Bluehost Reviews of 2021

Disclosure: Your support helps keep the site running! We earn a referral fee for some of the services we recommend on this page. Learn more

by Katie Horne

Last updated: December 4, 2020

Our Verdict: Outstanding Hosting Service for Beginners

One reason why Bluehost is so popular is that they offer a wide range of hosting types, including shared, WordPress, VPS, dedicated, reseller, and more. They are also noted for being fast, affordable, and very user-friendly.

Based on our expert analysis, Bluehost is the best web host for beginners. And you don’t need to take our word for it — over 480 of our users have rated Bluehost, and they love the easy setup, customer support, and instructional videos.

Below, we’ll provide a more in-depth review of their plans, features, and everything else you need to know about this host.

Pros and Cons of Bluehost

Before we get into more detail, here’s a quick overview of the advantages and disadvantages to using Bluehost:

Bluehost Hosting Plans

Bluehost offers the following hosting types:

• Shared Hosting
• WordPress Hosting
• WooCommerce Hosting
• VPS Hosting
• Dedicated Hosting
• Reseller Hosting

Let’s take a closer look at each of these options:

Shared Hosting

Shared web hosting is an excellent option if:

• You’re just getting started with your website
• Your website doesn’t receive tens of thousands of visits a day
• You want bargain pricing

With shared hosting, you are sharing the resources of a given server with many other websites. This helps keep the cost down, and Bluehost passes the savings on to you.

However, the downside is that you don’t get a significant allocation of resources to support your site. This is why shared hosting isn’t ideal for more substantial, busier sites.

With that said, not all small sites are created equal, so Bluehost offers three tiers of shared hosting plans. Each of these plans provides a different allocation of resources.

Bluehost’s shared hosting plans come with everything you need to get a website online. Of course, many other providers offer shared hosting. The table below shows how Bluehost compares to some of your other options:

WordPress Hosting

Bluehost offers two specialty plans aimed toward WordPress users:

1. WordPress Hosting, which includes affordable shared hosting plans
2. WP Pro, which is a managed hosting option for those who want a bit more for their WordPress site

There are three options for the WordPress Hosting plans. The option that is best for you depends on how many WordPress sites you’re hosting, as well as how big your sites are.

All of these plans are quite affordable, so they should be accessible to most users — even those who are just getting started with a blog or website.

WordPress Hosting plans differ from the general shared hosting plans in that they:

• Come with WordPress already installed
• Include a WordPress staging environment that allows you to create changes and view them before publishing them to your live site
• Include hundreds of WordPress themes

You’ll also get some essential managed services, such as automatic updates to the WordPress core.

WP Pro is a managed service, which means that Bluehost is responsible for things like optimizing the hosting infrastructure in order to improve performance.

There are three WP Pro options from which you can choose. The one that is best for you depends on the extra features and functionality you want — basic options include analytics and marketing tools, malware detection and removal, and daily backups.

By upgrading, you can get additional features such as SEO management, e-commerce integrations, and a specialty search tool for your site.

You also receive all of the resources you need to support your websites, staging environments to test your changes before pushing to production, and no limits on the traffic you receive.

WooCommerce Hosting

WordPress users who are looking to dabble in the world of online sales have the option of trying out the number one WordPress e-commerce plugin: WooCommerce.

WooCommerce, like WordPress itself, is entirely free of charge.

Bluehost offers three different WooCommerce hosting plans. You could host WooCommerce on a general purpose shared hosting plan, but these specialized plans provide you with the following benefits:

• WooCommerce comes auto-installed, as does its popular Storefront theme
• You get a dedicated IP address, which protects you from others who might be sharing a server with you
• You get an environment that facilitates safe and secure online payments

VPS Hosting

VPS hosting is an excellent option for those who have outgrown shared hosting and need more powerful performance or want more control over their hosting environment.

Bluehost’s VPS plans can be provisioned instantly, which means that you can get started with your new environment as soon as you finalize your purchase.

Unlike shared hosting, you’ll be guaranteed a pre-determined share of hosting resources (RAM, CPU, etc.). Also, VPS hosting is ideal for clients whose applications require advanced security.

