Bluehost has their bells and whistles, they do offer simple, easy to use standard services for non-techies. People all over world are joining this program, of which Bluehost paid out over $5 million in commissions in 2015 according to the company’s affiliate page. With a generous program like that, who wouldn’t want to boast glowing reviews?
Like every company, Bluehost has their pros and cons. As being one of the largest hosting providers in the world, it proves many have faith in them. According to Consumer Rankings Bluehost review March 2017, Bluehost is ranked at 9.7 out of 10 by users.
Some highlights were that Bluehost is easy to use, easy to signup, and their cPanel makes it easy to install WordPress and is very well organized. The reviews make it seem like Bluehost is, well, easy.
With so many affiliates out there recommending Bluehost, it’s hard to find out the truth – meaning any negativity the company has. So below are more of the good, the bad, and the ugly of Bluehost.
Pros of using Bluehost
Bluehost has a couple of really good things going for them.
Really cheap hosting: Bluehost has some of the most inexpensive initial hosting plans around. Plans start at $2.95/month at the time of this writing. They’re a really cheap web host.
Endorsed by WordPress: One of the largest hosting platforms, WordPress, recommends Bluehost. It is, of course, a paid endorsement (at least indirectly as Bluehost sponsors lots of the WP conferences), but nonetheless it’s an endorsement.
Generous money back guarantee: Contrary to negative reviews, Bluehost is sticking behind their product and service by offering a 30-day full refund policy. Even after 30 days, you receive a prorated refund of your plan. Since this is a monthly plan, there are no term commitments. You also won’t find pesky penalties or hidden fees.
Good uptime: I’m monitoring the uptime of 5 random websites that are hosted with Bluehost. 4 out of 5 websites have had zero outage, i.e. a 100% uptime, over the last month. 1 out of 5 has had a 99.6% uptime (this would equate to an approx 4h outage during the month).
Cons of using Bluehost
Bluehost got loads of positives, but they do have their drawbacks as well.
No automatic backups: While Bluehost does offer backups, the backups are a courtesy so you can’t depend on your data to be backed up daily – so no guarantees here. You must set up and run your own backup via the cPanel and to your own local device. Another bad feature here is that any data Bluehost backs up within the past 30 days is overwritten. Bluehost’s Terms clearly state that they will hold no responsibility for this. Site Backup Pro is a paid add-on offered by Bluehost. It creates regular and automated backups of your site.
‘Unlimited’ really means ‘limited’: Bluehost’s Plus, Prime, and Business Pro plans boast of their unlimited number of websites, and “unmetered” storage, email accounts, email storage, and subdomains given to clients. However, their User Agreement, Clause 7 Usage Policies and Definitions, explain otherwise. It’s only unlimited up to a certain level. Their unlimited plan is comparable to most providers (i.e. Bluehost isn’t the only web host that promises “unlimited” web hosting).
Conclusion
Bluehost is a great web hosting option for personal and small business websites and blogs (i.e. for creating your own first website). Because Bluehost is cheap (very cheap), reliable, secure and comes with a free domain name. Plus Bluehost is endorsed by WordPress and Bluehost is very easy to get started with, which is great for beginners. Also their generous 30-day money back guarantee lets you “try before you buy” and extras such as a free domain name are are solid features worth considering.
