Bluehost.com Review
Bluehost makes the website hosting and building process so easy that any webmaster, beginner or expert can have a website up and running in a matter of minutes. The company offers a single package with all the features a designer could possibly as for, a pricing system that is easy on the pocket and a user interface that was designed with the user in mind. Building a website with Bluehost is definitely a surprisingly enjoyable experience.
Plans and Pricing
Bluehost's pricing is very reasonable when compared to any of the other leading hosting providers.
| 12 Month Plan | 24 Month Plan | 36 Month Plan |
| $4.95/mo | $3.95/mo | $3.49/mo |
The company offers premium site building software which is available for purchase within the control panel. Tool options on offer include Soholaunch which costs around $20/month for a single site and Trendy Site Builder, a Flash-based web builder that costs $4.92/month. Concrete5 and LiveSite, two of the best free website builders, are also available.
Bluehost's Whois privacy feature is automatically selected on the checkout page, to ensure clients get a more secure account with domain information hidden from prying eyes. It only costs $9.95, but it optional and clients can opt out of the deal.
Once registered, clients have the choice of upgrading their plan to a Pro package which costs $19.95 per month with a dedicate IP address thrown in, an SSL certificate, 3 free domain names, and 10 free Postini email filters which are powered by Google.
Payment options include Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express cards for any payments.
Money Back Guarantee
Bluehost offers a 30-day full money back guarantee with no penalties or administrative fees. All contracts cancelled within the first 30 days will receive a full refund, and orders cancelled after the first 30 days will receive a refund pro-rated for the time remaining in the contract.
Features
Bluehost has technical features and add-ons that are comparable to any of those offered by the other top shared web hosting companies. With the exception of features like FrontPage extensions and Google integration almost any- and everything that a webmaster could require to create, administer and monitor a first class website.
Site Building Tools:
- cPanel control panel
- CGI-BIN
- CGI Library
Programming Tools:
- PHP 5
- Perl 5
- Ruby on Rails
- Python
- Javascript
Integrated Applications:
- WordPress
- Joomla
- Drupal
- b2evolution
- Tikiwiki
- Moodle
- Coppermine image galleries
- SSL servers
- OS Commerce shopping cart
- Zen shopping cart
- Message form
- Streaming video and audio support
Online Marketing Credits:
- $100 Google AdWords credit
Hosting Features:
- Unlimited disk space
- Unlimited domain hosting
- Free domain name
- Unlimited site transfer
- Unlimited parked domains
- Unlimited subdomains
Ease of Use
Bluehost offers all of its clients a free instant setup – a good sign of things to come. When compared with some other web hosts it proved to be a surprisingly refreshing experience. For those that aren't sure what they can expect, Bluehost offers a free demo version of its control panel which allows users and even curious visitors the chance to see how the control panel works before making a final commitment.
Once you have made up your mind to go with Bluehost you will find that, unlike most web hosting providers, you are offered one, singular plan and price thus eliminating the confusion and sacrifice-making required when choosing between numerous plans. Here, you can register without any fuss and start on building your site almost immediately.
The first thing you come across once you're onboard with Bluehost is a quick tutorial which helps to clear any doubts on how to proceed with building your site. First-timers will find it an absolute comfort to know the extent Bluehost goes to and makes them feel at home.
Next comes the cPanel which is an absolute dream to work with but especially so with Bluehost where all the tools and links are extremely well-organized making it easy for everyone to navigate. Those that have any need simply click on the help button at the top of the control panel.
To see just how easy it is to work with Bluehost clients can try installing a WordPress blog on their new domains.
Although, installing a WordPress blog is deemed to be a pretty easy and straightforward task, Bluehost's intuitive control panel makes it practically effortless. What is interesting about Bluehost's offering is that it not only has the option to create a new WordPress blog but that importing an already existing one is extremely easily.
Installing a new version of WordPress is quite impressive: all it takes is exactly two clicks and the blog is already up and running.
Another test that shows how easy it is to work with Bluehost is creating an email account that corresponds with a new domain: just like installing WordPress, the email setup too was extremely spontaneous. All that is needed is to provide a required email address, an initial password and clicking on 'create account' – that is it.
To access the email, follow the prompts and you are directed to three standard mail retrieval options - horde, SquirrelMail and roundcube. In the scenario above Horde is chosen. Follow the prompts to access email. Emails can be sent and received immediately after creation of the account.
