BlueHost Web Hosting Review (Updated January 2021)

BlueHost review, which includes web hosting features, speed, uptime, customer service and price, is based on our editors’ true and rock-solid hosting experience with this company for 2 years, and the 671 reviews from verified customers.

BlueHost, founded in 1996 by Matt Heaton, is designed for personal and small businesses. Now, this company has become the leading shared web hosting provider breaking several records in the industry. For instance, it

• was estimated for 186 million USD in the capital market in 2010.
• has 3 peerless data centers in Utah, US that have been invested over 10 million USD since 2011.
• is the only hosting company that has customized and optimized Linux Kernel for the most reliable and secure shared hosting service.

BlueHost Overall

BlueHost is the one of best web hosts recommended by nearly all the hosting rating sites and the existing customers.

BlueHost Review on Reputation

BlueHost has a terrific reputation in the shared web hosting community in terms of speed, reliability, and customer service. Today, this company has over 500 employees and 5,000 servers serving for over 2 million domains and websites with 20,000 new customers added for each month. If the hosting service is not outstanding and excellent, it won’t have so many clients.

Besides our editors’ subjective opinion for the review of this company, we also reference the BlueHost review at other sites, such as the industry leading site – BestHostingSearch.NET. So far, there has been 692 reviews submitted at this site. Based on the statistics, the 99.3% of customers were satisfied with the overall hosting experience, the 99.3% were satisfied with the hosting performance & reliability, the 98.1% were satisfied with the control panel & software, and the 97.2% were satisfied with the technical support. Read the statistics chart as below.

In addition to the extremely high customer satisfaction rate, BlueHost has been accredited as the best WordPress hosting at WordPress.org, and as best Drupal hosting at Drupal.org.

BlueHost Price

BlueHost has three hosting solutions including Starter, Plus and Business Pro, pricing from $5.99/mo regularly. But now, BlueHost is making a compelling discount, with which customers can purchase the service at $3.49/mo, $3.95/mo and $13.95/mo respectively for the three plans by going via this exclusive promotional link. The effective pricing table is following. Note that, the selected plan is Starter.

Money Back

As the money back guarantee has been highlighted in today’s web hosting industry, BlueHost claims to provide ANYTIME money back guarantee, which allows customers to get their money back at any time when they dissatisfy with the hosting service and cancel the subscription. Note that the refund period contains three parts, each of which can refund customers differently.

Cancelled before 3 days

If customers cancel the account within 3 days of registration, they can get a full refund. As BlueHost offers a free domain name, customers can choose to retain the ownership.

Cancelled after 3 days but before 30 days

BlueHost offers 30 days full refund guarantee, which means customers can get all of the money back which is paid for BlueHost hosting solutions. Note that within this period, customers have to retain the control of the domain names.

Cancelled after 30 days

Customers can cancel the hosting services at any time. If the cancellation has been made after the 30 days full refund period, the customers can receive a prorated refund.

Way of cancellation

It is simple to terminate BlueHost hosting services. Customers only need to send their cancellation request to [email protected], or contact support staffs via hotline (888) 401-4678 and live chat. It is worth mentioning that all the cancellation requests must include verification of ownership of the hosting account to avoid negative attack.

Features

BlueHost is the best rich-featured shared web host, supporting nearly all the latest cutting-edge technologies. In the following, we have listed some typical features for reference.

Performance

Swift page loading speed and at least 99.99% uptime are the core ingredients of excellent hosting performance. To make this possible, BlueHost locates all the servers at the world-class data centers as the data center infrastructure plays a prominent role in ensuring fluent and constant server connections.

It is worth noting that BlueHost does not rent data centers from some IDC companies. Instead, it has invested millions of USD on having their own data centers for better security and stability of the hosting service. These data centers are located in Utah-the Midwest state of the USA, which means there is no need to worry about natural disasters caused by the hurricane zone of the Pacific Coast.

In fact, we did the performance testing for 3 sites with the same WordPress program and the content, which are hosted with BlueHost, HostGator, and Godaddy. As a result, BlueHost is 130% faster than HostGator, and 230% faster than GoDaddy. Read the performance comparison chart as following.

Reliability

“BlueHost was never down.” – it’s reviewed by one of their customers. This is definitely impossible in the real world, but it comes true after BlueHost customized Linux kernel. Also, BlueHost developed some really neat tools to segregate CPU, disk I/O and memory that not only help segregate the server usage to shared users, but also significantly increase the server reliability and security. Read Shared Hosting CPU Protection written by Matt Heaton on July 26, 2009.

Meanwhile, BlueHost data center utilizes BGP4 auto-routing technology that can switch automatically away from any network providers which are experiencing problems. Moreover, its data centers utilize multiple redundant systems, so the websites hosted on its quality servers are not easily knocked offline if there is a power outage. Also, while all the data center infrastructures are tested every two weeks and monitored 24/7, any network problem can be resolved or even prevented effectively. With 100% Dell Servers, BlueHost is reliable by their scalable network, servers and high technology.

