Bluehost Review 2023: Is Bluehost ANY Good? [Including Speed & Performance Tests]

Bluehost Web Hosting

Name: Bluehost

Offer price: 2.95

Currency: USD

Operating System: Any

Application Category: Web Hosting

• Support - 90%
  90%
• Pricing - 95%
  95%
• cPanel Interface - 96%
  96%
• Speed & Performance - 97%
  97%
• Customer Reviews - 89%
  89%

93%

Summary

Bluehost has a reputation, especially in WordPress hosting services. Just like 2 million users, I found Bluehost web hosting service fast and effective in delivering performance. The test site I used recorded 99.99% uptime for a span of 30 days. The customer support agents are highly trained here and attentive, usually replying in seconds.

Bluehost comes with a free domain name, daily automated backups, easy to use cPanel, free migration, and 30 days money refund policy. 

Pricing is reasonable too. Small blogs and Business sites can be hosted on Bluehost for just $2.95. I found the Bluehost Choice plus plan more valuable in terms of money & features. The basic plan is not worth it, as it does not offer a daily automated backup facility.

• Try Bluehost [$2.95/mo]

Are you looking for an honest Bluehost review in 2023? Want to know whether Bluehost is worth your money? You’re in the right place.

Bluehost is hands down one of the most popular web hosts trusted by over 2 million users across the globe. I have been using it for more than 10 years on a few of my blogs.

So, in this post, I will be covering everything about Bluehost, including;

• Its performance (speed, uptime, support)
• Hosting features
• Ease of use
• Bluehost pricing 
• Backups
• cPanel Interface
• Benefits, and drawbacks of using Bluehost
• And more…

After going through this review, you will be able to make a wise decision on Bluehost.

Without much ado, let’s dive into the honest review of Bluehost.

We get a commission when you buy a product via our affiliate link at no additional cost.

Honest Bluehost Review: Is It Worth Your Money In 2023?

Bluehost Benefits & Downsides

When my deep study on Bluehost review was done, I left with the amazing benefits Bluehost offers and also with the problems I faced as a Bluehost customer.

Bluehost Pros (Primary Reasons to Choose Bluehost Web Hosting):

1. Free Domain Name

This is another reason I like Bluehost. It does not matter which Bluehost plan you choose, you will get a free domain name (including .com) for a year.

It helps beginners save an extra $15 and lets them avoid the hassles of DNS configuration. 

2. 1-Click WordPress Installation

Setting up a WordPress blog and website on Bluehost with a 1-click WordPress installation gives everyone one more reason to go with Bluehost.

3. Free SSL Certificate

Web security is something you can not overlook these days and with Bluehost, you will get a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate that can be activated within a single click.

4. Free CDN

Along with a free SSL certificate, you will also get the most popular Cloudflare CDN for free.

5. Free Custom Emails

Next, you’re allowed to create a min 5 custom email addresses (@yourdomainname) for free.

All these 5 benefits make Bluehost a complete package for every web enthusiast. But that’s not all.

6. 24/7 Customer Support

Sit relax as you are backed by 24/7 expert customer support including live chat and phone support.

7. Free WordPress Migration

It allows you to move your WordPress site from any other web host to Bluehost for free without any worries.

8. Industry Leading cPanel

Each Bluehost plan is included with the industry’s leading control panel, cPanel which makes managing your website even easier.

9. 30 Days Money Back Policy

With Bluehost, you will also get a 30 day money-back guarantee that allows you to try their services risk-free for 30 days.

10. Everything Unlimited

Except for the Bluehost Basic plan, you’re allowed to host unlimited websites with unmetered bandwidth, custom email addresses, and much more.

11. Website Builder

Whether you’re looking forward to starting a personal blog or an online store, Bluehost is certainly a good choice because of its easy drag-and-drop website builder.

Here is what’s included in the Bluehost website builder that makes creating stunning business websites easy.

• 300+ Design Templates
• Stock Image Library
• Live Editing
• Full WordPress Access
• Unlimited Image and Content Uploads
• Built-in Email Marketing
• Trusted Web Hosting
• Accept Online Payments (Online Store Plan)
• Appointment Booking (Online Store Plan)
• 24/7 Support

Bluehost Cons:

A few downsides of Bluehost that I don’t like:

• Bluehost does not offer automatic backups in the basic plan. (Well, that you can overcome by using any WordPress backup plugins like UpdraftPlus, ValutPress, etc.)
• Secondly, Bluehost does not offer monthly plans which means you will have to opt for at least a 12 months plan. 

Again, if you want to give it a try, you can take advantage of their 30 days money-back guarantee policy which works like a charm. I have tested it.

Who is Bluehost For?

Compiling Bluehost pros and cons, I think beginners should have given it a shot to Bluehost. All the required resources with a high-performance server are available. The technical hurdles won’t bother them at all as everything (from wordpress installation to backups) is automated here.

For high-traffic requirement sites or eCommerce sites, Bluehost top-tier performance-oriented plans are available. There won’t be any lack of resources. 99.99% uptime ensures smooth web page deliverability across all parts of the world.

