Turn your expertise into revenue with online courses
March 24, 2022Have Your Website , Host Pus Domain (First year ) By Under $3
Bluehost is part of a massive corporation, Endurance International Group (EiG), which owns various web hosting providers (e.g. HostGator or iPage) and has a colossal market share.
They obviously have the financial muscle to pour millions into marketing. That probably accounts for the huge amount of (overly) positive Bluehost web hosting reviews online.
I read several of those reviews and most talk about their fabulous customer support (really?), good prices and scalability options. But in those reviews, there’s very little about their actual flaws.
Hey, even WordPress recommends Bluehost.
But does this mean that Bluehost is a reliable service and a good match for your project?
Table of Contents
What Products Does Bluehost Offer?
This US-based web hosting provider offers loads of different hosting-related products, from domain names to dedicated servers. Let me quickly go over their large catalogue.
- Domain names: Although they are not the cheapest domain name registrar, you can buy domain names directly from Bluehost. They start at $18.99 a year at renewal, add $15 a year if you need domain privacy enabled. A personal all-time favorite of mine for domain names is Namecheap as it’s cheaper and easier to manage.
- Shared hosting: Unless you are managing a really large project or you need to geek around with your server’s configuration, a shared hosting plan is the one you ought to consider. Think of this as sharing a flat; you’ll share a server (flat), but you’ll have your own hosting space (room) – cheaper but noisier. At Bluehost their shared prices go from $9.99 to $28.99 per month.
- WordPress managed hosting: Bluehost has a WordPress focused hosting service. It’s optimized for WordPress sites and comes with several perks like a staging area. It’s a bit pricey as it starts at $24.95 a month, more expensive than SiteGround‘s ($14.99), and other cheap WordPress hosting services.
- VPS: A Virtual Private Server is something in between a shared hosting and a dedicated one (read below). You’ll share a server with other clients, but there’s a (virtual) wall between your projects and theirs. This type of hosting is recommended for those needing special server configurations (e.g. using a particular programming language). VPS hosting plans go from $29.99 to $119.99 a month at Bluehost.
- Dedicated servers: Adequate for those websites that generate tons of traffic and/or need a top-performing server. You can think of this as having your own house; no neighbors or roommates to bother you. Dedicated hosting plans start at $124.99 per month up to $209.99
These are the most important hosting related products that Bluehost offers. It was surprised to see that they don’t have cloud hosting services.
Bluehost Performance Tests
As a website owner, we don’t have to tell you how important speed is for providing the best user experience and improving your search engine rankings.
we compared Bluehost speed to the most popular (shared hosting) competitors. I used GTmetrix, Pingdom and Webpagetest to check their loading times.
| Provider | GTmetrix | Pingdom | Webpage test | PageSpeed Insights | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SiteGround | 0.71 | 0.71 | 1.78 | 2.94 | 1.54 |
| GreenGeeks | 0.81 | 1.49 | 1.79 | 2.2 | 1.56 |
| Namecheap | 0.99 | 1.40 | 1.92 | 2.08 | 1.6 |
| Hostinger | 0.97 | 2.07 | 1.77 | 1.62 | 1.61 |
| WP Engine | 1 | 1.99 | 1.46 | 2.2 | 1.65 |
| Cloudways | 0.80 | 1.39 | 1.89 | 2.84 | 1.73 |
| Kinsta | 0.78 | 2.18 | 2.17 | 1.98 | 1.77 |
| DreamHost | 1.16 | 1.72 | 2.56 | 1.92 | 1.84 |
| GoDaddy | 1.14 | 2.27 | 2.23 | 2.1 | 1.94 |
| IONOS | 1.21 | 2.08 | 1.74 | 2.78 | 1.95 |
| A2 Hosting | 0.96 | 1.40 | 3.78 | 1.9 | 2.01 |
| InMotion | 2.02 | 2.86 | 2.61 | 3.52 | 2.75 |
| iPage | 1.76 | 2.82 | 2.73 | 3.74 | 2.76 |
| HostGator | 2.4 | 5.21 | 1.87 | 1.65 | 2.78 |
| Bluehost | 1.74 | 4.5 | 2.42 | 2.82 | 2.87 |
These tests were carried out under the same circumstances (e.g. same page and content), spread out over almost 2 months.
Is Bluehost’s Uptime Good?
Believe it or not, your web hosting service (most likely) won’t have a 100% uptime. Due to technical reasons (e.g. server maintenance), your site will be down for (hopefully) short instances of time.
A bad uptime is terrible as your visitors and search engines won’t be able to reach your site. Your goal should be to have an uptime higher than 99.95%.
| Provider | 2019 Uptime | 2020 Uptime | 2021 Uptime | Starts at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kinsta | No data | 100% | 100% | $25/month |
| Cloudways | No data | 100% | 100% | $10/month |
| SiteGround | 99.98% | 99.97% | 100% | $14.99/month |
| Namecheap | No data | No data | 100% | $2.40/month |
| WP Engine | No data | 99.99% | 99.99% | $25/month |
| Bluehost | 99.98% | 99.96% | 99.99% | $9.99/month |
| HostGator | 99.94% | 99.91% | 99.99% | $8.95/month |
| A2 Hosting | 99.93% | 99.99% | 99.98% | $8.99/month |
| GreenGeeks | No data | 99.98% | 99.98% | $10.95/month |
| DreamHost | 100% | 99.99% | 99.96% | $6.99/month |
| GoDaddy | 99.97% | 99.9% | 99.96% | $8.99/month |
| InMotion | 99.97% | 99.73% | 99.95% | $17.99/month |
| IONOS – Uptime test 2 months | No data | No data | 99.93% | $4/month |
| Hostinger | 99.62% | 99.48% | 99.92% | $5.99/month |
| iPage | 99.66% | 98.45% | 99.85% | $8.99/month |
As you can see, Bluehost offer solid uptime results. I am quite happy with Bluehost’s performance here. However, be aware that they don’t offer any uptime warranty, other hosting providers will compensate you (e.g. a free month) if their global uptime drops below certain levels (usually 99.9%).
Bluehost Alternatives
Alright, if you go with Bluehost, your site is probably going to be OK, at least if your visitors are mainly located in North America.
But, if you still want to use Bluehost, remember that you can try Bluehost for free for 30 days