Every hosting newbie and expert knows BlueHost… so it makes sense I made a straight talking review to help you decide if it’s the one for you. My personal website itself is hosted on BlueHost and they’re one of three hosts recommended directly by WordPress (incredible bragging rights). In the rest of this piece, I’ll share my thoughts on the host’s pricing plans, support, user friendliness, and overall features… and why I’d recommend them to you. Let’s dive in!
BlueHost Review
BlueHost was founded just shy of two decades ago in 2003 and is now a reputable hosting giant serving over 2 million domains worldwide. BlueHost claims they’re ‘committed to WordPress’ and their native software is open-source to help their community thrive.
BlueHost offers shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting… plus a suite of plans dedicated to WordPress and WordPress-native apps (WooCommerce etc). BlueHost also offers third-party reseller plans. BlueHost is popular for their versatile plans and ease-of-use and that’s why I decided to review them.
BlueHost has an A+ rating on BBB and an overall rating of 4.0/5 on Trustpilot compiled from over 5,100 reviews.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Versatile hosting plans
- Awesome value for money
- Free SSL and domain (every plan)
- Recommended by WordPress for WordPress
- Very easy to use
- Open source software
Cons
- Auto backups are not available on every plan
- Not the cheapest plans on the market
BlueHost has everything you’ll need for your website, especially WordPress!
Ready to give your brand an online presence or migrate from your old host? Check out BlueHost today.
Rating Breakdown
There are many hosts on the market. How to effectively compare and rate them? Our experts at HostAdvice create a standardized hosting rating methodology that helps us compare each host based on a number of factors and give them relevant scores.
With these, you’ll be able to see real numbers that give you an idea on each host’s quality and can decide which is better for your website.
| Parameter | Score | Why we gave this score |
| PRICES | 8.0 | BlueHost has fair pricing plans but they’re not the cheapest. I gave them an 8.0 because while their packages are great, many other hosts offer more affordable plans. |
| FEATURES | 8.7 | Excellent features overall – a free domain & SSL, SSD, free CDN, etc. However, I gave them an 8.7 because BlueHost only offers free migrations for WordPress. |
| PERFORMANCE | 9.0 | 300 ms average response time, 99.9% uptime guarantee, high-performance SSD, etc. However, I give them a 9.0 because some hosts are even faster. |
| USER-FRIENDLINESS | 9.5 | Auto WordPress and popular app installs, a modern cPanel, and the BlueHost builder take the hassle out of managing your website and getting it up and running. However, I gave them a 9.5 because other hosts are now offering custom panels for even more ease of use. |
| SUPPORT | 8.5 | BlueHost offers 24/7 support through vast knowledgebase, live chat, phone, and socials. However, I’d give them 8.5 because it took a while for the agent to join the live chat. |
BlueHost Prices & Plans – 2023
BlueHost offers shared hosting, dedicated hosting, VPS, and WordPress-heavy plans. On every plan, you get a 30-day money-back guarantee on every plan (minus domain names) and their plans are changed on at least 12-month durations and also 36-month durations.
BlueHost accepts different payment methods depending on your locations – but mainly via a credit card or Paypal.
Wondering what plan to choose? We’ll now see the different plans offered by BlueHost, their pricing, and who they’re best suited to:
Shared Hosting
Charged for 12 months
| Plan name | Space | Bandwidth | Panel | Number of sites | Price |
| BASIC | 10 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | 1 | $2.95 |
| PLUS | 20 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | $5.45 |
| CHOICE PLUS | 40 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | $5.45 |
| PRO | 100 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | $13.95 |
Charged for 36 months
| Plan name | Space | Bandwidth | Panel | Number of sites | Price |
| BASIC | 10 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | 1 | $4.95 |
| PLUS | 20 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | $7.45 |
| CHOICE PLUS | 40 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | $7.45 |
| PRO | 100 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | $18.95 |
BlueHost’s Choice Plus is their recommended shared hosting plan as on top of the basic shared features, you get free domain privacy, free backups for 1 year, and other pro tools like updates, plugins, client invoicing etc. at $5.45/month (charged for 12 months at once).
