Best website builder for small businesses
Best website builder for small businesses
Best website builder for beginners
Best website builder for beginners
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| Promotion | 30-day free trial (requires payment details) |
Bluehost Pros and Cons
Bluehost is popular for its plethora of hosting options and features that are perfect for most types of websites, but there are some drawbacks with billing, tech support, and more. Take a look at the following advantages and disadvantages of choosing Bluehost as your website’s hosting solution.
What we like about Bluehost
- Lots of hosting options: Bluehost offers all sorts of hosting options including shared hosting, VPS hosting, cloud hosting, and dedicated servers. This means you can find exactly what you need and even upgrade if your site is a success, which is very convenient.
- Simple upgrades: I loved how easy it is to upgrade from one Bluehost hosting package to another. The Bluehost team will migrate your site to a new server so you don’t experience any downtime. If you need this done, you simply open a support ticket, and their team will take care of it from there.
- Free anti-spam solutions: All accounts at Bluehost come with anti-spam tools to help keep your site safer and easier to manage. I found these features easy to configure right from the cPanel, which means you can take steps to avoid spam from the moment you set up your site.
- Integrated Cloudflare support: Cloudflare is a great way to speed up your site’s loading times by using regional facilities to house and load key files for websites. Bluehost includes this great service with all its hosting options.
- Digital security features offered: All accounts at Bluehost have a variety of different digital security tools available, including SSL, SiteLock Protection, and options for unique IPs. Most security features are only included on more advanced plans than the lowest tier “Basic” plan that Bluehost offers.
- 30-day money-back guarantee: If you are unhappy with the services that Bluehost offers, you can get a full refund with no questions asked.
What fell flat
- Limited daily backups: Daily backups are only included in Bluehost’s second level and higher plans. On the basic plan, backups are available as an add-on.
- No monthly billing on shared hosting: While Bluehost shared hosting services are very affordable, you have to pay at least a year at a time. It would be nice to allow monthly billing for shared hosting like they do with higher-level hosting packages.
- Long wait times for tech support: During our testing we experienced a significant wait (over an hour) for tech support after navigating a more-frustrating-than-needed chatbot. However, the support technician that did contact us was able to provide us a quick and knowledgeable resolution.
- Fee for migrating from another host: If you already have your website up and running at another hosting company, Bluehost will charge you to migrate it to their servers for you. Of course, you can migrate your site to Bluehost on your own without any fees.
WhoIsHostingThis.com’s Editorial Review
In our testing, we found Bluehost to be extremely reliable and offer responsive hosting servers. Bluehost has excellent overall user ratings, competitive pricing, great features, and an overall focus on quality.
Overall, we’ve been consistently impressed with the performance that Bluehost provides. While it’s often categorized as an affordable hosting company, the company makes sure that the sites on its servers perform well.
Security
Bluehost offers SiteLock to scan your website daily for viruses and malware and also performs 24/7 network monitoring on company servers. SiteLock Essential is included in Bluehost’s second level and higher shared hosting plans, and is available as an add-on for the Basic tier plan.
Protecting your data
If you opt for its dedicated servers, you’ll get RAID 1 storage. This means that your data is mirrored to a second disk. This increases the reliability and security of your data, since if the first disk fails, the second can take over.
Support
While overall, Bluehost’s support seems good, its support chatbot made it difficult to reach a live person, and when we finally got into the queue for a support representative, it took a long time for a support rep to come online to help.
In one instance, it took almost an hour over two chat sessions before we were able to get connected to a support technician. However, once we did get connected, the problem was resolved quickly.
Recent Improvements
The following are just some of the recent product improvements rolled out by Bluehost:
Compare Bluehost Alternatives
Bluehost is pretty close to being the perfect web host, but alternatives including SiteGround, Hostinger, and DreamHost may be a better fit for your needs. We looked closely at each company, spent time using their services, and researched each one for hours. Our research provides objective information about each company so you can find the best one for you.
Take a closer look at how Bluehost compares to other top-tier hosting companies in our full list of the best web hosting companies or compare it to its closest competitors with the table below.
Compare Bluehost Alternatives
| Website builder | Starting price | Basic plan features |
| Bluehost Overall rating | $9.95 per month |
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| Hostinger Overall rating Read our full Hostinger review. Consider Hostinger for: Innovative free tools to help you build your brand and website. | $2.99 per month |
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| Squarespace Overall rating Read our full Squarespace review. Consider Squarespace for: Modern templates; easy template switching. | $16 per month |
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| Wix Overall rating Read our full Wix review. Consider Wix if: You need more design template options. Wix offers far more (and better) predesigned templates to get you started. | $16 per month |
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