Sharing the Bluehost Performance Test Results:

Website Performance directly impacts the SEO of webpages and hence website rankings in SERP. Your site must be loaded at lightning-fast speed for delivering a better user experience. For this, you will need a high-performance web host server.

Do Bluehost servers have a capability? Let’s find out.

Bluehost Speed Test:

To find out what Bluehost has for you in terms of speed, I measured the real-time speed of a blog hosted on Bluehost for over a year now using the top 3 website performance testing tools: GTMetrix, Pingdom, and Google PageSpeed Insights.

Here is the GTMetrix result:

You can see the GTmetrix report which shows 97% overall performance and below 1.0s loading time which is just amazing.

Here is the Pingdom Result:

And finally, Here is the Google PageSpeed Results:

Bluehost Uptime:

Bluehost claims to provide 99.9% uptime. Let’s see how authentic it is.

I have been also tracking the uptime of my blog hosted on Bluehost with the help of the UptimeRobot tool.

Surprisingly, it was 100%.

You can see in the image above, it’s been around 1 and a half months since I started tracking, and there was no downtime recorded.

But this was just a performance proof of one Bluehost hosted site.

What about others? 

I took the help of a real uptime tracker by HRANK, a trusted platform that tracks millions of Bluehost websites every day to bring you objective statistics about every hosting provider.

Here is the Bluehost uptime for the last 30 days, 99.978% which is almost 99.9% as claimed by Bluehost itself.

Bluehost Server Response Time:

Did you know Data Center (Server location) directly impacts the server response time? The closer the server is to your audience’s IP address, the better the website loading speed they will get.

Unlike other web hosting services, Bluehost never disclosed its server location to users. Yes, they won’t allow you to choose it as well during the website configuration process.

So, it’s not possible for me to disclose my Bluehost test site server location. But I can guess my server location is somewhere located in the USA as I purchased my hosting from Bluehost.com

Quick Note: Bluehost offers a free Cloudflare CDN integration which means you don’t have to worry about server location. Cloudflare CDN ensures your visitors will get your webpage delivered from the closest data center possible.

To check server response time, I have used this amazing tool called BitCatcha. This tool basically sends automated traffic to the site from various locations which helps us to determine how well the Bluehost site performed in all scenarios.

• Read: How to Speed up Your WordPress Site: Top 10 Hacks

Reviewing Bluehost Hosting Types & Pricing Plans: Which Hosting Plan is More Suitable For You?

Bluehost offers exciting cheap plans with a lot of freebies included. Let’s explore more…

As of 2023, Bluehost offers a wide range of web hosting services including Shared Hosting, WordPress shared hosting, Managed WordPress Hosting, Dedicated hosting, VPS hosting, and WooCommerce hosting.

Bluehost Hosting Types & Pricing at a Glance:

Bluehost Shared Hosting Plans Breakdown:

Out of all available plans, Bluehost Shared hosting plans are widely picked by users because of the pocket friendliness, high level performance, and freebies included (Free domain, Free CDN, Free SSL).

But I must say, pick WordPress shared plans because the advantage of WordPress optimization is included in the same pricing and features.

Anyway, these are the shared hosting plans offerings & features:

• Bluehost offers 4 Shared plans: Basic, Choice Plus, Online Store and Pro plans
• Basic: This is the entry-level plan by Bluehost that has everything for your first site. For this plan, you will have to spend a minimum of $2.95 per month.
• Choice Plus: This is the most popular plan by Bluehost with added privacy and security features. The best thing about this plan is that it will cost you the same as the Plus plan i.e $5.45 per month.
• Online Store: This is the recently released plan by Bluehost specially for eCommerce store based sites. You will have to pay $9.95/mo for this plan.
• Pro: This is the most advanced plan by Bluehost best suited by growth seekers. Pro plan will facilitate you with more power with Optimized CPU Resources.But for this plan, you will have to pay $13.95 per month which makes it quite expensive.

Learn more about Bluehost eCommerce Solution:

Bluehost VPS Hosting Plans:

• Read: Bluehost VPS Review: Why use Bluehost VPS over Shared Plans

Bluehost Dedicated Hosting Plans

Bluehost WooCommerce Hosting Plans

Words on Backups & Restoration

Bluehost has received a lot of complaints about the absence of daily backups. But gladly now it offers a daily automated backup facility in all of its plans except Basic.

I just checked, Backup & Restoration process in Bluehost is extremely easy and hassle-free. 

If you want to take manual free backups, you can do it easily either by FTP or through Bluehost cPanel.

However, for automated daily backups, you will find a “CodeGuard” add-on whose primary job is to monitor your site daily and make incremental backups. This add-on comes with the extra charges ($35-$239/year).

Words on cPanel Interface & Onboarding: Is Bluehost Easy to Use?

I should say, Bluehost cPanel and the onboarding process has been improved a lot over these past years. Compared to the old traditional cPanel, now you will see a modern customizable cPanel with an amazing WordPress website builder and so many built-in features.