We set up a site uptime monitor for a testing site hosted with BlueHost. The site monitor scanned the availability of the site in every 5 minutes. We found that BlueHost committed 100% uptime continuously in the real world as the hosting uptime chart above.

Customer Service

BlueHost offers 24/7 US-based customer service through toll-free phone and live chat. With hold times that average under half a minute along with the 100% on-site employees, it can be assured that there is an expert helping with any problem well. In terms of the support ticket system, customers only need to fill a form from support ticket system, and send it via e-mail. Then they can receive the reliable answer within 15 minutes.

Besides, there are hundreds of useful articles and video tutorials available in the help center page at BlueHost. Therefore, customers can learn the detailed knowledge of BlueHost Professional Web Hosting easily.

If you want to learn from other BlueHost customers or exchange your website operation experience with others, the BlueHost forum is the best place. Posting your concerns on the forum to let BlueHost technicians and other customers know, and you will get multiple solutions as well as the BlueHost professional suggestions.

Review BlueHost for Hosting Different Sites

After reviewing the quality of BlueHost web hosting, now, we analyze whether BlueHost is a good option for Concret5, Joomla, Drupal, e-commerce site and resume site.

Is BlueHost Good for Concrete5?

Concrete5 is designed to enable users to edit site content directly from the page. With a purpose to easily install the application, BlueHost provides a significant feature – SimpleScripts 1-click installer, with which people are able to install this application with just a few clicks in no more than 1 minute. More highlighted features that satisfy Concrete5 hosting requirements are listed as below:

• MySQL5.x, Apache, Perl5, Ruby on Rails & PostgreSQL.
• Unlimited disk space, bandwidth, hosted domains & MySQL databases.
• PHP5.2.x, PHP modules, PHP settings for file uploads with plenty of memory.

Is BlueHost Good for Joomla?

BlueHost shared hosting is 100% compatible with Joomla. It supports PHP 5.2.17/5.3.10 and MySQL 5 based on Apache 2 web server. BlueHost installs mode_rewrite Apache module for SEO-friendly page URLs, allows 64MB memory_limit for Joomla sites, and runs Joomla as suPHP for the significantly improved security.

Many people think the Joomla installation may not be an easy job due to its package deployment, MySQL database configuration, PHP.INI configuration, and Joomla configuration. However, BlueHost SimpleScripts allows you to 1-CLICK install Joomla in a few minutes only.

Is BlueHost Good for Drupal?

With SimpleScripts, BlueHost enables all webmasters to install Drupal within a few seconds. This company has the ability to satisfy 100% Drupal compatibility by meeting the minimal requirements of Drupal. Once installing Drupal, you are able to get more than 1000 premium Drupal themes in real time.

Is BlueHost Good for Building E-Commerce Site?

To host an e-commerce site successfully, the web hosting should fully meet the following requirements:

• Cheap price to help business owners save budget
• The maximum volume of disk space and bandwidth for smooth data storing and transferring
• User-friendly e-commerce software and 1-click application installer
• Powerful cPanel control panel for easy management of website, database, and account
• Good uptime record and fast hosting speed for an excellent website viewing experience
• 24/7 responsive technical support to ensure the most effective troubleshooting process

Based on what we’ve reviewed about the price, features, performance and technical support of BlueHost, readers can find that BlueHost is the one that can meet all requirements above.

Is BlueHost Good for Building Resume Site?

Coming with rich features and high performance, BlueHost is also a solid choice for building a resume website. For some readers wondering how to create a resume website with this company, we list the following guide to reveal the secret.

• Go to http://www.bluehost.com/ and click the Sign Up Now button. Finish the sighing up process by selecting the domain name, billing cycle, payment method, and account information.
• Login to the cPanel control panel, and scroll down to the Site Builder section. Locate the SimpleScripts icon, and click WordPress icon under the Blogs category in the next webpage. Then, move on to WordPress installation page, and click the green Install button.
• This part includes 3 things: choose a directory to install WordPress, name this resume website, and choose plugins and themes. Users can finish this step according to the real situation, but remember that WordPress should be installed on the root directory.
• After finishing all installation preferences, users only need to wait a few seconds for the completion of the WordPress installation by clicking the Install button. Then, remember to keep the site URL, login URL, username, and password e-mailed from BlueHost.
• As this is a resume site, so the next step is to select and install a professional resume WordPress theme. We have introduced a collection of the best resume themes in this article, so users can choose one according to their ultimate needs. After downloading the theme, login to the WordPress admin panel and install this theme in the Theme section under the Appearance tab.
• Now, it’s time to run this site with personal information, attractive profile, as well as the presentation of personality, expertise, education, and working experiences.

Conclusion - BlueHost Is Highly Recommended

BlueHost is highly recommended for people who are looking for a reputed shared web hosting service at a reasonable price. If you plan to start over a new site or move away from a terrible web host, you won’t go wrong with BlueHost.