If you're looking to build a website to connect with customers, you need a stable, easy-to-use, and affordable web hosting service. Bluehost deftly balances price and features, offering services that work for hobbyists and business professionals. Many web hosts do that, but Bluehost stands out from the pack with a website builder that integrates WordPress functionality and brings tremendous flexibility to the popular content management system. For that, Bluehost is an Editors' Choice winner for WordPress hosting.
Shared hosting is a good option for people who don't expect much traffic to their websites. The upside? It's relatively cheap web hosting. The downside? Your website shares server resources with other sites, so your site's performance can be affected if one of its server mates experiences a traffic surge.
The linux-based Bluehost doesn't offer month-to-month shared web hosting options. Instead, it requires you to sign up for an annual plan. With the Basic plan, you pay $1.99 per month whether you sign up for one-, two-, or three-year commitments. After your initial commitment, the price rises to $11.99 per month for an annual commitment (or $9.99 per month with a three-year commitment).
The Basic shared hosting package includes a free domain name for the first year, the ability to host a single site (or up to 10), 10GB of SSD storage, unlimited monthly data transfers, and five email addresses. The Choice Plus package ($3.95 per month with a one-year contract, rising to $15.99 per month upon renewal) gives you 50GB of SSD storage, an antispam tool for a single domain, up to 50 websites, and email marketing tools. The Pro tier (also $9.99 per month with a one-year contract, rising to $28.99 per month upon renewal) builds upon Plus with 100GB of SSD storage, free automated backups, and domain privacy that's free for your first year. The Online Store plan ($9.95 per month with a one-year contract, renewing at $24.95 per month) adds numerous e-commerce tools and plug-ins.
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Bluehost offers respectable web hosting plans, but they aren't the best we've seen. HostGator gives small- and medium-sized businesses room to expand their web presences. Starting with the Hatchling plan ($10.95 per month), HostGator offers unlimited storage space, monthly data transfers, and email addresses, plus support for one domain and third-party applications, such as content management systems and e-commerce platforms. Even better, HostGator offers monthly shared hosting subscription options, as well as Windows Server-based hosting. Don't underestimate the importance of a Windows Server option. If you plan to build (or migrate) a site built on an ASP.NET framework, you'll appreciate HostGator's Windows Server offerings.
If you need more power, expect high traffic volumes, or have specific compliance requirements that prevent you from using shared servers, Bluehost's virtual private server (VPS) options are worth considering. It's like shared hosting in that your site shares server resources with other sites, but there are two big differences: VPS hosting has far fewer sites per server, and the provider guarantees you a particular amount of server resources. A VPS-hosted site can take a Reddit hit and keep on ticking.
Bluehost offers three tiers of linux-based VPS hosting, ranging from the $56.99-per-month Standard NVMe 4 (100GB of NVMe storage, 4GB of DDR5 RAM, and unlimited monthly data transfer) to the $101.99-per-month Ultimate NVMe 16 (450GB of NVMe storage and 16GB of DDR5 RAM). As with the shared web hosting plans, VPS hosting plans include discounts for longer-term contracts.
Those are attractive plans, but Hostwinds beats out Bluehost with a wide variety of packages that include up to 96GB of RAM, unlimited email, unlimited monthly data transfers, and linux- or Windows-based server options.
Dedicated hosting is a powerful form of web hosting that gives your site full server resources. If you expect huge traffic numbers, dedicated hosting is the only way your site will handle the internet's rigors. Bluehost has many linux-based dedicated server configurations, too. The servers start at $154.79 per month and can be outfitted with up to 1000GB of NVMe storage, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and unlimited monthly data transfers.
Those are solid numbers, but AccuWeb one-ups Bluehost with a choice of linux or Windows Server operating systems, and several configurable server plans (starting at $103 per month, and topping out with four 2TB SSDs, 128GB of RAM, and 100TB of monthly data transfers).
Need access to a powerful server, with the ability to easily scale that power to your needed workflows, all at a pay-as-you-go price point? Cloud hosting is a great option. Bluehost's cloud hosting plans start with Cloud 10, which costs $75 per month with an annual contract. With it, you can build up to 10 websites, leverage 125GB of SSD storage, and enjoy 300,000 visits per month. On the high end, Bluehost lets you leverage 225GB of SSD storage and enjoy 23 million visits per month. You'll pay $250 per month (with an annual plan) for that power, and you must contact a sales rep for an exact RAM amount.
Ionos has a more flexible starting tier. Its cloud offerings start at 0.8 cents per hour ($5.76 per month) for 2GB of RAM, 60GB of SSD storage, and unlimited monthly data transfers. If you want to crank up the specs, Ionos is the way to go. For 12.5 cents per hour ($90 per month), you get 64GB of RAM, 960GB of SSD storage, and unlimited monthly data transfers. Our other top choice in the category, DreamHost, has cloud server hosting ideal for smaller businesses, with four vCPU servers (8GB RAM each), 80GB SSD storage, and unlimited monthly data transfers for $48 per month. It costs less than Bluehost's offering while having no data caps. If you need even more power, you can call up a sales rep for a custom quote.
WordPress is an internet pillar, and Bluehost offers three managed WordPress tiers (starting at $15.99 per month). They give your site's backend the white-glove treatment and offer SEO, social media, and email marketing tools. WP Pro's three plans (Build, Grow, and Scale) feature unlimited site hosting, monthly data transfers, domains, subdomains, and storage. Bluehost's managed WordPress plans also include bot protection, automatic SSL installation, and brute force protection. In a nice touch, these managed accounts also come with staging areas to test sites before they go live on the web. Build, Grow, and Scale renew at $29.99 per month, $39.99 per month, and $59.99 per month, respectively.
