Bluehost Bio:
- Established: 1996
- Sites Hosted: 2,000,000+
- Location: Jacksonville, FL
- Host Award: Best Overall
- Featured Package Price:
$1.99
/month- Storage Space:10 GB
- Transfer/Bandwidth:Unmetered
- Setup Fee:Free
- Domain Name:1 Free
- Money-Back Guarantee:30-Day
- Uptime Guarantee:99.9%
- Free Website Builder:Yes
- Multiple Domains:Unlimited
- E-mail Accounts:Unlimited
- MySQL Databases:100
- Control Panel:cPanel
- Operating System:Linux
- Server Backups:Daily
- 24/7 Monitoring:Yes
- Wordpress
- Joomla
- Drupal
- Ruby on Rails
- PHPMyAdmin
- Value for Money
- Reliability & Uptime
- Customer Courtesy
- Technical Support
- Features
- Storage Space
- Bandwidth
- Tech Response Time
- Ease of Use
- Server Speed
- Overall Score:
9.8
- Our Total Rating:
- Number of User Reviews:
71
- Avg. User Rating:
Our Review of: Bluehost
Overview:
Bluehost, a well known web hosting favorite, located in Jacksonville, Florida has been in the web hosting business since 1996 and currently hosts a whopping 2,000,000+ domain names. They excel in providing low cost web hosting, with many features only found with larger, more expensive hosting companies. Many features of which you will never need to use, but it's nice to know that nearly any widely used script is available if you do need it.
As noted above, they're a large host, that has the experience and know-how to make sure things run smoothly. That expertise, combined with outstanding technical support and being veterans in the web hosting industry makes them the solid top pick on our list.
Pros:
- One of the oldest web hosting companies.
- They own their datacenter and are 100% US based.
- Nearly every hosting application you could ever want.
Cons:
- Have heard of a few gripes with tech support.
Features & Specials:
Bluehost has unheard of hosting deals with the perfect plans for any small to medium sized business, or personal web site. We currently feature their most popular hosting plan, but for the price and what it offers, it can't be beat. In addition to a huge storage and transfer limit, it offers a free domain name for life, free/instant account setup, free domain privacy registration and 24-hour toll-free support, with a 30-second support wait time average.
Account features offered are too numerous to list, but a few that really stood out and are most significant are Flash support, message forum, live chat, web auction software, along with a host of e-commerce shopping cart plugins. Their free site builder also is a great feature, which makes building a web site a breeze. Bluehost also lets you host unlimited domains on each account, great for clients with extra domain names.
Last but not least, for a limited time, new accounts also get free web site search engine submission and free $75 advertising credits at Google and $50 credits at Yahoo! Search Marketing.
- They offer pretty much unlimited everything.
- $75 Google Adwords and $50 advertising credit at Yahoo!
- Message forum and chat software free on every account.
Reliability & Speed:
Bluehost's top notch datacenters, which they really do own and operate, featuring world-class equipment and industry leading network connections, enables them to have a super reliability and speed rating. They include a 50,000 sq. ft. headquarters and 2 secondary datacenters, totaling over 20,000 sq. ft. of datacenter space. From their high performance equipment, biometric entry security, total UPS power backup and 24/7 monitoring, Bluehost always has your site's uptime in mind.
They also utilize mirrored storage backups, which helps ensure that your data is never lost due to equipment failure. Mirrored backups basically keep a near realtime second copy of your files on another hard disk, which gives their file storage system great redundancy in case of a main hard drive failure. This would be similar to a Raid type backup system, widely used to protect against accidental file loss.
Reliability & Speed Factors:
99.9%
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OC-192
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Summary: Runs own datacenter, with top notch server equipment. Mirrored storage backups, help ensure data isn't lost due to hard drive failure. |
Support:
Bluehost offers great customer service and support, with usually less than 30-second hold times, via english speaking support. As a matter of fact, their support staff is located in Jacksonville, FL, at their main headquarters. Their friendly staff are always there to help with most any problems that might arise. You can reach them several ways, either by 24/7 free support chat online, which is our favorite, by 24/7 toll-free phone, or e-mail.
They also offer an extensive help desk section, with FAQs, advanced online trouble ticket system and more. They also offer a customer message forum, to get answers from other members.
Average Support Wait Times:
9 seconds
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30 seconds
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Control Panel:
Bluehost utilizes the famous cPanel control panel interface, which makes it easy to manage all aspects of your hosting account. cPanel makes managing your account a breeze, with a simple navigational platform and detailed usage instructions. A few notable easy-to-use functions include the ability to configure e-mail accounts, domain management, website statistics, script implementation and database administration. They have also made a few tweaks to their control panel, which makes it even easier to operate than regular cPanel accounts.
What sets them apart?
