Bluehost Review 2020: Is It that Good?

What is Bluehost?

Bluehost is one of the top web hosting solutions today. The company was founded in 2003 and has since grown to host over 2 million websites and staff of 750-plus employees.

The company is owned by Endurance International Group and has its headquarters in Orem, Utah. Since its launch, Bluehost has slowly built a solid reputation and carved a nice niche for itself in WordPress hosting.

In addition to WordPress hosting, Bluehost also provides the popular Shared Hosting as well as Cloud, VPS, and Dedicated Hosting. Their plans include 24/7 customer support, free SSL certificate, 1-click WordPress install, and a free domain name for the first year,

Pros

• 99.99% uptime guarantee

• Fast load times

• Optimized for WordPress

• Free domain name (first year)

• Free SSL certificate

• 30-day money-back guarantee

• 24/7 customer support

Cons

• No free migration

• Higher renewal fees

Bluehost Features & Benefits

Excellent Uptime – 99.99%

Uptime is the most critical aspect of a web host. An unreliable hosting service with unstable servers can push your website offline. This, in turn, can cause you to lose potential viewership and drive down your search engine rankings. The losses can even be more felt if you run an eCommerce store.

To avoid these, you want to make sure your web host offers at least 95% guaranteed uptime before migrating. So, how does Bluehost perform?

Bluehost excels in this particular category. The hosting service has a 99.99% guaranteed uptime, which is impressive by all standards.

Still, the provider does admit that, like all other shared hosting services, they may experience downtime from time to time. While rare, Bluehost’s downtimes are swiftly handled whenever they happen.

Bluehost offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee and promises 1-month free credit should the service fall short. This inspires confidence, especially given that not all web hosting companies provide uptime guarantees.

I thoroughly tested Bluehost over six months (June-December 2019), and during that time, my site experienced only a single downtime.

Bluehost Uptime in 2019

• July – 100%

• August – 99.96%

• September – 100%

• October – 100%

• November – 100%

• December – 100%

Fast Load Times

Alongside reliable uptime, fast page load times can help you maintain a rewarding online presence. With thousands of websites available, all a click away, viewers and buyers are more impatient than ever.

If your website takes a long time to load, you could be losing a lot of visitors and revenue. Your SEO rankings could also be taking a tumble. As with uptime, Google takes into account page load times when calculating search engine rankings.

Bluehost again outdoes itself here. The hosting service delivers blazing fast load times. Even under load, our test site performed quite well.

Average load time in 2019.

• July – 977ms

• August – 935ms

• September – 963ms

• October – 981ms

• November – 1068ms

• December – 892ms

Built-in Security

When it comes to security, Bluehost leaves no stone unturned. The provider bundles free SSL certificates, which encrypt everything passing to and from your website, including passwords and credit card information.

Bluehost users also get advanced spam protection through:

• SpamExperts – protects against spam, virus, and other harmful content

• SpamAssassin – a filtering program that eliminates up to 99.98% of all unsolicited bulk email

Both tools are enabled via the control panel, and while SpamExpert will set you back a few bucks, SpamAssassin is available free of charge. Bluehost also offers an additional email spam guard –Spam Hammer– that allows you to block emails from unrecognized servers.

The provider also offers Secure Shell (SSH) access, and CloudFlare, which in addition to optimizing your site’s content delivery, protects against DDoS attacks.

Additionally, Bluehost offers free SiteLock Lite integration. Site Lock is a malware scanner that automatically checks your site every 24 hours and alerts you if anything is detected. But that’s just about all it does.

To eliminate any detected malware or enjoy features like Web Application Firewall, XSS scripting, and SQL scanning, you’ll need to upgrade to SiteLock Find, Fix, or Prevent.

Domain Privacy

Besides excellent security features, Bluehost also comes with privacy tools designed to protect your personal information.

When registering a domain, ICANN requires that your personal information, including your name, physical address, and email address, be publicly listed on the WHOIS database. This exposes you to all sorts of malicious individuals including scammers, hackers, and even identity thieves.

Through their Domain Privacy tool, Bluehost protects against all these threats. It allows you to mask your personal information with that of Bluehost.

Great E-commerce Features

If you are looking to sell online, then Bluehost presents a viable hosting option. In addition to robust security, reliable uptime, and fast load times, this web host provides excellent e-commerce solutions that can help you set up and grow your business.

