee, which is what you'll pay when your original contract expires.

Bluehost hosting review: user-friendliness

Bluehost goes to great lengths to make the signup and launch of your website as simple as possible. They understand that whoever chooses the entry-level package is unlikely to have any experience with web hosting. Bluehost aims to make things as simple as possible for that person to customize it without the need for outside assistance. All of this is done via the Bluehost hosting interface.

You'll be welcomed to your new user profile page after completing the purchasing process on Bluehost's website and finalizing it.

Bluehost will ask you how you want to create your website and if you want WordPress installed on your server right away. They'll also ask if you'd like to work on your site the old-fashioned way (by selecting a theme and customizing it) or using Bluehost's new builder gui.

I chose the first choice because it is more popular among WordPress users.

Then, right in the main dashboard, you'll see a couple of recommendations on how to improve your site:

You can also log in to your WordPress account from the dashboard by clicking the Log in to WordPress icon in the top right corner.

You'll find connections to other useful parts in the left-hand sidebar:

It's time to go home. It's where you're at the moment.

Sites that I manage. Since most Bluehost hosting plans allow you to have several websites, this is where you can see them all.

This is a market. Bluehost makes it simple to add third-party software and add-ons to your platform, as well as upgrade your hosting tier if necessary. You can buy and install those integrations with just a few clicks in this section.

Themes and plugins for WordPress. This is a sub-section of Marketplace, but I think it's important to call attention to it here. Custom WordPress themes are available directly from the Bluehost dashboard. It also connects directly to your site, allowing you to buy and install themes from the Bluehost dashboard. This will save you a lot of time.

Email and the workplace. Bluehost allows you to link your site to Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 for hosted email. This is where you can turn anything on and off.

Domains are a type of internet address. This is where you can manage and buy new domains for your website.

Marketing Instruments This section focuses on making it easier for your site to connect with common marketing channels like Google Ads, Google My Company, and others.

Proficient. If you want to join cPanel, go here (if this doesn't sound like English, this isn't the section for you).

Let's take a look at what's achievable when it comes to maintaining the platform, because that's what the majority of us would want to do.

You'll see the following panel when you go to My Sites and pick your site from the list:

This is a convenient overview of your site's current status. You can manage your marketing campaigns, backups, user accounts, protection, and more from here, as well as access the themes and plugins you've installed.

What's best about this place is that all is beautifully presented, and you're spared all of the server jargon. You don't need to be an expert to figure out what's going on.

And let me remind you that we're talking about a simple, entry-level hosting package that costs just $2.95 per month. So...awesome.

Performance and load times on Bluehost

So, we already know that Bluehost is inexpensive. Is it, however, quick? Isn't there supposed to be a trade-off somewhere? Is it a question of skill?

Let's take a look:

We conducted a simple test. We used Bluehost's tools to set up a platform, publish some dummy material, add photos, choose a theme and customize it, and basically make the site look true.

Then we threw in a few more plugins for good measure, including WPForms, Yoast SEO, Jetpack, and a few others.

The following are the findings of the experiments, which were conducted in many locations:

Customer service is a strong suit for Bluehost.

Bluehost provides phone and live chat service around the clock. Aside from that, there's a knowledge base with tutorials and answers to the most frequently asked questions about Bluehost's platform.

The help chat can be accessed from Bluehost's main contact page.

Bluehost will ask you a few questions to identify you as a customer before connecting you with a support agent.

When we were writing this Bluehost hosting analysis, a support agent responded almost immediately after we started the conversation.

The relationship was positive; the agent provided helpful advice and was eager to assist. However, it seems that we've reached a snag in terms of what they're actually allowed to do.

Granted, I had asked him to do something unique.

The benefits and drawbacks of Bluehost hosting

Let's take a look at a short list of benefits and drawbacks before we give our final verdict in this Bluehost hosting analysis.

Advantages

The monthly fee ($2.95/mo) is more than reasonable.

For the first year, they provide you with a free domain.

It's really simple to set up, particularly if you want to use WordPress.

The user interface is excellent, rendering basic changes and/or maintenance tasks a breeze.

The load times are extremely impressive, coming in under one second.

The customer service is easy to react.

Negative aspects

The renewal fees are significantly higher than the initial fees. That's why you should aim for the longest contract possible right away.

Although it is possible to set up hosted email on the site, it is somewhat secret. You must go to the cPanel view and manually configure all there.

On the internet, there are a variety of opinions. Some users seem to be having problems with their configurations. Many of those reviews, though, are from a long time ago.

Conclusion of the Bluehost hosting review: Why do you choose it over another host?

At the end of the day, Bluehost appears to be a perfect option for those on a budget who want to launch a new website as soon as possible and at a reasonable price.

Bluehost has all of the standard hosting features you'd expect, and its efficiency isn't bad either.

Granted, the tests we conducted were not conducted over a long period of time, so your results may differ, but the early signs are definitely encouraging!

VISIT BLUEHOST

Consider Bluehost's $5.45/mo plan if you're looking for a host that can handle all of your new website ideas in one location. It's Bluehost's first hosting tier, and it allows for unlimited websites.