Bluehost is offering cheap shared web hosting services and they’re advertised absolutely everywhere. I have been dealing with bluehost for a couple of years now in one way or another. So you can call me a bluehost guru or something less cringy than that. Anyways just like an old kung fu master in those movies I’m here to teach you younglings a thing or two about the bluehost.

Here are the top 5 things you should know about bluehost before you buy it:-

1: No Monthly Plans:

Bluehost advertises monthly pricing but they do not offer any monthly plans you can only buy for one year, two years or three years and you’ll have to pay the whole amount up front. And their prices change together with the period that you buy.

For example, If you buy for three years you’ll pay a lower rate than buying for one year. And while we’re on the topic of pricing keep in mind that the prices you see here are only introductory prices. Meaning once as your initial subscription period expires your plans will renew at a higher price.

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I’ve made this chart to demonstrate the difference between initial price and the renewals.

2: Extremely Beginner Friendly:

The Bluehost pricing model isn’t the easiest one to understand. I can’t really say the same about their control panel, Because in general bluehost is one of the easiest to use web hosting services for beginners. And this is a large part due to their control panel you can create a wordpress website with just a couple of clicks.

So you’ll have your website up and running in like five to ten minutes from purchase. They also allow you to easily create professional business email addresses and have an easy to user interface. That shouldn’t be a problem or confusing to use.

Bluehost has extra business-oriented features that allow you to add your business to google. So you’ll appear on google maps, it’ll show you the reviews and opening hours as well.

Bluehost also offers an extra feature to help optimize your website. So it has a better chance to appear on google search results and take higher positions. In my opinion bluehost has one of the best control panels in the business. Because they merge simplicity with advanced functionality. Even people that have never created a website before will get a hang of it fast.

3: WordPress Friendly:

Bluehost plans work extremely well with wordpress from the feature side of things.You get a free website staging environment, This allows you to create a copy of your website to test changes. You also get automatic wordpress updates that include themes and plugins. And 24/7 access to support agents that can help and consult you in all matters wordpress

4: Lackluster Performance

Bluehost is a cheap web hosting provider that’s packed with features. Naturally you can’t have it all, something has to give. And that something in this case is performance. 

Bluehost had its last performance update in 2017. Quite a lot of performance breakthroughs were made from that point onward. And more speed focused providers like siteground or hostinger absolutely smashed bluehost in terms of loading speed. 

For example my bluehost website loads in around 4 seconds on average this is twice as slow as other major web hosting companies. Now the question is IS THAT BAD? 

Not necessarily because as I mentioned before bluehost is mostly aimed at beginner users and these loading speeds are still acceptable. In general most beginner users do not have the most resource intensive websites or generate crazy massive traffic. So in my opinion if you’re looking for strictly the fastest web hosting services do not consider bluehost. 

But if you’re looking for something that’s cheap, feature-rich and perfect for beginners to start with, bluehost will do just fine.

5: Free Stuff:

Part of what makes Bluehost cheap is the fact that you get a lot of essential items for your website for free. You get a free SSL certificate for a lifetime to encrypt your website and add a green lock next to your domain name. And of course you get to register a domain name as well. The first year is completely free after that it renews at around $15 per year which is a bit on the expensive side. But it’s yearly not monthly so it’s not that big of a deal. And of course I’ve already mentioned other free stuff like security, business tools and automatic software installation to set up your website fast and easy.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Bluehost is simply suited best for beginner users. They’ll give you everything you need for a successful website right out of the box and it’s one of the better providers to choose when you’re just starting out and learning how absolutely everything works.

However if you’re an advanced user you’ll quickly notice that bluehost lacks the necessary power for larger projects.