Bluehost offers multiple shopping carts to choose from, including OS Commerce, Zen Cart, Cube Cart, and Agora shopping carts.

The provider also gives $200 in free marketing credits, which you can use to promote your business and drive sales.

Free Backups

Bluehost offers free automatic backups which can be created on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. You can also run periodic backups manually from your cPanel.

I was particularly impressed by their Site Back Pro tool, which allows you to create backups of your website files, MySQL database, individual files, email accounts, email filters, and full cPanel.

Similarly to SiteLock, Site Back features both a premium and a free version available on all hosting plans.

Easy to Use Service

Bluehost boasts a fast and smooth onboarding experience. As mentioned, their control panel is built on the popular cPanel and has been customized to improve ease of use. You can access everything from the control panel, including your email, web builder, domains, files, and billing service.

Great Customer Support

Although it’s often overlooked, reliable customer support is essential. Bluehost provides 24/7 support via phone, email, and live chat. Their support agents are friendly and professional, and they resolved all my queries in a timely manner.

The provider also offers a searchable Knowledge Base that is full of articles, guides, how-tos, instructions, and FAQs. Besides the Knowledge Base section, they also have a catalog of video tutorials which you can find on their YouTube channel.

Bluehost Hosting Packages

Bluehost offers a wide range of hosting packages making it easier to find a plan that fits your specific needs. These include:

• Shared Hosting: Provides entry-level hosting. Your site is hosted along with other sites on a single server. While popular, Shared Hosting has limited control and scalability. Suitable for beginners.

• VPS Hosting: offers more control than Shared Hosting. VPS or Virtual Private Servers Hosting allows you to customize server settings to suit your website. Ideal if you are looking for more power and flexibility.

• Cloud Hosting: Provides better reliability and security than Shared Hosting. Cloud Hosting uses multiple servers simultaneously, which optimizes your site’s performance. If there’s an issue with one server, your site is simply moved to another. Good for speed and reliability.

• Dedicated Hosting: Provides the highest level of resource allocation, privacy, and control. With Dedicated Hosting, you are allocated your own server and allowed to customize it as you please. Good for large businesses and websites with high traffic.

• Managed WordPress Hosting: ting offers powerful website management tools and automatic WordPress installation and updates.

Pricing Plans & Payment Methods

Bluehost uses the standard pricing tricks employed by most providers. They offer heavily discounted prices for signups with prices going up on renewal. Still, their prices remain some of the most competitive.

Shared Hosting

Bluehost’s Shared Web Hosting is one of the most affordable you can find in the market. However, while cheap, it does come with some pretty exciting features, including SSL certificates and unmetered bandwidth.

Bluehost’s Shared Hosting comes with four pricing plans to choose from.

Basic plan

This is the starter package for Bluehost Shared Hosting. It features 50 GB of storage, 1 free domain, and can only support one website.

Starts at $2.95 per month

• $4.95 per month for a yearly subscription

• $3.95 a month for a 2-year subscription

• $2.95 a month for a 3-year subscription

Renewal pricing

• $8.99 per month for a yearly subscription

• $8.49 a month for a 2-year subscription

• $7.99 a month for a 3-year subscription

Plus plan

The Plus plan is a major upgrade to the basic plan. It supports unlimited websites, domains, and storage. Some of the other key features include Spam Experts for one domain, one office 365 Mailbox, and $200 marketing credit.

Starts at $5.45 per month

• $7.45 per month for a yearly subscription

• $6.95 a month for a 2-year subscription

• $5.45 a month for a 3-year subscription

Renewal pricing

• $12.99 per month for a yearly subscription

• $11.99 a month for a 2-year subscription

• $10.99 a month for a 3-year subscription

Choice Plus plan

On top of the features offered in the Plus plan, this plan adds Domain Privacy and Site Back Up.

Starts at $5.45 per month

• $7.45 per month for a yearly subscription

• $6.95 a month for a 2-year subscription

• $5.45 a month for a 3-year subscription

Renewal Pricing

• $16.99 per month for a yearly subscription

• $15.99 a month for a 2-year subscription

• $14.99 a month for a 3-year subscription

Pro Plan

The Pro plan is the Bluehost ultimate Shared Hosting plan. It is optimized for high performance, features Spam Experts for two domains, and is unique in that it offers a dedicated IP.