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated web hosting is a great option for websites that receive a high level of traffic.

As a general rule of thumb, if you’re not experiencing hundreds of thousands of visits per month, it’s unlikely that you’ll need this level of hosting service.

With dedicated hosting, you’ll get:

• The most high-performing servers
• The most secure environment for your website
• The most control over your environment

Bluehost also offers rapid provisioning, so your server will be ready to use within 24-72 hours after you finalize your purchase.

Reseller Web Hosting

Bluehost doesn’t offer reseller hosting of their own, but the company has partnered with ResellerClub to provide such services.

Bluehost Hosting Features

In addition to providing you with the appropriate hosting environment for your websites, Bluehost plans come with the following features.

Domain Services

Most Bluehost hosting plans include a free domain name.

Subdomains

Bluehost allows you to create subdomain names for different pages (though the number of subdomains you can create varies based on the plan you have).

Parked Domains

You’ll also get parked domains, which you can think of as aliases for your website. For example, if your primary domain name is Example.com, you can set Example.net as a parked domain and have it redirect to Example.com.

Like subdomains, the number of parked domains you get depends on which plan you’ve purchased.

Unlimited Domains

If you want to manage an unlimited number of domain names, including parked domains and subdomains, you can do so with the Plus, Choice Plus, and Pro shared hosting plans.

Looking for the right host?
Bluehost plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Our readers can currently save big on Bluehost with this discount link.

Domain Manager Tool

All Bluehost customers get access to the company’s domain management tool, which allows you to control your domain and perform the following actions from one interface:

• Purchase
• Track
• Update
• Manage
• Transfer

Cloudflare CDN (Content Delivery Network)

Bluehost provides users with access to the Cloudflare CDN, which speeds up the loading time of your site.

Content delivery networks keep a cache of your site at datacenters around the globe. When a visitor clicks on your URL, the network can detect their location and “serve” your website to them from the network node that’s geographically closest to them.

Page speed (load time) is a critical factor for the success of your site, as sluggish speeds will drive impatient visitors away. For e-commerce, this has a devastating effect on conversions and sales.

Control Panel

To manage your web hosting environment and website, Bluehost offers its users a customized variant of the cPanel control panel.

The Bluehost team has tweaked the cPanel to make it easier for its customers to use.

Your Bluehost control panel is divided into the following sections:

• My Sites: Under My Sites, you can manage the websites that you’re hosting with the account you’re logged in to. You can also create a new site. And if you’re hosting a WordPress site, this is one way for you to get to your WordPress admin dashboard.
• Marketplace: If you need to add features and functionality to your site, or you’re looking to hire help, the Marketplace is where you’d go. You’ll find new add-ons, options to purchase professional services, themes for your WordPress site, and more.
• Email & Office: If you purchased any productivity tools, you can access them here. You can also get cloud-based word processing, spreadsheet tools, and email clients from Microsoft (Office 365) or Google (G Suite), or you can get basic email services that utilize your website’s domain name.
• Domains: Access your domain manager, where you can monitor the registration status of your domains (and get notifications if any are about to expire), find and register new domain names, see a list of the domain names you own, and view a summary of the domains and their affiliated name servers. You can also update which domain name is assigned to which site, set up redirection, transfer domains, and manage your subdomains.
• Advanced: The Advanced section hides the more complex features associated with your web hosting. This is where you’ll find all your file and database management options, as well as email settings. You can also come here if you want to manage your security or see metrics regarding your resource use and site traffic.

Account Security

Bluehost has taken several steps to make sure that only those who should access your Bluehost account can do so:

• Bluehost offers single sign-on, so you don’t have to reuse the same insecure password you use elsewhere
• Two-factor authentication is available
• You can choose to validate your identity with a custom token you generate whenever you sign in

Additionally, Bluehost supports the use of OpenPGP/GPG encryption, so you can send and receive files securely.

Site Security

Bluehost offers free SSL certificates from Let’s Encrypt to help protect your site.

If you want your site to be even more secure, you can use a private SSL certificate. But you should note that using a private SSL certificate will require the purchase of a dedicated IP address from Bluehost.

They also update the WordPress core software so you don’t have to.