Customer Support
Bluehost's phone support is just as impressive as its comfortable control panel. Technical support is available 24/7, and the staff is just as capable as the phone support offered by any of the other top web hosting providers. Billing support is available by phone from 6am - 10pm MST on Monday through Saturday, and 8am-10pm MST on Sundays. Surprisingly, Bluehost's phone support center never puts its callers on hold for more than two minutes – something that was tested three times in one day.
Chat and ticket support is only slightly less efficient. When contacted via chat and email on multiple occasions it's quite interesting to see the company's chat window alert callers that the customer service team may respond slowly as they juggle several chats at once. But, it only takes about a minute for each chat inquiry to be received in the queue, which is surprisingly fast given the number of questions they must have to answer from the multiple clients.
A test of Bluehost's ticket submission system returns an equally satisfactory service. A small note at the bottom of the ticket submission page indicates that the response can take from 24-48 hours. Bluehost presents its customers with a confirmation number after they submit a ticket, for personal record-keeping purposes. When calling to check on the status of a ticket, the phone representative, graciously, forwards clients to the responses to confirm inquiries had been answered within 2 hours.
An impressive collection of video tutorials are available to guide users through a range of tasks ranging from using different FTP services to integrating their email with Gmail, iPhone and Blackberry applications. The load time is significantly faster than any of the similar video tutorial systems are available from other webhosting providers.
Summary
- User-friendly cPanel control panel
- Excellent phone support
- Instant site setup
- Comprehensive list of features and add-ons
The Good
30-day full money-back guarantee
Unlimited disk space and transfer
The Bad
Billing support not available 24/7
The Ugly
Probably the fact that many more features can be added.
Not all submitted reviews are posted but all submitted reviews are factored into our rating. Consumer-Rankings.com believes the posted reviews best reflect the overall opinions of all submitted reviews.
I am a great fan of Bluehost and our company has been with them since our inception in 2013. Type 2 Translate LLC (www.type2translate.com) is proud to work off of 100% Bluehost hosted services.
I have used Bluehost for numerous years and they have never let me down. Their setup was easy and all renewals go smoothly. I can't remember a time when the website was down either.
bh is okay I wouldn't say the best
In learning about internet, website design, file transfer ... I've called Bluehost a dozen times, all times of the day and night and ALWAYS 100% of the time found a knowledgeable and helpful tech ready to patiently walk through my problem -- They've educated and helped me. Can't say enough good things about the Bluehost Customer Service
The one time we needed support due to our site being hacked they had the old site restored from backup and fully locked down in 45 minutes. The breach was on our end and they were nothing less that fast, professional, skilled and awesome on addressing all of our issues. I have been with them over 5 years and a lower cost per month will not lure me away. They have earned my respect, trust and future business. I send all my friends there.
I've migrated and hosted four sites with Bluehost am very pleased with the experience. I highly recommend.
I have used BlueHost for my customers (IT Consultant) since 2002 and have to say. In all those years never had any down time and when I had to talk to a technician, their response was incredibly fast and helped in solving the question. If I could I would give them a 10....
I've been a loyal consumer for more than 5 years. I have not found better customer care anywhere. Whenever I have experienced a problem, a customer service representative has been able to quickly and accurately identify the problem and fix it. They have always been patient and kind.
I host about 8 domains with them. Never any issues. Support is super quick. Can't beat it for $6 a month
Bluehost.com company & support staff are on point...second to no one in friendly, customer service
Been with BH for several years. Never had any problems with them. Wordpress, Dreamweaver, Perl, PHP, MySQL, etc. Have the same on Godaddy, and it is a night mare and I hate their hosting. Everything above literally takes 10 times the frusteration, time, pain and anger of doing it on most any other hosting site. Review on GD states new users may have a hard time with the Control Panel. What? It should be you would be able to find the control panel because it goes by a differnt name, with duplicate MY ACCOUNTS going to different places and different things, oh my gosh just give up and kill yourself now!I have NON of those problems with BlueHost. I have done 400x on BH what I have done on Godaddy and it was a breeze 99% of the time on BH and a nightmare 80% of the time on GD. Please don't do it.
I have used Bluehost since 04. Up to 10 websites running off on server. Great performance, better customer service & a plethora of options for new & advanced users
No waiting, no hassles, no problem. I would recommend Blue Host to my best friend!
Excelent, reliable and cheap. Best bet, always recomend to client and friends!
My first web host was BlueHost. I have been so satisfied that they now have 5 of my sites. I have recommended them to friends - who have recommended them to friends. They have great customer service and tech support - available 24/7 (in the USA!). A tech has stayed online with me many times, walking me through a question. Their costs are low and their service high!