Starts at $13.95 per month

• $18.95 per month for a yearly subscription

• $15.96 a month for a 2-year subscription

• $13.95 a month for a 3-year subscription

Renewal Pricing

• $25.99 per month for a yearly subscription

• $24.99 a month for a 2-year subscription

• $23.99 a month for a 3-year subscription

Cloud Hosting Plans

For their Cloud Hosting solution, Bluehost offers three pricing packages to choose from.

Starter Plan

This is Bluehost’s basic Cloud Hosting package. It supports one website and features 100 GB of web space, unlimited bandwidth, 100 email accounts, and one free domain. In regards to performance, the Starter Plan includes 2 CPU cores and 2 GB of RAM.

Starts at $9.99 per month

• $10.99 per month for a yearly subscription

• $10.49 a month for a 2-year subscription

• $9.99 a month for a 3-year subscription

Performance Plan

Improves on Bluehost’s Starter Plan’s performance with 4 CPU cores and 4 GB of RAM. This plan also offers unlimited storage and supports unlimited websites and email accounts.

Starts at $13.99 per month

• $15.99 per month for a yearly subscription

• $14.99 a month for a 2-year subscription

• $13.99 a month for a 3-year subscription

Business Plan

In many ways, the Business Plan is similar to the Performance Plan. It supports unlimited websites, storage, emails, and unlimited email storage per account. On top of it, you get 6 CPU cores, 6 GB memory, and one free domain for life of hosting.

• $29.99 per month for a yearly subscription

• $27.99 a month for a 2-year subscription

• $25.99 a month for a 3-year subscription

Shared WordPress Hosting Plans

Bluehost’s Shared WordPress Hosting packages are tailored to help optimize the performance of your WordPress site. The provider offers three WordPress Hosting packages – Basic, Plus, and Choice Plus.

The basic plan is a bit limited and features 50 GB web space and support for only one website. If you are going to opt for Bluehost’s WordPress Hosting, I suggest looking at the Plus or the Choice Plus.

Both Plus and the Choice Plus are largely similar, and you can even tell by looking at their starting prices. They both offer unlimited websites, unmetered storage, and unlimited subdomains.

The only major advantage you get with the Choice Plus plan is CodeGuard site backup, but if security is important to you, then it’s worth the upgrade.

Basic Package

Starts at $2.95 per month

• $4.95 per month for a yearly subscription

• $3.95 a month for a 2-year subscription

• $2.95 a month for a 3-year subscription

Plus Package

Starts at $5.45 per month

• $7.45 per month for a yearly subscription

• $6.95 a month for a 2-year subscription

• $5.45 a month for a 3-year subscription

Choice Plus Package

Starts at $5.45 per month

• $7.45 per month for a yearly subscription

• $6.95 a month for a 2-year subscription

• $5.45 a month for a 3-year subscription

Bluehost VPS Hosting Plans

Bluehost has three VPS Hosting plans – Standard, Enhanced, and Ultimate.

Standard Package

The standard plan allocates you 2 CPU cores, 30 GB of web space, 2 GB of memory, and one dedicated IP address.

Starts at $18.99 per month

• $29.99 a month for a yearly subscription

• $21.99 a month for a 2-year subscription

• $18.99 a month for a 3-year subscription

Enhanced Package

Similarly to the Standard Plan, the Enhanced Plan offers 2 CPU cores. But that’s where the similarities end. Additionally, this plan gives you 4 GB of memory, 60 GB storage, and two dedicated IPs.

Starts at $29.99 per month

• $59.99 a month for a yearly subscription

• $29.99 a month for a 2-year subscription

• $29.99 a month for a 3-year subscription

Ultimate Package

If you are looking for top performance, then this is the right VPN Hosting option for you. In this plan. Bluehost includes 4 CPU cores, 120 GB web space, 8 GB RAM, and 2 dedicated IP addresses.

Starts at $59.99 per month

• $119.99 a month for a yearly subscription

• $83.99 a month for a 2-year subscription

• $71.99 a month for a 2-year subscription

• $59.99 a month for a 3-year subscription

My Verdict

Bluehost is without a doubt one of the best web hosting services today. It offers fast load times, excellent security, and is easy to manage. Even more important, the service is consistent and reliable.

Do I recommend Bluehost?

You bet I do. The hosting service is really as good as it seems. Overall, Bluehost continues to deliver great performance and presents an excellent choice in 2020.

Check it out and let me know what you think in the comment section below.