However, updating WordPress plugins is your responsibility as a site owner. Failure to keep these up-to-date will make your site vulnerable to hacks.

When it’s time for you to update a plugin, you’ll be alerted via messages in your WordPress dashboard. You can’t miss these: you’ll see them immediately after you log in.

Bluehost also offers SiteLock as an add-on. This is a third-party product that serves as a firewall and malware scanner. It has the ability to remove malware from your site as well.

Since protection against hacks is a shared responsibility between the host and the site owner, Bluehost has provided a detailed checklist of what you should be doing to secure your site.

Bluehost does not offer any assistance with restoring your site in the event that your site gets hacked, so it’s best to prevent such problems from occurring in the first place.

Pro Tip: Beginner WordPress users will want to check out the WP Live service available via the control panel. This paid service can assist you with any site problems including security. You pay a monthly fee and can cancel at any time.

Site Migrations

One downside to choosing Bluehost is that they do not provide a free website migration service like many other hosts.

They do, however, provide a paid site migration service. It covers up to five websites and 20 email addresses. But the price is fairly high at $149.99.

And since Bluehost uses cPanel, it shouldn’t be too hard to transfer sites by yourself.

PCI Compliance

Unlike all-in-one e-commerce platforms (such as Shopify or BigCommerce) that handle everything associated with your online store, Bluehost is not PCI compliant by default.

But most of Bluehost’s options can be configured to be PCI compliant. While you may be responsible for some of these tasks, the Bluehost technical team will be happy to assist.

Bluehost does provide secure payment gateways with its WooCommerce plans.

Weebly Site Builder

Bluehost has partnered with Weebly to provide users with an easy-to-use website builder.

It features a drag-and-drop interface which allows someone with no design experience to create their own website. You’ll get a selection of pre-designed templates to choose from, and then you swap out the images and text with your own content.

All the designs are responsive, which means they automatically adjust to the size of device that the visitor is using (smartphone, tablet, laptop, etc.).

You can access the Weebly site builder from the Site Builders section of cPanel.

If you’re trying to decide between building your site with Weebly or WordPress, here’s how the two compare:

In short, Weebly is easier to use, but WordPress is more powerful and can be used in many different ways.

Email Accounts and Email Hosting

The company’s hosting plans include web-based email services.

With the Basic plan, you can create up to five email accounts. You have the ability to specify the parameters of each account (e.g. you might want one account to have access to more storage than the other accounts).

Bluehost’s email services support both the POP and IMAP protocols, so you should be able to use the email client of your choice without any hassle.

SpamAssassin

To help protect you from spam, all Bluehost accounts come with SpamAssassin. This tool reviews all incoming messages to identify content that indicates the message is likely to be spam.

It’s available to all customers free of charge — you simply have to enable SpamAssassin in your control panel.

Business Email

If you want enterprise-grade email services, Bluehost has partnered with Microsoft Office 365 to offer a basic package supporting email and calendar functionality for all but their lowest-level plan.

It includes 15 GB of storage for your email, as well as Outlook web access.

This feature is free for 30 days. After that, you have to purchase it.

Customer Service and Technical Support

The support team can be reached via telephone, live chat, or the support ticketing center.

If you prefer to begin with self-help resources, Bluehost maintains a robust knowledge base.

Self-Help Support

In addition to the usual how-to articles, you’ll find education resources on topics like email and login management.

You’ll also find video tutorials that walk you through tasks such as how to install WordPress. These tend to be fairly simplistic, though they are certainly a good place to start if you’re new to web hosting.

If you want to see the full suite of Bluehost-created videos, you can take a look at the company’s YouTube channel.

Uptime, Speed, and Performance

Bluehost mentions that it offers reliable hosting, but the company does not offer specifics. They also don’t offer an uptime guarantee.

However, we’ve been monitoring Bluehost’s uptime performance over the past few years, and here’s what we’ve found:

• In the past year, their average uptime was 99.97%
• Their average response time was 422 ms

Overall, we are pleased with what we’ve seen from Bluehost. However, we’re not under the illusion that there won’t ever be problems with its performance.

Troubleshooting

Whenever you run into any issues, Bluehost claims that they will usually be able to find a solution for you within 15 minutes.