VPS Hosting
| Plan name | Space | Bandwidth | Panel | Number of sites | Price |
| STANDARD | 30 GB | 1 TB | cPanel | Unlimited | $19.99 |
| ENHANCED | 60 GB | 2 TB | cPanel | Unlimited | $29.99 |
| ULTIMATE | 120 GB | 3 TB | cPanel | Unlimited | $59.99 |
BlueHost’s ENHANCED VPS plan gives you double the resources on their basic VPS – storage, RAM, bandwidth. You also get 25 extra cPanel accounts and 2 dedicated IPs.
Dedicated Hosting
| Plan name | Space | Bandwidth | Panel | Number of sites | Price |
| STANDARD | 1 TB | 5 TB | cPanel | Unlimited | $79.99 |
| ENHANCED | 2 TB | 10 TB | cPanel | Unlimited | $99.99 |
| ULTIMATE | 2 TB | 15 TB | cPanel | Unlimited | $119.99 |
BlueHost’s ENHANCED (mid-level) dedicated hosting plan is their recommended and gives more CPU power, a bigger cache, bigger RAM, twice the storage, and double the bandwidth on their basic dedicated plan.
WordPress Hosting
Regular WordPress
Charged for 12 months
| Plan name | Space | Bandwidth | Panel | Number of sites | Price |
| BASIC | 10 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | 1 | $2.95 |
| PLUS | 20 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | $5.45 |
| CHOICE PLUS | 40 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | $5.45 |
| PRO | 100 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | $13.95 |
Charged for 36 months
| Plan name | Space | Bandwidth | Panel | Number of sites | Price |
| BASIC | 10 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | 1 | $4.95 |
| PLUS | 20 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | $7.45 |
| CHOICE PLUS | 40 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | $7.45 |
| PRO | 100 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | $18.95 |
BlueHost’s regular WordPress hosting plans are priced exactly the same and feature the same resources as their shared hosting plans. You also get 12-month and 36-month billing periods.
WP Pro
| Plan name | Space | Bandwidth | Panel | Number of sites | Price |
| BUILD | N/A | N/A | cPanel | Unlimited | $19.95 |
| GROW | N/A | N/A | cPanel | Unlimited | $29.95 |
| SCALE | N/A | N/A | cPanel | Unlimited | $49.95 |
BlueHost’s WP Pro GROW plan is the recommended as it features everything you get in BUILD plus business review tools, JetPack ads, video compression, and BlueSky ticket support.
Reseller Hosting
BlueHost doesn’t offer reseller plans directly, but rather, recommends ResellerClub as your best reseller provider.
BlueHost Features
Key features
- Shared; VPS; dedicated; WordPress hosting
- Automatic WordPress installs
- Free domains and SSL certificate
- Free CDN
- 24/7 support
Of all BlueHost’s key features and out-of-the-box goodies, I’d say their most unique offering and package are their WP Pro plans – WordPress plus marketing tools.
BlueHost is now not only offering WordPress plans, but all the analytics and other marketing shenanigans to help you monitor and scale your business and campaigns, You get SEO tools, marketing tools, client management software, ads compatibility, and an all-in-one marketing center and dashboard.
Performance
The next factor we’ll consider to rate BlueHost is its performance… based on a number of important metrics namely – speed, uptime, and average website loading time.
The host’s server speed (time to first byte or TTFB) shows how quickly their servers can send the first byte of data to a user visiting your website. Also, a host’s uptime or online time, is how reliably their servers can stay online and keep your website ‘live’.
Then summing both factors, your website’s average load time is how long it takes for a web page to be fully loaded and functional (clickable) after a user clicks on it.
What do these metrics mean for you? The quicker the load time i.e server speed, the quicker your website pages will become available. I.e: increased retention rates, more time spent per session, and better search engine rankings for you.
Like most hosts on the market, BlueHost promises a 99.9% uptime guarantee. To measure the host’s performance metrics, I used GTMetrix to test the performance of corporatelaw.jdsupra.com – a website hosted on BlueHost.
