Bluehost is known for low-cost shared hosting plans, plus VPS, dedicated, and reseller options. The company also provides domain registrations. The foundations for Bluehost were laid in 1996, and the brand was launched in 2003 in Provo, UT. CEO Matt Heaton was the original owner, and was in post for eight years. He oversaw much of the company’s growth, both in terms of the business and the technical infrastructure. He handed over the top job to Dan Handy, the former COO, in 2011. The current CEO is Mike Olson.
Key Features
- Free ‘.com’ domain
- 24/7 technical support
- WordPress integration
- Unlimited traffic
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Some reviews from Customer:
I wanted to setup my company website, after comparing and reading reviews of many webhost, i finally found BlueHost, believe me i had the best experience with bluehost, their cpanel have all the features and helped me a lot to setup my website in just a single day, i found the webhosting price in my budget, i would really recommend bluehost for any webhosting needs.
Mohan Polydath
Hey, I’ve been using Bluehost for some time now, and I’m not exactly the most tech-savvy person you’ll meet. My business is doing the heavy lifting for gravel and dirt up north, and I don’t really have any experience with making a website or anything like that. Bluehost made it really easy to set everything up. I got my website up very quickly (with the help of a web design company to actually make the site) and Bluehost made it very easy to install WordPress on the site.
I rated the support for Bluehost at 5 stars because I have not actually tried using their support at all. I had the web design company handle mostly everything for me, but they didn’t have any issues, so neither do I.
My website is always up every time I check or hand it out to potential customers. Uptime is fantastic, couldn’t have asked for any more.
I’m not sure if the value is great. I pay quite a bit for the site, and I check other providers like GoDaddy or Hostgator which seem to have much better prices. Maybe I just didn’t see the fine print, but it would be nice to move my site over to them if the price was lower than it is now.Tyler Hall
I have been using Bluehost for almost a year or so, it was so tough for me, to get started my blogging career with hosting issues. I was using a local hosting company before, with no support and which was in the dark. I don’t know, what other reliable option available out there, but I was left alone, although the company was closed because of their problems.
Bluehost packages are so accurate that they’re made by, keeping the exact requirements of a site owner, in mind. They are very optimized regarding pricing, features, and security. They know and they’ve best and exact solution at the correct time.
I would recommend others for this particular hosting. I love them, until they continue their hard work and I ‘ll use them.Asad Khan
I spent 139 (!) minutes on the phone yesterday trying to get them to map a domain to a sub-directory in our public_html directory. Something trivial that you can do yourself with other hosts like dreamhost, mediatemple, pair, and so on. In the first few minutes, they messed up the existing path and then spent more than 2 hours telling me this is not possible and ended up leaving me having to migrate my site to the root on the server (where a dated site was located i had been trying to preserve). I have worked with dozens (100’s?) of hosts since i started web dev in 1996. This was THE worst i have experienced. Luckily i only have 3 clients with these ppl. Unreal.
jan deruiter
Very disappointed in the level of support I received to resolve an SSL certificate renewal. The wildcard ssl in question was set to auto-renew but is was not being applied. Customers to my website were receiving an insecure error. Bluehost support’s solution was to just wait it will apply eventually. Sounded like they didn’t really know what was happening. So I waited 5 hours. Still no new ssl cert. I called again. This time they said it was Comodo’s fault and told me to call Comodo even though the SSL cert was automatically purchased on Bluehost site. When I called Comodo they said they needed the Comodo order number. Well, I don’t have the comodo order number because I purchase the SSL cert on Bluehost’s site. Been on hold now for 25 minutes with Bluehost to try and get the Comodo order number because it was not on my Bluehost invoice for the SSL cert. Uggggg……..
Neil Haffey
Hosting Plans
Bluehost only provides Linux hosting, and it focuses on shared hosting with generous resource allowances. This places Bluehost firmly in the individual, non-profit, and small business market, and makes it a good, solid choice for PHP applications like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.
On all shared plans, cPanel is provided. This gives each user all the usual shell, SSL, PostgreSQL, Ruby on Rails, MySQL, and scripting capabilities of a standard cPanel host. SimpleScripts permits easy one-click installs for useful scripts and programs.
If you pay a little more, you can access Bluehost’s cloud hosting, which offers unmetered bandwidth and faster performance. The one major difference, as far as users are concerned, is that cPanel is missing on these plans. It’s replaced with a proprietary control panel.
There are tailored plans for WordPress and WooCommerce (a WordPress ecommerce plugin), and Bluehost also offers VPS and dedicated hosting. Bluehost has a reseller package called ResellerClub, but it doesn’t offer specifications for this plan on its website.
Infrastructure
Bluehost appears to use one datacenter in Provo. It doesn’t provide any specific information about the datacenter on its website.
The company doesn’t make any headline claims about server uptime on their site: the most we could find was an offer of a toll-free refund policy should you leave as a result of a server outage. Bluehost does claim to monitor its servers round the clock, though, and its longevity in the hosting market does inspire confidence, despite the lack of any numbers.
Support
Bluehost provides 24/7 support via phone, email, and live chat, all linked through a central helpdesk portal. Helpdesk staff are located in the Provooffice. Telephone support is toll-free within the US.
Useful support information is linked from the portal via a knowledgebase, and portal also provides at-a-glance access to the server status page.
Control Panel
Bluehost’s shared hosting packages all come with cPanel. This is included in the basic hosting price. It features various webmail options if you prefer to access your email this way, plus all the usual cPanel controls for setting up name servers, checking your IP address, and managing addon domains.
Cloud hosting has its own proprietary panel, as is common with most cloud hosting packages at this price point. VPS and dedicated customers get cPanel, and WHM is added where appropriate. It isn’t clear which control panel is provided with ResellerClub plans.
Extras
Bluehost offers instant setup scripts and one-click installs for common software like WordPress. One-click applications are packaged under SimpleScripts, which you can access from cPanel. There’s also a drag and drop sitebuilder.
Users who sign up to a shared package also receive one free domain name for one year.
Money-Back Guarantee and Cancellation Policy
Bluehost’s money-back guarantee lasts for 30 days after account registration. Fees for SSL certificates, backup services, SEO services, SiteLock, and domain services are non-refundable once purchased.
The cancellation policy is straightforward. Within three days from registration, you’ll receive a full refund (not including the exceptions mentioned above). If you cancel between 3 and 30 days after registration, you’ll get a refund, minus any exceptions, minus any fees associated with subscriptions to extra services such as anti-spam. In addition, the free domain name offered on signup becomes chargeable.
Cancellation requests can be sent to Bluehost via email, phone, or live chat — in other words, any of the regular support channels offered on the site.
If you cancel after 30 days, you’ll get a prorated refund.
Summary
Bluehost’s hosting is a simple, competitive option in the shared hosting market, and its more advanced plans are well-featured and well-priced. If you like to keep things simple, you’ll enjoy the fact that Bluehost offers clear, non-technical explanations of package features, and its one-click installers offer enough to keep beginner and intermediate website owners busy. However, if you’re expecting spikes in server load, or you need an uptime guarantee, you may be better off spending a little more money with a different host.