Bluehost won’t compensate you for any downtime, but they will allow you to cancel your subscription and receive a pro-rated refund for the time remaining on your contract.

Looking for a great hosting deal?
Our readers can now save big on Bluehost plans with this special discount link. Includes a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Features for Developers

Bluehost’s developer tools and related interfaces are clean and easy-to-use.

File Management

In addition to distinct tools for file and image management, you’ll get support for various types of FTP connections (including anonymous ones).

Databases

Bluehost offers support for both MySQL and PostgreSQL databases. To manage your databases, you could use the provided wizards, or you can opt for phpMyAdmin, Remote MySQL, or phpPgAdmin.

Email

You can do more than just set up email accounts and change the amount of storage allocated to each account.

You can also set up autoresponders, forwarders, and filters. And you can manage mailing lists, tackle spam, and take advantage of the calendars and contacts feature.

Security

The security area allows you to set up SSH access to your account, add hotlink protection, block IP addresses, and install SSL certificates.

Other Software and Advanced Features

Your Bluehost account also supports the use of:

• PHP PEAR packages
• Perl modules
• Cron jobs
• Apache handlers

You don’t have full root access to your environment (unless you have a VPS or dedicated hosting package), but you still have quite a bit of control over your server even at the shared hosting level.

No Windows Hosting . . . Except in India

One thing that is conspicuously missing, however, is Windows hosting. Bluehost operates Linux servers exclusively.

Interestingly though, Bluehost India does offer both Linux and Windows.

Bluehost Marketing Services

In addition to providing you with the services and infrastructure you need to get your website online, Bluehost offers professional marketing services to help drive visitors to your site.

Indeed, Bluehost offers full-service digital marketing services. The company can help you with:

• Search engine optimization, including the insertion of keywords and the appropriate use of title tags and meta descriptions
• Managing local listings to make sure you can be found by those around you
• Monthly content marketing, which involves Bluehost writing articles and creating content to support organic increases in your search engine rankings

Bluehost’s marketing services are fairly basic, but if you need some help (maybe you’re too busy to tackle even one more project, or you’re wholly unfamiliar with the digital marketing landscape) these services might be a good option for you.

Nevertheless, Bluehost doesn’t offer anything that you couldn’t learn to do on your own, so you can certainly go the DIY route and save yourself some money.

Alternative Hosts that Offer Marketing Services

• GoDaddy offers more marketing and business tools than Bluehost
• 1&1 IONOS is another budget host that offers a decent variety of marketing services

Bluehost Review Conclusion

Bluehost is a budget-friendly provider of web hosting services that will meet the needs of many users.

If you end up becoming one of Bluehost’s many satisfied customers, consider joining their Affiliate Team. Every time you refer someone to Bluehost and they sign up, you’ll earn $65.

Most Popular BlueHost Alternatives

Starts at:

$3.95

per month

(Billed as $2.75 Per Month) ⓘPrices in   are approximate, based on current exchange rates. The host will likely charge you in USD, or at a different exchange rate.

Usual price:   – Get  % off!

Visit Host Now

Read Reviews

Starts at:

$3.92

per month

(Billed as $2.75 Per Month) ⓘPrices in   are approximate, based on current exchange rates. The host will likely charge you in USD, or at a different exchange rate.

Usual price:   – Get  % off!

Visit Host Now

Read Reviews

Starts at:

$2.75

per month

(Billed as $2.75 Per Month) ⓘPrices in   are approximate, based on current exchange rates. The host will likely charge you in USD, or at a different exchange rate.

Usual price:   – Get  % off!

Visit Host Now

Read Reviews

About Katie Horne

Katie is a C# developer who became a technical writer. She is a lifelong bookworm and all-around nerd with a soft spot for gimmicks and packaging. She judges books by the cover, and she’s not sorry about it. In her spare time, she likes to swim, knit, and do the New York Times Crossword Puzzle.

Connect with Katie

BlueHost Reviews by Our Community

Overall Rating from 482 Reviews by BlueHost Customers

Support
Quality
Features
Value

Filter reviews by: Most HelpfulMost RecentNegativePositive

Most Helpful Reviews

Anish Neupane eneb.ooo

Aug 22, 2018

In my sense the first review for bluehost would be with a word ‘easy’. Yes, It is easier for the beginners to work with. It offers quite easy interface and tools to work with.