These were the results:
The website had a super impressive TTFB of 150 ms but a fair fully loaded time of 2.0s. They also had an excellent overall performance of 94%:
Learn more about Bluehost:
Level Of Support
BlueHost offers 24/7 support via phone, live chat, and a vast knowledgebase.
Phone Support
You can call BlueHost’s sales, support, and international lines for any help you may need. Phone support is especially great if you need answers to urgent questions or solutions to urgent problems.
Note that these phone numbers, however, may not be available depending on your region.
Live Chat
The website owner’s support portal of choice – live chat. BlueHost offers live chat support powered by a bot. I tested out their live chat and had to answer a few screening questions before being redirected to a live agent.
It took a while ( a little disappointing) but the agent eventually joined and I was able to ask questions and get detailed answers in time. They were super courteous and well-knowledgeable.
Knowledgebase
Don’t want to wait in queues and can figure things out on your own? BlueHost’s knowledgebase powered by a search engine has answers to nearly every question you’ll ask:
User-Friendliness – Ease of use
Registration
Registering and signing up on BlueHost is incredibly easy. To register on BlueHost and have a functioning hosting account, you’ll have to buy one of their hosting plans.
You can go straight to the host’s WordPress plans from their homepage and by clicking the “Get Started” button:
After choosing a plan, you’ll be redirected to the domain page where you can choose to register a new domain with the host or use a domain you currently own… or proceed without a domain.
Next, fill in your info and personal details:
On this page, you can also decide if you want any package extras like Yoast, CodeGuard, and SiteLock. Once confirmed, fill in your payment details and click “Submit”. And voila. You now have your account.
After choosing a username (domain tied to your plan) and password, you’ll be able to login to BlueHost’s super-intuitive dashboard:
From here, you’ll be able to manage your domains, active websites, login to WordPress directly, and your cPanel in ‘Advanced’.
BlueHost Control Panel
BlueHost features a modern, updated version of the traditional cPanel control panel allowing you manage all your hosting and website backend from a single dashboard:
To login to your cPanel, simply click “Advanced” and you’ll be prompted to input your details. It’s smooth sailing from there on. BlueHost’s cPanel is clean, intuitive, and feature-packed to give you control over everything that matters for your website.
Installing WordPress on BlueHost
This is where it gets super-sweet. On BlueHost’s plans (especially their shared and WordPress), once you checkout, WordPress is automatically installed. In fact, BlueHost’s website builder has been designed specifically for creating WordPress websites.
Your WordPress is also updated automatically. So no need to worry about installing the right and most updated form of WordPress for your website. BlueHost does it all for you!
Add an email account on BlueHost
It gets a little head-scratchy here but follow me.
BlueHost offers two kinds of user interfaces – Bluerock and Legacy. The one I showed above is the Bluerock with the navigation options arranged vertically and on the left and is likely what you’ll see.
You can use the Emails & Office button or create an email using cPanel.
Using the Emails & Office
Using Emails & Office on the left nav bar (only for Bluerock), you can purchase an email plan or click manage if you have emails included in your plan.
Then click ‘Create’.
Using cPanel
Login to cPanel and click ‘Email accounts’. Click ‘Create’.
Both methods should open a similar prompt with input fields where you’ll be asked to choose the domain you want the email assigned to, email address (username), password (you can generate this), and then optionally set an email quota:
Once you’re done, click ‘Create’. To see your emails, head back to ‘Email & Office’ or ‘Email accounts’ and you can make changes and manage them from there.
Conclusion: Do We Recommend BlueHost?
It’s an easy YES. BlueHost is an incredible web hosting provider especially if you own a WordPress. Their plans are reasonably priced and their performance justifies it. BlueHost also has an easy-to-understand suite of packages and even a hosting newbie will have no problem using the platform.
Their WP Pro plans show their commitment to WordPress and it’s no wonder they are the No. 1 WordPress recommended host and have been for a really long time.
The only thing other hosts may have against BlueHost is that they are one of the daughter brands of Endurance International Group (EIG), a hosting giant with dozens of other hosting acquisitions. But they still shine through.