Bluehost comes with a custom cPanel that enhances the usability for beginners in a great way. 

Plus just after you purchased their plans, you will be welcomed by the setup wizard. Especially for beginners, Bluehost has put up a website builder option.

The onboarding process can be completed in 5 minutes. All you have to answer basic questions like website goals, taglines, etc, and then after choosing a theme from the Marketplace, WordPress will automatically be installed on your Bluehost site.

And this is what Bluehost beginners cPanel look like:

Surprised to not find a traditional cPanel interface? Yes, this is the Bluehost new-era cPanel dashboard where you will find all essential options like backups, themes, installed plugins, etc at your fingertip.

So in a nutshell, if someone asks me “Is Bluehost Easy to Use?” I would definitely answer: Absolutely Yes. And that is the reason (apart from its performance) I love and recommend Bluehost to every newcomer in the blogging industry.

How is the Bluehost Customer Support Quality?

Customer support is something that also matters a lot for everyone, beginners and even web geeks. You can even communicate with them in your local language as well.

And Bluehost offers 24/7 support and guidance experts to help newbies, pros, and in-betweens build, grow, and manage your WordPress site effectively.

• Call 888-401-4678
• Instant Live Chat (for both new and existing customers)
• Vast knowledge base full of articles, guides, how-tos
• YouTube Channel

Here is our last conversation with the Bluehost support team.

I tried to contact them as a new user and got an immediate response within a second.

As you can see above, I initiated the chat at 9:47 pm and only got an instant reply at 9:47 pm.

Bluehost Security: Is it a Safe Web Hosting Service?

Website security should be top-notch. And web hosting plays a major role in securing a website. Bluehost’s main reason for sustainability over the last 10 years is its secure servers. 

Not only does Bluehost security help your site from hackers, but also protect your site data from unwanted crash or site failure issues. I found almost all security measures available inside Bluehost work on an automation basis – meaning beginners don’t have to worry about configuration and all.

Here is the list of Bluehost Security Features which safeguard your site 24*7:

• Resource Protection
• CodeGuard Automated Backups
• Website Firewall
• 24*7 Malware Scanning
• 24*7 Network Monitoring
• Domain Privacy
• Spam Protection
• Hotlink Protection
• SiteLock

Bluehost Migration Service: Free or Not?

Bluehost offers an absolutely free migration service if your site is running on WordPress CMS. If you want to migrate 5 or more websites then Migration charges might be applied.

I found the Bluehost migration service extremely easy. All you have to do is to install the Bluehost free migration plugin on your WordPress dashboard. From this point, Bluehost technical team is available to guide and migrate your website on your behalf.

For any migration assistance: Contact the Bluehost team either via phone at 888-401-4678 or through live chat. Or you can watch this YouTube tutorial published by Bluehost team.

Bluehost Reviews 2023: Other Users Opinion About Bluehost

Want to find out the Bluehost reviews on major user review platforms? This section is for you.

On Trustpilot;

As you can see above, on Trustpilot, Bluehost got an amazing customer satisfaction rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars from over 4300 users.

On Capterra;

As you can see above, on Capterra, Bluehost got an excellent rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars.

I have read a lot of Bluehost reviews on the internet, If I have to summarize all of them then this is what I found:

Plus Points:

• Users are highly impressed with the Bluehost performance & security they get at affordable pricing.
• Not a single person feels difficulty in operating the Bluehost cPanel or completing the onboarding process.
• Users are die hard fans of Bluehost customer support. They are literally saying that you can contact Bluehost even in Midnight, they will respond in seconds for sure.

Negative Points:

• Plenty of users have an issue with their confusion about what features or add-ons they should install or not. Bluehost has tons of tools in its marketplace and because of extra charges, users won’t feel motivated to buy them.

Bluehost Alternatives: How Bluehost Compared with Other Web Hosting Services

So many web hosting services are available in the market. If you still feel Bluehost is not for you, here are the two best Bluehost alternatives you can go for;

1. Hostinger

If you’re really tight on budget then you can choose Hostinger which starts from only $1.79 per month.

We are using Hostinger on one of our side blogs and we genuinely found it very cost-effective.

• Read: Hostinger Coupon Code 2023: Up to 90% Discount + Free Domain
• Read: Bluehost vs Hostinger: Which one is better in 2023?

2. A2 Hosting

If budget is not an issue then you can go for A2 hosting having Turbo Servers featuring up to 20X faster page loads compared to competing web hosting services.

Few More Web Hosting Services You Might Wants to Consider:

• HostArmada Review: Is It A Game-Changing Web Host?
• MilesWeb Review 2023: Is This Hosting Worth The Hype And Money?
• Hostinger Review 2023: Should You Host Your WordPress Site on Hostinger?
• WPX Hosting Review With 50% OFF: Our 5 Years Hosting Experience
• ChemiCloud Review: Why Are We Recommending Them?
• InMotion Hosting Review 2023 with Uptime & Speed Test
• Cloudways Review 2023: Is It the Best Managed Cloud Host?

FAQs About Bluehost Web Hosting