The speed is also quite good but it lags somewhat when it comes to bigger websites. Now, talking about the downtimes, I actually didn’t experience it anymore than a single time and that was pretty much okay for my site. But just as case with speed, the bigger websites might have problem with this so I would refer them a better one on market.

The pricing is decent for the first subscription but it takes quite high in the renewals. The support is not that appreciable. In times, they are slow to deliver although their FAQ is quite rich.

They also offer with pre-made video tutorials which is of course a plus point. So, overall Bluehost is an average hosting site and is perfect for beginners while the others on market are better for the bigger websites.

Visit Host Now →

Kashish Kumawat technewswith.me

May 13, 2017

Hi,
I have been using BlueHost for my WordPress Site for the past two months. Earlier I was using NameCheap hosting and now I feel glad that I switched. Currently, I’m using the Basic Shared Hosting plan.

BlueHost’s shared hosting is not only fast but reliable with good customer support. I am also using the Cloudflare CDN which BlueHost and it has really improved the site’s loading speed.So far, my site has been down only for once and that was just a few days after I switched to BlueHost. However, their customer support was fast in responding to my issue and they got it resolved within half an hour.

Since then, I haven’t faced any issues with my site. Another good thing about BlueHost is their Control Panel. It is easy to use and user-friendly.

Bluehost’s control panel also provides additional services like SEO based services and CloudFlare integration. I’ll definitely upgrade to better plans at Bluehost once my website begins to generate more traffic. For small site owners and bloggers, I’ll definitely recommend BlueHost for their excellent services.

Visit Host Now →

Stefan Preradovic wabisabistudios.org

Mar 30, 2019

Been using BlueHost for 2 years already and i had good and bad experiences. Here are 5 pros of BlueHost:
1) good price for quality of hosting,
2) free domain name and ssl certificate,
3) no hidden or unexpected fees,
4) Indeed friendly and determined customer support,
5) easy to use and beginner friendly user interface. Here are cons of using BlueHost:
1) Not consistent page-load speed, sometimes load time can increase by 2 seconds,
2) No common, but long down times,
3) Time that takes customer support to solve minor issue is long.

Visit Host Now →

Shovon Khan emsoul.com

Mar 04, 2018

Worst hosting server now a days. The biggest issue is they are hiding their problems and blaming users themes or codes and all. Their server crashes every now and then and when back my website shows a cached version.

All the work or updates I make goes away. I had to clean my browser cache so many times and also made them clean server cache several times. Then again site goes down and my site returns to old version.

horrible. They don’t even admit they are down which I always check through several website downtime checkers. Do not buy Bluehost Hosting. I have been using and referring bluehost for so many years but now I don’t, stay away from them.

Visit Host Now →

William Etheridge accu-techguitarrepair.com

Jul 06, 2018

…So, exactly how much did Bluehost pay you for this review? You also have your hosting cost figures wrong as well. My last renewal was $396.00 for three years (no domain renewals, but unlimited websites) They love WordPress (OK, haven’t tried it in a while, but when I did it was a nightmare), and offer free SSL…

IF…your sight is developed in WordPress. Ten years ago when I started hosting with them they were good, but like all companies that get big, they have no concern for loyalty. If you’re considering Bluehost, I suggest you turn a 180 and run away. Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

Visit Host Now →

Sarthak Srivastava vijayns.com

Jun 27, 2018

I had used BlueHost for a personal blog that I’ve taken down now but I still believe I’m well versed with its services as I started using it two years ago. To start with, I believe that out of all the hosting services that I’ve ever used, BlueHost has to be the cheapest (effectively) considering the fact that they threw in a domain name as well as a SSL certificate along with my hosting plan. As my WordPress-based website was quite lightweight I went for the cheapest hosting plan.

While signing up, you had to carefully read through a lot of checkboxes because they tried to throw in a lot of extra features I didn’t really need in exchange of money. I think the best part about the hosting for me was the customer service. Which were very helpful and were always happy to help me efficiently and quickly.