The Build plan comes with daily scheduled backups, malware detection and removal, and domain privacy protection. The Grow plan uses the Build plan as a foundation and adds SEO tools, 10GB of video compression, and live ticket support. Scale tops all managed plans by adding Blue Sky live chat support, unlimited video compression, unlimited backups and restores, and PayPal integration.
Bluehost doesn't require you to install the content management system, as it comes preinstalled. Once you're logged into WordPress, you can create posts, pages, and galleries as you would with any other WordPress site. A free WordPress migration tool lets you easily import your existing site as an XML file.
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Bluehost's WordPress plans are quite good, matching our other Editors' Choice winner in this category, WP Engine, in several areas. Factor in the excellent Bluehost WonderSuite Website Builder for WordPress—more on that later—and you have a top-tier WordPress hosting service.
Reseller hosting is an ideal solution for entrepreneurs who want to manage a web hosting business without the stress of infrastructure management. Companies essentially rent their servers to you for a discounted price, letting you brand and partition them to suit your own clientele.
In the past, Bluehost offered reseller hosting packages, but now the site forwards customers to ResellerClub, a separate service with its own pricing and services. If you want more integrated reseller hosting, check out Hostwinds.
To create a Bluehost site, you select a domain, make a Bluehost account, and pay for your chosen plan. Bluehost has many tools for building sites, filtering spam, managing email, collecting site statistics, and managing domains. You can use the WordPress content management platform or Bluehost's WonderSuite Website Builder to create a site.
WonderSuite is a tool that combines a website builder's simplicity with the full capabilities of WordPress. Bluehost no longer offers Weebly. You start with a single theme that offers many layout options. Within that theme, you can click and drag the site's various sections to your liking, add new sections, and jump back and forth between the builder and standard WordPress site management. It's simple to use, and you can make an attractive site in little time.
Bluehost has several themes to choose from, but you cannot change this theme once you start editing; you must delete the instance and start from scratch if you change your mind. Still, the tool gives you lots of design flexibility, with more than 1,000 layout options. Bluehost's sister site, Web.com, offers the standard experience you'd expect from a website builder, with numerous, editable templates.
Bluehost offers two tiers for customers looking to host their shops on the web. The eCommerce Essentials tier starts at $6.45 a month with a first-year commitment and renews at $18.99 per month. You get 100GB of NVMe storage, an email campaign creator, secure online payments, and more. E-commerce Premium is almost identical feature-wise, but offers multi-channel inventory management. It will cost you $7.45 a month for a year and then renews for $21.99.
Bluehost is compatible with Dada Mail, an email marketing tool that lets you send email-based newsletters to a subscriber list. If you want an online store or the ability to accept online payments, you must invest in an e-commerce application, such as Magento, ShopSite, or TransFirst. With Magento, we created an attractive store by dragging and dropping website elements. Magento has more flexibility than ShopSite, but if you aren't looking for an elaborate online storefront, ShopSite's simpler interface will get you up and running faster. For small businesses, that time saved may be worth it.
Bluehost also supports the PostgreSQL data management system, as well as the widely used MySQL. This opens the door to using non-MySQL software, such as agileBase (a custom app creator) and Bacula (backup software).
Bluehost offers three antispam tools (Apache Spam Assassin, Spam Experts, and Spam Hammer), as well as hotlink protection. You can also create email account filters, password protect directories, whip up IP address blacklists, and manage private keys and digital certificates. We're always pleased to see Secure Shell (SSH) access, because that gives site administrators a secure way to access specific configuration files.
Bluehost includes Cloudflare, which enhances a website's performance and security features. If you want SSL on your site or are worried about distributed denial-of-service attacks, Cloudflare is worth considering.
Website uptime is a vital element of the web hosting experience. If your site goes down, clients or customers will be unable to find you or access your products or services. Bluehost promises 99.9% uptime. It also offers 24/7 telephone support, online web chat, a ticket-based system, and a knowledge base.
We tested Bluehost's web chat on a weekday evening to ask about the differences between regular WordPress and the managed service. The rep quickly fielded our questions about the differences between regular WordPress hosting and managed WordPress hosting, and we were satisfied with the person's response.
We called the phone support system later in the evening to ask a representative how to import a WordPress.com setup into Bluehost. A rep came to our assistance in under three minutes and walked us through the steps. That's another win for Bluehost support.
Bluehost's hosting packages come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, which is standard fare in the web hosting space. That said, DreamHost bests it with an impressive 97-day money-back guarantee for shared hosting plans.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Bluehost)
Bluehost Web Hosting
- 5.0 - Exemplary: Near perfection, ground-breaking
- 4.5 - Outstanding: Best in class, acts as a benchmark for measuring competitors
- 4.0 - Excellent: A performance, feature, or value leader in its class, with few shortfalls
- 3.5 - Good: Does what the product should do, and does so better than many competitors
- 3.0 - Average: Does what the product should do, and sits in the middle of the pack
- 2.5 - Fair: We have some reservations, buy with caution
- 2.0 - Subpar: We do not recommend, buy with extreme caution
- 1.5 - Poor: Do not buy this product
- 1.0 - Dismal: Don't even think about buying this product
Read Our Editorial Mission Statement and Testing Methodologies.
The ever-evolving Bluehost is a dependable web host that makes site creation a breeze, especially for WordPress hosting. In particular, its WonderSuite is an excellent tool that delivers the drag-and-drop simplicity of a website builder, enhancing the already top-notch content management system. As a result, Bluehost is a top pick for WordPress hosting that earns our Editors' Choice award.
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