Bluehost is the one of biggest names in shared hosting industry. Bluehost was founded in 1996. Bluehost,s headquarters are situated in a 50,000 square foot building in Provo, Utah. Bluehost hosts millions of websites. Here is a honest review of Bluehost for year 2015 to help you decide that whether Bluehost is for you or not.
About BlueHost Company:
Bluehost was founded in 1996. It is the one of oldest web hosting companies. Bluehost was founded by Matt Heaton and he remained CEO till 2011 . On June 12, 2011 Dan Handy became the CEO of Bluehost. Bluehost head office is located in Provo, Utah. Bluehost is owned by EIG.
Bluehost is famous for their shared hosting. In 2013, they start offering VPS hosting and dedicated server hosting. Bluehost only offers Linux hosting.
UPTIME AND RELIABILITY:
Uptime for Bluehost,s corporate website is 99.99% since 2005 and it is considered excellent. Average uptime is 99.98%. Bluehost do not provide a 99.9% uptime money back guarantee. But if your websites face lots of downtime then you can cancel your account anytime without any penalty and you can claim a prorated refund. Make sure to read their terms of service for more details.
On August 2, 2013, Bluehost data center in Provo, Utah experienced some unexpected network outage issues which impacted customers of some EIG owned web hosting companies including Hostgator and Bluehost. Company websites and phone services were affected as well.
BlueHost Data Centers:
Bluehost has a 20,000 square feet data centers in Provo, Utah. Bluehost claims to monitor their servers and data centers round the clock. These data centers has a power backup by UPS and diesel generator. These data centers have multiple 10 gigabit connection to locations all over the world.
Money Back Guarantee:
Bluehost offers a 30 days full money back guarantee and a prorated anytime money back guarantee. If you are not satisfied with them then you can get a full refund in first 30 days. Payments for domain names will not be refunded. In the case of free domain name, around $14 will be deducted and remaining amount will be refunded. After first 30 days you can still cancel your account at anytime but you only get a prorated refund for the remaining period .Make sure to read full details about this guarantee at their website.
SUPPORT:
Bluehost offers a no of support options.
- 24/7/365 Live chat. Average wait time for chat is 2 minutes. But live chat can be busy at times and sometimes you can have to wait up to 28 minutes.
- 24/7/365 Tickets and Email support. Average response time is 6 hours. Response time can range from 1 hour to 24 hours.
- 24/7/365 Phone support. Wait time usually can range from few seconds to few minutes. Bluehost offers a toll-free number for USA.
- Mail support.
Support quality is usually satisfactory. Bluehost has many professional employees who are working for many years and has excellent experience of dealing with servers.
FEATURES:
Bluehost offers a no of features including,
- Free domain name
- Unlimited disk space
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Unlimited domain names
- cPanel
- Unlimited Email accounts
- Free drag and drop site builder with free templates
- $100 Google Adwords voucher
Unlimited Stuff:
BlueHost advertises unlimited bandwidth and unlimited disk space but indeed there are set limits on both disk space and monthly bandwidth and if someone crosses these limits then his account can be banned. So please do not forget to read their terms of service for full details of these limits on so called unlimited stuff.
BlueHost Control Panel And Ease Of Use:
Bluehost offers free cPanel with shared hosting. With cPanel, you can easily manage all your web hosting stuff like creating databases, installing scripts and setting up your email accounts, all this and much more in just few clicks. With cPanel it is super easy to do all stuff you need to do.
WordPress And BlueHost:
Bluehost offers 1click WordPress installation. In just few minutes you can easily setup your WordPress blog.
PRICING:
Bluehost,s basic plan for shared hosting costs,
- $6.95/month on 12 months payment.
- $5.95/month on 24 months payment.
- and $4.95/month on 36 months payment.
There is no option to pay on monthly, quarterly or on 6 months basis. This plan comes with a free domain name.
There is also a pro shared hosting plan which costs $19.95/month and there is only 12 months payment option. This plan also includes a free domain name.