Visit Host Now →

Abby Brown thecellguide.com

Dec 28, 2017

Bluehost support is bad. Yes you have live chat but it’s entirely outsourced to third-world countries and they are painfully slow at replying. As well, I upgraded from shared hosting package to cloud hosting and they did something wrong in the transition and my website went down.

I then had to create a ticket and it took 4 days to get an update on the ticket. As well, in terms of page speed, the "Server response time" is always above 1 second, which is way above the Google Page Speed recommended limit of 300ms, and this is with cloud hosting which is supposed to be fast. All in all, if you haven’t chosen yet, don’t choose bluehost.

The only reason I’m still with them right now is because it would be a pain the *** to move all my sites and contact with no downtime or seo hit. Stay away

Visit Host Now →

Andres Perez escuelaleyesbiologicas.com

Dec 08, 2017

In the past it was a good hosting provider, but now it is a shame the low quality of service, the lack of knowledge of the support staff and do not refund your money when you decide to leave. I’ve been trying for weeks to get back more than 500 USD and they do not, it’s a shame and a shame

Visit Host Now →

Jen Braaksma jenbraaksma.com

Apr 04, 2017

Well, overall I think the service is okay. I am an English teacher and I use Bluehost for my blog about writing. I use their WordPress hosting service and I am satisfied with the service, although there are some flaws.

Pros:
-Easy setup
-Very good uptime (all the time)
-Good speed

Cons:
-Support is not great
-The price is higher than other hosting

During my last semester of teaching I was approached by one of my students who said he could optimize my site and get many more readers quickly, but found some security flaws in the site which should be fixed first. He offered to fix it himself for free, but first I contacted support. They did not do much and claimed the site was in good standing with security.

They have their own "intrusion detection/prevention system" which stops their service from getting hacked, but I found out it doesn’t actually protect my website. I reluctantly let the student fix my site after giving him my account details and he managed to find all kinds of flaws from the inside as well. He fixed most of them within a couple of days, from bad configuration, bad plugins, and hiding my personal email/account.

I’m not very good with this kind of stuff but was astonished by how much the student was able to do that BlueHost was not able to do. The student also showed me that there were much cheaper hosting plans I could have gotten, and sure enough he was right, so I don’t think the value is great for this host. Other than all that, the first setup of the website was really easy, only a few clicks and it was ready. Everything went smoothly and although the site isn’t super fast, it is up 100% of the time (or very close, I don’t know what happens when I’m not on it.)

Overall I give this host somewhere between 3/4 stars.

Visit Host Now →

Saikat Ghosh youmash.org

Feb 23, 2017

Bluehost has a very nice list of features, and the best of them being the ‘Unlimited Bandwidth" in a very low cost, cheaper than many others as of the quality of service that Bluehost provides, but what I don’t like about the host is that they have a good customer service but some of their employees keep turning rude at some moments!

Visit Host Now →

Load More

Review BlueHost

Already a BlueHost customer? Write an honest & helpful review.

1 How would you rate your experience with BlueHost?

Please give a star rating for Support, Features, Uptime and Value (each must be at least 1 star).

Support
Features
Uptime
Value

Next

2 Write your review

Take a deep breath and think about exactly what you want to say about BlueHost.

Please be specific: we’re only interested in hearing that BlueHost rocks/sucks if you can explain why.

Your review needs to be at least 50 words long. Please write some more about your experience.

Next

Back

3 About You

Please enter First Name, Last Name, Your Email, Your Website URL and accept the Terms & Conditions.

I accept the Terms & Conditions

Submit Your Review

Back

Terms and Conditions

By submitting a review, you acknowledge that you understand and agree to these terms and conditions:

1. We may reject any review for publication at any time and for any reason at our sole discretion.
2. Reviews must be entirely your own work, unique and cannot have been previously published elsewhere.
3. You hereby grant QNL a perpetual, exclusive, irrevocable, royalty free, licence to host, display and otherwise use the review for any purpose anywhere in the world.

Thank You For Your Review

Thanks! We’ve received your review of BlueHost. We’ll contact you once your review has been moderated (c. 1-2 weeks).