"Affordable, Reliable Web Hosting Solutions." - Bluehost |
Their great overall appeal to almost any small business. |
With Bluehost you can depend on: Highest customer service Quality equipment Maximum guaranteed uptime The leading feature set available. |
Summary:
We picked Bluehost as the #1 rated web host, because of their great price, account feature addons and excellent tech support. Not to mention, their long standing status as veterans in the web hosting industry, operating their own datacenter, in operation since 1996.
With all the above now said, we think you'll agree that Bluehost has one of the best web hosting offers out there. Check out an absolute top contender in the discount web hosting arena today.
Bluehost Ratings ChartScore: 9.8%
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Bluehost User Reviews
- Value for Money
- Reliability & Uptime
- Customer Courtesy
- Technical Support
- Features
- Storage Space
- Bandwidth
- Tech Response Time
- Ease of Use
- Server Speed
Pleased with service!
Review by: Patsy from Fort Worth, TX., on April 24th
Couldn't be too much happier with how they manage the site hosting. Instant setup and the control panel is easy to use. If you need support beyond that they are there but email can take a little time to get back with an answer. Perhaps phone is better?
- Value for Money
- Reliability & Uptime
- Customer Courtesy
- Technical Support
- Features
- Storage Space
- Bandwidth
- Tech Response Time
- Ease of Use
- Server Speed
Cheapo prices
Review by: Don from Charleston, on April 9th
You get what you pay for here. Reliable and fast page delivery along with the normal software you would find at other places. The control panel is also fairly easy to use. Glad we chose them!
- Value for Money
- Reliability & Uptime
- Customer Courtesy
- Technical Support
- Features
- Storage Space
- Bandwidth
- Tech Response Time
- Ease of Use
- Server Speed
Bluehost
Review by: Beau from Poughkeepsie, NY, on March 27th
An echo to the other reviews and thumbs up for these guys. Not much to complain about. If anything:
1. Maybe update the equipment - site slows periodically
2. Faster tech support
That said however, very good web host.
- Value for Money
- Reliability & Uptime
- Customer Courtesy
- Technical Support
- Features
- Storage Space
- Bandwidth
- Tech Response Time
- Ease of Use
- Server Speed
High end hosting for low end prices
Review by: Benny from Yuma, Arizona, on March 16th
You get what you pay for with these guys. Tons of features with good quotas. Our site is only rarely down on occasion and loads up pretty quick also.
- Value for Money
- Reliability & Uptime
- Customer Courtesy
- Technical Support
- Features
- Storage Space
- Bandwidth
- Tech Response Time
- Ease of Use
- Server Speed
Totally satisfied...
Review by: Hans from Sparks, Nevada, on March 9th
They have had a good track record for us for the 2 years we used them. Just a few outages that I recall but were quickly rectified. Plenty of software standard on each account. No problem reaching support either.
- Value for Money
- Reliability & Uptime
- Customer Courtesy
- Technical Support
- Features
- Storage Space
- Bandwidth
- Tech Response Time
- Ease of Use
- Server Speed
Bluehost server speed
Review by: Jose from San Francisco, on March 1st
Very satisfied with the page load times of my site and what they offer as a while.
They offer an upgrade plan, but for the traffic my site gets I havent had any problems with the allotted quotas.
I highly recommend these people!
- Value for Money
- Reliability & Uptime
- Customer Courtesy
- Technical Support
- Features
- Storage Space
- Bandwidth
- Tech Response Time
- Ease of Use
- Server Speed
Comment on support
Review by: Monty from Allentown, PA, on February 22nd
Had an issue with getting forum software running correctly on a new site. I contacted support via online chat, near instant answer by a real human. I explained the situation and they gave detailed instructions on how to get it running. I couldn't have been more satifisfied with the way support handled everything.
- Value for Money
- Reliability & Uptime
- Customer Courtesy
- Technical Support
- Features
- Storage Space
- Bandwidth
- Tech Response Time
- Ease of Use
- Server Speed
Spot on...
Review by: Scottie from Lancaster, on February 15th
I for one, can vouch that they have their ducks in a row. They rarely have "big" issues and are quick to handle billing or other problems. Try them...
- Value for Money
- Reliability & Uptime
- Customer Courtesy
- Technical Support
- Features
- Storage Space
- Bandwidth
- Tech Response Time
- Ease of Use
- Server Speed
Pretty good
Review by: Tom from Phoenix, on February 2nd
Had in issue with a database and got it fixed, but the tech support was a little rude/condescending toward us, as if we had no clue what we needed done. Everything else is great with them for right now.
- Value for Money
- Reliability & Uptime
- Customer Courtesy
- Technical Support
- Features
- Storage Space
- Bandwidth
- Tech Response Time
- Ease of Use
- Server Speed
Very Happy
Review by: Thomas from Bangor Maine, on January 27th
Dealing with cheap hosts over the years, Bluehost earns sticks out as being about the best for the money. They really do have their own staff and everything so things are more "looked" after so to speak, than other cheap ones out there. If you use too much bandwidth though, of course there will be consequences but that is true with anyone. Just beware of that.